The Road to WPN (Part 12)

[This is part 12 in a series, and assumes that you've already read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, and Part 11] 

July 21, 2011: Today I got word from Patrick at Novel Places that a package had arrived with my name on it. I popped up there quickly, hoping that it would be the newest batch of WPN promos (every quarter, after a new set is released, there is a new batch of WPN Gateway promos that organizers can request). I wanted to get my hands on these before Saturday, and I wasn't sure if the batch for Beyond Comics would arrive in time.

Once I got there, I was greeted by these guys:

Yeah, this Auramancer is male. Get over it.

As happened last time, we received 30 copies of each of these at the store for use in upcoming WPN events. There also was a pack of D&D promo Fortune Cards, but there was no Archenemy Scheme card like last time. I chatted with Patrick for a time, but had to run for a family obligation.

As of now, there is still no sign of the 2 extra cases of Magic 2012 that we were suckered into purchasing (see Part 11 for that tale). Hopefully that means we won't be stuck with 12 more boxes at the higher price!

July 23, 2011: Today was the M12 Sealed Deck event at Beyond Comics. It was our second event at that location, and WOW did we beat expectations!

When I arrived at the store, we had 5 preregistrations only, so I was a little nervous about how many would be showing up. I needn't have worried. After a veritable rush of people about 5 to 10 minutes into registration time, we had 15 people total in the event. FIFTEEN! We only had 16 chairs in the back - if we'd had any more we'd have had to turn people away. I couldn't believe it!

The event ran very smoothly - everyone seemed to have a great time. 6 of the 15 folks were repeats from our first event, meaning we logged in a full 9 more unique members, 2 of whom were not in the DCI already, so we got our final 2 of the needed 6 "newbies".

Everyone who attended got a copy of the Auramancer promo, and those who preregistered got a Tormented Soul promo as an extra thank-you. Everyone with a record of at least 2-2-0 (6 match points) got at least one booster pack as prizes as well as 1 or 2 additional promos (I have 6 to choose from now between the two Gateway packs and leftover M12 Release promos). After those were distributed, I still had 2 prize packs in the pool (2 per attendee were in the pool), so I chose 2 of the 5 who had records below that to randomly get one of the packs, and the final 3 got to pick an additional promo - so everyone "won" something by the end of the event.

Awaiting me at the store today were TWO packages from the WPN. The promo package (which indeed had arrived Thursday as they had at Novel Places) and also a box of rule books updated for Magic 2012. The WPN sent, free of charge and without even having to order them, 25 copies of these to each Gateway and Core level WPN site (and 50 copies to the Advanced level, if my understanding is correct). This is an amazing resource for new players, and I even gave away a couple to some relatively new players who were there today. I suspect that things like this is where the money that used to be spent on Players Rewards promos is now going, in case you were wondering what that program was discontinued. I left several copies with the manager of Beyond Comics to hand out to people who come in asking how to play the game (a not-uncommon occurrence, apparently). Presumably there is (or will be soon) another box of 25 of these awaiting me at Novel Places the next time I'm up there.

An amazing resource. Thanks, WPN!

Another cool thing that happened tonight was that one of the players had been my Round 3 opponent at the New Phyrexia prerelease. This was good for me, because I had been feeling badly about being a particularly poor loser when she won our match in Game 3 due, at least in part, to mana screw on my part. I had been having an overall bad event, and was in a crappy mood - but that was no excuse for being so surly about losing. Having her attend the event today gave me the opportunity to apologize, which I gratefully took.

Also today I spoke with another attendee who has a group of friends he plays with. We spoke about the possibility of throwing together a casual event with he and his friends, where he would maybe buy a box of M12 and they could draft from it. This would give us our 3rd event, and hopefully help with reducing the number of unique players, as none of his friends have attended either of the two we've had so far. What I am hoping is that we could squeeze this in before August 13 (our next scheduled event - an M12 Draft) and maybe use the August 13 event as #4, and (hopefully) clear out the remaining 30 unique players.

What I'm not sure of is this: the deadline to register to run a prerelease for Innistrad (the next set, released at the end of September) is August 14. I don't know if the move from Gateway level to Core level is automatic (in which case we could even run a prerelease for Innistrad! Amazing!) or if there's something manual that has to be done at WPN to get us moved up, which would happen on August 15th (Monday) at the earliest. I've got an email in to my WPN rep to ask about that.

Here's the updated "Report Card" to keep you apprised of how both sites are doing in our quest to get to Core Level:

Remember when I thought the 6 new WPN members was going to be the hard one to get?

I'm really amazed and impressed that we've accomplished so much at Beyond Comics in just 2 events.

[TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 13]