G’day, Runners! Today is a special day, because not only is it Friday but we’re also coming at ya with another update from the labyrinthian depths of NISEI Plaza, right down in the warehouse space that Organised Play dwell in… so over to you, @icecoldjazz!
NISEI’s first Store Championship kits are now on sale! As with the 2019 Q1 Game Night Kit, anyone can purchase one; you don’t have to go to a retailer. Additionally, these do not need to be run specifically at a store. Although we anticipate a large majority of events still will be at stores (hence the familiar naming convention), an adventurous Tournament Organizer such as yourself can host a Store Championship at any accessible and appropriate venue. In each kit, you’ll find 35x alt-art Crowdfunding, 19x alt-art Embezzle, and 4 playmats featuring Kati Jones and one of the new Runners, Az. This includes three extra copies of each card for the Tournament Organizer to keep for themselves if they so choose.
Store Championships provide an exciting opportunity for local communities to come together in friendly competition – they are Casual-tier events, but offer much more prize support than a Game Night Kit, and if you have at least 8 players the winner (or highest-placing participant without one) receives a first-round bye to use at a NISEI Regional Championship.
Unlike a GNK, however, the acceptable usage for a Store Championship kit is more rigid – by purchasing one, you’re committing to running a Store Championship. Here’s how it works:
- Place an order for your kit before January 6th, 2019 at 11:59 PM GMT, when sales end.
- Schedule your Store Championship between February 9th and April 28th 2019.
- Share the details of your event with us as soon as it is scheduled – this will help us advertise your event on nullsignal.games. The preferred method to do this will be finalized soon and shared via email with all Tournament Organizers.
- Publicize your Store Championship – this could be via a Facebook event, an entry on alwaysberunning.net, a poster in your local game store, or all of the above and more. People can’t attend your event if they don’t know it’s happening!
- Run your event! You are encouraged to collect entry fees to cover the cost of the kit (but are not required to do so). $10 or equivalent is suggested. Make sure to also familiarize yourself with the Organized Play Policies (Store Championships are Casual-tier events, but must be run using the Standard Format), which can be found here alongside other tools to help you run a successful event.
- Report the results of your event to us. The specifics of this are being worked on and we’ll have it ready by the time SC season rolls around; clear instructions will be shipped with each kit.
To reiterate, you are required to run a Store Championship if you purchase a kit. Buying one to keep some/all prizes for yourself and sell any spares without organizing an event or intending to resell the entire kit undermines the spirit of these competitions and the legitimacy of others’ prizes. Excepting extenuating circumstances, if you do not run a Store Championship with your kit, you may find yourself unable to purchase future Store Championship kits, Regionals kits, and other non-GNK kits.
Sales will be limited to a single kit per store or per person; if for whatever reason you require more than one kit, please email the Organized Play team via projectnisei@gmail.com and we’ll work something out. We recommend working with other local TOs and game stores or other venues to coordinate an event for your area, and if your meta is large enough to support multiple Store Championships, to ensure that no two events are scheduled at the same time.
You can purchase the Store Championship Kit from this link with secure checkout through PayPal! These are initially priced at $80 US and ship for free worldwide. Once you click “continue” on PayPal’s site, your order will be placed, so please make sure your shipping address is correct. Please note that if you are outside of Australia, the European Union, or the United States, your shipment may be subject to customs fees or import duties – we have strived to eliminate most of these via our own shipping hubs around the world but we will be filling out customs paperwork honestly; please do not ask us to lie about the contents or price paid for them.
Once again, NISEI is a not-for-profit endeavour and nobody on our team makes money from sales of these kits. We have no shortage of bills to pay, including web hosting, artwork, merchant fees, and much more, to say nothing of the costs associated with actually producing these kits! As with the GNKs, Store Championship kits are sold on a pay-what-you-want model, with a minimum to ensure we aren’t losing money on them. If you wish to donate to our organization, paying a little more is the best way to do so. Every little bit counts!
All prize kits will be shipped out by January 25th 2019 at the latest – two weeks before the first events should be scheduled. You’ll receive an email confirmation when your order has shipped.
Back to you, RC!
Yay, thanks Austin – Store Champ season will soon be upon us! It is by far my favourite time of year, so many events around for me to attend – will this be the year I finally make it into a top cut? Probably not, but I’m damn well going to try.
So what does this mean? It means it’s time to start bugging your Professional Contacts (those people you know who run your local events, whether at a store, local club, or whatever) into buying a kit and hosting a Store Champ, and if they’re not Netrunners themselves maybe offer to help with the advertising of it… The more people they know want to attend, the more likely they are to run something. There’s two stores I can think of off the top of my head I’ll be sending this article to, so while I’m doing that remember to ALWAYS BE BUGGING (your local tournament organisers!)
