The White Book S7E34 – 258

Great person to have on to interview as there's been a lot of... muttering about OP, and special thanks to Chris who asked some of the questions I was very keen to hear answers to. The existence of a newsletter is news to me... 

To some extent I did get a bit weary of the "it was a great success, obviously room to improve" formula for some of the answers, though - I understand where it comes from, but shaking up the structure can come in handy. 

Definitely appreciated the discussion about the melee format (and touching on Stahleck in general), and for Zach - don't worry, I do understand there's a lag time from feedback to implementation!

My gripes with OP aside, it's good to hear someone who is at least aware of the importance of Melee, Stahleck, and other important parts of the community.

I am very excited to hear Stahleck will be getting a melee card design, however it really burns that they took the one from GenCon away weeks before the event. I thought it was a standard stance on melee but it seems they change things up all the time with no real rhyme or reason. ;(

Also, as a side note, if you're like me and unhappy with the state of melee and OP in general, I would suggest using the contact form that we just heard of and making sure to let FFG know. Provide them suggestions of things you'd like to see!

I would stress that you should be civil while doing so, however.

I would doubly stress that we should start a write in campaign to more fully and interestingly support melee. Sure, I can understand not going wild with card designs. But still having a trophy and a title for WCW seems reasonable, right?

It still sounded like we are in self feeding cycle of :melee is not seen as competitive format -> melee gets less resources -> melee is seen less as a competitive format -> melee gets less resources -> ...

So there is a feel of melee being faded away and getting barely any communication on it is not helping this feeling. We still don't have rules document for melee and even the FAQ in no parts touched melee (not even empty restricted/banned list for the format).

I do have a great fear that if melee is handled mostly as a side event then it will drop from local events since "FFG isn't doing it as main event so its probably ok to drop it" which in turn makes it so that it is dropped in local game nights. Why would you play it anymore if the local competitive side isn't supported? or heck even the highest level competitive events only has it at the side. Well for fun because it is actually a good format, but that just makes it easier to handle melee as "lol melee" "not competitive format"

While Joust is easier entry point to new players that come from other card game backgrounds, our local metas have had far better success with recruitment of board/miniature game players with melee format. Melee also works as excellent competitive starting point for players who come from boardgame background and are not used to head to head formats. So melee can also be seen as a stepping stone for competitive joust as it is good place for some of the new players to get used to the competitive side of thrones without having to go straight to competitive 1v1.

Unfortunately part of the problem is the community itself with the "lol melee" and I will place a Drakey quote here on the matter since he was able to put it better:

"I’ve never understood why anybody would deride the second competitive format of the game they primarily play. Any such negativity will affect the game they play as a whole, and mainly serve for pushing people away from the hobby… or giving a negative view of the community for anybody interested in the game. LCGs just aren’t big enough for an attitude like that."

That was a great episode with real content !

Great job guys !!

Loved the 'hard' but fair questions and the as candid as possible FFG answers.

Also I did a spit take of my coffee when you all left poor Will hanging at the end !

Cannot agree with that sentiment enough, Ire. I think it's really self defeating when people in the community take time out of their day to disparage a format that others enjoy.

I mean, I don't follow most sports enough, but do people on soccer (football) forums take time to talk about how much indoor or 3v3 sucks whenever someone mentions that they enjoy indoor? Or the equivalent for other sports.

It seems ludicrous. 

I mean, I don't follow most sports enough, but do people on soccer (football) forums take time to talk about how much indoor or 3v3 sucks whenever someone mentions that they enjoy indoor? Or the equivalent for other sports.