godswearhats

Thanks to everyone who has responded. In response to the potential candidates, we will be separating the ballot into two separate ones: one for the chairman (who has a greater time commitment to make) and one for the advisor and running each separately.

Yeah, I wrote the list with the intention of playing it at Masters. I had a family emergency and Kremmet stepped in to take my place at the very last moment.

Hey, I won with that list even when I didn't cheat :-P

Happy to announce that Rose City Wrath will be a US Masters qualifier for the PNW region also!

Worth noting that this event is a qualifier for the US Masters PNW Region also.

In summer we'll be hosting the King of Cascadia event ... more info as we get closer to the date.

I haven't read this (now very large thread) but just wanted to make sure everyone knew this tournament is a US Masters Qualifier for the PNW region. Thanks, ~gwh

I had zero losses with that list. I rest my case.

Pansy.

I wouldn't go THAT far :-) I think we as region demonstrated that we enjoy competing in 100% of the hobby and not just the gaming aspects.

I'm going. Bringing my Wood Elves out for the first time in 6 months. This year's tournament scene will be all Wood Elves for me (and many thanks to Ricky for lending me his Skaven for the second half of last year).

With the 2015 Masters just finished, I'm giving out a last call for any volunteers for this position. It's worth noting that both the current chairman (me) and the current adviser will not be running again, so there's lots of opportunity to step up and get involved. Thanks, ~gwh

The final team, and their standings at the event: Dale Johnson, High Elves, 16 (3rd Sports) Peter Davis, Lizardmen, 30 Chris Powell, Chaos Dwarfs, 32 Patrick Carolan, Warriors, 40 Anthony Greenman, Ogres, 52 Matt Beasley, Daemons, 58 Jordan Ross, Warriors, 60 Riley Nadeau, Skaven, 67 (not his list) Ryan Munsell, Lizardmen, 75 Ricky Fischer, Night Goblins, 76 (Best Painted) Overall, the region took 5th place out of 8, and the highest placed of the new regions formed this year. Congrats to the guys!

Lists for our region can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_KkGwSqruun6-umEd_iDp4Wol6r007bOGBLCbwQRMsk/edit?usp=docslist_api

There were some Oregonians who qualified, but were unable to make it. There are more qualifiers in 2015 and a better rankings system, so I'm hoping for a more balanced field across the region! Go #TeamPNW!

One reason to be wary of running End Times magic: it slows the game down considerably, especially if there's a Loremaster of Hoeth or sig. spell Slann. In the few games I've seen / played, the magic phase can easily last half an hour, which makes it very hard to get the game finished in the allotted time.

By GottaCon I think you mean Wet Coast (GottaCon wasn't a qualifier), but yes that's definitely one effect I wanted to avoid. Every tournament throughout the season now holds value from a Masters perspective, which should hopefully help drive up attendance across the board.

All, After our first Masters qualifier season which got started a little late, I'm proud to announce the new system for qualifying for 2015. Summary Any tournament in the region counts towards rankings Rankings points = 2 best results + 3rd result / 2 + 4th / 4 and so on 2015 season ends November 30th, 2016 qualifiers start Dec 1st 1 day tournaments count for 60% of 2 day (same as 2014) Exponential rankings points Detail There were a few problems with the qualifiers that we wanted to make sure were addressed with a new system: Attendance: Having a high number of attendees at a single event could potentially incentivize the winners of that tournament to avoid attending tournaments later in the season. Also, the disparity between a 50 person and a 40 person tournament was quite large, which made it harder for people to qualify later. This has been addressed by making the formula treat anything of approximately 32 attendees and greater be much closer in points, with a steep drop off once the attendance drops below about 20. Traveling in the region: In 2014, BC had more GTs than the rest of the region put together. When we first put the circuit together, we weren't sure if Canadians were allowed to play in the Masters, and we wanted to try to balance the chances to attend across multiple regions. Fortunately, interest in the Masters combined with a general rise in interest in the hobby across the region have led to a rise in tournaments in each state/province. As of time of writing, there will be between 12 and 14 GTs spread reasonably evenly across the region, not counting any of the 1-day tournaments that may be organized. Traveling is encouraged, because getting a better result can always improve your ranking, but it is not 100% necessary. This allows the dedicated tournament players to maximize their chances of qualifying, while not prohibiting those with young families, tight budgets etc. from having their shot at glory. Single tournament FTW!: It's pretty clear that winning a single tournament is a combination of skill and luck on the day. We wanted to ensure we were sending the players who had consistently demonstrated a consistent ability to place highly in multiple tournaments. However, we didn't want to force a system whereby you had to attend ALL of the tournaments in order to be in with a chance. This system rewards players who attend a lot of tournaments and place highly (because we want our region to win, right?) but also allows for players who can only attend a smaller number of tournaments to potentially qualify, assuming they place well in at least two of those. Elitism: We didn't want to have to choose to have some tournaments be qualifiers and some not. However, last year there was only one GT in Oregon and we didn't want to stack things unfairly in favor of BC (who had five!). Thankfully, through the work of the community we should have at least four GTs in every state, which should be enough to allow the best players in the region to rise to the top. King of Cascadia: While it sounded great on paper to have a final qualifier that decided the last two spots in the Masters roster, people have real lives and not everyone can commit to coming for a certain two days in a given year just to play toy soldiers. As a result, all the Masters spots will instead be decided based on rankings, with the top 10 players as of November 30th getting the spots, and then working down the rankings should any player not be able to make it to the Masters. Why November 30th? This helps people book travel and test lists, knowing that they will be attending roughly 3 months in advance. December is also not usually a time for tournaments, but if anyone ends up organizing one, it will still count (just for the 2016 season). So this is all fine and good, but does it work? Well, I went back in time and took all the tournament results I could find for 2014, including those that were not part of the Masters circuit, and created a spreadsheet showing what the rankings would have been like if we had been using this system. Theoretical 2014 NW Masters Rankings Actual Rankings (for comparison) As you can see, the top of the pack looks pretty similar to this year. However, the folks who attended mostly 1-day tournaments (e.g. Riley Nadeau) drop off in the rankings, whereas those who attended and placed well at both 2-day and 1-day tournaments (e.g. Anthony Greenman) went up. You can also see that the rankings would be dominated by Canadians due to their much higher proportion of GTs - so this year's ranking system was probably a good stop-gap measure while we worked on drumming up more tournaments across the region. Thanks again to Tom Weber for helping with the math for everything. Please feel free to leave questions or comments if you've got 'em. Aidan & Dale

Just a heads up - I've extended the list deadline to Dec 31st, given the new release of Swedish comp (v1.15.0). Also, if you are planning on going but haven't bought your ticket, please do so ASAP so I can figure out how many tables will be needed on the day :-)

I'll be there setting things up I think. The place is open until midnight the night before, so anyone traveling can drop in and see the venue, meet other nerds, grab a beer etc.

Pretty much every hotel and motel in Bellevue is good, because so many people come to visit Microsoft. If you can convince someone else to come with you, hotel costs shouldn't be too bad. If you don't find anyone else, let me know.

I'm trying to iron out the lunchtime snafus that we had for SPDM, so hopefully we'll be able to pre-order lunch and just have it ready to go exactly at break time.

Good question! I guess I shoulda answered that one. You vote on any referendum that is submitted to the committee. So for example, this year I voted on things like comp, number of games in the event, whether hills should block line of sight, whether paint points should be included in national champion award, and so forth. You also are responsible for team selection, which must be based on the results of at least 4 tournaments in the region. So this year I set up the ranking system that we are using, and I'm currently working on revising it for next year (because we have a lot more events in the region next year!). The adviser does literally that - gives advice on the same topics. Hope that helps! ~gwh

All, I'm currently the regional representative for the Pacific Northwest at the US Masters. This is a post that is held for two years, and I got the job for two reasons: I asked for it, and I co-host a podcast :-) At the time, the Masters was still fairly nascent, so an appointment was necessary. This year will likely see the enactment of a charter for the Masters. Part of that charter includes the election of regional representatives and their adviser (that role is currently held by Dale Johnson of Chumphammer fame). So, I'd like to take nominations for regional representative for the PNW, for the years 2016-2017. Why now? Because that person will be able to 'shadow' during the 2015 year and learn everything that needs to be learned in order to perform the role. Once I have all the nominations, I will post up all the candidates along with their hobby resumes. Anyone who has participated in a 2014 Masters event will be eligible to vote. This restriction is in place so that the people who are electing the representative have proven that they have a vested interest in making a good choice, and that they are active in the tournament scene in the PNW. If you are interested in representing the region, please let me know via PM (you can also post in the thread, but I can use PM to keep track more easily). Nominations will close at the end of the year. The person who receives the highest number of votes will become the representative, with the second highest becoming the adviser. Please only nominate yourself, so that I know that all nominees are willing to take on the role should they win. Thanks, Aidan

Dang, I'm sorry there was confusion about that :-( King of Cascadia has an open event that is the last chance qualifier for Masters for the final two spots. The good news is that the KoC event is pretty cheap ($35) so hopefully people will be able to attend both.