Blog

Gwon

Whoa, it’s my turn already?  Things sure do move fast around here.  For those of you that don’t know who I am, my name is Michael Girard and I am the Volunteer and Community Manager here at Cryptozoic Entertainment.   That sentence is probably a run-on and “the WB” will lecture me on proper grammar, but that is what is so good about blogs, they don’t go through editing.  This means that I can say pretty much what I want. /sinisterlaugh

For today’s Community blog entry, I’m going to talk about one of the best things to come out of Cryptozoic, the Champions of the Black Flame program.

For those of you that do not know what the Champion of the Black Flame program is, allow me to explain.  It is only the most awesome group of people in this industry, also in the world! One of the first things that Cryptozoic wanted to establish when we started out as a company is a rapport with the players and fans. The problem is that we can’t be in every store and play group throughout the world. The solution? Cultivate a rabid and dedicated volunteer program that would help each community feel the excitement that we wanted to bring to them. The Champions are in stores assisting stores with running Organized Play events (Battlegrounds, Holiday Celebrations, etc), they are out there demoing the games that Cryptozoic offers to potential new players, and they are providing valuable feedback that Cryptozoic can use to help make business decisions that are the best for the community.

They work hard and also reap the rewards for doing the work.  They have direct access to Cryptozoic via a private forum, receive periodic goody mailings (most recently Foil Death Wishes), receive priority sponsorship to events, and advanced Champion only spoilers that they can take back to their play groups to share. These are just some of the benefits that Champions receive for all that they do.

That is the nuts and bolts quick version of what the Champions of the Black Flame program is all about.  If you have any questions regarding becoming a Champion, you can drop me an email at mike.girard@cryptozoic.com or if you feel you are ready to take the next step, you can find more information here.

And now for a Public Service Announcement – One of the big steps that you need to take, in order to receive proper information and rewards about your tournament performance, is to link your CZE ID number to your wowtcg.com account. If you do not do this, you are literally just a number. We won’t know who you are and thus, can’t send you stuff. And let’s be serious, we all know that you want stuff, cool stuff, you know…reward type stuff! Linking your CZE ID number to your wowtcg.com account takes less than 5 minutes. In order to find out what you need to do, please visit this page. Trust me, take the short amount of time and link your account, it will probably be the best thing you do as a tournament player this year.

And now it's my turn. I'm William Brinkman, and I'm managing the online content for WoWTCG.com. From this blog to tournament Event Coverage, I'm the guy flying around the world to write about this game that we all play. That's when I'm not spending time helping our R&D team test new board games we're developing for 2011. Tough life, eh? As I'm usually behind the camera or chasing down the photographer at our events, there are no pictures of me. So, here is a picture of Blake Griffin, power forward for the Los Angeles Clippers and the physical manifestation of 'hope' for the most beleaguered franchise in sports history.

Maybe I'll take a picture at Darkmoon Faire Orlando, coming up in a little over a week.

I'll be bringing you stories from Darkmoon Faires around the world, share some of what we're doing from the content side of things, and put a spotlight on some of the efforts from you, the community.

The guys at A Question of Gluttony have a podcast, and they had a Q&A sesh (that's shorthand slang for 'session') with Alex Charsky, Patrick Sullivan, and Ben Cichoski. Cryptozoic talks about Alexstrasza coming to Orlando, the Costume Contests, the future of Organized Play, and gives other insights into the future of the World of Warcraft TCG.

On the international community scene, our friends at Mana Collectibles Card Games Club in St. Petersburg, Russia held a city championship a while back. With each release, it seems like we're adding another country to our list of places where people participate in Organized Play. So, not only is the game growing, but the community is showing continued growth on a global scale. Even if we all have different native languages, we all speak Warcraft. They had prizes, a trophy, and even popped some bubbly in celebration. They're a classy group; they have that old world charm. Here's a pic of them, sans champagne flutes.

I'm going back to my jetsetting lifestyle for now, so I'll leave you with that. I need to learn how one yells "Leeroy Jenkins!" in Russian. I hope you enjoy the weekly blogs from these three departments, and we'll see you again on Monday.