by Josh Earnest
Like many Heroclix players I do not have an abundance of funds available to travel. I am very fortunate to live in Wichita where I have several active ROC venues within a day of driving, but without proper planning there is no way I would be able to attend as many of the events that these venues host as I do. Here are some tips that I have used in the past to make the ROC feasible on a limited budget.
My primary consideration for any tournament I want to attend is usually distance. The further away a venue is the more expensive it will be to attend the tournament. While I have greatly enjoyed my trips to Atlanta the past two years for the ROC World Cup, I would not be able justify the 18 hour drive that requires if it were for a standard Super Qualifier instead. There is always extra planning if the distance to a venue warrants making a one day venture into a multiple day trip. I find that if a venue is around 5 hours away I can keep the costs for that trip as low as possible by condensing it to a single day. This means waking up early in the morning and driving straight home after the event is done. At around the 7+ hour drive time this tends to become a little difficult and you have to evaluate if the event is worth the extra expense of staying in a hotel.
If a trip is a reasonable distance away there are several things you can do to lower costs. Fuel is always a significant portion of your expenses, so buy it where it’s cheapest. Most people have smart phones nowadays, and there are apps like Gas Buddy that can show you where the best places are to fuel up. Sometimes it may only save you a little bit on a gallon, but others the difference can be as much as .20 lower just across a state line. Another expense that can be lowered with planning is food. Before a road trip I will stock up on coupons for common fast food places that I can use on the road. For the day of the tournament I will sometimes pack myself a meal in a cooler, this also ensures that you will not be late back to the venue after the break. If your trip is going to be an over-nighter I highly recommend scouting out a hotel ahead of time. I use websites like hotwire to secure a competitive rate at a hotel the night before an event. This means that we can be rested in the morning with a short trip to the venue, and unless we are looking at a 10+ hour drive home we will leave immediately after the event and save the cost of a second stay in the hotel. It can also help to follow some good advice I received at the very first ROC I ever attended, “Don’t be a dink”. The places hosting these events probably aren’t in it solely for the money, there are much easier ways to make a living, often they themselves are passionate Heroclix players who enjoy being able to create the type of scene that a ROC cultivates. I feel that type of environment is at its best when everyone follows the “Don’t be a dink” rule, which basically boils down to common courtesy. Be the type of Heroclix player that you would want to play against. If you are the type of player that people want at their tournament, then sometimes that will open doors for you. I have been able to attend several tournaments that would have otherwise been out of reach for me because of the kindness of tournament organizers and even fellow competitors opening their homes to me.
Jason Collins briefly talked about sharing costs in his article on the benefits of being a member of a Heroclix team. It is amazing the difference you can see from going it alone to being part of even a small traveling group. Another great thing about a local play group, even if they aren’t a Heroclix “team”, is that if you can come up with a team that gives you a good chance of winning then your playgroup can probably make playing it happen for you. And without breaking the bank to acquire the newest highly sought after figures. I borrowed 3 Entities for Dragon con 2 years ago and at the time they would have cost me around 400$. Instead I just had to make sure they were taken care of, and because I feel that it’s only right, I hit my friend up with some of the swag that I got for that tournament.
I find that I can help alleviate the costs of a lot of my trips by selling off prize support that I do not want to keep for myself. I actually consider any Top 8 Super Q finish to be “in the money” because the quality neoprene maps offered for the Tmop 8 will often cov
er both the cost of my share of gas and the entry fee for the tournament. Some things that people don’t often consider selling are their ROC points and object tokens. Some of the more sought after item tokens like the Shark Ultra Heavy object token in particular can get you more than you’d think to the right buyer. If you are very fortunate and can win your way into a bye a the ROC World Cup and find you have ROC points that you don’t need they are a commodity that are actually very easy to liquidate, probably even more so now that the ROC has the point redemption plan up and running. In the past I have also won a sealed brick of packs and rather than end up with mostly duplicates of a set that I already had invested in I split it (at a good deal) with a fellow Wichita clixer and we drafted for what we wanted from the packs.
While I doubt that I’ll ever be able to become a professional Heroclix player it is thanks to things like these that let me continue to travel to amazing out of town venues and meet people. Some of my best friends in the game are players that I run into regularly because we all love to meet at the ROC tables and bring the very best we can against each other at every single opportunity that we can.
Love the “don’t be dink” rule. Awesome read.