Skip to main content

Double Masters 2022 - a retrospective on our launch



It was a long road to get here but here we stand – the aftermath of the Mega-Launch Party held at EPIC Ipswich!
Honestly, It’s been nearly 3 days and I’m still living off the high from that night.

With predicted numbers in the low 30s, we smashed that number with over 43 people in attendance at the event that cost $99 per head. Oh boy was it worth it! For those that have unlikely forgotten it already or were unfortunate and couldn’t attend, here is a recap:

The Event

Set-up for the event was a bit of a shamble (admittedly my under-preparedness for the numbers in attendance). Tickets were given out to those who pre-booked each with a unique serial number that correlated to a raffle ticket entered into our pre-booked draw for an entire booster box!

Attendants signed in using eventlink and after having to familiarise myself with the draft setting on it on the fly, finally, draft pods were generated. Boosters were hurriedly distributed, no seriously, I was in such a rush I cut my finger open on a booster box in the process.
Drafting commenced with a lot of high-end pulls (INCLUDING AN IMPERIAL SEAL!).

Decks were assembled and cross pod combat ensued – 4 rounds of it. Why make it a late night and do 4 rounds? For starters the high numbers in attendance, secondly the owners increased prizes… ALOT and thirdly, a friendly L2 at the event pointed out that despite the lengthy night, it’d be unfair for some people to win every match and still not make the top prizes – Chris if you read this you have my undying gratitude for helping me realise this.

Prizes!

I wasn’t the only one blown away by the attendance of that launch party. The truly benevolent owners in the humble gratitude for the Magic the Gathering community increased the freaking prize pool by alot.

By cracking open the case at the end of the night, the prebook contest booster box was intended to be distributed from among that as part of the giveaways meaning each person in attendance would receive 2 additional booster packs. This was changed to have the box separate from the case meaning more boosters for everyone – moreover, instead of everyone receiving 3 booster packs from a case, they decided to round up and open another case to ensure everyone walked away with 4 Booster packs ontop of the 3 packs everyone drafted!

Their generosity didn’t cease there, instead of top 3 getting 3 additional booster packs each, the top 5 each got prizes!

1st place – 1 collector booster and two draft boosters

2nd & 3rd place – 3 draft boosters

4th & 5th place – 2 draft boosters

 

Promos were drawn at random using the same serial ticket numbers as WotC hadn’t supplied us with enough to cover everyone at the event.

The most surprising part of the night, Trevmeister, one of the owners of EPIC liked my suggestion of giving out a wooden spoon prize. My idea was to simply just print out and laminate a wooden spoon with the player’s name and the event on it, however, being the generous and enthusiastic individual he is decided to give them an empty collector box with a single collector booster in it. 

Hear this. Despite all the sales of collector boosters and draft boosters, the one pack he gave away contained a TEXTURED FOILED EMERAKUL AEONS TORN! For those who aren’t aware, that is (at the time of me writing this) a $300 card.

 

An Authors Gratitude

We (the staff at EPIC) received a lot of feedback back from that night and all that has reached my ears so far has been nothing but positive.

I wish I could take full responsibility for the night’s success, but am unable to do so. The launch party was very much the brainchild of the owners and their love of the community. It was done to celebrate and give back to this fandom and game we all love.

I myself would’ve struggled to have the venue set up in time had it not been for Jon, Gottie and Ky. You guys rock and I thank you. Chris, thank you again for helping me with the four rounds. To ‘Captain’ Pat, thank you for helping me get the event set up and filming the draw of the Social Media Prize.

Thank you, all of you, in this wonderful community and a huge congratulations to all for the great wins, prizes and pulls throughout what is a truly unforgettable night.

Your Friend and Ally,

Larry

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The website got a facelift

 It has been busy busy busy behind the scenes here at EPIC Ipswich over the past fortnight. Prep work for the Benevolent Owners shared vacation, juggling the change in the store's layout, new til systems, new television menus, and becoming increasingly popular. This isn't even factoring in the change in menu, or the upcoming events planned. We have been busy and you can trust I'll give you, loyal readers, a store update once we get time. In the meantime, our website has been updated by yours truly. When I first did the original website home page I had the essential elements, with a lot of my working hours, I've been making the website more streamlined and more friendly to our bandwidth. Please note, that the game pages are still to be updated to provide you more information about what we do here. In the mean time, anticipate big things on the horizon. I saw some streaming gear in the offices.... I suspect it will have something to do with videos on the social media end....

Team Cupcake and Why they run Bingo

Bingo has been a staple at EPIC Ipswich since it first opened, originally running 6 Games a week (3 in the morning and 3 at night during weeknights), now it sees over 100 people weekly for our Friday night Bingo and our end-of-month Speed Bingo, a late session after the normal Bingo held on the last Friday of each month. To the surprise of many, EPIC Ipswich merely provides the staff and venue for BINGO, it's actually organised by Shell's Team Cupcake, a not-for-profit organisation. But what is Team Cupcake and what is their mission? How did Team Cupcake come about? Team Cupcake Inc started out with a couple of friends and some family raising money to pay for a beloved friend's secondary cancer treatment. Along their journey, we discovered that there were many other people in Ipswich that need a little helping hand and sometimes just needed to know that someone was thinking of them and cared. And so Team Cupcake became incorporated so that they could help to ease the burden...

The Adventures of a D&D Penguin - a Kids D&D Game

Say what you like about the mind of a child, there is no denying the imagination we had as kids vastly changes as we all come into adulthood. For me it’s something I feel is a loss – I could spend hours in the backyard of my childhood home, swinging sticks like they were swords, lightsabers, magic wands or a wizard’s staff. Nowadays I spend time imagining social interactions in my head, playing out a scenario in my head on drives between places or as I make my morning coffee, comparably less cool than being a freaking wizard! The fact I still can recall a lot of those games of make-believe around my junior school playground speaks volumes about the impact imagination has on a developing brain. This is one of the reasons I am constantly dumbfounded when I DM (Dungeon Master) a game of  Dungeons and Dragons for kids and they do something truly amazing that ruminates in my mind and happily lives there rent-free weeks after it’s. This, dear reader, is the story of how my  Dungeon...