I'm planning some build events locally in the next few months to get some more interest and teach new players. My goal this year is 18 players.
Yeah, a good portion of what we came away from GenCon with (that being what we earned and bought for ourselves) is going straight to prize support. I'm hoping to provide prize support for the mother of all rookie tournaments. I have a core set, druid vs necromancer, forcemaster vs warlord, Conquest of Kumanjaro, and forged in fire set going towards prize support.
We have plenty of people who play a little even though they don't have any of the mage wars merch yet. This is the best way to get them in the game I could think of without destroying my wallet. Still working on details with Silverclaw, though.