I emailed Kendrick today with some ideas for helping player interest and tournament tournouts.

Here’s my idea- have exclusive hero and villain cards only available through tournaments and conventions. The trick is, the winner of the tournament has to beat the TD, who will use the exclusive hero or villain in a predesigned deck (or in some cases, a deck built by the TD around that hero/villain). If the tournament player beats the TD’s deck, he or she wins this exclusive hero/villain card. This would attract a lot of players who are interested in winning such a card, which would carry high value.

This is similar to how Warlord CCG ran their tournaments. You could win an Overlord card, which in turn could be used at a convention to challenge an even tougher opponent. If you win one of these convention games (using your overlord card as entry), you would win a 1 of 1 character, which would be priceless (I’ve heard some were sold on ebay for in the range of $15,000). If Decipher did something like this, they could create great interest without much cost (instead of giving away cash, give away exclusive valuable cards). Not just “tournament foils” which had some value but wasn’t such a big deal b/c you can always use the non-foil versions.

Decipher could make not-so-well known heros and villains be the exclusive case cards for tournaments and such, or even incarnated versions of the normal ones in the sets. Like, black version of spiderman, or old school batman (old tv series or somethin). Or strange tv/movie villains.

I’m really interested to see what Decipher picks for their heros and villains, if they base them on movies, tv, history, comic books, or what.

It would be pretty neat to have Brad Pitt and Edward Norton as alter-egos or something like that in the first set… or have them exclusive chase cards ;)

Who wouldn’t kill for an Adam West version of Batman?

Definitely some good ideas, but would the “exclusive” prize characters be allowed for use in all normal ranked games? Or just special events where only people with “exclusive” prize characters can compete?

One trick.

The subscription process.

You sign up for the subscription, you get 3 kilos per set (enough to get all the cards with trades), plus any/all promos from that year.

Thus, my subscription would get me the card you worked so hard for. Or, you work hard for you card, and the subscription I paid for so I wouldn’t miss promo cards fails me.

I think that if they did something like this, then maybe the top 12.5% should get a card. (that’s 1 in 8 people per tourney) If you run 8-man tourneys in your local area, then you just have to beat that guy at the next tourney to win the card. (considering the store is likely to have something like 20ish promos to hand out) Maybe make you earn it, but don’t make it exclusive. Like you win you get a promo, and get to pick it from the “promo group” released thus far. Thus, if you keep winning, you can earn new cards. Or re-earn the same card to trade/sell/give to those that didn’t win.

I like the idea, but it shouldn’t be QUITE so epic, or the subscription would make it obsolete.

Well, the overlord type cards you could win at tournaments won’t be extremely valuable, they would probably start out in the range of $50-100 until more became available after time, but that also increases the interest and tournout to a tournament. If they were easily obtainable, people wouldn’t be as excited and prepared for a tournament, and maybe tournaments would be run once or twice a week so more became available. But the trick is, you have to beat the overlord deck to win it. So it is added challenge.

Perhaps at most, the mentors and TD’s would get copies of the overlord cards and decks, as incentives to be a part of fight club.

The overlords don’t have to be uber powerful, they can just be alternate versions of normal cards, like slightly different stats, pictures, or unique characters that are equal in power to the normal heroes/villains, just only obtainable through winning a challenge game. I was also thinking that perhaps there should be exclusive helper cards to the overlord that wouldn’t be tournament legal; but only used to make the overlord deck stronger and more of a challenge to beat, so the winner would get the exclusive card, and be able to use it, and it won’t make their deck too powerful.

The 1 of 1 cards should be extremely powerful though, and have some major hold-back in tournament play, if be legal at all. Perhaps having 2 values for a particular stat, one used when trying to win them, and one used in tournament play.

All just ideas and in fun, but I think it would make the game a lot more attractive and increase tournaments and competitiveness.

I’m also available to make unique sculptures that could be used to promote the game or as prize support.. whatever it takes to get people into the game and to come play!

While I like the idea, it’s not going to be quite so fair on those that can’t get to larger tournaments because of location etc… I realise that’s a problem with a lot of games, but it would be great if Decipher came up with a way of implementing this while making it fairer for those that can’t travel so often or so far. Perhaps that’s where an online tournament will come in?

Online tourneys would be cool, but would take forever to organize and get together. Considering matches would have to wait until both parties could get online AND have an “official judge”, and it would require web-cams to view cards so it is fair, a world online tourney could take months to get all the way through!

Otherwise, they have to add in an online play-site that uses the cards, and if they do that, they either have to find a way to connect it to our real set, or else it would be completely separate from the offline community. Now, they could do something like, for every kilo you buy, you can get a free online-kilo. You may not have the same cards from the same sets, but that is your choice. And then they could open a trade shop for the digital cards. So that if you purchase 3 kilos, you ought to be able to complete the set, and even if you can’t find the trades in-person, online you get free trades with Decipher, pretty much guaranteeing that if you can afford enough kilos for the set in real life, you can get the set online no problem.

I was thinking more along the “online play-site” lines.

As in, I play the game online vs. you, and we don’t have to leave home. Right?

That’s what I meant. Getting people together for big official tourneys will take work, and even more so if you require a “judge” to be there to make sure the match went down fair. Just trying to match up with a partner several timezones away for a 1v1 match could lead to take weeks, at least for somebody.

For random matches, online play will be great, but the more “official” you try to get, the harder it gets to keep things “fair” and to prove no one is cheating.

I’m going to re-post my idea down below… is it a feasible method?

I think what Warlord CCG did was send 2 overlord decks to the TD for each tournament (just normal weekend events). The TD got to keep one as his incentive to run the event, and the other was used to challenge the winner of the tournament for his chance to win the overlord card/deck. If the first place finisher could not defeat the overlord deck, then the 2nd place finisher got a chance, and down the line. Depending on the length of Fight Klub games, Decipher may want to limit the number of spots that could challenge this deck. I don’t even know if they will do something like this, I hope they do, because it looks like a lot of people like the idea and it would create more interest. People just seem a little worried about it being too difficult to obtain an exclusive card; but that is part of the point! It should not be easy, it should be a fight, and a challenge to obtain something special.

I was also thinking, that to make the overlord (they should call it something else, but for our sake) exclusive cards playable in a normal tournament, that they should make them balanced, and have the challenge game start an equipment or card to power-up the overlord that is only used in that game (like one that adds to the hitpoints of the hero/villain or to his strength or handsize or all of the stats; so it is a difficult fight and rewarding victory).

I think it would add to the collectablity of fight klub, if there were exclusive hero/villains only obtainable through winning tournaments and challenge fights. People would want to travel and play in more tournaments for the chance to win these, as opposed to just winning cash or regular product. People need good reasons to play in tournaments!

Or, here’s another idea. What about each gang sponsoring a couple of members and sending them to a tourney? If enough people sponsor, then transportation would be covered and the excess goes to buying/making prizes.

The winning gang would then receive copies of said overlord cards to be distributed among those who sponsored the representatives. And who knows, for those who didn’t win, maybe they can get some sort of secondary prize.

The biggest problem of this is getting enough people to sponsor (especially at the launch of the game). But then again, maybe the response would be overwhelming…

Hm, sponsorship could be interesting…

I like the sponsorship idea. That would be cool if you know that by being at the tourney that your entire gang supports you being there. (instead of possibly being upset that you beat them out)

Of course, I still don’t like the idea of unique cards only certain people have. Decipher has said there will be a subscription method, getting you 3 kilos per set, and all that year’s promos. This allows me to be a collector, and actually get ALL the cards. The instant you introduce a tourney-only “Warlord” card like that (or any equivalent), one of two things happen.

1) My subscription gets me a copy of the card. You are now upset because I was able to get your uber-card with money alone.

2) My subscription does not get me the card. Now I’m upset because my “get ALL the cards, including promos!” subscription did not, in fact, get me all the cards.

I agree, there ought to be a nice tourney reward. A free kilo is nice for low-mid levels. (we’re talking low as in “on the way to internationals”, not low as in “your local weekend tourney”) There ought to be something above. But making it a card is pointless, given the subscription. Somewhere there will be a problem. Maybe printing a foil version of your deck? Because it was YOUR winning deck, and only you get it, it’s not a “collector’s item”. (whereas if they gave you a foil set of all current characters, assuming they aren’t normally foil, I’ll be pissed if I don’t get a set, because it’s collectible)

Any ideas? Maybe bookoos of free gang-gear? (upwards of something like a leather jacket for national winners, maybe so they can wear them with a massive logo on the back to internationals? then give something unique or limited edition to the winner that is NOT a card, like a bag and a deck box and card sleeves and some other “stuff”)

What if they amended the subscription definition to exclude any tournament prize cards? I mean, tourney prizes should be unique, getting a special box of card sleeves with your gang logo on the back just seems kind of meh as a prize. If they do jackets, please, please, please do not make the gang logo fill up the entire back. Learn from the original Escalade, ginormous logos aren’t cool.

If they do that, then I, as a collector who immediately fell in love with the subscription idea, will be pissed. I agree, it should be unique, but if Decipher goes and does the subscription thing, they sure as hell better not start creating cards I can’t have. I mean, that’s what the subscription is for.

Of course, if they do away with the subscription, I’ll just sit around and complain that they should have kept it. But if they DO keep it, then I should be able to get all cards. No exceptions. What to do for higher-level tourneys, then, is beyond my ability to decide.

I like the foil idea. Maybe there wouldn’t be an overlord prize, but 1) foil versions of cards that wouldn’t be available otherwise, 2) gang gear as was explained before (no gigantic logos on the back of jackets), and 3) HUGE bragging rights over all the other gangs for beating them.

I like what the Magic Invitational does. You win it, you make a card, you’re in the art. Could easily be done as a promo character.

And the Wampa_Dan card gets mentioned again… ;)

This is what UFS do for their world championships (and selected nationals as well, the ones with the larger turn outs). The winner gets turned into a tournament legal character card with their choice of abilities (within reason).

I’ve always loved this idea, and if there’s any way Decipher could steal it that’s be great :)

Yeah, Alpha, I was just saying if they were planning to do it, now would be a better time instead of doing it after the game is out.

Here’s an idea though, maybe the really high-level tournament winners could choose a character that would get included in an upcoming expansion (so long as licensing could be obtained).

D would probably have all the FM’s vote on the character anyway. That’s something they’ve mentioned.

Yes but even if one character in every set was decided by a tournament winner, that’d still leave 7 others to be voted on by the rest of the community. Another great idea, but only for the biggest tournaments (worlds, major nationals etc.)

Exactly, this could allow characters that aren’t very well known to make it in that turn out to be super awesome.

Like Dr. Horrible!!! :P