Someone asked us if HeroClix World plans on sponsoring players to enter HeroClix tournaments. Well, that depends. We've looked into sponsoring players for Origin and Gencon in the past, but didn't go through with it.

Sponsoring players for local play is a big no-no in our opinion, because both outcomes are bad. (1) If our sponsored players win a local tournament, then it fosters negativity from the local community because you don't want "big companies" coming in and winning local games. (2) if our sponsored players lose local tournaments, then it makes our brand look bad. It's a lose-lose situation.

Of course, we could always run our own set of tournaments to create our own tournament eco system... but if our sponsored team won our own tournaments, it looks bad on us because it feels like cronyism -- that's not a good situation to be in.

The other question is: who would pay for such a thing? Should we start asking readers to donate money? If so, how would those people feel about us taking that money and dumping it into sponsored players who could cheat them out of tournament prizes? Again, it's not really a good situation and no one wins from this outcome.

HeroClix is a fun game that lets almost anyone be competitive. It fosters competition and friendliness among it's fans, and it's still a very local affair. Even at offical Wizkids World tournaments, anyone can walk in off the street and win to become the big Kahuna. We'd hate to see HeroClix tournaments turn into a place where you need to have sponsors to win.

When I was judging, I had enough grief from players 50 miles away coming in to snipe good prizes from my local players -- if a "sponsored team" did that, I'd be livid.

So, in short, Keep HeroClix Local.