Personally, I believe that no incentives are needed...

Let me tell you about myself; I think I'm similar to the average forum user. :)

When I first joined and wanted to participate in tournaments, I immediately decided to participate only in official tournaments (I was just inexperienced back then :), I thought they were different in some way :)), but in reality, the only difference is the medal, and there isn't even a medal for second or third place, and not all official tournaments award medals.

There's only a rating, just numbers, and it's calculated inconsistently.

(If it could be integrated into the forum, something like a form where the winner would fill out a report, and the loser would receive a notification to confirm it, and then the coordinator would press a button to calculate it, but that's just a dream :))

So, back to myself:

Alex R is right.

I wasn't playing Heroes 5 at all back then; I mainly played Heroes 4.

There were no official Heroes 4 tournaments, and I happily participated in unofficial Heroes 4 games.

Now I have even less time, and I have to choose tournaments for myself. I rarely pay attention to whether they are official, but sometimes I still think, "Oh, if there were an incentive, I would play." (And that's exactly why I have a large number of games where I signed up but didn't finish, because sometimes the desire just disappears :))

So, what's my point:

Yes, sometimes the desire coincides with a tournament, but that's not the whole picture.
That medal is a small thing, but it's nice.
We need to incentivize the average player