Grand Tournament Announcement

Hello, and welcome to a very important Atomic Mass Transmission!

In today’s article, we are going to be taking a look at the next evolution of global competitive tournament play for Star Wars™: Legion, Star Wars: Armada, Star Wars: X-Wing, Star Wars: Shatterpoint, and Marvel: Crisis Protocol, as well as how this next step forward will bring more convention events to our communities around the world.

For the last two years, a number of players from around the world have gathered at AdeptiCon to compete in the culmination of the Worlds Tournament circuit. While this event has always proven to be an exciting moment for those lucky few players who qualify, it was becoming clear that the format was constricting, rather than expanding, the opportunities for the growing player base around the globe to engage in high-level competitive play.

The intensive amount of resources required to effectively run and expand the Worlds circuit year after year was immense. It accounted for the vast majority of our global Organized Play budget. Additionally, to preserve and promote its competitive integrity required extremely high levels of oversight and event requirements. This by its very nature meant that the number of regions capable of running a Regional tournament were limited.

We consistently saw that player communities, especially in developing areas or those areas with simply a lower overall population, were being excluded from the chance to engage in what the Worlds Tournament circuit offered. It was for this reason that last year we added the possibility for players to qualify for Worlds at the local store level. While this system did increase the number of players who were able to attend the 2024 Worlds tournaments, ultimately it still fell short of providing the higher-level tournament experience that we knew was an important part of our games’ overall ecosystem.

Countries which had the luxury of being able to host a Regionals saw the benefits not just within the segment of player community that actively pursued tournament play as a part of their player experience, but within the whole of the community as well. The engagement in local store or club play was higher, the engagement in hobby and painting was higher, the excitement and anticipation around the games was higher. In the end, just like how a plant cannot thrive without water, fertile soil, and sunlight, the game communities that lacked access to the complete player experience also struggled to thrive compared to those that did.

Equipped with this understanding, we began really looking at the Worlds Tournament circuit and how it was working to achieve our core goal of growing and supporting these games across the world. After significant amount of discussion both internally and with our global Asmodee partners who service their local communities, our analysis led us to see that the resources being expended on Worlds were creating an exclusionary environment rather than an inclusionary one. The cost of sending one player to Worlds was nearly equal to the cost of providing event support to a stand alone 32-person convention event. While the aspiration of winning Worlds certainly had value, the reality of even providing that aspiration came at the expense of the opportunity for thousands of players to experience the excitement of convention-level competition.

The conclusion for us was clear. To provide support that allowed all regions and communities a core component of game growth, we needed to enact a paradigm shift in how we were supporting high-level play. Working closely with Asmodee’s Global Organized Play team we laid out a new strategy, one that would better utilize our valuable resources and provide more opportunities to all, while maintaining what we saw as the most valuable part of the Worlds Tournament system: The player experience found at Regional-level events.

It is with great excitement that today we announce the arrival of AMG Grand Tournaments.

Grand Tournaments represent the top level of competitive organized play. They provide those players who wish the opportunity to test their skills against a wide swathe of other players from their and other regions who wish to travel the circuit. The winner of each Grand Tournament is marked as a player of exceptional skill, having overcome a diverse field of opponents.

Unlike Worlds, however, each Grand Tournament stands as its own unique experience. By doing so, this allows us to greatly increase the number of Grand Tournaments that can be held over the course of the season year. And, most importantly, the standalone nature of Grand Tournaments means that we can dynamically adjust the requirements for a region to be able to host one consistent with the reality of the community in that region. This means that regions with smaller overall populations or more limited resources are no longer excluded from being able to host their own exciting high-level event.

Additionally, the ability to increase the number of events we can support means that larger regions which might have only been able to hold a single Regionals event in a year now have the opportunity to potentially hold multiple Grand Tournaments. This means that regions like Australia or the U.K. can better service their communities geographically, opening the opportunity for players to engage in these events who might have otherwise found themselves unable to previously due to conflicts with timing or travel costs.

While each Grand Tournament will provide the same baseline experience no matter where in the world it is held, we are also excited for the potential of this system to allow the growth and expansion of convention-level play in each region. AMG will be working in partnership with Asmodee Global OP and our various regional partners to cultivate this program, being able to better focus on the unique needs of each event in a way that brings maximum value to the community and players associated with it.

The launch of the Grand Tournament Program will begin this June. Event Organizers who are interested in applying for a Grand Tournament can find more information on the AMG website here: atomicmassgames.com/grand-tournaments.

Until next time!