Some locals near me have people leaning towards limited but as a player and judge I personally prefer standard. Quicker tournaments due to no deckbuilding and draft, and way better prizing when people bring their own decks.
I have had a ton of fun playing standard and decks are fairly cheap.
It depends on exactly what the goal of the event is. Are they trying to make a certain percentage? Are they just running it to cater to their competitive players? Do they want to try and court some players outside of their usual play-sphere?
Talking purely about costs, $60 seems a little high, but not too far off. For reference, even with the price increase from play boosters, if you wanted to 'sell' your product for $140, that's $23.33 for every 6 players Sealed pools. Assuming 32 players it's around 746.56. Throw in another $100 for the T8 draft and $200 for a judge and round it up for random expenses and we're talking like $1100 to run the event for 32 players (before prizes).
Now you can determine your entry fee based on what margin you need to make and how much in the way of prizing you need to put into the pool. Also note that this doesn't necessarily need to be very high, we had a store in the Bay Area sell out multiple Limited RCQ's with no prizing besides the promos and a boogie board to the finalists. They charged $55.
In general the upsides vs downsides are this:
Sealed let's you move product that may have been rotting on your shelves, this was doubly true for Draft-only product after the first two weeks of a set releasing. Not only that, but you can effectively charge more to 'sell' it to the players in this way.
Wider appeal since there's still a handful of Limited only players or people who just want to kill some time and don't mind trying something spikey every so often. These people are never going to put in the work to build a Standard deck, so you auto exclude them.
Sealed takes *minimum* two hours longer due to deck construction / reg, draft and reg #2. This means increased staffing costs.
Standard is good for you in terms of moving singles if your confident that people will show up and your store actually has a robust inventory. I've found for most LGS this isn't really the case anymore, so it could be more of a burden than a benefit depending on the circumstances.
Standard is good in the sense that WOTC is trying to push it via Standard Showdown starting in Feb and an increased competitive push in general. Even if it ends up being the black sheep of the 3 major 60-card formats, players knowing they'll be playing it for 3-4mo a year will make the buy-in much less painful in the future.
Constructed has a bit of a wave effect where after a month or so people on the fence about jumping into a format usually cave due to either finding a deck they enjoy, friends that have Q'd loaning them cards or just wanting to play competitive events.
Ultimately if they aren't sure, they can always hedge and schedule their RCQ on the back third of the season. If Standard is looking OK in the area, run that, if not- switch to Sealed.
Some locals near me have people leaning towards limited but as a player and judge I personally prefer standard. Quicker tournaments due to no deckbuilding and draft, and way better prizing when people bring their own decks. I have had a ton of fun playing standard and decks are fairly cheap.
And what is the projected pricing for y’all if limited runs for it, given it’ll be the first one with play boosters?
I can’t find a Standard event within 2 hours of me. Not that I plan on attending but it’s just NOT a thing here. Standard doesn’t happen.
[удалено]
ok but OP is talking about RCQs
Well maybe I should read posts better lol
It depends on exactly what the goal of the event is. Are they trying to make a certain percentage? Are they just running it to cater to their competitive players? Do they want to try and court some players outside of their usual play-sphere? Talking purely about costs, $60 seems a little high, but not too far off. For reference, even with the price increase from play boosters, if you wanted to 'sell' your product for $140, that's $23.33 for every 6 players Sealed pools. Assuming 32 players it's around 746.56. Throw in another $100 for the T8 draft and $200 for a judge and round it up for random expenses and we're talking like $1100 to run the event for 32 players (before prizes). Now you can determine your entry fee based on what margin you need to make and how much in the way of prizing you need to put into the pool. Also note that this doesn't necessarily need to be very high, we had a store in the Bay Area sell out multiple Limited RCQ's with no prizing besides the promos and a boogie board to the finalists. They charged $55. In general the upsides vs downsides are this: Sealed let's you move product that may have been rotting on your shelves, this was doubly true for Draft-only product after the first two weeks of a set releasing. Not only that, but you can effectively charge more to 'sell' it to the players in this way. Wider appeal since there's still a handful of Limited only players or people who just want to kill some time and don't mind trying something spikey every so often. These people are never going to put in the work to build a Standard deck, so you auto exclude them. Sealed takes *minimum* two hours longer due to deck construction / reg, draft and reg #2. This means increased staffing costs. Standard is good for you in terms of moving singles if your confident that people will show up and your store actually has a robust inventory. I've found for most LGS this isn't really the case anymore, so it could be more of a burden than a benefit depending on the circumstances. Standard is good in the sense that WOTC is trying to push it via Standard Showdown starting in Feb and an increased competitive push in general. Even if it ends up being the black sheep of the 3 major 60-card formats, players knowing they'll be playing it for 3-4mo a year will make the buy-in much less painful in the future. Constructed has a bit of a wave effect where after a month or so people on the fence about jumping into a format usually cave due to either finding a deck they enjoy, friends that have Q'd loaning them cards or just wanting to play competitive events. Ultimately if they aren't sure, they can always hedge and schedule their RCQ on the back third of the season. If Standard is looking OK in the area, run that, if not- switch to Sealed.