To think a little over 3 years ago I attended my first event and now I get to run back how the first major Canadian event in a few years went - especially considering I got to play a little bit behind the scenes and help try and make it the best event we had yet.
I know there were a lot of questions posed in the respective facebook pages and people will have comments / question that personally I probably found more insulting than they were intended but as I looked at the feedback I gave from CC Toronto in 2019 I think we pretty much delivered on a lot of items.
Lets start with the event - we wanted to deliver a player guide with details on the event - we did this approximately 6 weeks out of the actual event - at that time we had mid 40's in tickets sold and it really looked like we were gearing up for close to that 60 range - considering we had several big hurdles other events did not have.
Its expensive to get to Canada for many people so the value really has to be there. Square really hit it out of the park here providing an extensive amount of product, RB made sure all the months of Canadian complaints about promos not being available and the general delays we see were apologized for, even if it was out of their control.
Event Scheduling - with another re-raise the week before and after (as well as Greg graciously postponing his event) - we had schedule crunch and competition for flight costs. I know we all appreciated seeing Alex, Julian, Jason, Mike, and Amethyst make the long treks but that definitely saw people cancel for various reasons and resell their tickets. You also had a couple regular FF Scene regulars like Jordan, Eric, and Brian locally all be unavailable. When a previous multi-time champ can't make his local big event it sucks.
No competitive season, lets be honest if there were invites on the line which there will be again next year we'd have seen more travelers.
So with all that being said we had 36 people show for the event, 10 tickets had been re-assigned and we had some no-shows, cancellations. This we did not know at the time of building the player pack so a 7 round best of 1, with a top 16 best of 3 was drafted and even though there was a bit of confusion just before round one - that's how we ran the event.
Square gave a lot of latitude with how each Store got to run events and I definitely appreciate it here. At the time we were looking at minimum 6 rounds - so rather than do 6 or 7 best of 3 rounds like many of the other locations did and a top 8 the idea was a best of 1 of 7 rounds and best of 3 day two would fit better. This format would get around a bit of the variance that a typical best of 1 would have with the extra round.
I'll admit we almost failed people at this stage - you should never change a posted schedule for how a tournament is run - if you're going to say 7 rounds deliver it - if you're gonna say based on X attendees and let people know that is perfectly fine. I believe someone had the idea if we finished the event entirely in one day with fewer bo3 rounds then everyone would go to the planned side event. We quickly nipped that in the bud and ran through a completely ON TIME day 1. Turns were factored in and even with using new software for most people it ran smooth day 1.
For those that saw the player handbook the store that was host has extensive experience hosting LARGE 40k events and using exhibit space the size of a small comicon/convention. I'd never used it before and other than the website having a bug - and needing to use the app it was amazingly easy to enter scores, see standings LIVE, and see your round opponent and table. And once day 1 was done release decklists for everyone to see. If we can get the square app to that level i'd be thrilled.
So in a nutshell at this point I've discussed the why and how we chose to run the event the way we did but there is probably more to be said about it. Many players were shocked to find out that during Covid we had horrendous access to cards and delays and it made it very difficult for us to grow the community as much as we would have - we have players that have never seen packs available for some sets and now that product is flowing we have new players joining our local communities in droves, with a single store having a 15 person social event recently and often hitting more than 9 just to play for fun and a 4 month old promo card. Its great. We even had one player lace up his boots for his very first event - after receiving a 2h tutorial on the game. I mention this as another reason why choosing a single deck format made more sense as several of our newer players would not be able to build 2 competitive decks.
I bring all this up because this will be the next thing that shocks some readers - it is often the case that local events do a fair chunk of prizing via raffle and not standings - it probably should have been made clearer in an updated player pack - but basically all the key chains, mini figs, and figures and boxes were raffled off. It probably helped that a fair chunk of the biggest items went to people that ended in the top 8. That newbie even managed to win a playmat so was happily trying to hawk it off on me assuming I wouldn't win one.... I didn't but the teammate I lost to gave me his. Much love Tony San! I also want to point out something here that I really appreciated from the Store Owner Jack - he really took all these valuable extra promos that he could have easily kept for future events and spread the wealth to those that showed up. Everyone getting 2x Amaterasu was great, and a full set of promo packs was fantastic - almost everyone getting a keychain or mini fig was memorable too.
The results of the events were updated (here: https://ffdecks.com/tournament/re-raise-canada-day-2/5108376464785408) and we have to congratulate Shane and Justin here for making the finals and having a fun game that Justin claimed "I've beat him one game ever this is going to be fast". It was amazing to see all the people get together after so long and feel that same joy in discussing topics, decks, memes.. and I'll freely admit I really enjoyed Mike P's evil laugh moment. We had 19 people end up at the same restaurant continuing that tradition that I love about the FFTCG community.
If anyone reads the blog post at: https://briandblanchard.wixsite.com/fftcg/post/the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-the-story-of-my-first-crystal-cup I covered a lot of things that were great and good and could be improved from the first CC to now and I was pleasantly surprised when the simple lunch included included unlimited access to a fully stocked fridge both days as well as a Lebanese pie each day. While I'm sure people would not expect to see this at a CC - having it available made any extra help I wanted to give to the team running the event easier to do - I didn't have to run around anywhere to find anything - it was all at our fingertips.
So lets next discuss that, we had the Store Owner on site doing all he could to make everyone feel welcome, as well as an acting Judge in Frank, and a helper in Amy. I really appreciated their work as volunteers and first time Judging an event - so that I didn't have to as I had volunteered when we found out the only 2 local official level 1 judges could not make it. I was even on standby to help out / drop as needed but everyone that came was AMAZING, we had literally 1 missed trigger and one request to speed up play (though that was in the untimed rounds so was more of complicated set of turns slowing the game down). I also appreciate each and every player that took time to walk that newbie through his games until he got comfortable later on and walking him through practice games after beating him early in the day. We also had Digger helping with everything and his energy and love for the game was as usual on display.
I look forward to the competitive season returning and getting formalized Judge testing/options going again as to not stress about finding some for completive events.
Not everything was roses, no event ever is and I think it's something we can improve on next time as Digger was trying to get photos, interviews, and run the day 2 event that he volunteered to do all at the same time. It was at times a bit frantic and I think we need a clear separation from any day 2 events in terms of responsibilities. Overall though it was great to have a 2nd tournament that started after the round of 16 that offered up some fun trophies and a 200$+ cash prize. I would have liked more side events for those other people that wanted to drop / play a box event but even that is difficult for us to do as most of the stores locally barely have any stock left of sealed product - although that is finally seeing us get regular restocks on new items.
As mentioned before multiple times we wanted to consider streaming, and while Digger volunteered we were actually hopeful a bigger 40k streamer team would have graced us with their time and equipment and even Jordan D had before getting a conflict volunteered to commentate. I'm sure for the competitive season we will have a better solution and plan - I know that there is some footage that will be post processed but its not the same as all the good work that was done the last CC season and some of the re-raise events this year.
I think above all else we showed off how much the locals love the game and love having people come into town and play. From Shane and I giving feedback to Digger, to all the work he did getting trophies and play mats made, to Pat D redoing the playmats so they were pristine for the side event, and to the staff at the event location making everything relatively painless - it was a big space that could have held the many extra people we wish could have made the trip. I hope all of you that didn't make it are jealous of the Canadian Crystal Tokens that many people got to take home, the playmats, and the memories.
See you next year - bigger and better.
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