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#### UPDATE: Steemmonsters changed their policy and removed the fees for any future Steemmonster tourneys (assuming people have the appropriate cards).  This is a wonderful decision and essentially makes this whole post an interesting discussion, but not really applicable anymore. 

#### I applaud Steemmonsters for doing so, it is a credit to them that they reacted quickly and definitely listened to the feedback from many of the people in the comment section.

#### I will leave the post up so that nothing is hidden, but I wanted to update the facts so it can now be read in proper context.


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#### Original post below:
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Man I'm glad this isn't a pay to play system that @aggroed said many many times it was not.

>Entry Fees

>The larger Steem Monsters sponsored tournaments will have entry fees. ***The idea is to encourage only serious players to join.*** The entry fees will be quite small in comparison to the prize pools, and all entry fees will be used to put back into the tournament prize pools in the future.
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I love the game mechanics and appreciate the effort to make this a top notch gaming entity.  But I gotta tell you, if you plan on charging people to play in the diamond level and also gold foil tourneys to make sure they are "SERIOUS", then you guys must be smoking crack.  People have been "SERIOUS" enough to invest hundreds in not thousands of dollars into your "f'ing" cards.  And now if I don't pay to enter a tourney, I'm locked out of getting the part of the prize pool that has been promised since day one?  (btw, it was originally promised to be 70% of card sales by @aggroed, then later moved way down when they had to put in in writing)

You guys have now officially earned the ***"Take a great idea and fuck it up award"*** two times!  First by producing so many reward cards that people are using bots to trade them so they can BURN them.  What the hell do you plan on doing with the 275,000 Rusty's still yet to be issued????  Then setting up a rule that is so blatantly anti-"anything but hardcore insider", that you have shown yourselves to be stupid at best and greedy pigs at worst. 

As you can tell, I have had enough.  And for that to happen, you have no idea how bad you must be.  So yes I know this is burning some bridges, but the bottom line is you need to know.  If that means you consider me not welcome anymore, then so be it.  

@yabapmatt, I don't know how much you are aware of the marketing fuckups, but @aggroed has failed miserably in doing his job.  I know you guys are partners, but you should take a hard look at all the people that have left.  They have left for a reason.  They have sold for a reason.  They stopped playing quests for a reason.  

People like me tried to help you, but you ignore it.   You think its only going to get better as you come out with better and better stuff.  The problem is you don't understand (or willfully choose to ignore) the fact that "trust" is essential to success in any investment.  You think because you say "trust me" that people should.  

Well, guess what... 

People did (and some still might) trust you... But you are losing that trust with every time you do something foolish like this.  For 2 guys that value their company at $10 million, you should take a look in the mirror and see how many people you've pissed off.  And rather than ignoring them or dismissing them, you should find out WHY they left.  I have enough balls to tell you why, most will just go away quietly.  Nonetheless, there are tons of lessons to be learned, and you continue to not learn them because you trust in the few "yes" people that you have around you.

I'm sorry to have to write this, I think both of you tried in your own ways.  The mistakes are hard to ignore though, and the tendencies of your marketing department to be "elitist" is too much for me to stay quiet.

Matt, thank you very much for the delegation of your SP for all these months.  I think you are a great guy individually, but don't have a handle on this marketing situation.  I am ok with you removing the delegation since I don't feel that you will consider me a "good guy" after this.  And I wouldn't blame you of course.

ps... I was promised by @aggroed that investors of the cards (equivalent to 500 packs) would be added to the Mavericks a long time ago.  It was on "the list" as Aggy said.  I invested over $10k in your cards which handily surpassed the 500 packs needed (and in fact bought more than 500 packs through KS too); yet I never got that Maverick status.  Obviously I don't give a shit about the vote, but just pointing it out as its just another example of @aggroed's poor marketing.  It sends a signal about what he cares about and the LACK effort he makes to make sure ALL of your stakeholders are happy. (which is limited and lip-service and very apparent)

***This is a post of a comment I made on SM in response to their new tourney charges.***