I'm curious if people have thoughts on increasing the level of competitive play in austin & san antonio (houston crew has their own thing, and it's frankly too far for me geographically).

To be clear, I think both groups are very welcoming to new players and relatively devoid of jerks (except me of course, before Chris says something), and I wouldn't want to trade that away in order for more locals to reach a national level of competitive play. But it does seem like there are things we could encourage more as a group that would raise the level of play.

For example:

Play timed turns in casual play. This weekend made it obvious that 7min timed turns are quite hard for new players, but 10 or 12min at 35pts (or a 50 minute deathclock) should be doable. Timed turns may not seem "casual" at first, but the advantage is that you get more games in, make more decisions, and learn more.

Play scenarios in casual play. This does seem to have shifted, a year ago no one ever did scenarios, now people will usually at least do Incursion. It's still rare for people to do radial deploy or flank scenarios unless they specifically agreed to practice them in advance. Yes, I think sr2012 is over-complicated, but the new scenarios can be a fun challenge.

Play top-tier casters in casual play, at least sometimes. I've played well over 100 games, and have never played against eHaley or eGaspy. No, getting killed top of turn 2 by eLylyth isn't fun if you didn't know it was coming, but at least offer to play your really "broken" stuff for people that are ok with it and explain it in advance. (khador doesn't really have S-tier casters, but anyone who wants to play against irusk hiding in a corner with feated kayazy on the other side of the board is welcome)

Thoughts?