Ambassador Report - December 2001
Region: Ronara - West Texas
Ambassador: Matt Clouser
1.The state of gaming in my area:
RETAILER SCENE:
CCG SCENE:
STCCG: Still going steady despite a decline in playing during the holidays.
We had a real problem with the boxes of Holodeck Adventures our retailer got in last week - the rares in most of the packs opened up have are damaged. The cards had two prominent vertical indents along the length of the card - very visible from the front and the back, making them useless for both playing and collecting. As a result, sales are down - most players simply don't want to mess with returning the cards. The retailer isn't interested in sending back his boxes for new ones, so what I've done is left a form letter at the store addressed to CCG Customer Service to return any damaged cards. Hopefully, this will help.
Outside of the damaged rare fiasco, HA has been popular with the players. The NAL Holos, Dominion War Effort, Bajoran Resistance are the early favorites, and we'll probably have more after our next tournament on the 12th. There is a high level of interest in the Movie expansion - one player in particular can't WAIT to play Khan Noonian Singh.
SW/JK/YD: No activity - Decipher's recent loss of the SW license pretty much puts a steak into the heart of the gaming activity.
LOTR: Has given Magic players a real run for their money - I see it being played as much as Magic recently.
Magic: Still a strong game locally: most activity is casual play.
Pokemon: There is a small but loyal following at both retailers: mostly grade-school aged kids.
2.What I've done "For Love Of The Game" ....
TOURNAMENTS: One sanctioned tournament on December 1st - ran a little tight on players so I played to make it sanctioned. I managed to pull a win (barely!) with my Klingon Blood Oath/Honor Deck - I awarded the tournament foil to the second-place player.
TOURNAMENT DIRECTORS: Currently two: myself, and Jerry Jackson. Mike Harrison was our third director, but he moved out of town last week. He is looking VERY much forward to the Movie Expansion, and is making arrangements to come back here to host the first tournament after the Movie cards are released. Jerry Jackson has cut back on his TD duties for to focus on LOTR PC efforts. I still have one other TD prospect I'm working.
DEMOS: I run open play sessions, generally Saturday’s at 1 pm. Competition from LOTR has been tough, so not as much action as hoped. I ran demos for two players this month: one is particularly interested in the Ferengi affiliation, and one is a repeat player trying to get a handle on the Ferengi.
The most interesting - and unexpected - development was my 11-year old daughter Katie's interest in the game. She saw me building some demo decks and asked me to show her the game. I built her and several of her girlfriends some generic Warp Speed decks and they have played the finish off the cards over the holiday break! My 15 year old son Ben has played in several tournaments already - so my wife is the only one in my family that isn't laying a spaceline.
3. Upcoming activities:
Our informal HA Release session scheduled for December 21st was a bust, we got no product in until the 23rd. So we had several rounds of informal gaming and called it a night. Our next sanctioned tournament will be on January 12th.
Until next month!!
Matt Clouser
STCCG Ambassador, Ronara Region
San Angelo, Texas USA
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Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 22:02:10 EST
Subject: [Amb] December Report - San Angelo, Texas
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