Testing and Mentorship Program (Season 7)

The VML Testing and Mentorship Program is a new initiative for Season 7. We recognize that a large barrier to competitive play is finding people to work and prepare for tournaments with, and that this is something that has only gotten worse with the pandemic and the shift to primarily online play.

We’re hoping to give participants the experience of being part of a testing team for a tournament, as well as the chance to potentially form connections and prepare for future tournaments with even beyond this season.

How to Sign Up

The program is open to competitors in VML Season 7. At the beginning of the season we will send a survey to the competitors. Indicate your interest at that time. After everyone interested completes the survey, we will match people up to form testing teams across divisions.

The Tournament Organizers will form the teams and pick the leaders by match up teammates who are not in the same division to avoid conflicting interests. They will try their best to take time zones, availability, and testing goals into account to make testing together as viable and productive as possible.

What to Expect

The idea behind a testing team for the VML is to help both with deck selection and matchup preparation. Each team will have a designated leader, who will organize and handle logistics of testing.

You should expect to spend some time each week working with or discussing both of these things with your teammates. Beyond that, you should look to discuss and set expectations with your teammates at the start of the league, to find an amount and style of testing that works for you.

While the leader will be expected to organize and facilitate these discussions and subsequent testing, every member of a team is expected to be an active participant in testing.

The VML Testing and Mentorship Program will end at the end of division play so that there aren’t any issues if multiple people from the same team make the playoffs, however, you’re more than welcome to keep working together for the playoffs and hopefully beyond!

Feedback

We’ll be checking in with everyone around week 3 to ensure that everything is running smoothly. If you have any issues or feedback, please send them to Arya (hogpog_98#7144 on Discord).