And so it begins.

Emails and Posted Articles

Since last week's posting, I have had several responses and seen a couple of posted comments - most of it positive - about my plan for a collegiate-level Magic league. Over on CCGPrime, Matthew Smith was just plain old positive on the idea. Another CCGPrime posting endorses the idea and provides some suggestions on how to get things rolling.

I'm going to get back to those in a bit, but first I wanted to mention my emails. I have several so far. However, for part of the day someone else's email address was at the top of my article. (Oops - The Ferrett) If you wrote to me early in the day your email may have gone to someone else. If you haven't gotten at least an acknowledgement that I received your email, please email again.

The emails that DID get through raised a variety of issues that I either had missed or hadn't thought out. Let's look at a few of them.

International Players

On the down side, Pierre DuPont writes, "Your article was good, but I felt as if you didn't care about the Canadian segment of StarCity readers. We have Universities, Magic players, and places to play. Why should we not be involved here?"

Well, why shouldn't the Canadians, Australians, Europeans, or any other group of college players be involved?

Well, there is... Or maybe.....I know, how about..... Okay, no reason that I can think of.

I just knew that I was taking a big bite of something that I couldn't swallow and I didn't want to take on any more than that. But hey, if folks outside the U.S.A. want to organize a college league, or cross the border for some international intercollegiate competition, far be it from me to stop them. Heck, I welcome them.


Leagues Versus Tournaments?

I started this discussion with the notion that there would be stand-alone college level Magic tournaments that would span a single day or weekend. After all, this is how all Magic competitions I am aware of are run. It didn't occur to me at first that collegiate Magic should be any different.

However, I wasn't completely comfortable with that format for a couple of reasons. The most notable was that for team competition, where each player from Team Mike would play each player from Team Michael in a best two of three match, you end up with about three hours per team event - assuming three people per team. Three competitions in one day would take about nine hours. To get in four or five full team competitions for a tournament would require two days at a minimum.

I had started to come to the idea of something resembling league play when I read the articles on CCGPrime. One of those articles makes a case for starting a local Magic league without worrying about keeping it exclusive to college players. (I can live with this, too, but I'm going to push the college competition idea for a while.)

I this article helped push me to think about league formats more fully. In talking to one reader, who was still in high school, it occurred to me that the same format that some sports use would be perfectly viable. That is a weekly competition between pairs of schools, with a season spanning several weeks. For four schools it might look something like

Week 1: School 1 v 2 and school 3 v 4
Week 2: School 1 v 3 and school 2 v 4
Week 3: School 1 v 4 and school 2 v 3

Of course with only four schools this might be fairly boring, but with six, eight, or ten schools, you could have a fall and spring season with a final playoff between the top teams from each semester to determine the overall champion.

This would work especially well where the schools were located close enough together to keep travel time and costs from becoming a burden. (One reader wrote to me from Philly, saying that there were five colleges and universities in that city. I also heard from readers in Boston and NYC, where I know there are several colleges concentrated in close proximity.)

I think the league play approach works reasonably well with a Team Sealed format...Each week, each team would build a different set of decks from Sealed packs. That way, there would be more opportunity for luck factors to even out over the season than there would be in a single-day event, where you might have to play the same sealed decks for two or three rounds. (Constructed would also work in this format; more in a minute.)

Alternatively, the competitions wouldn't have to be direct "team against team" matches.

Consider the possibility of Constructed formats where team members compete in a swiss pairing format, with the restriction that they never face anyone from their own team. Each player would play six matches against six opponents, and the team with the best combined individual records would be declared the winner.

This could be done with virtually any number of schools competing, and would only take a day to complete. While this is less clearly a "team" event than it is when each member of one team facing off against each member of the opposing team, it works for those occasions where travel distances are a burden - or where there desire is to get a lot of college teams together for one big event.

So I am advocating that those in metro areas where travel is not a burden should look into a league format where teams meet to compete on a weekly basis. For those going to college where travel distances are likely to be an issue, I think the swiss-type pairings are going to be the most productive.

Sealed or Constructed?

Both of these are expensive in different ways, and a few writers agreed with my assessment that to keep college students playing seriously the cost needs to be held in check. (At least until some means of gaining sponsorship to help offset the cost of cards becomes feasible, anyway.)

For constructed decks the primary cost is in acquiring the rare cards needed to put a deck together. Therefore I'm going to advocate that a limit be placed on the number of rare cards in a deck for Constructed events. I'm not sure exactly what that limit should be, but two is the number of rare cards in a preconstructed deck, three in a sealed starter, seven in a sealed starter plus four booster packs. Without thinking about it too hard, I'm thinking that somewhere between three and five is the correct number of rares in a rare limited deck.

Any thoughts from those interested on this point would be welcome.

The question remains as to whether uncommons need to be restricted. I know that we did that when my newbies started playing, but that was more of an issue of them not having access to cards. I would think that on a team, someone would know where to go to buy the necessary uncommons at a reasonable price.

Alternatively, Sealed formats only require opening the packs needed at the actual tournament, unless you choose to practice. This also requires that someone take the responsibility for ordering the cards far enough in advance to make sure that they are available when they are needed.

This is a lot to expect if your competitions are pretty loosely organized. If, however, you have someone that can be trusted or a card shop that will tolerate your presence, then Sealed can be a pretty cool format.

If you are going to try for a one or two-day competition, I would go with the commonality-limited Constructed - probably Type II or block format. If you are going with league play, then either Commonality-limited Constructed or Sealed will work. If you can arrange for Sealed decks, that is the format I'd want to play.


How Many Teams?

One reader indicated that he was from the Law School at one university and could foresee the possibility of there being several folks from his university that would want to play in college-level tournaments. This would, of course, cause some competing claims as to which team actually represents the college in question.

What a nice problem to have.

If this ever gets beyond me just flying things by the seat of my pants, we will have to come up with a formal solution to this problem. A formal solution probably involves having someone officially charged with overseeing the campus team(s). For now, I'll impose the rule that teams can be organized from distinguishable colleges or combinations of colleges within a university.

So, if the College of Arts & Sciences has enough folks to field a team, they can be <college name>-A&S. If players from the Law School and B-School need to join forces to field a team, then they can be the <college name>-Law and Business team. While these folks could be expected to practice together, we'll ask for no intentional draws if they compete. And I would recommend minimizing competitions between teams that originate at the same larger school if at all possible.

Okay, that is where we are today. I have some day job traveling and other duties that need to be accomplished before I get any further. If you are in a position to organize your own league or tournament you have my blessing to get started... Don't wait for me. (But do tell me what you're up to so that I can maintain the illusion that I am in charge.)

If you need to wait for me, keep sending me emails telling me who and where you are. As I start getting some folks from the same region of the country, I'll see if I can get you in contact with one another so that you can organize.

Speaking of which, I already have some interest/offers of help from:

Kalamazoo, MI
Boston, MA
NYC
Georgia Tech
El Paso/Las Cruces

I'm especially interested in getting these pockets of interest more fully developed so that they can get started. No matter how great I think this idea is, I know that if it succeeds it will have to start small and grow.

Later,

Michael Granaas
Team AWWAJALOOM
who owns a bit of stock in Hasbro Inc, parent of WotC.