I’m not going to lie, when I first saw the new tournament structure with all of its options and formats I was a bit overwhelmed.
Daily tournaments, weekly tournaments, free options, paid options, high stakes, medium stakes, low stakes.
It was a lot to take in.
Excited to get started I ended up taking a shot gun approach, firing off entries and jumping in to races without any sort of plan.
I had some fun for sure, but I also burnt through the eth pretty quickly and didn’t qualify for the daily finals anywhere.
Until now we’ve had pretty limited tournament options in Zed and so I’ve been used to just fitting as many horses as I can into whatever format is available at the time.
What we have now is the opposite of that.
A place for all of my horses to race and more options than I have time to take advantage of.
This is a big change and a good problem to have but it’s taking a bit of getting used to!
For a mid-sized stable like mine with around 100 active horses this iteration of Zed is a game of time and stable management.
I have to be selective about which horses I focus on and careful about where my time is best spent on the platform.
It’s early days but with that in mind I have started using a tiered system that breaks my active horses down in to 3 categories.
“Prospects”, “Competitors” and “Established Racers”.
This helps me work out where each horse fits in to my stable, when/where to race them and how much time to focus on each one.
In some cases, the “where to race” part overlaps as each horse moves through the tiers but overall, it’s helping keep my stable organised amidst all these event options.
As such I thought I’d share my system with anyone that might be a bit confused right now.
1) Prospects.
At the low end of the scale I have my prospects.
These are horses that are generally lower in class level but have the potential to become paid racers with the addition of more XP.
I have about 20-25 of these horses and I am racing them in the free weekly tournament in hope that they can score one of those big XP multipliers to help them progress.
I started the week racing them all a few times each and those that have picked up a win or two I have continued to race while the others have been benched for now.
The plan here is to have the better prospects level up one by one, prove themselves on the track and move up to the next tier.
2) Competitors.
In the middle tier I have my competitors.
These horses are uncapped but already showing potential as paid racers, though mostly only in the lowest of stakes races.
My plan with these ponies is to enter them into the daily paid tournaments when the stakes are low.
They are worth a small financial risk and if they do well and pick up a nice 100XP multiplier (or more if required) maybe they can reach their full potential/max cap and move up into the next tier.
In some cases, if the horse is competitive enough, I’ll continue their qualification into the weekly tournament at medium stakes for a shot at an even bigger XP multiplier and some bonus eth.
Ultimately the hope is they improve with XP and become quality paid racing horses in tier 1.
3) Established Racers.
In the highest tier I have my established racers, my horses that have already proven they can earn money in paid racing.
The aim for them is to earn some eth from the various paid options while also attempting to qualify for the big weekly finals where they can earn a cherry on top eth sweetener.
For the most part these horses are capped or already near their max level, so the XP multipliers are not really relevant for them.
That is aside from the C1 horses in this tier who are definitely hungry for a nice XP boost if they can get it!
In regard to my tier 1 horses, I’m really looking forward to Sit N Go tournaments arriving for them as I think they will round out this new event structure perfectly.
A nice multi-level progression loop where competing in big money Sit N Go’s is the ultimate goal.
Once they arrive, I’ll run my prospects in the weekly free tournaments until they get enough XP to hang in low stakes daily paid tournaments.
If they do well there and gain further XP they will move into my established racers tier and compete in some weekly events.
If they prove themselves there and reach their full potential, they will move on to top of class Sit N Go’s and hopefully take home a big money tournament or two.
Sounds like a lot of fun to me!
In summing up, now that I’ve got my head around the new tournament structure I really like it.
Clearly a lot of thought went into it so props to Ryan and the team for a well-planned design.
Great work guys!
Plenty to keep us entertained and to build upon going forward.
I guess the only fault I have with the set up right now is that with so much going on it can be quite hard to navigate the events and track your progress.
I’m sure on the list of Zed’s priorities is a new UI or at least a more functional race lobby, but, in the meantime, if you are having trouble, I would suggest getting yourself Stacked Naks Pro.
Along with a spreadsheet or two it’s extremely useful for helping you keep track of your races and your daily/ weekly tournament progress.
Stacked Naks Pro screenshot.
Anyhow I have some horses to race so it’s back to the track for me.
Hope to see you there guys!