Hello everyone,
I'm happy to announce an upcoming event for both the Middle Earth CCG and the Lord of the Rings LCG will take place in San Jose CA, USA over the Labor Day holiday weekend. We are calling it Muster For Middle Earth.
This event will include a MECCG Open Tournament with a One Ring replica prize. it will also have ARDA and DARK ARDA, challenge decks and open play throughout.
At the same time there will also be a coordinated saga and campaign for the Lord of the Rings LCG.
The event will take place inside of the PacifiCon Game Expo in Santa Clara. Your ticket to the convention is all you need to pay. There are no additional costs for the MECCG or LOTR LCG events.
More details will be coming. But begin planning now to join us.
Muster for Middle Earth!
Muster For Middle Earth: Aug. 30 - Sept. 2, 2024 in San Jose, CA
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Goblin King
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:49 am
-
Goblin King
- Posts: 238
- Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:49 am
Here are plans (and some of my thought behind them) for Muster for Middle Earth in Santa Clara (San Jose), CA of the United States of America from 30th August to 2nd September, 2024.
My ultimate goal, plain and simple, is to establish an annual MECCG event for the USA. In order to re-establish a firm player-base of this country, an annual event is logically required. I’m more than willing to work with other organizers elsewhere in the country to have an event outside of CA, I just need a local volunteer cell to work with. There are some exciting efforts beginning in both Colorado and Nevada! And I hope Muster for ME 2025 will be hosted outside of California! But for this year, we will stick to CA where we have a solid player base across the state.
The event itself is modeled after Lure of Middle Earth in Germany, which I had the honor and pleasure of attending for the first time in February 2024. The synergy created by having both MECCG and LotR LCG in the same space is something I’m really hoping can take hold here in the USA. I’ve been a lurking member of the LotR LCG community for about a decade (started listening to the Cardboard of the Rings Podcast back in the Brandon era)! It really is a wonderful and supportive community.
This year, I decided to place the event within an established gaming convention if I could do so. There are a few reasons for this, but the primary one is financial. There were costs associated with hosting Worlds 2023 in a convention space even with a local business offering its support. Without a firm idea of how many people are going to attend these events, there are just financial risks that I’m not willing to take every year. By having the event inside of an established gaming convention, I don’t have to worry about it (beyond convincing the convention organizers that the event is worth a risk for them to host). This also gives attendees the advantage of One Stop Shopping. You can now fly or drive to the venue and stay in the same location where you are playing.
Someday I’m hopeful Muster for ME can grow to the point where it can stand on its own (or that another solution to the financial burden presents itself), but for the time being, I believe we have a workable and repeatable solution that other player cells can duplicate.
Now to the event itself! The major activities take place from Friday, August 30th through Sunday, September 1st. The convention itself runs through Monday, September 3rd, for those who want a last day to play other games. The opening day, Friday, evening is for casual gaming and getting to meet each other. The official MECCG tournament games begin on Saturday morning and run until Sunday. At the same time, there will still be options for new and returning players to join in an ARDA multi-player game or a challenge deck tournament. Meanwhile the LotR LCG group will begin working on their collective objectives and campaigns and will do so throughout the weekend.
I want to mention briefly here why I’m choosing to have a competitive tournament (with tournament rules, timed rounds, and judges etc). Those of you familiar with Lure will know that Wolfgang intentionally doesn’t host Worlds at Lure (except for once during the pandemic), because hyper competition is not the vibe he is looking for in his event. In Europe, there are other opportunities to play at Worlds or some countries host a national championship. I feel the USA needs a national competitive tournament and the competitive players need an option to play in this environment in order to compete with the Europeans.
Ok back to the event itself! On Saturday we will have a General Opponent, two-deck format tournament. The tournament will be Swiss structured, so everyone plays a set number of rounds on Saturday. The number of rounds will be determined by the number of players participating. If there are 16 or more players, the top four finishers from Day 1, will be playing again on Sunday in a Round Robin showdown. As was the case at Worlds 2023, the deck you play on Day 1 is the same deck you play on Day 2!
Sunday will also feature more casual play for those not in the finals. Bring your Dreamcard decks if you have them! There will also be ARDA & Dark ARDA and Challenge Deck tournaments offered.
I want to encourage everyone to invite friends and family who like gaming to this convention! Pacificon is a great game convention with about 250 different events and activities throughout the 4 day weekend. I’ve gone several times over the years. There are historic miniatures, wargames, Euro games, and tons of roleplaying games and live action RPGs.
Of course, I always want to make those interested in our MECCG feel that they are welcome to learn and play as well. This is why we will have Joe Bisz’ ARDA, the multi-player game cube, available throughout the weekend. ARDA requires no prior experience to play and after a session or two, you are ready to participate in a Challenge Deck (pre-constructed deck) tournament. Again, no card ownership is required (but if you want to score some cards MECCG cards of your own -- play in these events because we give decks and boosters to new players).
Schedule of events:
Friday: Joe Bisz’ ARDA; Dark ARDA; Casual play possible Challenge Deck Tournament
Saturday AM: General Opponent 2-deck semis
Lunch Break
Saturday PM: General Opponent 2-deck semis (continued)
Throughout Saturday Joe Bisz’ ARDA / Casual play
Sunday AM: General Opponent finals (Top 4 play again round robin if there were 16+ players in semis)
Joe Bisz’ ARDA; Dark ARDA; Casual play/Dreamcard Deck Expo (show off your deck made with fan-generated Dreamcard expansions)
Sunday PM: Ring Award ceremony for tournament; Casual play/ Dreamcard Deck Expo
My ultimate goal, plain and simple, is to establish an annual MECCG event for the USA. In order to re-establish a firm player-base of this country, an annual event is logically required. I’m more than willing to work with other organizers elsewhere in the country to have an event outside of CA, I just need a local volunteer cell to work with. There are some exciting efforts beginning in both Colorado and Nevada! And I hope Muster for ME 2025 will be hosted outside of California! But for this year, we will stick to CA where we have a solid player base across the state.
The event itself is modeled after Lure of Middle Earth in Germany, which I had the honor and pleasure of attending for the first time in February 2024. The synergy created by having both MECCG and LotR LCG in the same space is something I’m really hoping can take hold here in the USA. I’ve been a lurking member of the LotR LCG community for about a decade (started listening to the Cardboard of the Rings Podcast back in the Brandon era)! It really is a wonderful and supportive community.
This year, I decided to place the event within an established gaming convention if I could do so. There are a few reasons for this, but the primary one is financial. There were costs associated with hosting Worlds 2023 in a convention space even with a local business offering its support. Without a firm idea of how many people are going to attend these events, there are just financial risks that I’m not willing to take every year. By having the event inside of an established gaming convention, I don’t have to worry about it (beyond convincing the convention organizers that the event is worth a risk for them to host). This also gives attendees the advantage of One Stop Shopping. You can now fly or drive to the venue and stay in the same location where you are playing.
Someday I’m hopeful Muster for ME can grow to the point where it can stand on its own (or that another solution to the financial burden presents itself), but for the time being, I believe we have a workable and repeatable solution that other player cells can duplicate.
Now to the event itself! The major activities take place from Friday, August 30th through Sunday, September 1st. The convention itself runs through Monday, September 3rd, for those who want a last day to play other games. The opening day, Friday, evening is for casual gaming and getting to meet each other. The official MECCG tournament games begin on Saturday morning and run until Sunday. At the same time, there will still be options for new and returning players to join in an ARDA multi-player game or a challenge deck tournament. Meanwhile the LotR LCG group will begin working on their collective objectives and campaigns and will do so throughout the weekend.
I want to mention briefly here why I’m choosing to have a competitive tournament (with tournament rules, timed rounds, and judges etc). Those of you familiar with Lure will know that Wolfgang intentionally doesn’t host Worlds at Lure (except for once during the pandemic), because hyper competition is not the vibe he is looking for in his event. In Europe, there are other opportunities to play at Worlds or some countries host a national championship. I feel the USA needs a national competitive tournament and the competitive players need an option to play in this environment in order to compete with the Europeans.
Ok back to the event itself! On Saturday we will have a General Opponent, two-deck format tournament. The tournament will be Swiss structured, so everyone plays a set number of rounds on Saturday. The number of rounds will be determined by the number of players participating. If there are 16 or more players, the top four finishers from Day 1, will be playing again on Sunday in a Round Robin showdown. As was the case at Worlds 2023, the deck you play on Day 1 is the same deck you play on Day 2!
Sunday will also feature more casual play for those not in the finals. Bring your Dreamcard decks if you have them! There will also be ARDA & Dark ARDA and Challenge Deck tournaments offered.
I want to encourage everyone to invite friends and family who like gaming to this convention! Pacificon is a great game convention with about 250 different events and activities throughout the 4 day weekend. I’ve gone several times over the years. There are historic miniatures, wargames, Euro games, and tons of roleplaying games and live action RPGs.
Of course, I always want to make those interested in our MECCG feel that they are welcome to learn and play as well. This is why we will have Joe Bisz’ ARDA, the multi-player game cube, available throughout the weekend. ARDA requires no prior experience to play and after a session or two, you are ready to participate in a Challenge Deck (pre-constructed deck) tournament. Again, no card ownership is required (but if you want to score some cards MECCG cards of your own -- play in these events because we give decks and boosters to new players).
Schedule of events:
Friday: Joe Bisz’ ARDA; Dark ARDA; Casual play possible Challenge Deck Tournament
Saturday AM: General Opponent 2-deck semis
Lunch Break
Saturday PM: General Opponent 2-deck semis (continued)
Throughout Saturday Joe Bisz’ ARDA / Casual play
Sunday AM: General Opponent finals (Top 4 play again round robin if there were 16+ players in semis)
Joe Bisz’ ARDA; Dark ARDA; Casual play/Dreamcard Deck Expo (show off your deck made with fan-generated Dreamcard expansions)
Sunday PM: Ring Award ceremony for tournament; Casual play/ Dreamcard Deck Expo