FOW News! Alpha Investments is Back! Worlds is Coming!







If you prefer a video version of the news, click below:





So a couple cool and interesting things came up this week, so let’s go over it!







JUDGE PROGRAM REVAMPED:













We finally got an article explaining the new and improved judge program! You can read the article with full details HERE

Otherwise, here is a breakdown:







-New Leveling System-





New Judge levels 0, 1, 2 and 3





Level 0: Can Head Judge Level 0 events and can floor judge Level 1 or lower events such as Locals, Ruler League, and ARG

Level 1: Can Head Judge Level 1 or lower events and can floor judge Level 2 or lower events. They also gain access to the Worldwide Judges group if they wish to inquire about card interactions/rulings and policies. They can participate in ARG Circuit Series, and Large Tournaments

Level 2: Can Head Judge Level 2 or lower events and can floor judge Level 3 or lower events. They also gain access to the Worldwide Judges group if they wish to inquire about card interactions/rulings and policies. Can do WGP Qualifiers and GP Tournaments



Level 3: Can judge WGP







-New Exams-





You can now take the Level 0 exam online, once per quarter to retain your status.





Level 1 and up requires attendance to a GP to take the exam, among other qualifiers for the higher levels.





Level 1 and up judges must judge a WGP Qualifier in some capacity once per year, otherwise they will lose their status.







-New Standard-





There will also be an expected level of professionalism associated to being a judge. This is applied both in person, and online via social media. The penalties are as follows:





Small or moderate offenses: Single Warning

Large offenses: Double Warning (Two Warnings)

Extreme cases or Accumulation of Three Warnings: Automatic Stripping of Judge Status



There are other details obviously associated with all this information. If you are curious about becoming a judge, be sure to read over the original article!





GRAND PRIX’S:













Along with the judging changes, we also got changes to tournaments! Once again, if you’d like the full detailed article, click HERE

One thing to note before going into this is that local game shops will now report their events using the FOW software. They should already have access to said software (You can read on that in the article). This will inform not only whether they receive promos etc, but also some other information going forward.







-WGP Qualifiers-





So we are being introduced to this new type of competition. Basically to help accommodate a larger number of sections of large countries like the US, as well as more isolated areas that still have a decent following of the game, they are giving us what’s known as a World Grand Prix Qualifier. The company will give large shops the chance to hold their own, completely supported, FOW event.





This would act similar to a GP, complete with GP prizing (that depends on attendance). Stores that use the FOW software to report their locals will be given priority in this selection process.





Their goal is to have 8 WGP Qualifiers, as well as 2 of the normal company run GP’s.





This will be interesting to see how it plays out, as well as more details from the company as we go forward. It seems like a very interesting prospect, but also lends itself to what would seem to be smaller events overall.







ALPHA INVESTMENTS:









So for those of you not familiar, a gentleman named Rudy runs the Youtube channel, Alpha Investments. Here he talks about different (mainly finance related) topics for the main TCG’s. He dropped out of Force of Will some time ago for various reasons, and now it looks like he’s coming back.





So 2 separate things happened. Firstly, he announced he was buying a lot of pallets of old FOW product. He intends to sell it at a larger than normal discount, especially to his qualifying Patrons.

We asked him (before the announcement that we’ll get to) if he was fully getting back into Force of Will, and why. He responded:





Yes I am going back into Force of Will a lot heavier moving forward. They have shown the discipline on cutting print runs and stability. I like it a lot, they grew up as a company and have stabilized the relationship with distributors and everyone is happy internally now. I will be offering the new Force of Will sets at an unbeatable price 🙂





So that is cool to hear that both himself, and others are happy with the direction Force of Will has taken in recent months. If you are a fan of him this is especially good news. He just came out with a statement yesterday about Force of Will going forward as well. You can read the full statement on his Patreon, but the main point is that:





-His ‘Big Box Special’ will go on sale next weekend (I believe this is the pallets of old product)





-He will be selling the new set (A New Dawn Rises) at $69.99 shipped.





-He acknowledges that this will cause anger among competitors (Important note, this pricing is available to his $15 Patrons)





-Not mentioned, but important to note that he has no indication of carrying the Starter Decks, which are incredibly important.





So those are the facts of the matter. Opinions on this will vary, but it’s important to know since he is such a large retailer/distributor of product.







WORLDS INFORMATION:

















So this is the last news before worlds, so the rest of the news will be a big info dump related to that.









-Worlds his happening this weekend! Be sure to watch it live on the official FOW Twitch stream! That’s at twitch.tv/fowtcgjapan where Jeremy of RulerSchool will be commentating the days!









-Thanks to Jeremy we know there will be a special Pre-Release event during Worlds! This will be open to the public for a set amount of money, however if you are competing in Worlds you get free entry. This is pretty awesome and really adds to the overall fun and celebratory atmosphere of the Worlds event.









-Oscar spotted a post on Twitter by Yamada (an employee of FOW) who posted this very pixelated image, saying it’s a souvenir for anyone who participates in the WGP. No details on what it could be, but now I’m super curious what that could mean.

-Also don’t think this is related to Worlds technically, but it could be running side by side. Casters is having some sort of Japanese event Championship. There is this photo of the trophy as well. Not sure what it means, when it happens, or if it’s related to worlds but there you go!







That about does it for today, have fun watching Worlds!







