Freelance Peacekeeping

Sealed League

2019.10.31

Aim: To set up a competitive play structure that works with a low population of TFTCG gamers for the purposes of keeping that population playing and encouraging newcomers to move beyond trying the game out.

Goals:

  1. Create a regular play opportunity that is open to different levels of players.
  2. Get folk from across different stores to play each other.
  3. Increase TFTCG visibility at other stores in front of potential newcomers.
  4. Ensure folk are buying booster packs at stores that are stocking them.
  5. Have a short-enough periodicity that folk don't lose hope of doing well after a poor start.
  6. Marry low management time costs with low cheating risks.

Not Goals:

  1. It's not to get folk playing their first game; though encouraging spectators is great.
  2. It's not to be pay-to-win.

Proposal:

This is based on the WOTC Magic The Gathering League competition format, merged with the TFTCG Sealed gameplay format.

The players register beforehand, pay a competition fee of $X, and meet up for a kick-off day. They get 5 packs of the latest Wave ($20 cost). They take a photo of the cards from these packs, submit it to a Facebook group for the league, and then build a deck per the TFTCG Sealed format (i.e. 25-star deck with 25 battle cards, presumably sideboard [Need to look at rules]). Ideally the players play a first game at the kick-off day.

The players then play weekly games until the end of the league series. They play one Sealed match per week. They may play the games at any point in the week and they report the result to a Facebook group setup for the league. They may meet at any location, though it is strongly encouraged that they meet at board game stores to increase the community's visibility.

Additional booster packs _may_ be purchased and opened on a prepublished schedule. Loosely this involves no new packs for the first two weeks, then additional packs from previous waves. For example, for a 5-week series:

Players should open the booster packs together prior to that weeks game and determine whether they want to make any changes there and then from their entire league deck. They should take a photo of the booster pack and submit it to the Facebook group. Players are encouraged to purchase the pack from the store they are playing at, however it's understood that not all stores may have every wave available and players should plan accordingly. Ideally, stores will be officially involved and will ensure they have packs available.

If players choose not to open a pack prior to a game, they may not open the pack later.

Scoring:

Winning a game earns you 3 points. Losing by 1-2 earns you 1 point.

End of Series:

The last week of the series encourages games to be played at a single location. The winner of the series is crowned and given an award.

Prizes:

Ideally stores will be willing to provide the weeks additional boosters as lures to get players playing there. The award should be in the form of a trophy or plaque being held by a Transformer figure. A promotion card may be included in the initial decks on the first day, and promotions and other store involvement prizes would hopefully be available to all taking part. Ideally, though depends on funding, there would also be prizes for the next N positions and encouragement awards; perhaps to the highest placed (non-prize-position) U16, or to the highest (non-prize-position) newcomer to the league.

Entrance Fee:

This should cover the initial 5 packs and the trophy($?)/figure($25).

Transparency:

  1. Reporting results to the Facebook group means the opposing player can flag if there is a discrepancy.
  2. Opening the packs with a fellow player increases transparency.
  3. Reporting the booster pack opening via a photo to the group also increases transparency.
  4. Players may see the cards their opponent has opened, but they do not get to know who will be in their deck until the game begins. They do know the characters they used in previous matches.
  5. The organizer stores the league results, table, and player deck details read-only in a Google Sheet. This allows the organizer to take part in the competition as everything is visible to all players. The Facebook Group ensures there is a detailed history of competition data allowing for auditing.

Results:

Results are recorded as:

Optional Achievements:

The league may optionally also award points for Achivements. For example, winning once via Daring Escape may be worth an extra point. Winning once with is an extra point. These should be reported as additional lines in the Results.