Legacy Lore 007: Supremacy League

The Supremacy League was a fun idea. The board it came with wasn't necessary to run it and technically nothing stops anyone from running a “Supremacy League” today without the board or running some other kind of event WITH the board.

What I personally like about the board is that it is passive advertising. It is a big Clix focused design that hangs in a store and can draw people's attention. We didn't run ours for that long but while we did, people would regularly ask about it. Because it was big enough and has just enough color to interest the average person. So let's talk about how the Supremacy League was actually supposed to run.


Components:

Player Tags: Player tags are full color acrylic and felt-backed. Players will write their names in the space provided with a wet erase marker (temporary) or sharpie style marker (permanent). The position of these tags on the League Board will indicate the player's current standing.

FIGHT! Tokens: The FIGHT! Tokens are used to indicate which players are able to issue challenges.

Pretty straight forward, right?

The Launch: The initial launch of the league in a store is accomplished by holding a launch tournament - any format will do for this event. Players register for the tournament and fill out a player's tag as part of the sign-up process. Once tournament play is complete, the league is set up based on the results with the overall winner taking the center spot. Place the rest of the players in descending order based on their performance in the tournament starting in the inner ring and working your way out. You are now ready to commence league play!

So you have a “placement/seed” tournament to get the League set up. Just another excuse to play, which is always good by me.

The Goal: The goal of the Supremacy League is to fight your way to the center of the board and prove your supremacy by defending this position against 3 challenges. If you succeed you graduate to champion status and have your name/team commemorated in a place of honor. The champion player's team is retired from the league but that player may rejoin with a different team and start anew in the out[er] ring.

Again, pretty simple. Climb the mountain and win 3 successful challenge (which have to be made against you, you can't make the challenge) and you “win” the League. Which can either mean a full wipe and restart or a soft restart, depending on the tournament organizer. Now let's talk about how you move through the board.

The "Bull's Eye" Board: The "Bull's Eye" board system is powered by FIGHT! tokens. Players currently holding a FIGHT! token are empowered to issue an official league challenge to any player directly in the next ring in. Once challenged the two players play their match. If the Challenger wins, their tag switches position on the board with their defeated foe. If the defender wins, they keep their position and claims the defeated player's FIGHT! token as their prize. Being in possession of a FIGHT! token, they are now empowered to issue a challenge to a player in the next ring in. In this way players are able to move towards the center of the board and there is as much motivation to accept a challenge as there is to issue one to advance.

The Outer Ring: All players in the Outer Ring have an endless supply of FIGHT! tokens. In effect, they are considered to always be empowered to challenge. FIGHT! tokens continually feed onto the board and work their way through the ranks in this fashion.

Eligible Targets: Any player in the next ring in that is not currently holding a FIGHT! token is an eligible target. The only exception to this rule is the top seated player. As their goal is to successfully defend their position 3 times (collect 3 FIGHT! tokens) the FIGHT! tokens they have do not invalidate them as a target.

The Agony of Defeat: If the top seated player is defeated in a challenge they do not simply bump down one tier, the player's tag is instead removed from the board and placed in the outer ring. The victorious player's tag takes the top spot and the entire board is shifted to fill in the ranks. The in-store league organizer advances player's tags randomly. When a lead player falls everyone benefits (except them!).

So, a fairly straight forward system. The lowest ranked players can always challenge the next up. You either advance a ring or gain a FIGHT! Token (which then allows you to challenge those above you). If the top player is defeated, they get dropped to the Outer Ring and everyone else shifts up. I will note that we never ran it that way as everyone can have a bad day, and it can create a situation where a player will deny challenges that are actually...challenging.

And then there's the details that never really happened:

The Details: All other details such as scenarios choices, team point values, trophies and prizes and the like can be used by the organized play manager to customize the event's theme to fit the current marketing plan. Special scenarios, in-store victory plaques to record over-all champions and special league specific battle mats are all great ways to fine tune the focus of your league and tailor it to your specific marketing goals. Once the boards are in stores, periodic releases of support packs may be issued to keep the leagues fresh and new. The details may be left up to the retail stores to tailor to their player base or may be orchestrated through an Organized Play program to tie more closely into an overall marketing plan. In either case, the Supremacy League System can serves as a continuing focus for organized play at the store level [indefinitely].

The initial release of the Supremacy League saw the Horseman of Apocalypse Convention Exclusives released. There may have been a few other Con LEs as well, but there was never much follow up after that. It was a fun idea that took a lot of effort to create (the boards themselves are very nice and created by Gale Force Nine) but was just left up to stores to continue supporting.

I know a lot of stores still have their boards and a few may even be running Supremacy Leagues. It's definitely the kind of venue focused event that can make tournaments fun and interesting. I'd love to see something in this vein come back.

Thanks for reading. If you have an older effect that you're curious about feel free to write into joenexus36@gmail.com and maybe we'll cover it in a future Legacy Lore.