Hello,
it's best to start with the some quotes of Eric and Bernd here:
The real problem however is always figuring out which kind/types of players prefer which types of events.
This is an important fact, but it is also influence by other parameters:
- * availability of the tournament
* subtype of the tournament format
* player alter preferences over time
* who else is playing (not playing) this tournament
* necessary preparations to take part
etc.
The only way to handle that (99 %) is to preregister within a fixed time.
This is as well an important fact, but is also influence by other parameters:
- * players tend to not sign in until they know the whole program with all tournaments
* players do not react on messages (no response)
* players do not know what to play (unknown formats)
etc.
Can you make a player analisis?
That is not an easy task since you cannot compare a
The Firstborn & Durin's Folk Tournament
from 2005 with the
Dream Cards General Opponent Tournament from 2012 for example.
The cards changed, the players changed or were not aware of what it was and chose another
tournament to join even if
DC would have been more sufficent for them, but they did not know.
For example the first
Lure of Meccg I joined was in 2005. I did not know what I want to play or not.
Holger and me did build some decks befor the
Lure and did some test plays. So I had a
Hero Deck
and a
Cool Play Deck, never played
Fallen Wizards or
Balrog and barly ever saw
Minion Decks.
So some tournaments did not come into consideration:
Gernal Opponent,
Minion Sealed and/or
Constructed nor
Scenario Tournaments other than
Cool Play (since I got no Deck for them)
[Image 1].
The choice was therefor more easy, sealed games, Hero games and with support of
Holger Minion/
Hero pair sealed.
Image 1: Lure of Meccg 2005 - Player-Tournament-Distribution
An interesting effect appeared at
Lure of Meccg 2009 [Image 2]. The
Arda did an impact to the
players community. At
Worlds 2008 I think it appeared on the screen at the first time. Befor it
was called
Boxed Game I believe. It had an unbeatable advantage towards all other tournament
formats. It had an availability of 100%. You could always play
Arda and were not bound to any
time or schedual. The fact that 7 other tournaments got canceled (the ones that got normally
6 till 8 players) might be a result of that fact. People that had decks build for those other tourneys
had to chose another tournament within only some minutes to think about -> most went to
Arda.
Image 2: Lure of Meccg 2009 - Player-Tournament-Distribution
Lets now see the last
Lure of Meccg 2012 [Image 3]. Each year some tournaments advanced and
improved. A chain reaction of creating
Challenge Decks for different tournament formats caused
some formats to be favored than others where you still had to build your own deck to take part.
Challenge Decks for
Dragons Hunt,
White Mithril,
Cool Play,
Dream Cards, etc.
Also the change of method in what players took part in the tournaments helped that fact. The
change from interrupt mode to polling mode. Since player barly preregistered on its own as soon
as they knew what to play and kept that data secured in their own brains not sharing with the
community or tournament coordinator, it was of more use to just ask them again and again and
again till they said "yes" or "no". The community does not work in interrupt mode, where players
tell the coordinator as soon as possible that something changed.
Image 3: Lure of Meccg 2012 - Player-Tournament-Distribution
So coordinators of the different tournaments could ask all players that were interessted in the past
if the want to join again.
Build good, or impressive
Challenge Decks for your format that have chances to win the tournament.
Come up with new ideas on how to attract players to join.
Shorten and simplify rules of the tournament format.
Adjust not working or bad working stuff in the tournament format.
Be involved in the format over the whole year, not only the 3 days of
Lure.
Formats that are not taken care off will vanish (
Doors of Night Tournament,
Virtual Cards, etc.)
Forgot the idea to contact all players on your own. Devide task to the coordinators who will
take care about that 6 till 14 players that are interessted. They can preregrister a group of
players, that is at least doable.