To that end, I think my only complaint was with the way the prizes are handled, in particular the prize wall. The tournament featured a prize wall where players could spend tickets to buy tokens, deck boxes, alternate art cards, etc. Players won these tickets by winning matches in the tournaments. I found this to be a little less than desirable, because players that were winning games during the tournament were already receiving prizes as a result of those wins (for instance, if you were in the Top 32 players at the end of the tournament, you received a special set of dice). This may just be me, but I'm inclined to favor providing the losing players with more prizes, because I want them to have an incentive to come back to the tournament next year. At the very least they could have a few more random opportunities to win tickets during the event, thus maximizing opportunities for players at all skill levels to go home with some of the prizes.

As for the tournament itself, I thought it was well run. We played in a hotel near the Fantasy Flight Game Center, which actually made for a pretty comfortable play space. I thought the rounds moved at a decent pace and overall I didn’t sense any significant amount of disorganization. Overall, I think I was at the tournament on Thursday from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM, and we played five games with a break (and I arrived early and stayed a little after it ended). Considering the tournament accommodated around 100 players, I think everything went pretty well.

Finally, nearly every player left a good impression on me. My Worlds experience actually started with us setting up a small get-together after the tournament on Thursday, for which I reserved space at Parkway Pizza in south Minneapolis. It was a pretty entertaining experience, as when the tournament started on Thursday I had a table for 6 reserved, but by the time the tournament ended I had to increase that reserveration to hold 20. We had a good turnout, played some Star Wars trivia, and generally relaxed after a long day. I won’t go into any names (as I may forget some and I’m sensitive to others’ privacy), but thanks to all the players that took some time and chatted with me – it was great meeting you all.

In part two, I’ll get into the actual games. Until then, thanks for reading!

- Dietz