So I'll hit you with some rapid fire questions.
What was your favorite part of doing the event?
For me, just getting to play in a large scale event again.
I played in a whole bunch for Magic.
Like I remember doing a bunch of like the sealed grand prix's and I'm used to playing
in 1500, 2000 player events and it was fun just to be back in that situation again.
I like that.
What did you say?
Did you have a favorite part of the event?
Yeah, to piggyback off what you just said, been to Magic events with Cliff years ago
and Dunsign events.
And at that moment it was very, still very intimidating for me.
I'm not like the best card player ever.
So it, even though you're doing like a draft or a sealed or something like that, pretty
casual, it's still kind of intimidating.
You're playing across from somebody that has probably played for years and you haven't
at this event, it didn't feel like that at all.
And I really liked that.
I feel like there's a lot of people new to card games in general, which is weird for
me because like that used to be me.
So I am kind of teaching them a little bit.
I feel like Lorcan is at a very beginner friendly phase right now.
That's awesome.
I love the accessibility part of it.
Great call out.
Cause yeah, Magic can feel like an old boys club.
When I tried to get Olivia to play Magic, it was 2009.
So the game had been around for 20 years and you've got 50 million cards that you need
to know and learn and everything like that.
And if you've been doing it the whole time, all the important ones stick with you.
Like I'm sure I'm looking at Maximize this.
You could probably look at any card from at any point.
And if it was a card of importance, you'd know exactly what it is.
That's right.
No matter you verbatim Oracle text, current rules, text, you just know it.
That's right.
The Lurkana crowd is definitely more laid back than Magic.
And I think that's just cause it is a much newer game.
And it also is a more open environment to bring people in.
There were a lot of little kids, a lot of adults and I mean, we're adults, but like
generations older than us.
That's awesome.
People in their sixties and seventies they're playing because Disney brings more people
in than the game itself.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
So I know you had said that one of the things you liked was just that there was a larger
female presence.
Oh yeah.
I don't know if it's the game specific that it's a Disney thing.
It's open to everybody.
Everyone will be interested.
Magic is more of a boys club.
Yeah.
It's nice to have a bigger female presence in something like this.
It also contributes to me being less intimidated and that's really nice.
Absolutely.
I agree completely.
I think that leads into the age of the game.
Like Magic was all guys and it's so much a bigger game that even if 5% of the Magic population
is women, you're still flooded out at maybe half a percent.
It feels like in Lurkana you may be 15, 20 or 30% of the crowd.
There's still room to go to get more used to the nerd space.
But I also feel like the nerd gaming space is more open.
People are more willing to enter it because there's not as much stigma behind it as there
used to be when we were growing up.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Nerd has become like a catchphrase or something that you can take a deep dive into, not a
term you describe to somebody who doesn't quite fit in in the standard sense.
So I'm glad to hear that there's a lot of different kinds of people who are drawn to
the game and that they're keeping the atmosphere open for everybody to enjoy the game the way
they want to enjoy it, which I think is great.
The one thing I forgot to bring up during the day Sunday when we were playing the constructed
side events, I had something come up with the two game format.
If nobody has won after the second game, if it's a tie in a single elimination event,
they do sudden death.
So it's the first person to gain lore wins the game.
And it was a blue red mirror match and we ended up on like turn six before we won, but
it was like Teepo, Teepo, Sisu, Sisu, Brawl, Hiram.
And I ended up winning like turn six and the judges surprised that it ended that quickly
and that we had so many answers for each other's things.
That is pretty back and forth for so few ink out of those decks.
I looked at my open hand, solid develop your brain and everything else was not a Teepo.
So it was like easy six did not have a Teepo off the mulligan, but I found double Sisu,
Hiram and three Brawls.
And I was like, I'm winning this game.
Nice.
Very cool.
We use that awkward, I rule people may not be familiar with the segue into what was your
least favorite thing about the event.
The event specifically would be the two game format.
It feels bad the whole time.
Like when you win, even like for myself, it feels bad because it's like, okay, I now got
seven points, which is more than your standard.
I want in a best of three.
Like the bonus point really is egregious in how quickly it propels you forward.
Like we did the two game format at this point, a couple of months ago, a local game store
and you had locked up the tournament after round three because you're the only person
to win two, oh, two, oh, two, oh, right.
You could have just, nope, I'm good.
And still won.
And like either doing the two game format to get rid of the intentional drawing into
top eights for store champs.
But you kind of get that anyway, if you've two, oh, two, oh, two, oh, nobody else can
catch you.
So you can just like, that's fine.
I'm going to take a game from you and then concede.
Right.
Like, so you still end up with like, I think it's a feels worse.
Absolutely.
You can have this huge leap in points, which can definitely look a lot shabbier on paper.
So that makes sense.
I think it also, from what I've heard is it has that feeling when you're one, one of there's
no resolution, which if you've played a lot of best of three, the point of the third game
there is to break that and give you some final resolution.
But without it, you can just be like, okay, so we're taking our three points each and nobody's
getting that one bonus point, which kind of stinks.
And like even knowing that at the end of round two, I had six points because I drew the first
two rounds, knowing that if I had one two, oh, the next round and anybody that had two
out lost, I'm still behind them, right, if they get no points around three and I've gotten
points, points, bonus point, and I'm still beneath them is just like, that's where like
they really feels bad.
Absolutely.
It makes it hard to want to climb that hill.
Olivia, what was your least favorite thing or something that could use a little bit more
tunings?
The worst thing like for me was not at the event at all, but getting the tickets to go
there was more stressful than it had to be, especially knowing how many people didn't
make it to 150 people.
No showed the main event.
And then a bunch of attendees didn't show up knowing that that's crazy.
Considering how me and Cliff were both each of our computers trying to get tickets through
Eventbrite and what a struggle that was and just feeling like this is going to sell out
in a couple of minutes.
It sold out in 48 seconds.
More stressful than the event, trying to get a ticket for the event.
Yeah, I was lucky to get an attendee.
We met a couple people that were there, like made travel plans and then showed up just
hoping they'd get in.
Yeah, so I played a girl on Sunday in one of the constructed events.
She got an attendee ticket on Sunday.
Her husband had gotten, or boyfriend I don't remember, had gotten a competitor ticket and
she just came along for the trip and she showed up on Sunday morning and they're like, yeah,
we have attendee tickets we can sell.
Wow.
She got to participate.
She was taking selfies with everyone that she played with.
It's like good for her that she was able to do that.
I know like you guys, like that sucks.
Right.
Like my experience with like buying the tickets was like screaming at my computer because
everything just spun and spun and spun and just, it's so unnecessarily stressful.
I agree completely.
As somebody who did that but had the opposite result, same amount of shouting, I'm sure.
The frustrating thing for me is like, if you guys had known, like, oh, they'll be selling
attendee tickets at the door.
I would have definitely went.
Right.
Yeah.
I've never seen it publicized anywhere.
That's for sure.
No one knows.
People are no showing the tournaments and maybe they should, I don't know, take a hint
from airlines and try an overbook maybe.
I don't know.
There's got to be a resolution for sure.
So like for the event hall space, I don't know if you have a question about that, but
like I can talk about the event hall space, was more than adequate to support more people
than they had in there, which is great.
We've been at magic events that are way too huge for the tiny little room that you're
in.
The Express Holiday Inn's conference room.
Yeah.
Westchester.
Yeah.
So there was room, which was nice, like walking around.
The only time it was ever cramped was when you're with a bunch of other people trying
to look at the vendor booth or when these rounds are pairing and seating, everyone trying
to get to their seat outside of that adequate space everywhere.
My issues with the hall were it was a 10 minute Uber ride off of the strip and it was like
a four mile walk.
Right.
From our hotel.
So not a feasible walk.
No, not at all.
That was annoying.
There was also, when we first got dropped off, whoever the parking lot attendant is
was cursing and screaming at every Uber driver that was dropping people off.
Like, I will have you towed if you don't just drop them and leave.
Wow.
So like a bunch of our Uber drivers are like, it's never usually like this or like I've
never been out here before.
Right.
So like that was weird.
The other issue, I understand that events like this are booked six, eight, 12, 16, 18,
24 months in advance.
I understand that.
There's one bathroom for men and women.
That's scary.
Men or women.
Right.
When you have potentially 3000, I don't know how many attendee tickets they sell, but there
was 2048 competitor tickets possible.
So if it's half of that as attendees, you've got 3000 people in a room.
For guys, it was 12 urinals and like six stalls.
Right.
Not a lot.
I don't know how it was for the women's room, but obviously there's a lot less women at
the event, so less of an issue with having a line out of the bathroom in it's like theme
parks, but for guys, right.
The line.
Women also have the negative of they don't have a urinal.
Right.
The bathroom layout though was prohibitive because everyone would funnel out waiting
for the stall and you would not know that all of the urinals were open.
Right.
Until somebody shouted down the line, Hey, all the urinals are open.
Right.
Where the little cafeteria was was laid out poorly in that everyone had to funnel in to
get their stuff and funnel back out through the same spot.
Oh yeah.
That's just so you were never really sure if you were in line, weren't in line in somebody's
way or whatever.
Yeah.
Awkward.
The hall itself was very nice.
Like it wasn't that it was like run down or dingy.
It just like poor location.
Right.
Not the most ideal.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
That all being said, would you do another Disney Lurkana Challenger event?
I would.
It's the only like very competitive Lurkana that we have.
The store champs are competitive.
I'll say competitive plus.
Competitive ish.
Yeah.
I having played card games for so long, I like the big event feel like when you're playing
for a lot.
Right.
Stakes.
Right.
Would you be an attendee to another Disney Lurkana Challenger or a competitor for the
main event in the future?
At this point, I would be interested in being a competitor.
For me, it says a lot, but Lurkana definitely feels like a more casual game.
So being in the side events, it was a good time.
Awesome.
So Olivia confirmed too good for just a side event.
Too good.
So what would, if you had a piece of advice to give to somebody who was going to their
first, if Seattle is going to be their first Disney Lurkana Challenger event and you could
just give them one piece of advice, what would be the piece of advice you would give them?
Other than your previous about be a good person if you have the opportunity to be excellent
to each other.
Don't play slow.
Put in like a little bit of time and effort before the event.
Make it worth your time.
Even if you live in the Seattle area, it's still a higher cost to play.
You're still going out of your way to do it.
Invest a little in yourself and play with your friends.
Even if you guys all play casual, just play some games.
Really make it worth your time.
I'm not saying like set expectations of I'm going to win this.
If you are new to the game, set your expectations up.
I want to get to the 10 points to get some prize ball tickets.
Absolutely.
Go in with like a little bit of purpose and you can still have fun doing that.
I like the combination of your two answers being kind of respectful.
Be respectful of everyone's time.
Be respectful of your own time and make sure you're trying to get the most out of the commitment.
Like Cliff said, you have 45 minutes.
Be respectful of your opponent and give them the opportunity to play the game as well,
but also make sure you're thinking through your important turns.
Don't shortcut yourself because you have time to focus.
Each game should take you about 20 minutes.
You should have a touch of leftover time and that's where you can buy in those important
inflection points in the game.
Let me take an extra minute to think this one through, but perhaps not two minutes to
think about your first turn ink.
Let's have practiced enough to know that.
I think that's fair.
I think it's well said on both ends.
Points out, hey, I think you are playing a little slowly.
Don't be offended.
No.
Just be aware that maybe you are taking a little longer because you may not be aware
of it.
Just take it as like a constructive criticism that's not meant to attack or hurt you.
Just hey, we need to make sure this game finishes.
Yes.
And I think to piggyback off you and advice I would give not having done a DLC, but having
done way too many magic events is the judges are there to help you.
They want to help you.
Do not be afraid to call them over.
If your opponent calls a judge on you, don't be upset.
The judge can answer any question.
It could be as simple as can you tell me what the text on that Donald Duck musketeer card
does the one with bodyguard?
Can you tell me how that works?
Just to make sure they know, but they also don't want to ask you because they may indicate
to you that that's the card they don't want you to play.
That's the card they're going to have the most trouble playing around.
That's their worst case scenario card.
So they may need to pull a judge aside just to ask them the text on a card.
Right.
Yeah.
They may be asking for an objective.
How does this work?
Yes.
And then judges are supposed to not give anything other than an objective answer of bodyguard
works as if it can be attacked.
It has to be attacked.
Yes.
Exactly.
It's just that could be anything.
Call the judge when you need it.
You don't have to be upset if somebody calls a judge they're there to help everybody equally.
Don't feel like you're trying to intimidate the opponent and don't feel intimidated or
bad in any way about a judge being there.
They're just there to help.
And I know there's a lot of negative stigma around judge calls, but I definitely am judging
events and playing in events.
I assure you, judge is happy to help and there's nothing wrong with calling a judge.
All the judges that I interacted with were very nice.
All of them just wanted the event to run as smoothly as they possibly could get it to
run.
Last thing, and if you've touched on pieces of it, I think throughout is what would you
like to see different after worlds?
We get into a new season of Disney, Larkana Challenger events.
What would you like to see a little bit differently next time around?
So I know this horse is dead in our conversations between me and you guys.
I just want PPG to, I guess, be more aware of the amount of people that want to play
the game.
For sure.
I hope that they are already working on finding a better site than Eventbrite to funnel tickets
to.
I hope they're looking at larger venues to house more people so everyone can play.
I would like to see more vendors and I get that will come as the game ages where more
people are getting into the space.
The feels bad is that they did have a couple artists there, but you had to again run the
Eventbrite Gauntlet to get a ticket for a specific time to go see the artists where
they would sign two cards for you.
And if you were playing in the main event and your time is, I'm saying like 1 30 and
that's the middle of your round.
Well, you don't get to go.
You can't call a judge for a time extension to go over and get your card signed.
I don't know if the ticket was like, hey, show up between two and four and playing in
a bunch of magic events.
It's not unreasonable for you to have two rounds that go to time depending on the deck
you're playing.
And you may not have at any point in those two hours time to go stand in a line to then
talk to the artist or whatever it is because you're going to take that time to go to the
bathroom, ram some food down your throat real quick, catch a drink, just take a breath.
I think if I could offer constructive criticisms, it's just like a just honest, like, hey, we
did not expect this many people would be this interested this quickly.
You really surprised us with Atlanta and have blown our expectations out of the water for
every single one since then we are working on fixing it.
And this is our perspective timeframe of where the improvements will be implemented.
That would be lovely.
We see you and we're working on it would be great.
I like that.
And that goes like with anything.
If a company is having a hard time with something or struggling, just honesty with the community,
we've all been there.
Right.
And I think it's good will.
Absolutely.
That you can buy a lot of respect from your community just by being honest.
Yes.
We're all understand.
We're all people trying to make something work.
It doesn't always just be honest, be transparent.
Yeah.
My, my hopes are something on truly the East coast because like from where we are, our nearest
one was 12 hours away.
Yeah.
Can we go down to Atlanta or up to Toronto?
You pick.
Right.
So Toronto would be 11 and Chicago is like a 12 hour, 14 hour drive.
Yep.
We had nothing in our general area.
Which is unusual because normally we would get like a New York, Philly, Boston, somewhere
in there.
Right.
I would love to see something in between DC and Boston.
Absolutely agree.
And like even a little out West, I would take Pittsburgh.
Sure.
It's not that far.
I'd said to you beforehand, Vegas would have been the one for them to try five or 10,000
people.
I fully agree.
Just because of what Vegas is with everyone wants to go there because there's so much
other stuff to do.
It's not prohibitively expensive to go to.
You can make the trip prohibitively expensive, but that's on you.
That's on you.
Vegas Convention Center houses so many people.
Realistically, the event could have been held in any of the larger casinos.
Absolutely.
They have hall space.
Like when we were there, there was probably 25 other expos or conventions running.
Pretty much always.
From any field of work.
MGM or yeah, any of those.
There's always a convention going on.
So like it could have been held in one of the large casinos.
It would have been easier for everyone to get to.
I get that they're new and they're trying.
Yeah.
The first step is an important one and hopefully we get to see improvement come with the choices
for a second step at this point.
Great call outs.
Olivia, anything you would like to see?
Yeah.
Same thing.
Like bigger events with more people in more cities.
I love it.
That way everyone gets a chance to go.
Right.
If we whiff enough times, right?
Like I don't get to play the game at a high enough level enough times, there's no point
me playing the game.
If that's my intent is like Klaas said to be playing at a high level for high stakes
and I don't get the opportunity to do that enough.
I'm going to go, well, I'm going to move on to a game where I can.
So far with everything Ravensburger has improved everything, whether it be low availability
of supply, anything else in between, they have worked on improving.
I have faith that they will improve on this.
Fingers are crossed anyway that we'll be able to do it come the post worlds DLC events and
hopefully we all get to go or at least those of us who really would like to play at that
level would be very, very exciting.
Might even be happy to see if they modified the store champs some and made them like GPTs
or PTQs.
Absolutely.
Magic had the qualifiers where if you win the store champs, you get invited to go play
in the larger event.
Buy is there something in a larger event?
Something like that can be really, really good.
That extra little bit of sleep is a big deal.
Yes.
So yeah, I totally agree with you and I'm hoping that they're willing to expand, change
things.
Even if they change it and make it worse, I'm happy to see them trying and testing different
things.
Or if they want the store chance to be like more casual, give us events.
That are qualifiers to get in.
So then you can avoid the event, bright, call it.
Absolutely.
Like winning this guarantee.
Here's your ticket.
We've allotted 200 tickets, 200 of these tournaments will run across the country.
You're guaranteed in and you get round one by.
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
Be a lot of fun.
Well, I'm glad you guys got to go.
I'm glad you got to have a good time.
We look forward to hearing more hopefully from folks.
We know who are going out to Seattle.
Then from there we got continentals and then worlds to look forward to.
I'm pretty excited to see how they both shake out at Disneyland and world respectively.
So that should be pretty awesome.
And we know that no matter how you do at one of these events, the only way to get that
coveted to well is keep questioning.