The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Despise the Prize

This is my standing statement for my problems with prize-only limited edition pieces in the tournament scene for Heroclix. This way I can just link to this entry and not have to repeat myself.
As ever, all of the following is my opinion based on my experience. It's a long and well-considered opinion, but on an issue that at its core is emotional it's difficult to take this cleanly out of the realm of opinion and the subjective.

To be blunt, I have a difficult time sincerely believing when people tell me that the prize LEs aren't important to them or any of their players. But, for the sake of argument, let's say what they say is true...then why do we need prize-only LEs? They're either important or they're not.

I objected to prize LEs in the early years of the game, and so I only went out to marquees where the random pull element made the matches less stacked and calculated. It was imperfect, but the best available. In general, I just tried my best to ignore the existence of prize LEs and generally did so. When Super Rares came into the mix I started to come out to events a bit more often.

Now we not only have a return to prize-only LEs, we have them being designed by someone who's something of a comics fan and is trying to make them even more interesting for comics fans.

With this latest example of James Madrox we have him going to extremes to make the LE desirable, not only pulling interesting characteristics from the character's first appearance but bending things to make it an X-Men TA piece while not doing so on the veteran. Now, maybe in his current state (I haven't read a comic with Madrox in it in years) he's a loner (well, with respect to those who aren't duplicates of himself) and so isn't deserving of the X-Men TA, but neither was the version in that first appearance. It was only at the end of the issue that Prof. X showed up to take him away for proper training. He was a long while away from being anything like an X-Man.

Prize-exclusive LEs - figures with unique dials, representing to varying degrees of accuracy distinct versions of the character from various moments in comics history - are an attempt to twist the arm of the comics fan into playing at venues, and I resent it. I resent it deeply. There are people who are very much into competition, and I'm sure they eat this up, especially if they're good at winning. They're the first ones to come along and try to belittle those of us who don't want to play that way, to play under those conditions. Anything anyone does well, he naturally wants others to esteem highly, too, and rather than let them get their competitive jollies by giving them a ranked system and maybe something closer to cash prizes -- something those of us not interested in competition could easily ignore -- they're doubtless very happy at anything that might make winning in such matches important to the rest of us.

These days I routinely buy a case plus a brick as my base amount. That's sixty boosters. If I come out to play in some sealed matches that'll be three more boosters per pop.

Many of the competitive players I know buy very sparingly, perhaps buying a brick these days and then whatever's necessary for for sealed matches. Wizkids makes much more money off me - someone who's much more a collector and comics fan. Prize-only LEs irritate me. I'm a husband and a father of two, with a wife who as of late last year is disabled, and a job that eats up far more of my time and energy than I care for. Even freeing up the time to get to venue events can be very difficult.

Tournaments should give out certificates, gilded pieces, signed and numbered pieces, coupons for product, advance boosters, LEs that can also be obtained otherwise and/or perhapes even specialty tie-in product from Marvel & DC as prizes. Winners will still be getting these things for their skill without having to directly buy them. It's a win:win.

Trying to force me and those like me out to venue play will only make some of us resent the game. If I come to feel that I'm effectively being frozen out of part of the collection I'd likely appreciate (in terms of the comics timelines they're pulled from) more than some of the people who are winning them, well... I've given up other hobbies before. Eliminating substantial cash outlays three times a year (points of concentration surrounding set releases) would enable me to simultaneously stop running up more debt and pay down the existing.

I'm one of those people who's either all in or all out, and the current system's making it more and more difficult to be all in. I very much continue to look forward to each set, but the prize LEs are becoming a larger, unfortunate distraction. The current system does not encourage me to come out for venue play. It does encourage me to choose between ignoring venue play or dropping the game.

For now, if nothing else, it encourages me to ignore the venue scene most of the time.