Over the past 17 years, thousands of us have grown to love this crazy little game with plastic super heroes, flying across a paper map and teaming up in ways that we never thought were possible. We’ve been to tournaments, local events, and even the grandest stage in the land, but over time the game has started to lose its grasp on the community. How do we as a player base work to overcome such hurdles?

Rebuilding the game, we know and love, is a grossly undervalued part of what makes this experience so special. This is because it takes special people to go out of their way to push boundaries, take risks, and bring people together to help restore Heroclix to its former glory. Welcome one and all, to the Heroclix Community Spotlight.

 

Today on the Community Spotlight, I am going to shift focus (see what I did there?) from a specific player or venue to a more broadened approach on what I find has been one of the most successful community rebuilders over the past year. Whether garnishing the attendendance of a small handful of players or as many as the low 20’s duking it out, it is clear to see the impact. I of course, am talking about Win a Maps.

I will lead this article off by stating that this is not a paid promotion for WAM (Win a Map) events and I was not asked by Howard or anyone else at ROC to write about them. While this is going on their own website, I feel it's good to be transparent about the experience. So no paid promotion here. My aim to share my personal experiences with the WAM events we have ran at my local venue and also talk about the seemingly endless possibilities there can be with such a wide open event.

 

With that out of the way, WAMs are simple events geared towards groups of 4-12 players on average. The more the merrier as always but I find that stepping up to anything above 14 and you really start to get into the qualifier range. WAMs are incredibly affordable weighing in at the 50 dollar price point (plus shipping unless picking up the kit directly from lucky dice) that advertise a $10 entry fee and prizing for the top 4 participants thanks to the new tournament restructure after the Wizkids sponsorship took hold. This means the winner not only nets a map, but also a boxed convention exclusive figure, some dice, and new ROC action tokens! 2nd place earns a redial exclusive figure with the dice and tokens and 3-4 gain a brand new ID card along with dice and tokens of their very own.

 

At their core, WAM style events are meant to bring some extra fire to the smaller scale local event play. Their pricing is affordable, they price well for the number of players, and they do not have some of the same stipulations that the larger competitive events are bound too. These are the main points I am going to be emphasizing while talking about the success we have had rebuilding my local scene in Sioux Falls SD. I find that with increased flexibility, these events allow for newer and experienced players alike to enjoy the event without having to worry about dropping 25 bucks to potentially go 0-3 for nothing on the day.

 

When Howard announced that Wizkids was officially sponsoring ROC for prizing on their events, I was stoked. I had planned to attempt to run semi regular events in months previous but was not sure how I was going to appropriately bring a draw when the old WAM events only prized the winner and the Qualifier and Regional style events had a cost that required close to 30 players just to ensure you made your money back. My local venue was not interested in directly covering the costs of these events up front due to the dwindling amount of players we faced over the years, so I took it upon myself to try and bring the competitive edge back to Sioux Falls SD. Fast forward to the new kits being announced and I instantly knew how I was going to accomplish my goal.

 

After shipping, the kits come out to just shy of $60 dollars out of pocket after shipping, which honestly is a small price to pay considering all of the product you receive inside. A quarterly ROC prize map, LE Figures, ID cards, and some dice and tokens, it certainly brings something to the table for the new blood at my venue. I planned to run these events every month if able, so I decided to slash the pricing down from $10 per person to $5 per person. While the does mean that I eat a small portion of the cost every month, I find it is worth it to keep everyone engaged and continuously coming back to the venue every Friday evening.

 

While I absolutely love the prizing, my favorite part of WAM events is the formatting. Qualifier, Regional, and WKO events all require you to run 300 Modern or 2 booster sealed. I am a competitive player at heart and will always be ready to gear up for 300 Modern, but I understand that is not the case for everyone. WAM events allow you to run whichever format your heart desires, and believe me, the heart has desired quite a bit!  

 

Here is a list of just a few of the formats we have ran. Some are a bit more complicated than others.

 

  1. 300 Modern - Self explanatory and I figured I could start it off simple.

  2. 300 Modern figures only - Otherwise known as 300 Modern Limited

  3. 400 Modern, Only figures 75 points or below, all figures must have a 0 printed range and cannot make range attacks during the game.

  4. 500 Golden King of the Hill - 2 actions per turn, 20 minute rounds. The hill is the middle 4 squares on the map. It gets quite a bit more complicated from there, but everyone had a great time!

  5. 400 Commander - Commander had to be within 150-250 points and every other figure had to be below 50 points. If the commander gets KOd, you lose

  6. 300 Pauper - Commons and Uncommon elements only.

  7. We run a lot of “Figures Only” just to make sure everyone is on more of an even playing field.

 

We have ran a WAM every month since November (except the month of States because it gets to be a lot) and we all have a great time! I personally judge and play the bye round which excludes myself from earning any prizing. I do this simply so there is no conflict of interest and I am available to answer questions as needed. It also means I can make some incredibly broken teams without having to worry since my opponents always get a half build win anyways.

 

The last slight change we make is we format the prizing structure just a little differently. While I love that top 4 now gives prizing, since we run these events so frequently, I try and make it so everyone is feeling included. I personally prize the top 5 instead to add a little extra zest to the event. The winner gets to choose between the prize map and the LE and then it snakes down from there. I find that for the $5 entry, a map or a boxed LE is more than enough to make up for the entry fee.

 

We continuously try and build up our weekly play group and playtest and theorycraft for these events as if they were a large tournament. The younger guys that attend love it because it gives them an excuse to try out new builds and play their best, and the older more experienced players get to play fun teams that we would otherwise not entertain in a larger event. Everything becomes balanced and we all have a great time!

 

I have also seen many other regions start to hold these WAM style events more regularly which I find excellent. I highly encourage everyone who runs a venue to speak to the venue owner about holding these events and trying to make them as regular as possible. You can feel free to adjust them to any form you see fit. Make sure you change up the play formats too! People really enjoy the fresh air that comes with a new and exciting format.  

 

I encourage you to think of some new game modes to try in the WAM events. Do you have some ideas already? If so please feel free to send them to me on Facebook (Lucas Van Holland) or reach out to me in any other way you see fit! WAM events can be incredibly rewarding for very little effort and I think they have become one of the major players that has helped rebuild local scenes and also starting to bridge the gap between complete casual and competitive Heroclix.

 

What do you think? What should I write about next? Please feel free to reach out to me if you have an interesting community story to share! Do you think WAM events are great or do you have a different opinion? LET ME KNOW!

 

Win a Map kits can be purchased at this link! - https://roc.ionsuite.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=62_61&product_id=10

 

Until next time, have a great week, and don’t you dare roll a crit miss!