The Good, The Bad, The Ugly... the Story of My First Crystal Cup.

My name is Richard, and I attended the Toronto Ice Crystal Cup this year. My plan is to use this blog post to share my thoughts on the event and compare it to other similar type things I've experienced. My plan is to go through the usual topics a first timer deals with from the community, the venue, the city, and the interactions with the hosts and staff (venue & company). I will admit I'll likely unfairly compare it to my experiences in other games. To that end, I've been fortunate to attend and do well at Magic GP's in the past and been a Hero-clix Judge and player at large events like CanGames and Wizards World events. These events number in the low 100's for Hero-clix attendance and over 1500 for Magic and have different logistical nuances that I think can be learned from.

I'm going to start and end with the fact that I enjoyed myself, the event overall and am planning a trip down with other players to RVA for the Lightning CC in a few weeks. Please don't consider any of what I point out here as overly harsh, I look at it as criticism that may or may not always apply and like i said it is unfair to compare these events in some ways with events that have a 20 year history behind them.

Realistically when entering the realm of FFTCG I became well aware that its footprint is small, venues at times have had difficulty ramping up support because singles were not a money maker and in some places suppliers just don't care as much as you'd like them to. I see this with a lot of games at my local venue - if the game partners with the stores well then it can be a success, and to me that's a key thing that I'm used to because magic pumps so much into stores to help them (FNM etc), and I think the full art card promos have done wonders for attendance at events. Even though we've lost an online vendor recently I am only seeing a spike in people looking for and having difficulty finding cards because demand is up. That is Great!

So to the Event. If you want to describe it based on my record (2-4) then well it was UUUUUGLY! But that's what happens when you mull in 5 straight games and don't see either of your main two backups in 4 of them. I updated my deck list to be more resilient. #lessonlearned.

Really though I indicated that the CC has invigorated me to go to RVA for an event I had not planned on doing so, so obviously the overall experience was positive. Let me start with the Good:

The Community: For the most part this was a more inviting and happier atmosphere than any large-scale magic event I’ve ever been to and having the players organize as many people as possible to go out for food after day 1 was GREAT! I feel bad a few people were left out but we filled the Korean BBQ up that some of us were channeling our inner Canadian and sitting in the drizzle just to make sure we could all sit together. I realistically don’t need to mention it, but hygiene was also on point which as MTG players know not always the case. Things like having people carpool players to avoid Uber, having people host others, and in general the joy people seemed to have in watching friends win and lose to each other was at a premium. While competitive it was inclusive and I really hope this never changes.

The Day 1 Venue: There was ample space, a vendor on site for cards and Harry T had done a fairly late venue move to allow for increased attendance – this is a hard thing to pull off due to costs involved – you’re trying to go from 64 to up to 128 and the community failed a bit as attendance was around 70 with a bunch of no shows. Parking was great (and free), and there were ample unisex bathroom options. Also, a little-known secret was downstairs you could get a sandwich and drink for under 5$ during the lunch break. I also want to put a special shout out to both the Harry T and Square Staff I was onsite early as I had carpooled with the head judge and to hear the venue staff and how they treated the organizers was a bit shocking, I'm sure it realistically caused them some grief and they handled it really well.

Judges Testing: I seriously appreciate the square staff giving me a chance to take the judge’s test and organize it so many players could. Educating the players on the advanced interactions and rules makes it a stronger game going forward and realistically this takes time out of what is already a stressful weekend for the event staff.

Friday Night Side Events: Harry T went out of their way to add events for early arriving players on Friday night and other than not making it in time for the event it seemed to go over really well with the players. Lesson for people in a city they're not familiar with always assume excessive traffic even if GPS say's you'll make it with 10 min to spare... and when in doubt call ahead. Again while some people see this as an obvious thing for a venue to do it really puts a strain on them if they're already full up for normal events that are part of the $ flow the store typically deals with. (Magic FNM etc).

So far there were a lot of good things to be happy about, the next set of points I'm going to make are not necessarily that they were truly Bad, but based on my other experiences I felt let down.

Technical Issues: This one wasn’t a big deal for me personally but is just something I’d like to highlight for organizers. Always make sure you have a printer set up and access early and at major events with streaming knowing how solid your internet connection will be is key. The staff worked through these issues just fine but I’m sure it had undue stress for them and the general Facebook complaints about the stream after the fact does not accurately reflect the work they put in. For those people that stream events hopefully you have the same setup as the guys did here. To be able to both stream with bad internet and keep a local copy that was flawless that they could upload later was huge... Day 2 didn't have this issue because Harry T was setup at their preferred/planned venue not a fairly last minute change.

Communication: There were some good communication steps in regards to having a clear round start/end and match-ups when there were technical issues but I’m used to some of the more formal magic setup. You have a start time that is earlier than match start, a players meeting with the judges, introductions are handled with the hosting staff (both from Square and Harry T in this scenario) and then introduction of head judge and a reminder of core rules and punishments. An update on how long the day will run if/when there is a lunch break and the facilities that are around was also expected and personally I felt that could have helped. Fortunately there were few cases where this was an issue but I did warn you I'd be making some unfair comparisons.

Partnership: Now for the one that will likely be the most controversial topic I can discuss. From the perspective on an outside observer I found the partnership between Square and Harry T a bit strained and something that could be improved. Each seemed left to their own devices and certain items seemed to come as stressful revelations rather than knocking things off a checklist. Remember I’m coming from the view point of the company (Square) is doing everything reasonable to make the event both fun for the players, easy for the venue to host and profitable as well. Having a planned itinerary including things like when deck checks will need to be done and when judges testing will happen is a start – this is to reduce the stress for venue staff . It was clear Harry T did not get that information. In some cases, its fair for players and Square to point out that the floor rules are online so things like planning round length are obvious and not needed in an itinerary but the acronym KISS exists for a reason. With cases where last minute staff changes can happen having a “Plan” to give to the venues is something I hope Square considers in the future. If a Host does coordinate a plan with Square my suggestions include Judges Meeting, Planning Judges Test before event start or during top 32 deck check hour. Other items that might be improved will be discussed further below. In the end I hope Harry T and Square were happy with the partnership and can continue to do events going forward because the staff really was helpful and all the players seemed OK with the hiccups.

Now for the Ugly.....

We already mentioned my mulligans right? Let's just mention them again... double Cactuar that pain.

Side Events: This is something I discussed with other players after the fact and they fairly pointed out that Friday Night really was a side event and I already highlighted that as great.... but again unfairly I'm used to side events firing 1500 people means after 3 rounds theres ALOT of people ready to play again since they've been eliminated from the main event... here that didnt happen until you had 4 losses... But I found the Chaos draft and Standard formats offered generated 0 interest and more so the prizing for these events made it so that I was better off trading with people than playing a side event... that shouldn't be the case. While Harry T tried to offer side events at cost with old promos I felt if Square/Harry T had coordinated and things like the Bartz Promo was prizing for the side events people would have actively pushed to get some in just to get new cards. Now i've also been told other CC's have had better side events so not sure if that was just a change in budget by Square, a concern by HT or not to keep costs down but I never did get a chance to ask. I'll have a better comparison point after Lightning CC.

Traffic: Toronto traffic is all the fun I remember it to be – it cost us getting to the venue on time for the Friday night box drafts, parking near the event day two wasn’t amazing but manageable and late night returns still meant 30-50 minutes to go 10 miles because of accidents.

To sum up, I'd recommend going to a CC if you have time, the staff at Square did their very best, and in general Harry T and Staff were amazing as well sure any big event has hiccups and hopefully next time they'll be gone... I really hope HT hosts another and does the 2 venue plan with Day 2 at the store and the Larger Day 1 elsewhere with advance notice i think it would work best. Though I admit I probably spent too much at the Store but it could have been much worse.

Lessons to be Learned (Organizers)

1) Get an itinerary that is discussed with Square/Venue to plan all scenarios.

2) When possible provide easy food access to players (ideal something venue can make a fair profit on). #colddrinks

3) Make sure the venue has access to enticing and inexpensive promos to have side events to keep players engaged.

4) Bathrooms – make sure you have enough (Day 2 was hit or miss how long you had to wait and if I was playing from 11-7 as the event went then without easy access between rounds it’d been rough or worse having to leave the venue and be late for the next round).

Lessons to be Learned (Player)

1) Always remember to clean up after yourself and don’t forget your cards. Cough Colin Cough.

2) Hydrate – remember to bring liquids with you and not assume the venue has access.

3) Have Fun, make sure to find out if players are organizing get-together's and go even if you don’t know anyone, this may be the best community out there ATM.

4) Have patience, in many cases judges are volunteers… sure they’re getting paid a little but often they’d much rather be playing and stressing them out isn’t worth what they get paid.

Enjoy and Hope to see you all at a CC in the future.

Richard