How do you define Casual HeroClix?
Hey everyone, big important question for y’all, how does your LGS define ‘casual’?
This may be a silly question but I think many communities may face this as a serious problem that could be affecting their community growth. The definition of a casual game has been very loose / abstract and I’m hoping to create or know of any firm guard rails that help people make teams of similar power levels during weekly game nights. This is important because right now playing a casual game is left up to so much interpretation, leaving large gaps of power levels between players. As such, it’s not uncommon to see one player stomp another in 15 minutes which honestly feels bad for both parties.
Personally, I remember getting stomped hard during a casual night by a Kong. It felt so bad that after a few weeks of this, I felt the need to match that power level as something like this was happening too frequently. As a result I ended up stomping others and the cycle continued until basically we’ve lost touch with playing casual games. Unfortunately I believe some players have left because they didn’t have the means or didn’t agree with having to play with or against meta every week. And I can’t help but agree with that sentiment.
I believe having firm or defined rules to play by should be set in place as a form of setting expectations for the night. Borrowing a concept from MTG, their commander format has hard restrictions on what you can and cannot play to keep things casual.
To start I think casual games should ban any:
- banned or restricted elements or characters in silver or modern
- watch list characters or elements
- top 100 meta characters or elements on hcunits for both silver and modern
Casual should restrict:
- sideline active slots to 1-2
- number of equipment used to 1-2
So what has your community done to prevent power creep from ruining casual HeroClix ?