Why You Should Go To Tournaments

Are you a bad enough dude to save the Shadeglass?

Over my time travelling around the country for Shadespire events and tournaments, the issue of attendance has always been on my mind. While participation numbers have increased since the game released (especially with the addition of the Organised Play kits), they’re still not as big as I’d like as I feel the community can pull bigger turnouts. Now, of course, stuff like work and other life issues gets in the way but I’ve spoken to a lot of people who come to tournaments as well as those on the fence and I think I’ve come to a good conclusion to draw more people in.

Supports Your Local Gaming Store

If you’re lucky enough to have a nearby store to play in, you should totally pop down to any events the run. You support it just by turning up as more numbers attracts more people. It also encourages your store to run more events if they get consistent turnouts, which also means more prizes for you.

You’ll Have Fun

A lot of people I speak to get worried about turning up to store tournaments. Some of the main reasons are that they don’t feel good enough, people will be hyper competitive or are worried that they’ll get face-stomped. While those could happen, the Shadespire community is amazing and you’re more than likely to have a great time whether you win or lose and you’ll probably make some great new friends along the way too.

It’ll Improve Your Game

Playing at store tournaments pits you up against brand new opponents in a competitive environment. It forces you to put your skills to the test and helps expose any flaws in how you play. You can learn a lot from playing your friends but it doesn’t compare to playing strangers in tournaments when you have a fixed timelimit on rounds. Win or lose, you’ll learn a lot about what you need to do to improve and what flaws you have with your playstyle. One of the main reasons I got so good was because I’ve travelled around the country playing in tournaments at stores I’ve never been to.

You Face New People

Overlapping a bit with the previous points, playing new people is very beneficial. For example, people in the rest of the country play very differently to players down in London and it took me a while to adapt to that. You get to see more ways as to how people approach the games and shows you combos/playstyles that you may not have thought of/seen.

PRIZES!!!

You get fancy loot! While not the most important point, it’s still nice to get something for your efforts. From promo cards to acrylic tokens and even the fabled Shadeglass trophy, there’s a lot you can earn at store tournaments. While not a necessity, it’s always nice to have fancy free stuff to play with and be the envy of all your friends. You could even end up like me and have around 150 acrylic tokens and 7 Shadeglass trophies 🙃

All-in-all I hope I managed to convince those on the fence about coming to events to make the leap into going. Obviously if there are no nearby store tournaments, you can always plan further ahead and attend a Grand Clash. The same points apply, it will just seem a little more intimidating at first but there’s nothing to fear. The most important thing is that you’ll have fun and it’s not the worst way to spend a weekend day doing, whether at a store tournament or a Grand Clash. You’ll learn a lot and have a great time doing it. So take the big step into the tournament scene if you can, you’ll have a blast. You may even roll more crits.