Blog

Will Brinkman

Well hello there, I guess that William and I didn’t scare you off last week.  We will try harder this week. 

“It's an infinite creative universe to explore so why chase conservative options?” – Yahoo Serious.

Yahoo was definitely right about it being an infinite creative universe, so why not give back to the community in a creative way.  An event that allowed those players to give back to their community is right up the World of Warcraft TCG players’ alley. How about we hold a charitable event that can support those in need in each community?  That sounds like a great way to give back to the community.

Enter the Chase the Can event.  Well, it’s not really a tournament as much as it is a gathering or an event. Sure there is a tournament, but the emphasis is about coming together and doing something good for the betterment of mankind. There are promo cards and other rewards, but it’s about the charitable donations that are collected.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with the program, the Chase the Can event is a charity event that is run primarily by Champions of the Black Flame (dedicated stores that do not have a Champion in their area are also able to sign up for this event).  This event takes place during the holidays (back in Dec 2010 was the inaugural CZE event) and is designed to gather non-perishable food items for the local food bank, charity, church, etc. Each player brings 4 cans/items as an entry fee.  When one player beats another, they take one of the other player’s cans.  At the end of the event, each can is worth promos.  One of the cool extras is that each round a player is selected and a sticker is place on his can.  Each stickered can is worth double promos! Pins depicting the Chef Goblin were also given out as participation prizes. This event is run so players can come together, enjoy a nice non-competitive day of gaming and walk away feeling like they have given back, even if it’s just a little bit.

It doesn’t stop there; prizes were awarded for the most cans collected for an event. Our friends in Tucson, AZ came away with that title. Their player group donated a total of 580 cans!  They had 24 players that came prepared to give back on that day. As you can see, the plastic table was barely able to hold all of that non-perishable food.  For their effort, the local Champion, Joe Risacher and the store, Amazing Discoveries, each received a Mottled Drake and uncut sheet of Worldbreaker for them to display.  If you would like to know more about the group in Tucson, check out their Facebook page – Tucson WoW.

Honorable mentions go out to the Champions in Austin, TX and Portland, OR.  Both of those locations raked in over 470 cans each. The Canadians in Winnipeg had nearly 200 cans. The Philippines and the Russian Federation had nearly 100 cans each. 

After it was all said and done, a total of over 10,000 cans were taken in at Chase the Can events last December, worldwide. Thank you to our community for making the holidays a lot brighter for many families around the world. Look for this program to return for the 2011 holidays.

How about a story?

William and I were discussing the technical foul that Blake Griffin received when he jumped off the bench in an emotional response to a foul that was called on his fellow Clipper. When Blake jumped up, he immediately received a technical foul from Dick Bavetta. WB couldn’t understand how he could call that on Blake.  I reminded him that they were cutting down on emotional responses in the NBA this year and that Dick Bavetta was containing emotions that were running high, quickly and efficiently.  And the following line was uttered, “Dick Bavetta is the Alex Charsky of the NBA”.  If you have had the fortunate occurrence of playing in an event judged by Alex, you know that Alex likes to bring disagreements, arguments, etc. to closure as quickly and efficiently as possible. His judging style and talents are better for the tournament overall, even if you don’t agree with the outcome.

And now it's my turn. I'm William Brinkman, your online content manager. I can confirm that I do not like hard-line referees as I like the drama of sports typically more than the sport itself. I spent my week gathering my troops for Orlando coverage, working with Mike G to get our people across the pond for World Cup, testing some new board games we're going to put out in 2011, and avoiding paparazzi. There's still no picture of me, so here's DogFort.

We're also in our second week of bringing you strategy content on our front page. Coming soon, we'll feature a weekly column to help new players to get into the game and some other casual content.

Our friends over at DailyMetagame have daily content for those looking to advance their game, and they're also running the Darkmoon Faire Orlando Fantasy Contest. They're doing a great job over there, and we're happy to once again have third-party sites focused on supporting our game. If you have a drive to create your own World of Warcraft TCG website with daily content, or you already have one, you can contact us at player@cryptozoic.com and I can work with you to help support your writing staff.