2017 - 2018

It's that time of year when the Roman God Janus encourages us to look back at the year we've just had and to look forward to the year ahead. Following this tradition, I shall be discussing what I have achieved over the past 12 months, and what I intend on doing over the next 12.

2017

I've had a quite a productive 12 months.

I committed to making one post a week on the blog, and while I didn't always manage that target date-wise I did reach the average of 52 posts. This was important to me, as there is little point in having a blog that you don't add content to. Personally, I prefer written content when I'm researching gaming views and advice, while the vogue at the moment is the production of YouTube videos. This blog is an attempt to produce the sort of content I enjoy. I've had a successful year with it, with people saying to me that they've enjoyed what they have read.

I started running more events, across more games systems. I also set up my own business page to centralise the events and make organising them easier. I wanted to get multiple regular events going, and so spent the summer experimenting with tournaments for several games, to see which had a player base available. Some were successes and some weren't but it's given me a good idea what to do heading forward. It's a shame to see some games lack a player-base, especially ones I enjoy. But it's good to get a friendly spirit of competition at an event.

I started a secondary job of working for Esdevium (now Asmodee UK). This has had me travelling to demo games and even had me Marshalling (Head Judging) the Star Wars LCG UK Nationals. It's giving me experience in both running larger tournaments, with higher rules enforcement, and also n demoing games. Learning to re-evaluate games through the eyes of someone who has never played before is an important skill set in gaming. It also allowed me to see what larger scale events are like behind the scenes.

I went to a Magic the Gathering Grand Prix. While I didn't play much there, it was nice to go to a big MTG event again. In smaller news, I did manage to win back-to-back Game Days for Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation. While I don't play Magic as much as I used to, it's good to see that I can still play to a reasonable standard. My current crop of decks aren't particularly up to scratch and could see some improvement.

While I've entered few actual tournaments myself, I feel like I haven't been taking the time to play games enough myself. This has improved a little towards the end of the year, but there are games I'd love to play that I still haven't had the chance to. Also, I have been playing the competitive games less so I could concentrate on the running of their events. This has lead to a feeling of not being on as the top of things as I could be. 40K has proved an exception to this, as 8th Edition caused a lot of buzz for the game.

2018

My plan for 2018 is more of the same; continuing to do the things I achieved, but improving upon them.


I want to continue posting here. I want to keep up the pace of posts so that my total at the end of the year is at least 52 posts again. More than that though, I want to improve the quality of what I'm posting. So I intend of experiment with different formats and ideas for content, while also trying to get better with the editing side of things. I have plenty of room to improve on here and hopefully will get plenty of feedback to help.

I'm going to get better with the local events I run. I've cut out the ones that weren't attracting players so I can focus my time and energy on the others. As the year goes on, I'll be attempting to grow the attendance while hopefully not losing the focus. The events need to cater to a range of players, and my worry is always inexperienced ones being put off. Finding the balance will be key to this goal.

I'm hoping to work more with Asmodee. It's a great opportunity to meet new people, try new games, travel and learn how to teach games. This year's Nationals is confirmed, and there are plenty of other dates coming up. The first ones are in February.

I'm going to play in my own events more. Previously, I would avoid playing or be the Bye. This has lead to me losing my edge. I got into a habit of playing less competitively because my results didn't matter. I can and should be playing better. Obviously, there are some events I can't play in as they require more attention on a judging.organising level like Store Championships. The only way I'll get better at those games though is to play them.

I'm also going to try and play in more events run by other people. This will give me experience in how others do things while playing more games myself. There are some games, like Yu-Gi-Oh that I haven't played in a long time that I want to play more. This will help with both playing more and improving my own events.



That's my look back/look forward. 2017 was a good year for me gaming-wise and 2018 has the potential to be even better.