Wednesday, January 18, 2006

War Drums "Release" Tournament

The release date of War Drums has shifted back one week to March 4th, which means the pre-release tournament date (March 5th) is made into a Release tournament instead.

From Ian Richards, Wizards Organised Play:
"This is a very recent change due to a new distributor and change in release dates for this set. Due to the prerelease at Winter Fantasy and the slip of dates we were unable to adjust things for the previous weekend at this very late hour therefore this one time they will be on the day after the street release. I'm sure you have a lot of tournament players who will still want to be at the special release tournament while getting their minis, alternative paint minis and the chance to win even more new minis booster! After all you can never have enough minis.... right?"

KaeYoss:
"If I understand Ian correctly, this is a one-time thing, and was made due to circumstances beyond the control of Wizards. So I guess you will get a prerelease tourney for the next set, and most if not all sets after that."

Ian: "You are indeed 100 percent correct.This was a one time situation.There is 70 to 100 stores involved each time. Clearly telling all possible attendees it moved dates is near impossible as they may or may not check back. Having stores change weeks and plans is also challenging. Having it run on the same day we are trying to establish an East Coast DDM show presense was also less optimal as people have spent a considerable abmount to get there and play when we then would shift to their local event running the same day taking them from two tournaments to choosing which one. And so the list of sub optimal situations go on.

"Perfect world... it would remain a prerelease. The street date wouldn't change but the reality is it did and we looked at changing things and for all and a lot more reasons decided against it.This was one of those... condemn if you do and condemned if you don't situations so we went with the easiest to communicate to you, the players and causing you the least confusion and inconvenience."