I have a lot of important new information to discuss about Grand Prix Richmond! Before we get into that, let’s talk attendance.
When we left off Friday, we had 1784 players registered for Grand Prix Richmond. Here’s how the weekend shaped up:
Saturday at noon: 1982 players (+198)
Sunday at noon: 2179 (+187)
Monday at noon: 2509 (+330!)
We’ve passed the following milestones with four days left until doors open and five days until the tournament starts:
Largest Modern tournament of all time (2013 Grand Prix Detroit, 1459 players)
Largest Constructed Grand Prix/Magic tournament of all time (2010 Grand Prix Madrid, 2227 players)
The biggest thing I can say about this is “Thank you!” This Grand Prix has quickly grown past most people’s expectations of size, and it’s because of the amazing community support and buzz that you’ve brought to this event! Your response to Grand Prix Richmond has been amazing, and we want to do everything we can to make sure this tournament lives up to standards!
With this many players comes a bunch of positive changes for Grand Prix Richmond!
For the 2014 Grand Prix Season, Wizards changed prizes to scale upwards with attendance. Grand Prix Richmond will be the first Grand Prix to feature a $54,000 prize pool, and will pay down to 150th place!
The entire Top 8 of the Grand Prix qualifies for Pro Tour Journey into Nyx (Atlanta). In addition, any player that finishes with 39 or more match points and is not a Top 8 finishing player from each individual-format Grand Prix with an attendance of 1200 players or greater that awards invitations to Pro Tour Journey into Nyx. (Players meeting this criterion will not officially receive their invitations to Pro Tour Journey into Nyx until the Thursday prior to the Pro Tour.)
I know there has been a lot of concern about whether we will cap attendance for Grand Prix Richmond, or whether we can handle a tournament of this size. Let me discuss the ways we are meeting this challenge!
We’ve rented additional space at the Greater Richmond Convention Center! This will allow us to have plenty of seating for everyone playing in both the Grand Prix main event, and side events!
Friday: All events are in the main hall
Saturday: The Grand Prix will be split into three flights. Two flights plus side events will be in the main hall. One flight will be in the Grand Ballroom
Sunday: All events are in the main hall.
We currently have 110 judges confirmed on-staff for Grand Prix Richmond. We will continue to add experienced judges so that we have a good judge-to-player ratio at the time the event starts.
At this time, we have no plans to cap attendance for Grand Prix Richmond. We want everyone who wants to play in this even to be able to play, so we will continue to add staff and space as necessary if it looks like the attendance will grow even larger than both of these rooms combined can contain! (In that plan, we’d move side events to a third hall).
A lot of people have asked about the Grand Prix Promo Batterskull and Eternal Witness playmat. At this time, we have not run out of either. I encourage anyone who wants to assure getting an Eternal Witness playmat to preregister, since we will hold aside a playmat for you once you are preregistered for the event! I will continue to update about the Eternal Witness playmat and Batterskull Promo each day, so keep checking in for more news!
Thank you again to everyone for all the support you’ve given for Grand Prix Richmond! Please keep checking in each day around 1pm for my daily updates leading up to the Grand Prix. This daily blog is part of our effort to make Grand Prix Richmond as enjoyable as possible for all players, and I look forward to us throwing one heck of a tournament!