The Shimmering Skies set championships started this weekend at local game stores. Every Saturday and Sunday in October, participating LGS will host tournaments for Lorcana players with a chance to win Encanto playmats and promotional cards featuring Encanto's Mirabel. This is the third round of set champions, but unlike the events for Into the Inklands and Ursula's Return, the hype for the championships seems to be much lower than usual.
“Hype” is a fairly subjective thing to measure, and the evidence I have to support this claim is, of course, anecdotal. If you're at all involved with the Lorcana community online, be it Discord, Twitter, or Facebook, you've probably seen the lower attendance numbers as well. I live in Southern California where there are dozens of stores to choose from and I'm used to seeing pre-registrations at Melee fill up immediately. This time there are still seats available at most of the events around me, including the ones happening this weekend.
There is a big difference between this championship set and the previous one. Starting with Shimmering Skies, the top eight players of the champion set will win a promo card, not just the top four. This change is generally seen as a positive for Lorcana, and something I've been advocating for since the beginning, but it seems that doubling the amount of prize cards available has decreased overall interest in the set's champions this season.
The great thing about doubling the prize pool is that twice as many people will win one. Unfortunately, the basic principles of supply and demand also apply. If there are twice as many cards to take, the value of that card should be halved. The set champion Ursula from the last set is around $85, so we can expect the market for Mirabel to settle somewhere around $40-50.
Market value isn't everything, of course. As someone who collects cards and loves to compete, I'd be there even if the prize was a bulk Legendary and a firm handshake. But the expected value of any competition is a big factor for most people when deciding whether or not to commit their time to an event, which can include weeks of training before giving up an entire Saturday.
Others have suggested additional factors that could impact interest in the set champions this season. Some believe Mirabel isn't a popular enough character to drive demand, and I've seen some (unfair) criticism of the art. Those might be factors for some, but the increase in premiums is generally what lowers interest here.
That's a tough sell for a lot of people, especially when you consider that entry fees range from $20 to $30. Should I give up an entire Saturday and $30 for a shot at a $40 card? For most people, the answer is probably no. We don't yet know how much Mirabel will be worth, and if enough people plan to skip the events and buy the card later, they could be in for a rude awakening when demand pushes the price up more than expected. What I really hope is that a low turnout will cause game stores to re-evaluate how they host set championships going forward.
If the expected value is too low, it is up to the stores to increase the prizes to drive players to the event. It's not something stores really had to worry about in the past. The EV on Stitch, Rockstar on the In the Inklands set champion was so high that stores didn't have to supplement winners with extra packs or store credit.
But if spending the time and money to play for Mirabel isn't worth it to people, the stores will have to offer an extra prize to make it worth it, which, given that they're provided with promotions and playmats. free, seems like a reasonable cost of doing business.
There is always the fear that the wrong lessons will be learned from a situation like this. Lower attendance may signal to some shops that players are losing interest in Lorcana. But you only have to look at the participation in the Disney Lorcana Challenges, which consistently sell thousands of tickets in seconds, to realize that this is not the case.
There is a balance to be found. I think Ravensburger correctly identified that the first four awards were not healthy for the game and the community as they created resentment between different groups of players. When promotions were worth hundreds, super-competitive players were incentivized to travel far and wide and collect as many as possible, which left many casual players feeling unfairly shortchanged, especially if the people who won weren't regular locals at their home shop. .
Top 8 prizes are a positive change for set champions, but now the pendulum has swung too far back and the expected value has dropped too much to make the competition worthwhile. Stores will need to evaluate how to better incentivize players, rather than just relying on promo cards to do it for them. This is an interesting transition period for the set championship model, and going forward I expect to see a lot of local game stores adapt their events or risk losing players to stores that do.
