Buffy CCG World Ranking System

By Dave Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-Chair)

As announced, this year marks the debut of the Buffy CCG World Rankings. The purpose of this article is to explain the system and answer some questions, even those you might not have asked.

Here’s how it works. Once you become a registered Buffy CCG player and are assigned at WCA ID#, you’re given a rating of 1000. From there, for every tournament point you earn at a local tournament, your rating goes up one point. For every tournament point you earn at a convention tournament, your rating goes up two points. All your points are accumulated over a moving twelve month period.

That’s it.

You’ve heard other systems proposed and even explained in these pages, but the reality came down to this. We don’t have a large number of programmers in the WCA and thus we don’t have the resources needed to build or support an automated system. The system described above can be maintained in an Excel spreadsheet.

Why this system? Well, as I said, it’s easy. It recognizes good play, but it also recognizes those that play a lot. It gives added incentive to participate in convention tournaments. Why? Generally, convention tournaments attract better players from a wider geographical area and requires more of a commitment (time and money) from the players involved. It’s also where we can best make our presence felt and attract new players.

If a person ranks in the top ten, does that mean they’re one of the ten best Buffy CCG players in North America? Not necessarily. It does mean they’re at least pretty darn good and they must play Buffy a lot. If the best player only plays in one or two tournaments a year, he or she is not going to rank very high. And right now, that’s really what we’re trying to encourage, more people to play Buffy more often. And hopefully, most of all, have fun while they’re doing it.

Having fun and playing in a more relaxed environment is what attracts a lot of players to Buffy. We understand that not everyone has been asking for a ranking system, yet there have been several who have, as well as, others who indicate such a system helps attract players. One of the features of this system is that no matter how often you lose, your rating won’t go down. True, your ranking could drop if other players pass you by, but you’re really not penalized for playing that fun deck you always wanted to try.

No, it’s not a perfect system. I won’t get into some of the drawbacks, but I’m certain others may point them out on the boards. In total, it just seemed like the advantages of this system far outweighed the negatives.

So why not develop this last year? One thing we lost when Score Entertainment stopped producing the game were the tournament results of all tournaments they sponsored. Introducing a system with very few results wouldn’t have been too meaningful. Besides, we honestly wanted to try for a more sophisticated system. However, now we have results for all of 2004 and can present a ranking based on twelve months of results. So for those interested, enjoy.

The rankings themselves will be available over the next week or two. They will include all 2004 results judges have reported and have been passed along to me. If we’ve missed some, let me know and I’ll make sure they’re included in next month’s rankings. Please refer to postings on the boards for instructions on where to send tournament results.

Gen Con 2005 Update #1 – The Schedule

By Dave Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-Chair

Events for Gen Con 2005 have been submitted. Many more details will follow, but here’s a sneak preview of the exciting lineup we have scheduled.

7pm – Wednesday August 17^th – Sealed Deck in the lobby of the Downtown Hyatt.

3pm – Thursday August 18^th – Introductory Event where 8 participants can learn to play the game and receive enough cards to get them started in the game.

7pm – Thursday August 18^th – Classic Buffy CCG Highlander – In a repeat of last year’s popular event, decks can only contain one of each card.

9am – Friday August 19^th – Hero of the Week/Villain of the Week – Pulled out of the crypt and resurrected at Gen Con is the HotW/VotW tournament format. Each player must use a HotW or VotW character as their main character.

2pm – Friday August 19^th – Classic Buffy CCG Hot Dog Surprise – Players will be provided a list of cards banned for this tournament only. The objective is to surprise your opponent with little used cards.

7pm – Friday August 19^th – Buffy CCG Extended Type A Tabula Rasa – Forget what you know, each game has a new rule. Score virtual cards will be allowed in this unique tournament that will feature brand new rule changing events.

9am – Saturday August 20^th – Sealed Deck – We might as well call this the ultimate Sealed Deck. Players will get a variety of starter decks, expansion packs and promos from all card releases to use in constructing their decks.

2pm – Saturday August 20^th – Buffy CCG Extended Type B Dream Card Tournament – For the first time ever at Gen Con, a tournament where fan created cards can be used in organized play. The list of allowable fan created cards will be determined and listed in the near future.

7pm – Saturday August 20^th – Classic Buffy CCG Grand Patrol – Yes, for the 4^th consecutive year a Protector and Big Bad of Gen Con will be crowned. This is the signature Buffy CCG Event.

10am – Sunday August 21^st – Buffy CCG Extended Type A Alternate Format – Alternate Format? Well, that’s just our way of saying we haven’t settle on the final rules for this tournament. Score virtual cards will be allowed. It may be the Showtime format mentioned, the Three Challenge format run during this time slot last year, or it may be something completely different. We promise to figure this out soon.

2005 North American Championship – Yes, it’s back. Like last year, the Champion will be determined by the accumulated score of players across 4 tournaments. Only this year, players will have 9 tournaments from which to choose, and if they play in more than 4, they will be able to count their top 4 finishes. This should give those people who want to experience Gen Con beyond Buffy plenty of opportunity to do so. If there’s a tie, the winner will be determined based on the most points accumulated in their 5^th best finish. If the players still tie, it goes to their 6^th best finish and so forth. So there is an advantage to those who dedicate more of their time to Buffy.

Next month we’ll start to provide more details around each of the tournaments. We will likely create a special Gen Con 2005 rules supplement given the unique formats being introduced.

Gen Con 2005 Update #2 – The Prizes

By Dave Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-Chair

Like last year, they’ll be more prizes at Gen Con to reward all Buffy fanatics. Of course we’ll have the usual assortment of promo cards, foil cards, ultra rares and whatever other Buffy related products we can get. And to help, here’s a message I received earlier this month from Inkworks.

“I’d be happy to work with you to provide some prizes for your events.  We could probably provide promo cards to be given away as well as a few sets/albums to be given as prizes.”

I’m sure most of you are well aware of the outstanding Buffy and Angel trading cards produced by Inkworks and I’m very excited to see that we can provide additional prizes at our tournaments. If you’re not familiar with Inkworks, check out their website and in particular their next set, Spike, the Complete Story at this address http://www.inkworks.com/products/spike/spikecomplete/spikecompnewprod1.html

How do we know they’re serious? Well, a more recent message indicated they would be sending me a supply of Spike promo cards from their next set that we can hand out to players prior to Gen Con. Two days later, that supply arrived at my doorstep and is now available for tournament support.

And it doesn’t stop there. Anyone hear of the wonderful Buffy Roleplaying Game produced by Eden Studios? Here’s their reply to our request.

“We’d be glad to help.” They’ve offered to set us up with some of their product to offer for prizes at Gen Con. Makes you feel kind of warm knowing that the whole Buffy community is pulling together to help us keep this game going. You can check out their Buffy products at http://www.btvsrpg.com

So if you’re out at any of the conventions this year and see an Eden Studios or Inkworks booth, make sure to let them know how much we appreciate their support. And better yet, check out their products.

Stay tuned to further announcements on these pages as we continue to try and make Gen Con a major Buffy happening.

The next Newsletter (Volume 2, Issue 2) will be released in February, 2005.J

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