The next weekend of our organized play season is here! Clasghround: Columbus will be taking place at Origins Game Fair on June 22-23. The whole weekend will be filled with events including draft, sealed, and constructed events. Alpha Clash will also have a large booth at the event for demos, product sales, and more from Thursday-Sunday.
We’ve known about this event for a long time and wanted to announce it much sooner, but finalizing contracts and getting confirmations back took far too long. We did not feel comfortable making the official announcement for the event without getting those guarantees first.
The main event of the weekend, Clashground: Columbus, offers competitive players $10k in prizing ($5k Cash & $5k product). There will also be promo cards, playmats, and invites on the line for top players to acquire. This tournament will happen over two days, with Day 1 (Saturday June 22) completing all Swiss round play, and the top-16 players advancing to Day 2 (Sunday June 23) to fight it out for the title. With the launch of our next set (Unrivaled) on May 31, we can’t wait to see what new decks and builds show up in Columbus for this event. *Note - a previous release incorrectly showed this event as a 3-day tournament, rather than a 2-day tournament.
After much feedback following Clashground events in Las Vegas and Manila, combined with the observations of our own team, there will be a few small changes to the format of how Clashground: Columbus will operate. We wanted to tell you what the changes are, and why we are making them. We are listening and will continue to adjust over time as it is necessary. The goal and intent of these changes is to create a better overall player experience, have shorter day(s) of play, keep more players engaged, eliminate intentional draws, make all games matter more, and have more games played overall.
The first change – no draws. All games will have a winner and loser. While only 2 total games went to time and took a draw through the first 4 rounds combined in Las Vegas, 11 games took draws in the final 2 rounds. We want these games to be played and we want them to be consequential.
The second change – 55 minute Swiss rounds. A 5 minute increase in time allows players more opportunity to finish their games within the allotted time and determine a winner. During Swiss play, players will get the full 55 minutes, and then 5 additional turns to determine a winner before a tiebreaker would determine a winner instead.
The third change – 2-day tournament. We want players to be able to enjoy the convention, make it to dinner, see friends, and more when gameplay ends for the day. Grinding through one long tournament day is not easy and doesn’t create the best player experience. Venue time constraints at the last venue exacerbated the issues, but this is intended to curtail that.
The fourth change – untimed time games in the final cut bracket. Due to the aforementioned time restraints at the previous event, the final bracket games had a time limit. With moving to 2 days in Columbus, we can now allow games to play out to completion and not be rushed.
Now…back to the rest of the weekend. Didn’t make the final bracket in the Clashground main event? No worries! This thrilling weekend is packed full with an array of fun side events and on-demand competitions, including an Awakening tournament on Sunday. This second chance, T1 tournament, will offer $1k in prizing (product), playmats, and invites to the top players.
Get ready for a thrilling weekend of Clashing! Unrivaled cards have now been added to our deck builder website - head there to start brewing your best decks for Columbus.
TICKETING INFORMATION
To gain access to Origins Game Fair, you will need an event badge . There are so many exciting things to see and do all throughout the convention from June 19-23.
For more information and to register for the Clashground or Awakening tournaments, please visit The Realm Games
