Hello WizKids Fans!

We recently released a schedule of events that will be happening at Origins 2017.  In a continuing effort to improve our major tournaments, we are implementing several changes to not only the schedule and types of events being offered but also to our own tournament management process. We wanted to take a moment to walk through the changes and why we made them.  Several of these changes are from direct feedback we received from previous attendees at our events and we are hopeful that they will help to provide players with a better and quicker process for participating in our premier events as well as a great experience.

Premier Events at Origins
Like last year, we will be running the U.S. National Championships, World Championship Qualifiers, and World Championships at Origins. All major events will have a dedicated day to ensure the appropriate number swiss rounds are run prior to the top cut. Additionally, there are several changes to the qualification process that will ensure that skilled players can quickly qualify while those who have a little bad luck can bounce back and still make it in to the main events.

World Championship Qualifications
Instead of holding big swiss events on a rigid schedule that took an immense amount of time and often left highly skilled players out of contention, we are moving to single-elimination qualifiers with pods of eight players. Players will play through as many eight-player single-elimination qualifiers as they would like during the allotted time. The winner of a qualifier automatically earns a spot. Players who come in 2nd and earn another 2nd (or 1st) in a qualifier will also be qualified to participate in the World Championship. No more waiting around to see if you’ve made the cut, you’ll know if you’re on your way to the World Championship or should grab another pod that is spooling up to give it another go.

Additionally, players who finish in the top half of the U.S. National Championships are automatically entered in the World Championship and players who finish in the bottom half only need to place 2nd (or 1st) in a qualifier to qualify.

HeroClix World Championship Qualifiers will be held on 6/14 and 6/15 and Dice Masters World Championship Qualifiers will be held on 6/15 and 6/16. All World Championship Qualifiers will be held between 2:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M. with registration opening at 1:00 P.M. and closing at 5:00 P.M.

With this schedule and format, players can play through qualifiers the first day, U.S. National Championships the second day, and then figure out if they need to play in additional qualifiers to earn a qualification for the World Championships. As such, this schedule allows for maximum flexibility and doesn’t penalize players for playing in the events they want to.

Side Events
In other news, we’ve reconfigured some of our side events and added new ones for players to try out!

For HeroClix we’ll be continuing to run the ever-popular Battle Royale alongside a variety of different scenario events where players can win Con LE Figures and Bystander Tokens. We’re also happy to introduce the HeroClix 2×2 Quick Play event and the Rumble Scenario (see below)! For the HeroClix 2×2 Quick Play, players will pay a $12 entry fee, be grouped into groups of four, and play a 300-Point Modern Age Constructed, Single-Elimination Tournament using 2’ by 2’ maps with 30-minute rounds. The players who lose during the first round will snake draft four Marvel, DC, or WizKids Con LE Bystander Tokens starting with the player with the most points. The players who advance to the second round will snake draft two Marvel, DC, or TMNT HeroClix Con LE Prize Figures and two Marvel, DC, or WizKids HeroClix Con LE Bystander Tokens starting with the player who won the second round.

For the Rumble Scenario, players will pay a $12 entry fee and play through a swiss event. Each player should come with exactly four Modern Age HeroClix figures between 75 to 125 points each with a combined total of no more than 400 points. Each player will start with one figure in the ring and the rest of their characters outside of the ring. Characters inside the ring will duke it out until one of them is KO’d. Each time a character is KO’d one of the characters from outside of the ring jumps into until all four of a player’s characters are KO’d. Be careful, the characters outside the ring can also tag in or use dirty tricks to influence the combat inside the ring! Players who place in the top four earn a 2017 DC HeroClix: Muhammad Ali vs. Superman Con LE Set. Players who place in the top half earn a Random 2017 Marvel, DC, or TMNT HeroClix Con LE Prize Figure. Players who place in the bottom half earn a Random Marvel, DC, or WizKids Con LE Bystander Token.

For Dice Masters, we’re continuing to run Rainbow Drafts ($12) and Quick Plays (decreased to $6 from $12). Players will be able to win a myriad of Con LE Foil Cards through these events including several that have not been released in the U.S. yet!

For Star Trek: Attack Wing, we’re going to run Quick Plays with a $6 entry fee. Players will be able to win the first wave of never-before-seen Star Trek: Attack Wing Card Packs through these events!

Administrative Improvements
Over the past few years we’ve observed several bottlenecks in administration during our events. The two biggest areas we’re going to be working on this year are registration and round-to-round administrative time.

In the past, we’ve had a single registration line with a single team registering players for all events. This year we’re going to still have a single line (due to space at Origins) and have one or more teams registering people for each game. By focusing the registration teams on particular games it should speed up the line for everyone, even though it may appear that certain games are moving faster than others (ex. players for a game may jump ahead of others if their focused registration personnel are ready to process them).

To reduce round-to-round administrative time we’re going to do two things. First, we’re going to decentralize the running of the tournaments. In the past, a single person on a single computer was responsible for running all tournaments happening concurrently. We’re going to change that so that each tournament being run will have its own dedicated computer and tournament organizer running it. Second, we’re changing how army sheets, team sheets, fleet sheets, etc. are checked. Instead of having players check them every round, we’re going to have teams of judges dedicated to checking them prior to the main event(s) at the beginning of each day. Immediately after registering for an event, players will go to another table, hand their appropriate sheets the judges and wait for them to review their sheets. If there are any issues, judges will alert you to them. After that, you will step out of line, fix any issues, and get back in line. This process will repeat until the judges sign off on your sheet(s). PLEASE NOTE: unlike years past, you will need your paperwork filled out and legible when registering so please make sure you have everything handy.

We hope you agree that these changes should be an improvement over what we’ve done before and we’re very excited to see them all in place for Origins 2017! We hope to see you there!

– The WizKids Team