Announcing Vampire: The Masquerade Rivals Organized Play!
Today we are excited to share some news with the entire Vamily! While we know you are all waiting for the game to arrive in your hands, we are happy to announce our Organized Play plans with you today, including a little something to help pass the time until the game hits your shelf!
First off, our intention for Organized Play will be to provide a home for all of our Vamily members, regardless of your level of competitiveness or where you live. Speaking of levels of competition, here’s a little about the various ways to play that we intend to offer.
Casual Kits - For store-level and at-home organized play, be it game nights, small tournaments, or weekly leagues. These kits will closely resemble the OP Kit included in many of your Kickstarter pledges, with a variety of alt-art cards and playmats. We are excited to share with you the first of these kits featuring a new promo vampire, Freddy Usher!
Premium Kits or Store Championships - Community-level kits slated to begin in late 2021 or early 2022. Will include a wider variety of prizes, including things like acrylic tokens, deckboxes, or other swag that will improve your play experience and show off your fearsome reputation to future opponents! Intended for a larger tournament at a local game store or club.
Prince of the City events - Once large events are able to safely resume, we intend to introduce our top-level competitive event, the Prince of the City. Frequently held at large gaming conventions, these will be large, highly-competitive tournaments with very attractive prizes on the line. Fight your way to the top and be crowned Prince of the City, and you’ll have the opportunity to be immortalized in the game as a unique vampire in a future product. A Prince of the City event will also include a variety of side events to ensure that no matter your performance in the main tournament, you have a way to spend more time with the Vamily and enjoy playing Vampire.
BEYOND 2021
Looking beyond 2021 we have plans in the works for even more, including more Prince of City events, Prince of the City Qualifiers held regionally, charity events, and national or continental championships that we aren’t quite ready to share details on yet, so stay tuned!
SEASON 1: SAN FRANCISCO
Vampire OP will be organized into seasons, beginning with Season 1: San Francisco. Stretching from the physical release of the game until Q2 2022, Season 1 will include Prince of the City Indianapolis (GenCon), and Prince of the City Philadelphia (PAXU), assuming that those events are able to happen on a scale that allows such a tournament. We will be looking at places to expand these events to cover more of our audience as well! In addition to Prince of the City tournaments, Season 1: San Francisco will include 4 casual play kits, and 1 community-level premium kit.
Due to the ongoing global pandemic, it is always possible that these 2021 plans will change, but we will do our best to communicate any changes promptly to the community.
SEASON 0:PRE-RELEASE
You may have noticed that Season 1 starts when the game physically releases, so what are you supposed to do while you wait for that? To that end, we are thrilled to be able to offer the Season 0 pre-release league to the entire Vamily.
Beginning today, and running through Feb 22nd, we will be taking signups here for a free Tabletopia-based league which anyone is free to participate in. Round pairings will be posted each Tuesday on the Vampire Rivals community Discord (starting Feb 23rd), and you’ll have an entire week to schedule and play your game with your opponent and report the results to our online form. If you would like help learning the game before the league begins, we encourage you to sign up for a hosted demo during Renegade Con, Feb 12th-14th here.
The league will consist of 5 rounds of swiss pairings, and those players that go undefeated will receive a prize, while players with only one loss will receive a smaller prize. All players that play every round of the event will be rewarded with a special badge on the Vampire Community forums, and elevation to a special Role on the Vampire Community Discord. Games must be played with each player’s choice of the starter decks available in Tabletopia, and the game will be available for all to play on Tabletopia throughout the event. We will provide updates on standings each Vampire Wednesday, and plan to stream some of the top tables during the event to showcase the game being played competitively.
Although Rivals supports up to 4 players, this league will be played 1 versus 1 so as to simplify arranging your games remotely. In order to participate you will need to be registered on the Vampire Rivals community Discord, as that will be the primary way of communicating with your opponents. Full details can be found at the new Vampire Organized Play page, linked below.
In addition to the Season 0 League, as Kickstarter backers receive their pledges, many will be getting the Season 0 OP kit, with the new vampire Smoke. We hope that players with this kit will use it to run a small event with their game group or at their local store, whenever it is safe to do so in their area.
ORGANIZED PLAY SUPPORT MATERIALS
We want to provide everything a retailer or player needs to run a successful event, so to that end we’ve added a new section to the Vampire website, featuring important things like our beta Tournament Rules (coming soon), a blank PDF decklist, and a searchable card database (coming soon)!
WANT TO LEARN MORE?
We’re sure you have questions, or suggestions about how we’ll be handling certain things, so we encourage you to join us Saturday, Feb 13th, at 1PM PST for our stream with Sales & Marketing Program Director Matt Holland, as part of our Renegade Con virtual convention. He’ll be chatting about these plans and more.
We’ll always be looking for community feedback on our plans, and will incorporate that feedback, as well as data we collect from events, in our decision-making process when possible. We want to hear what the Vamily is thinking!
FAQS
ORGANIZED PLAY SEASON 1 QUESTIONS:
What are your plans for large events, both in the US and worldwide during the pandemic?
Due to the uncertainty surrounding the global pandemic, we don’t expect to host any Prince of the City events outside the United States in 2021, but definitely intend to include international audiences in the future. Casual and Store Championship kits will be available overseas though.
What happens if Gen Con or PAX Unplugged are canceled this year?
In the event that large events where we’d host a Prince of the City tournament are unable to occur in 2021, our plan will be to hold these events when conventions are able to happen. You won’t miss out on any particular prizes or opportunities.
I have a local store but they aren’t running events due to the pandemic. Can we still play and get prizes?
We encourage retailers or community groups to play in a way that is safe and efficient for them. A store can run a league where players meet at a time and place that is convenient and safe for them over the course of a week, or they can run a tournament in small 4 player pods where you just do round-robin within the pod. These kits also do not expire, so can be saved for use when it is safe in your area.
I have a local store that wants to run events in the future, what do they need to do to sign up?
Any retailer interested in participating in Vampire Rivals OP can start by ordering an OP kit through their distributor and listing their events on our event locator.
SEASON 0 LEAGUE QUESTIONS:
What happens if my opponent for the online league doesn’t show up?
If a player’s opponent does not show up or make an effort to arrange their match for a round, the offending player will be awarded a game loss for the round, and if they do not check in with the tournament organizer about the issue, will be dropped from the tournament. Their opponent will be awarded a win for the round.
How do I report results for the online league?
League results are reported through this Google Form. Both players should submit the result so we can compare them to verify accuracy.
KICKSTARTER QUESTIONS:
If I missed the Kickstarter, can I still order the Kickstarter exclusives?
All mechanically-unique gameplay exclusives will be available for purchase from Renegade Games. There will also be a limited number of other Kickstarter exclusive items available from our webstore.
I didn’t back the game on Kickstarter but I still want the season 0 kit. What do I do?
Remaining Season 0 kits will be available directly through Renegade after Kickstarter fulfillment.
GENERAL QUESTIONS:
What if I don’t have a store in my local area?
Casual and some other kits will be available to approved community groups or clubs in addition to retailers.
If I can’t attend a large event at GenCon or similar, will I miss out on any game play exclusive cards?
No. Mechanically-unique cards or components will not be offered at events like Prince of the City as we want to ensure that the whole playerbase has access to those in order to ensure a level playing field. Prince of the City WILL offer a variety of amazing cosmetic prizes!
I don’t live in the US, will there be any big events for me?
Our intention is to offer higher-level special events in a variety of locales, not just the United States. The number of these events will increase over time as the community grows and matures.
Will there be any card rotation?
There will always be a supported format that allows all cards that have been printed (Ancient) but there will be another format that features a rotating cast of expansions (Contemporary).
Will all Vampire OP take place in San Francisco?
While Season 1 takes place in San Francisco, future products will include additional cities and OP play will take place in other locations.
How do I become a tournament organizer?