Hey everyone! We had another 393 players register for Grand Prix Richmond over the past 24 hours, bringing our total number of registered players to 2901! Because of the rate of preregistration, and because we want to make Grand Prix Richmond as awesome as possible, I have many important announcements to make.
We are capping Grand Prix Richmond attendance at 5,000 players
We need to ensure that there is enough play space for everyone playing in the Grand Prix, and enough space for everyone playing in side events. On Friday, all events will take place in the main room. On Saturday, two flights of the Grand Prix and all side events will take place in the main room and one flight of the Grand Prix will take place in another room. On Sunday, all events will take place in the main room.
We are at 2,901 players right now, and we are registering close to 400 players a day with three days left to go. We think there is a very real possibility that Grand Prix Richmond will hit the 5,000 player limit before the doors open on-site Friday at noon. If you want to participate in the main event, I cannot suggest enough that you preregister as soon as possible.
If we preregister 5,000 players online, registration will be cut off entirely. We will not offer any on-site registration if 5,000 players preregister for this event by noon EST on Friday, 3/7. If we have fewer than 5,000 players preregistered by noon EST on Friday, 3/7, we will allocate a limited number of spots to on-site registration at the event. Please preregister.
A reminder from yesterday – due to attendance exceeding 2400 players, Grand Prix Richmond now has a prize pool of $54,000 and prizes pay down to 150th place! Also, the entire Top 8 qualifies for Pro Tour Journey into Nyx, as well as all players that finish X-2.
We are guaranteeing Registration Rewards!
I’m not going to lie to you – we did not expect the event to be this large when we started organizing Grand Prix Richmond months ago. However, it’s important to us that all players receive the registration rewards listed at gprichmond.com. So we are going to guarantee our Registration Rewards for all main event participants! Here’s how we will handle distributing them.
One Month StarCityGames.com Premium Voucher, Grand Prix Foil Batterskull, StarCityGames.com Deck Box: All players will be given these on-site at the time they check-in for the tournament.
Set-of-five commemorative tokens: All preregistered VIP players, plus the first 2750 players who preregistered for the event will receive the set-of-five commemorative-backed StarCitygames.com writer tokens. All remaining players will receive the same set-of-five StarCityGames.com writer tokens, but without the commemorative backing.
Eternal Witness Playmat: All preregistered VIP players, plus the first 3,600 players who preregister for the main event will receive Eternal Witness playmats on-site. However, Ultra Pro is unable to get us additional playmats in time, so all remaining Grand Prix Richmond main event participants will be shipped an Eternal Witness playmat, entirely at StarCityGames.com’s expense, in the weeks following the event.
We are tracking exactly the order that people registered in, so if you’ve already preregistered for the event, you are guaranteed a playmat on-site! If you are Player #3601, we will collect your mailing address on the preregistration page (we are enabling this option once we get this many players, and players #3601-#5000 will be shipped the Eternal Witness playmat at our cost post-event!
Just a reminder: You need to check-in at the event to receive Registration Rewards. You cannot preregister, not show up to Grand Prix Richmond, and have us mail you the playmat – sorry!
Also note that VIP registrations are going to be capped at a certain amount. If you want to register for the VIP package, please do so now! If we do not sell out of VIP registrations (and we probably will), we will be closing new registrations for VIP packages at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, 3/5.
Important Updates to Side Events
Free Friday Minimaster:
We originally advertised that signups for the free Minimaster side events would take place between 12 noon and 2 pm on Friday. We realize that due to the size of the event, we may not have all players processed/checked-in/registered by 2pm on Friday. So to set your mind at ease – if you are in line to check-in/register by 2pm on Friday, we will make sure that you get to play in a free Minimaster event, even if it takes a little while to work through the line(s).
Modern/Legacy Challenges:
Anyone who goes 4-0 in one of the two Legacy Challenges is guaranteed a Force of Will. Anyone who goes 4-0 in the Modern Challenge (Grand Prix Rebound Tournament) is guaranteed a Ravnica Dark Confidant. We should have enough Force of Wills and Dark Confidants to cover all players who go 4-0 in any of these events – but in the unlikely event the attendance in these events gets really crazy (1000+), we will mail you a Dark Confidant or Force of Will (again at our cost) post-event should we run out on-site. Guaranteed!
Time Spiral/Planar Chaos/Future Sight and Mirrodin/Darksteel/Fifth Dawn Sealed Deck:
These events are limited to 32 players each, and we have decided to allow players to preregister for both. Preregistration for both of these events will open up at 2pm EST on Wednesday, 3/5. I expect these both to sell out in minutes, so if you want to get into one of these events, be near your computer at 2pm EST tomorrow!
Modern Masters Booster Packs for Side Events:
Due to the massive turnout, there is a possibility we may run out of Modern Masters booster packs for side events at some point during Grand Prix Richmond. We’re bringing A LOT, but don’t have an infinite supply, so should we eventually run out, we will no longer be adding these to the prize pools of side events. Should this happen, we will announce that “no further events will have Modern Masters Booster Packs added on to their prize pool.”
Tournament Logistics
The VIP Lounge
Our VIP Lounge will be located in the main event hall. We will have a staff member at the VIP Lounge all weekend long, and they will inform players who are playing in the Grand Ballroom flight when their round is getting paired, so they can have plenty of time to make their way to the other event room.
Next Level Deckbuilding Seminar with Patrick “The Innovator” Chapin
This will be taking place in the main event room on Friday between 7pm and 9pm. There will be plenty of seating set aside for this seminar, with approximately 180 seats up front, additional seats on the rows of tables behind those 180 seats and standing room beyond that. In addition, the VIP Lounge will offer a great view of the Next Level Deckbuilding seminar, so VIP members will be able to view the seminar from the comfort of the VIP Lounge.
Security
Due to the expected attendance, we have significantly increased the amount of security personnel that will be on-hand.
Even more Play Space
In addition to the main room and the Grand Ballroom, we have also secured four additional rooms for Saturday. Three of the rooms can each seat 100 players, and the fourth room can seat 300 players. We will move specific side events to these additional rooms if extra space is needed. IMPORTANT NOTE: Registration for *ALL* side events will still take place in the main event room. If your side event ends is assigned to one of the overflow rooms, the judge(s) running that event will lead you to that room after sign-ups for that event have been completed..
Judging Staff
As of right now, we have 117 judges on-staff for Grand Prix Richmond. We have been adding more over the past few days, and will be continuing to add judges as we approach the event.
Currently, our staff includes:
2x Level 5 DCI Judges (Kevin Desprez and Jason Lemahieu)
4x Level 4 DCI Judges (Sean Catanese, Cristiana Dionisio, Chris Richter (Just added!) and Kim Warren (Just added!))
14x Level 3 DCI Judges
89x Level 2 DCI Judges
8x Level 1 DCI Judges
That is 250+ levels worth of DCI judges at this event (so far), and as stated – we are going to be adding even more judges over the next couple days (we are finalizing travel plans with some L3/L4 judges to add them last minute, so I don’t want to announce them until we are 100% confirmed!)
Pickup Orders
Just a reminder: The deadline for placing an order for pickup at the StarCityGames.com sales booth is at noon EST tomorrow (3/5)! Shipping is free, and we’ll have the cards (or supplies, or anything you want to order off our website) waiting at the booth for you to pick up all weekend long.
Again, we at StarCityGames.com want to thank everyone for helping us making Grand Prix Richmond as tremendous as it’s turning out to be! We are putting every resource we can into making sure this is a well-run, fun event, and we will continue to update each day around 2pm EST with new information about the Grand Prix!
As always, please ask any questions you may have in the comments field of this article, and I will do my best to answer them as soon as I am able!