Letter to the UK

I just sent this via e-mail to Dave in the UK, one of the few TO's there. I'm proud of the information contained in the message, so I decided I'd share it with everyone. A lot of this is old info, but it never hurts to repeat yourself:

Hi Dave,

Worlds will be taking place at GenCon SoCal this November 16-19th. I’m planning for nationals-type events to take place in September and October. Nationals-level events will provide CLINCH medallions with value enough to assure a place in the Worlds. Because of all the delays with CLINCH, I’ve been hesitant to make commitments. Once CLINCH is available, there will be lots more info. Because the Medallions are the basis for invitations, nothing strictly feeds into anything else, but winning an event at any level provides enough Personal Clout to qualify for the next level. Throwdowns (Store, Club Events) and Rallies (Qualifiers) feed Roundtables (Nationals) which feed Summits (Worlds). Local tournament organizers may always run Throwdowns. Rallies may also be run by local tournament organizers depending on how your local distributor wants to handle things. In the US, I have several TO’s who I completely trust to run the events properly, so that’s how I’m going to do it. Also, all events at conventions, run by Hidden City Games, will also be Rally events. The higher level events are ‘company’ events and should be handled or at least overseen by Hidden City Games or the local Clout distributor, like Hobbygames.

Worlds, just like every other CLINCH event, is open to any player who has enough Personal Clout, regardless of how/if they played in Nationals or even lower level events. This relaxed, open-door policy is a huge departure from other top tier events, but the philosophy is simple enough: If you’ve got the ‘Clout’, you can play.

Prize money for CLINCH is up to the local distributor. CLINCH was originally developed for our Asia-Pacific partners where prize money is essential to the success of an organized play program. This actually runs contrary to our vision for Clout and CLINCH where the games are played primarily for fun, rather than big prizes. Every region internationally needs to support the program in the manner that makes sense for their gaming culture. Prize money is an optional part of that. We can’t really compete with the big money games like Magic and VS., so we’re avoiding that route entirely. I am hoping to find a way to get Nationals winners to Worlds in California (across the street from Disneyland) which would be a pretty sweet prize.

For now the Venture Demo Team is a North American program only. I just don’t have the resources to support the program internationally. We’re working on expanding it internationally, and once I begin to see strong returns here in the US, I expect that to be the next step.

While I don’t normally ship internationally, send me your contact info and I’ll provide a supply of US Promo chips to spice up your tournaments for a few weeks. The chips I can send are Helm of Leadership, Shrunken Head, and Whale Call. I’ll get you enough to run several tournaments.


Adam "Wildcard" Conus
Hidden City Games
Organized Play Manager
Website - http://www.hiddencitygames.com
Fling into Action Blog - http://cloutfantasy.blogspot.com/