The venue* I co-judge at is going to try something out. It's been controversial in the past, but I wanted to let folks know that we'll be conducting the test of this idea.

What is it?

Simply put: LEs for Fellowship Only


Good attitudes and creatives teams will be rewarded this week, and assuming this week goes well, then this will continue with a few exceptions (maybe selaed games, and IG 8, which we're adjusting to Named Keyword teams from Cap to CW) and our Supremacy League will remain as-is with winners getting those coveted prizes.


I'm not advocating this for all venues, but I believe it's going to work well for the culture we've got going. I hope to be able to report good results and hopefully a few more weeks of this will lead to greater thematic games, less use of the Gauntlet and Gamma Bomb (unless it really fits), and basically the relaxed atmosphere that a lot of our players have requested.


We're putting it to the test. I'll let you know what happens this weekend!



*anyone interested: Brave New World in Newhall, CA

So... What's the point of winning?

I'm interested in the results, but it does sound like this might be for your venue only.

I tried this out at my venue for a whole month to deter gauntlet and Galactus style stomp fests. It worked out well, but that may be because the prizes were only some objects like the Cosmic Cube and Nova Helmet.

To see who wins.

Hmmmm...what's the point of a tournament if you're not trying to win it?

You're basically just running casual games and giving a prize to the "nicest" player.

If you're doing this, then you shouldn't even run a tournament. Just set a build total and have everyone show up and let them play whoever they want. At the end of they day the Judge gives the LE to the player who he/she liked best.

I don't know. It's kind of a dumb idea to me.

The tournament structure still keeps things organized.

It seems smart to us.



EDIT: Going to avoid being needlessly defensive about this. Hopefully this experiment offers some worthwhile results.

Yeah, please do. I'm not attacking, I'm just genuinely curious.

I personally think this will self destruct, but I'm curious to see the results.

Keep in mind that this will probably be for general game play at the venue. People can still bring their A game for the IG events and we'll award prizes as normal.

I am fortunate enough that I don't have to play for the LEs in general play as I usually buy a set when a set is released, except for the IG LEs. So when I show up to play, it's to just play some silly team, try out some figures I normally would not use and just hang out with my fellow nerds!

Great idea....best of luck with it.

"What's the point of winning?". If you have to ask then the answer will most likely escape you....

Yeah. I mean...Fellowship is already there for the Judge to reward a player of their choice. That's the whole point of it. The players that want to play to win can get a shot at a prize and the players that want to bring fun teams can get a shot at a prize.

Sounds like your venue is choosing to screw over competitive people.

When heroclix was dead for year both venues I played at kept right on going the whole time with hardly any decrease in numbers. One of the stores ran out of prize support so winner got nothing and attendance actually went up. There was a prize support mixup at this same store for the past month and they haven't had anything to give out again but they still keep having the same dozen people come in to play. People enjoy playing this game. People enjoy winning this game. Prizes are just icing.

I actually did this for a tournament where the Retail Dr Manhattan was the prize.

Everyone knew that was going to be the case, so they had no fear of needing to bring their uber cheese. It also made the WHOLE playing field level. The younger/newer players weren't going to get stomped to the ground.

What I did, everyone who entered got a ticket. Then, for every fellowship vote you got, you got another. At the end of the tournament, the owner of the store drew out of a hat.

It was spoiled by a prize shark who had only came the week before, and that week, who came, with his wife, lucked into winning the big guy, and was never seen or heard from again, until the IG events started. He texted one of the players, who i guess didn't answer.

I've toyed with doing it for Thanos Month 8. It's already going to be sealed. But I'm thinking that extra stipulation might level it so the younger/newer players have more than a snowball's chance.

I think it puts everyone on an even playing field. We don't have a majority of competitive players so I think this will just allow folks to come and play. No cheese teams, no min-max teams. It just becomes a friendly place to play a game we all love and hang out.

We have the Supremacy League available for those who want to be competitive and get a chance to win a less accessible figure. So competition can still be tight!

This is a slippery slope, because Fellowship is strictly subjective. If the Judge picks, it could be viewed as favoritism. Players voting? In my experience, the same people always win that because it's a group of friends who vote for one another. Of course, this will only be a problem if ONLY Fellowship gets LEs. If you also give it to winners, then there will be no problem. At my venues, we have no problems with "cheese" because we train all of our Players to accept it, and it has worked out pretty well so far as we get minimum of 8 players for our events and go as high as 20+ for our IG events. In fact, our little $1k Trial got 14 players and we aren't even officially sponsored by Wizkids, we just Cultivate a friendly but competitive environment so there won't be any complaining about what's being played.