Lazy Peon

i noticed that the player base has drastically declined as of late and i think it calls for some minor changes. i suggest we make the regular saturday "newbie" tournament a lazy peon tournament instead. the regular saturday format is a good idea but, let's face it, there are actually more veterans playing it than newbies. i don't even have an idea when a newbie becomes a veteran. me - i'm ok playing in it because i'm always a noob.

a couple of reasons why i think we should do this:

1. in a lazy peon tournament, EVERYONE can play, including veterans.

2. a player doesn't need to invest a substantial amount of cash to make a competitive deck. these days, a tier 1 constructed deck is worth AT LEAST a few thousand pesos. a lot of players, especially new ones, are turned off at this prospect. also, a lot of kids (which should be a sizable chunk of the market) don't really have a lot of spending cash to begin with. Really old people, like joel, kennard, paolo, patrick, pherie, lloyd, etc, can afford it because, well, they're old.

3. new players don't get intimidated anymore because they don't have to worry about the prospect of facing a bomb rare or epic card that just downright wins the game every time it comes out. with the format limiting the cards to just commons and uncommons, the odds are evened out because everyone has access to them. so now, it's more about player skill and less about the value of deck.

4. the card pool is so small these days that it's almost impossible to get the really good cards without spending a lot of cash on boosters. there were times i couldn't build the deck i wanted to build just because no one was willing to let go of the singles i needed. the only option left is online trading but that's not something a lot of players want to do.

5. the format invites new ideas for deckbuilding. it would actually be a lot of fun to try out new stuff without worrying about where to get the cards for the deck.

6. we can still play regular constructed tournaments on sundays. in fact, once new players understand why we find so much pleasure flipping pieces of cardboard, they just might actually buy more cards and join the regular constructed tournaments.

7. i saved the the most compelling reason of all for last: less money spent on the game = more money for weed. 'nuff said.

i love this game and i want to continue playing it as long as i can. i'd really hate to see it wither and die. i think if we just provide the right atmosphere for new players to play without getting intimidated, we just might see this game grow huge again. just my 2 centavos. =)