FFG could learn a little from 40k tournaments

Ok, I'm not trolling here.  Overall I think FFG is miles above GW in tournament support... but Frontline Gaming has been leading the 40k community in giving tournament play solid support and some of the things they do would really have a good place in X-Wing play.

FFG has done a great job keeping the meta moving... but they've really struggled with finding balance between the factions.  At best, one has been a distant third, but the norm has been one of the three dominating play while the others watch.  Now, while I have tons of game design thoughts, there's an easy way to incentive a more diverse meta other than FAQ and expansion balancing...

Change how tournaments work.   Now hold on... I'm not here promoting some new format other than Swiss/Elimination... I like the structure of FFG tournaments... its the prize support that could draw in a bit more diversity.

Frontline does 40k Player Faction Rankings  and gives out prizes at its events for an entire variety of criteria other than absolute final finishing and Swiss record.  Let's face it, we love stuff... especially limited run, exclusive, hard to get, looks cool, promo/prizes type stuff.

Medals and trinkets are awesome prizes to put out there for almost anything 

Just off the top of my head... 

Best Rebel Record/MOV (and if you want, you could caveat "not advancing to day 2" or not, whatever makes sense with prize support at day 2)

Best Imperial Record/MOV

Best Scum Record/MOV

Best 2+ large ship record/MOV

Best 4+ small ship record/MOV

Best 3+ same ship record/MOV

...or they could get a little more colorful, if you announced these ahead of time...

Best squadron with an X-Wing, Y-Wing, and a B-Wing

Best squadron with 2 Z-95s

Best squadron without PS higher than 5

Always fun to recognize others and to play for a prize

Make a rule that someone can't collect more than 1 of the above prizes or have players select 2 prizes at registration that they're playing for so that there's not an additional load of data crunching for the event staff... there's a hundred different wrinkles you could toss in that could liven up the game without changing the tournament structure or issuing a single FAQ.  Don't get hung up on my specific recommendations for prizes, I'm sure the FFG guys could come up with all types of clever criteria.

Prizes like this are easy to do, give players that know the championship is not in their reach but want a challenge to reach for an attainable prize, encourages a little diversity, and dangles an extra carrot out there for top top players to think a bit out of the box (depending on whether day 2 people can collect these or not).  The cost for the prize support could be completely the same as a Regional or a System Open, its all just distributed a little differently.

One of the reasons we see long runs of near clone lists repeatedly finishing so high, is that FFG hasn't incentivized diversity... maybe its time they should take a page from 40k and do so.