Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => General Discussion => Topic started by: silverclawgrizzly on December 18, 2017, 10:30:59 AM
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Just throwing this out for discussion, and I ask that it be polite discussion not a debate. The organized play format hasn't been updated in years, if changes were to be made what should they be?
Keep in mind that many tournaments by necessity have to be timed and that certain strategies, cards, and play styles are exceptionally strengthened or weakened by this.
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Keep in mind that many tournaments by necessity have to become and that certain strategies, cards, and play styles are exceptionally strengthened or weakened by this.
A missing word? Timed?
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The most important thing in my opinion is a fairer scoring system for times matched where wins by mage death and timed wins are differentiated more than 4-3-1-0. This is the current system used in German organized play:
http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=18360.msg87272#msg87272
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I'm a fan of updating the scoring system. I'm thinking 6 for a win by death , 2 for a win by time, and 1 for a lose by time. Wins should always count more than points in terms of determining qualifiers of course but points are useful for breaking win ties.
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Why give any points for a loss on time?
Also, what method of determining the winner on time is used?
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Why give any points for a loss on time?
The problem with the current system is that it if one mage is in a losing position, it incentivises them to just cling onto life, and concentrate rather less on winning. That said, being able to stop the opponent from killing them does feel like it should be worth something.
If you awarded nothing for a modified loss though, you just reverse the position, where a winning player then sits back and doesn't need to try and finish his opponent off, just play defensively, and force them to take all the risks.
Both are about as bad. I think the answer is definitely to increase the difference in points between outright wins, and modified wins/losses. I'd favour proportions something like 6/3/1/0 but I'm not sure if it does something screwey with the maths if you don't split the same number of points amongst the players in all circumstances. I suspect it will affect tiebreaks and pairings, and so you may need to do something like 6/4/2/0 which is arguably worse than the current scheme.
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note the difference in a tie can be as little as one life. perhaps both mages are near dead even. so a non death tie should count for something for both players. however should two tied wins equal or greater than one outright win? at gencon of this year they actually used the points as
7 win
3 tie win
2 tie loss
0 loss
and it seemed to work very well. turns out the cutoff for top four was 20 points. i had 19. the top four players had at least 20 points.
now i think they counted win/loss record for pairing rather than top points facing off. even still seemed to work out fine.
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We rolled to see who faced in the top four pairings as three of the top 4 had the same number of points if I remember.
We could have looked at opponent records....but there was a D 12 right there.
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Yes two wins by whatever method is better than one win.
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Dave asked a question about how the winner is determined on a match that goes to time. There's no way to do it I like but normally it's who's got the most life left.
Now with that said I'm a firm believer that the card Restore is a problem. I'm an advocate of removing all dissipate tokens at the end of a match and then checking life totals. Restore was very much not designed with times tournaments in mind. It's very very easy for Holy mages to snatch a cheesy win.
Other thing I want to point out. There are to the best of my knowledge no "official" organized play format rules on this site anymore. Nor are any provided by AW.
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Yes two wins by whatever method is better than one win.
the general consensus has been no on this question. the feeling is that ties are not as good as kills. because otherwise it incentivizes stall tactics rather than kill tactics. it is called mage wars, not mage survival. so outright wins count for more as a result. with time limits there is no real way to get around any tactics/builds/mages gaining some edge. and given the time limit, kills are favored over ties.
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Now with that said I'm a firm believer that the card Restore is a problem. I'm an advocate of removing all dissipate tokens at the end of a match and then checking life totals. Restore was very much not designed with times tournaments in mind. It's very very easy for Holy mages to snatch a cheesy win.
I completely agree with this.
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Kills count for more points than a tie. However if in three rounds I won two by time and you only get one win by kill then I'm still ahead.
Priority in my view should be wins then points.
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Pretty much in agreement there. If i win by outlasting 4 times and you win by killing 4 times, you should probably have more points than me. But we BOTH should be in the finals asy that point because we both won 4 times.
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Yes two wins by whatever method is better than one win.
the general consensus has been no on this question. the feeling is that ties are not as good as kills. because otherwise it incentivizes stall tactics rather than kill tactics. it is called mage wars, not mage survival. so outright wins count for more as a result. with time limits there is no real way to get around any tactics/builds/mages gaining some edge. and given the time limit, kills are favored over ties.
To add to this (warning, personal opinion incoming ;D), I don't consider it a win without a kill. No kill = a tie game regardless of life remaining. If a mage has one life left at time, the other mage doesn't deserve any more points than the mage who has one left. Priority SHOULD be wins over points assuming wins are only counted for kills ;).
Just my 2 flameblasts
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Yes two wins by whatever method is better than one win.
the general consensus has been no on this question. the feeling is that ties are not as good as kills. because otherwise it incentivizes stall tactics rather than kill tactics. it is called mage wars, not mage survival. so outright wins count for more as a result. with time limits there is no real way to get around any tactics/builds/mages gaining some edge. and given the time limit, kills are favored over ties.
To add to this (warning, personal opinion incoming ;D), I don't consider it a win without a kill. No kill = a tie game regardless of life remaining. If a mage has one life left at time, the other mage doesn't deserve any more points than the one who has 1 left. Priority SHOULD be wins over points assuming wins are only counted for kills ;).
Just my 2 flameblasts
I think I agree with Shark. If there is no kill, it should be a tie.
It always angers me when I see a game end where one player clearly has the dominant position creature wise and will kill the enemy if the game goes any longer, but they lose bc they have more dmg. No tied wins should fix this.
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One trillion percent disagree. A tie means equal, the same, no difference.
If you have less life remaining at the end of a timed game, you LOSE. In an ideal world, no games would be timed, but that's not feasible at live events. Therefore you have to play with a slightly different subset of rules including timed WINS & LOSSES. Not if a game goes to time, its always a tie.
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Relax friends it's just a discussion. I'm with you on this as it's just not practical that all matches end in death. Thus a compromise must be made. Can't punish a player for time restrictions they didn't come up with.
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One trillion percent disagree. A tie means equal, the same, no difference.
If you have less life remaining at the end of a timed game, you LOSE. In an ideal world, no games would be timed, but that's not feasible at live events. Therefore you have to play with a slightly different subset of rules including timed WINS & LOSSES. Not if a game goes to time, its always a tie.
Using your definition of a tie and the rules for victory Mage Wars lead to the same conclusion. If a match is called before a mage has died, it is a tie. Both mages are equal for being alive. :)
I would posit that one should be building for the tournament in which they are playing :). So if someone builds a book that goes to time 4/4 matches in a tournament where wins are counted only at mage death, then maybe in the next tournament they should build something that aims to win earlier. I still believe one can play defensively and still win in 75-90 mins. I just prefer to keep the win condition the same (Mage death) instead of relying on a condition that doesn't signal whether someone has won or is even "winning" (life remaining). To each their own.
Relax friends it's just a discussion. I'm with you on this as it's just not practical that all matches end in death. Thus a compromise must be made. Can't punish a player for time restrictions they didn't come up with.
No worries here, Grizz. Just a friendly discussion that has strong opinions 8). In regards to the bolded part above, you could make the point that you can't punish a player for a victory condition they didn't come up with either. Not that it takes away from the merit of your point, just showing a different side to it.
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I can understand both views and while I lean towards Devil in terms of timed wins, I believe players should be encouraged to kill. Thus limitingvstrategies that make it easier to build for time wins should be discouraged.
We can't all get everything we want but we can hopefully all get something we can accept without too much hate lol.
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I am in the kills=wins, and that ties are not wins. however, I do agree they should be worth something. so ties getting 3 points for both players is fine by me too, rather than a tie win/tie loss. so 2 ties are less than one win. but barely less. this will reward people for playing hard to win rather than stall games.
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So I feel as I've gotten good representative views of the above issues. Are there any other issues which should be addressed. I'm thinking that space permitting all matches after qualifiers should be untimed.
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I think that causes a different problem griz. Sure it's nice to have the restriction lifted after qualifiers, but you then end up with a bunch of timed game builds fighting in am untimed match. I see that causing issues, maybe its just me tho
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Yes it does cause that issue Romeo....on purpose lol.
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I think that causes a different problem griz. Sure it's nice to have the restriction lifted after qualifiers, but you then end up with a bunch of timed game builds fighting in am untimed match. I see that causing issues, maybe its just me tho
You could just do this game they they do and German Nationals. 1 book for each day.
Something to consider I feel.
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That's a cool idea but wouldn't be practical for many events.
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I think I'm with Shark actually, that calling both mages alive a draw and be done with it.
Basing it on remaining Life is the fairest way of splitting that tie with any ease, but it's still artificial, and doesn't actually represent the gamestate in many cases. If the game ends with with me on 1 Life but with Initiative on the next turn and a Flameblast in my book, whilst you have 2 Life, then there's no realistic prospect of your surviving the next QC phase, but you get the modified win when you start calculating levels of draw (and any other system would have a similar problem).
A lot of metagame considerations disappear if you consider not killing the enemy mage to be a win. It should be a very low scored result (eg: 4/1/0), and I'm not even averse to calling it a loss...
Of course, if you have the luxury of untimed rounds, then that's obviously best. A midway solution is to untimed all but the last match, and give them 15 mins after the penultimate match completes. It's not perfect, but it removes the chance of a stray 4hr match, whilst still making most untimed.
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Typically speaking when time is called I ask who had initiative on Turn 1. The other player gets an even number of turns with initiative.
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Typically speaking when time is called I ask who had initiative on Turn 1. The other player gets an even number of turns with initiative.
That's at least somewhat better, but I've never played under that rule. It's always been 'play until the end of the current turn' in the tournaments I've played in, which was I believe the official AW rule, when we had official tournament rules.
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That's intresting. I like the even number of init rounds. That seems the fairest way. For the very reason that kellanen just broight up. It would suck to be ready too sling the final boulder, only to be told its time and you lost.
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It yeah the thing is you have to make it crystal clear before the first match begins so people can prepare. Every tournament we shout this to the heavens and every time someone goes "What you talking bout?"
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if both players score the same points for a tie, no need to essentially cancel cards like restore. life ststus would not matter in the end, just surviving allows at least the tie value in points.
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The issue with ties is they do punish players for a factor outside their control and for specific play styles which isntvfair. Yes it's about killing the mage but you have to look at it with an eye of being inclusive. Restore just takes advantage of a loop hole in the design.
Also as a side note removing all the dissipate tokens would set off Telekinetic Bombs at the end and that's just funny.
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is restore REALLLY that big an issue? lol! im just thinking about it myself, and i recall that even though there was a time limit on the matches there was a few minutes of down time between each. Restore is epic, if its on the board why not just run it another round? a dispel fixes the whole problem, a seeking dispel or decoy and a dispel if theres an arcane ward even. i mean i know thats kind of a dick move but still... if its breaking timed tourneys THAT much? or is this all just theorycraft?
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Just to throw in my 2 cents I agree with a lot of what Shark, Zot, and many other players have said on this thread. In a timed match there are going to have to be playstyles that must adjust to kill the opponent mage no matter what restrictions or non-restrictions you make. If you make the restrictions to try and coincide with the original rule book win conditions, that would help players with theor books to be closer to that for a timed tournament.
I don't think super tanky books should be encouraged in a timed tournamnet. Having a no kill points rule either to be the same or close to a defeat would discourage those longer game books.
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I understand the view points being shared and I'm grateful to get them.
For Restore the issue is if I call time is up in 5 minutes you can just keep it in your hand and on last turn use it for your final quick cast to gain +10 life to get a huge swing to win by time. The issue is unlike Bulls Endurance it's school specific. Yes there are ways around it but they're not fool proof and it's not really right to require players to have a Deathlok just in case. Not when Restore is 1 sbp and a Deathlok would be 4. I've had complaints about Restore in timed events(including Gen Con this year) and see it as an issue yes. In a timed format Restore can be a cheap, easy boost for Holy.
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but that matters only if there is a difference in value of a tie versus a kill. if the tied players get a tie score rather thana kill score, then cards like restore do not break anything. no need to remove dissipate arbritarily. a tie is a tie. and if you go with ties being a lower value than a win, cards like those are not needed to eek out an advantage. moreover, restore may be used ealier in the game to save a valued creature for a round or two.
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is a timed win being half the value of a kill win not good enough? youd stull have to lose more than you win to lose to a guy with 4 timed wins that way.
but still i see what you mean. restore is a potential game breaker in that regard. but still, i posit that when a player pockets a card every round and doesnt cast it, while shiftily peeping at his watch every 15 seconds and twirling his mustache, chuckling evilly to himself, a clever player might forsee a restore and play accordingly, especially when hes sitting across from one of the 3 mages that can use said epic spell and be ready when the boss man says 5 minutes left.
but again, maybe thats just me. lol
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is restore REALLLY that big an issue? lol!
Yes, Restore is a huge problem to tournament play. If it doesn't get handled somehow (equal ties, remove dissipate) then it needs banning for competitive events. Just as Disciple of Radiance needs errata/ban (since AW seem to have dropped the ball promising this and never doing it).
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While I understand the argument on timed wins counting only as a tie and not a win, I'm not sold on it and can see more harm coming from it than good. That's not to say anyone is wrong per say, just that from the eye of an event coordinator I see way more pain in the butt coming from adding ties into the mix.
That being said I'm going to move forward on that premise, which means other issues are going to be looked at.
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Not for nothing but why does disciple of radience need errata? For all its potential power I've seen one mage play with them. One. Puddnhead. And even he plays only 2 at a time. Yeah it's strong but super telegraphed, if you don't stop it before they successfully drop 5 or 6 of them with a ton of fave down enchantments then maybe you kinda deserve that loss. Idk, maybe that's just me. Lol
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For the purposes of organized play I couldn't care less about the disciples lol. That's just a strong tactic one may use of one feels like it. Just another play style far as I'm concerned.
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It's actually a pretty broken book. Finite life doesn't shut it down because they Healing doesn't have to resolve, and it easily beats all but the most aggressive books.
Most European tournaments errata the card (especially the high level German ones). If I played in any tournament allowing it, that's the book I'd take. It's a boring book, but it's very, very effective.
Where it doesn't get played more, it's because we were all sickened by it, and knew it was going to be errated. AW even asked the testers not to play it at a convention tournament when it first broke!
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This doesn't need to be a debate so I'm gonna be short.
I'm not concerned about the strong style of the month. I'm looking to design a strong organized play format we can all love with. While certain cards that can abuse the format itself may be discussed, I'm gonna ask other discussions relating to cards that merely impact the play during the match be left to their own threads.
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Looking for ideas. Life remaining is the current method of determining a win by time. Are there other metrics that can be considered? What about using more than one metric? Just looking for input here.
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honestly for tie breakers most are somewhat arbitrary. after hearing it and really considering it, i am more of the opinion that ties are ties. and no breaker.
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if you have to have one, which i do not think you do, most or least points in the graveyard. whichever you choose can have solid argument against it. most points means i have either been very active, or have had a lot of stuff killed. least points, perhaps i have been super efficient, or turtling and hoarding mana for very large things. either way does not give a good indication of who is winning. looking at the board state, cards left in the book is the best way to forecast an eventual winner. but that is not possible. hence ties should be just that. ties.
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Yeah I thought about graveyard points too.
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I haven't completely thought it all through, but does life differential get any closer to accurate than just life remaining?
By that I mean compare (Player 1 Ending Life + Player 2 Ending Damage)||(Player 2 Ending Life + Player 1 Ending Damage).
This way you combine life remaining with damage dealt and the bigger number wins the ties? Like I said I haven't completely thought it through, but seems like it would have a more accurate picture of what each player has actually done during the game.
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really does not help. for example. if the game were to go one more turn, but cannot because time is called and we have ended the game, yet if i were to get initiative and have an excellent chance to kill the opponent on that turn, life differential or remaining or whatever comparison makes no difference. this was mentioned by someone else earlier as an example but points out no matter what tie breaker you use, it does not really indicate who is winning or who would likely win if there was no time limit.
but the fact is we have time limits for all kinds of reasons. and some games will go to time. this thread has been attempting to hash through how best to handle that situation. no matter how it is decided someone will be unhappy with the decision. cannot be helped. but the discussion has been good.
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Clearly the way to settle a game that goes to time is rolling a d20, highest score gets the win and points. 8)
We could call a situation like that "Battle Dice" or "Dice Wars"
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but the fact is we have time limits for all kinds of reasons. and some games will go to time. this thread has been attempting to hash through how best to handle that situation. no matter how it is decided someone will be unhappy with the decision. cannot be helped. but the discussion has been good.
Zot is 100% correct.
Also looking at the original organized play rules it is not "life" that is counted but how much damage you have on you. I have no intention at all of changing that as it straight up clears away any concerns people have with Sunfire Amulet or Restore.
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I mean... you could do something like that actually. You could put whatever factors of the board state you want into a roll modifier. Life remaining= +1 for each 5 life round down. Creatures on the board +1 for each, mana in store at game off +1 for each 4, conjurations (prolly non vine markers) +1 for each.
Then literally have a roll off for victory with the applied modifiers on the d12! That way you could even split a tie with points to either side for not dying but not killing either with the victor of the roll getting 2 points the loser gets 1.
Now the exact number for the modifiers and maybe even the dice in general could be changed (we could do it with attack dice as well), but this way you'd have a list you check off immediately based on current board state and mages state, it wouldn't take long to do the math (cuz of the reference card and it being based I whats out now) and there is a final roll with random results added to modifiers based on the situation at end game.
Not too bad a representation of what you might have been About to encounter, with the added bonus of randomness. I'd abide by it. Maybe that's just me
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My problem with damage dealt over life remaining is it once again hurts Holy more than anything else. A Priestess for example could wind up with 60-70 total life and 40-50 damage against a Warlock with 35 life and 30 damage and the Priestess loses that because of her innate ability and in-school cards.
I just don't see how it's tough to admit the mage closest to death when time is called is the loser. Not a tie. Loss. Not as big a loss as death but still a loss. Yes, the game could swing if there were another 8 rounds but that's not possible in a timed tournament. If you're closer to death than your opponent, you lose.
And if I win 3 matches that timed way and you win 2 by killing your opponent and then lose 1 via any mean, I played better than you because I didn't lose.
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I and you do not mean specific people...
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That's a really good point Devil. If you go for a high life low armor tactic it is more punishable in a tie situation then a high armor less life.
Romeo your idea is actually pretty brilliant. I was just joking but the way you brought it out maintains the RNG nature Mage Wars tends, but still gives the better player a clear edge in the final roll off. Also it would solve all the issues Devil has of modified wins being worth less then wins. This does create some issues though. The first is that you essentially could be losing and stall out to hopefully win by time in order to get the win. Doesn't feel good to have an opponent run 6 tanglevines so they can run away and those matches are quite long to play through.
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Or maybe we just need to be able to make mage wars successful enough that they can afford to block out more time and table space at conventions? Yeah it's probably never going to happen but a guy can dream right?
I think that the way all the conventions are currently set up is really unfair. It unjustly penalizes games with a bigger game length. The amount of time blocked out for a game should be proportional to how much time they *actually need* to run a tournament for that game without artificially messing with the balance of the metagame. Of course, the problem could also be that arcane wonders misjudged the game length when they first published the game. It's not actually a 90 min game. The longest game of Arena I ever played lasted probably like 6-8 hours. Of course, that should never happen between skilled players. But even skilled players will sometimes play for about 3 hours tops. For competitive players, Mage Wars Arena is a 1-3 hour game. But AW put 90 min on the core box, so that's what we're stuck with. 75 min time limits is ridiculously short for Arena. If you see people playing arena on octgn, they usually take more time than that, and not necessarily because they are taking too much time to think.
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Sailor. This thread is about trying to make timed events work. I know Mage Wars is different without timed events. It's ok to say why it's a problem in comparison to how the game plays out. That doesn't really progress trying to find a solution to how the most fun and proper way going to time should work. This thread is specifically trying to figure that issue out right now.
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does anyone have actual data on how many games went to time over say gencon and mace this year?
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i would suggest four 90 min rounds with a 90 min break in between match 2 and 3. start the first match at 1pm. folks have lunch before the first round, and can eat again in the middle. at cons the extra break time would actually allow people to get something and make it back. total time is 7.5 hours for qualifiers. and enough time if you need a round five. ending at 8.30 or 10pm. seems reasonable. the extra 15 min may eliminate most of the tie matches, and you can then have them be equal in points and have no tie breaker issues. just a thought.
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Statistic number wise? Yeah I probably do have those stats.....somewhere lol. For now I will say this: at 75 minutes the number of games that wen to time at both Gen Con and Mace was extremely low. I would say less than a quarter of the matches. At Mace the only ones I remember going to time were Littlenog VS Ashe and Littlenog VS Zot.
Seems like there were a few more went to timed at Gen Con but then there were more Holy mages too.....and lets be honest this whole argument would be easier if we all just played Beast Masters like champs :)
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My problem with damage dealt over life remaining is it once again hurts Holy more than anything else. A Priestess for example could wind up with 60-70 total life and 40-50 damage against a Warlock with 35 life and 30 damage and the Priestess loses that because of her innate ability and in-school cards.
Holy is the school that can most easily make damage go away though. Trust me I just fought a Paladin today that make 27 damage go away in like three actions.
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25% is a huge number.i would bet that number would be significantly reduced by a lot if matches were 90 min. sometimes you cannot make that happen. i would think ties at that point should just be nonwins.
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90 minutes might not be impossible.
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It might not be impossible, but as much as I love Mage Wars, when I go to these conventions I do want some time to do other things as well. If there was a pure Mage Wars tournament where that's specifically what I was going for, sure...let's do untimed matches all day long but in a convention, I actually think they run a little long as it is.
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Not advocating adding more time, but it's possible given some events. At Gen Con all I want to do is wander the dealers room aimlessly for hours....with an armed guard to knock people out of my way the entire time.
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My problem with damage dealt over life remaining is it once again hurts Holy more than anything else. A Priestess for example could wind up with 60-70 total life and 40-50 damage against a Warlock with 35 life and 30 damage and the Priestess loses that because of her innate ability and in-school cards.
Holy is the school that can most easily make damage go away though. Trust me I just fought a Paladin today that make 27 damage go away in like three actions.
I think you are missing the point Devil was making here.
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My final point will be just that a mage's life total is literally irrelevant right up to the point where that mage's damage total meets it. The rulebook doesn't state that being "closer" to death has any adverse affect on the game. In light of the above, I firmly believe you won't find a "good" metric to determine a "win" outside of one of the two mages dying (the win condition written into the rules). Therefore, if a mage doesn't die, neither mage wins. This also eliminates the need to adjust cards or other rules to fit the tournament scoring (like banning restore, causing all dissipates to go away, etc). If you need tiebreaker points because two people ended up with the same record of 2 wins and 1 tie (using the above metric of mage death as a win), then you can track life remaining/damage done/pick a secondary metric. However, it should be considered second, not first.
*All of the above (excluding rules references) is Shark's opinion, stated in the most neutral way possible. 8)
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The rules weren't written with timed tournament games in mind though so that's not even something I'd look at as the defining place to go. Do you realize how frustrating and much of a time waste some people might consider a game where you took 3 opponents close to death but weren't able to finish off because of a time limit necessary by the format and all 3 games would be considered ties, meanwhile someone else could kill one opponent and then lose 2 other matches and have them be ranked higher because you won't consider a timed win, a win. It would blow my mind if you think someone who died twice is better, in the context of this one tournament, than someone who was winning 3 matches at time.
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It's starting to seem like none of the solutions that have been proposed will be adequate.
I'm getting the impression that it's just not possible to run a truly fair and balanced arena tourney without booking more table space or more time. But if AW books more space and time its going to cost more money and it will take away from opportunities for the players to try other things at the conventions.
Perhaps what we need is to restructure the way we do organized play at conventions. I think what we need is instead of having a typical tournament structure, we should have something like this:
1. Judges post the times and places when they're available to judge matches.
2. Players sign up to compete at whichever of those times and places they want to play their qualifier rounds in.
3. The semi finals and finals would take place in the convention hall as normal.
Since we're unlikely to be allowed to run official organized play in convention centers outside of convention halls, it might be a good idea to book some space in a restaurant or something, or if weather's permitting, then go somewhere outdoors where there are picnic tables.
This way, players can get something to eat and play in the tournaments at the same time, and depending on the judges' schedules, it might make it easier to go to other things in the conventions when they're not busy competing in the tournament.
Thoughts?
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I just want to also point out that every championship match at the last couple of Gen Cons have not been timed. In every one of those matches the winner of the match would have lost if time was called. I think it's a clear indicator that time is causing issues with actual outcomes in matches.
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I'm not sure Biblofilter would have lost on time this year. He might have though that was a very close match. I agree time is a major factor, don't think anyone would argue against that.
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any feel for whether 90 min would have been sufficient?
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I just want to also point out that every championship match at the last couple of Gen Cons have not been timed. In every one of those matches the winner of the match would have lost if time was called. I think it's a clear indicator that time is causing issues with actual outcomes in matches.
Personally, I think if Day 1 is timed and Day 2 is untimed, then both players should prep two books. 1 for day 1 and 1 for day 2 (Like German Nationals).
I also think saying that Biblo would have lost on time is not the best of arguments because if the rules were changed, a player of Biblo's skill level would have adapted his book and play. So while he may he won a bunch of qualifer matches on time, it's unlikely he wouldn't have adapted his book and play if wins on time were changed to ties.
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I just want to also point out that every championship match at the last couple of Gen Cons have not been timed. In every one of those matches the winner of the match would have lost if time was called. I think it's a clear indicator that time is causing issues with actual outcomes in matches.
Personally, I think if Day 1 is timed and Day 2 is untimed, then both players should prep two books. 1 for day 1 and 1 for day 2 (Like German Nationals).
I also think saying that Biblo would have lost on time is not the best of arguments because if the rules were changed, a player of Biblo's skill level would have adapted his book and play. So while he may he won a bunch of qualifer matches on time, it's unlikely he wouldn't have adapted his book and play if wins on time were changed to ties.
That was more of a statement of how players adjust their style depending on the rules. I am not saying anything about Biblo being a bad player at all. Personally I would much rather everyone adjust their books to fit the tourney, then adjust the rules to fit all the playstyles. I don't think that is possible though, so you have to adjust the rules. And as harsh as it sounds, playing a book like a 8+ armor, 4 Vet Belt, 4 defense, 4 Mage wand with Heals and 4 Champions Gauntlets Anvil Throne Warlord that is wanting to punch you with 3 dice a round until you die should be punished in a timed tournament.
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I just want to also point out that every championship match at the last couple of Gen Cons have not been timed. In every one of those matches the winner of the match would have lost if time was called. I think it's a clear indicator that time is causing issues with actual outcomes in matches.
Personally, I think if Day 1 is timed and Day 2 is untimed, then both players should prep two books. 1 for day 1 and 1 for day 2 (Like German Nationals).
I also think saying that Biblo would have lost on time is not the best of arguments because if the rules were changed, a player of Biblo's skill level would have adapted his book and play. So while he may he won a bunch of qualifer matches on time, it's unlikely he wouldn't have adapted his book and play if wins on time were changed to ties.
That was more of a statement of how players adjust their style depending on the rules. I am not saying anything about Biblo being a bad player at all. Personally I would much rather everyone adjust their books to fit the tourney, then adjust the rules to fit all the playstyles. I don't think that is possible though, so you have to adjust the rules. And as harsh as it sounds, playing a book like a 8+ armor, 4 Vet Belt, 4 defense, 4 Mage wand with Heals and 4 Champions Gauntlets Anvil Throne Warlord that is wanting to punch you with 3 dice a round until you die should be punished in a timed tournament.
My post was mainly trying to focus on the fact that if the rules are changed, good players will adapt and adjust acordingly. That's why I said saying Biblo would have lost on time is not the best argument because if the finals were changed to time and everyone knew that, he likely wouldn't have been in that position anyway.
And yes, I agree that super tanky builds who want to wait for 6 hours until they punch you to death should be punished.
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That's totally fair Red
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any feel for whether 90 min would have been sufficient?
Yeah assuming no changes were made to books etc due to being granted 15 minutes extra at the start here are my predictions as to the last two tournaments I've seen:
1. Littlenog would have beat Biblofilter in the qualifiers at Gen Con. Biblo was out of creatures and surrounded by buffed up Alandale, Ehren, Knight of Westlock, and a Priest that was swinging a ton of damage himself. This would have removed Biblo from finals as he very few points.
2. Ashe would have beaten Littlenog in the qualifiers at Mace. That was just straight up going to happen in the next 5 minutes if not for time. This would have led most likely to Ashe fighting me in the next round of qualifiers and I've no idea then.
I will make this side note and I think it's important: I personally know of no competitive player active in any tournament scene in North America or Europe who purposefully builds and plays with the intent to win by time and not mage death. Now I don't know every player and I certainly haven't seen every event that goes down, but I've never seen anyone obviously just trying to win by time an entire match.
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true, but the tie break ruels regardless of what they are do affect book building. if ties were worth less than wins, that would also affect builds.
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I hope you don't mind my rephrasing a suggestion that I made in another thread, one which was shot down pretty vehemently... but after reading all of this, I wonder again whether this isn't worth consideration:
There doesn't seem to me to be too too many games still going when time is called. I wonder if the players shouldn't finish the current turn on which time is called, then step through the first phase, plan their spells for the next turn, etc. and then have the TD review the game situation, including consideration of what the players would do the next turn.
This takes care of all of those cases where "I have initiative and Flameblast in hand" and "Restore will go away on the next turn" and so on... it's pretty obvious who should be declared the winner.
The TD's decision can include no win for either if the situation is unclear, or if neither combatant has made any significant progress toward killing the other.
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I would think the decision process is expected to be as objective as possible. this idea introduces subjectivity. which is what I alluded to when there is no real way to declare who will eventually win without subjectivity based on board state, cards left in book, and many other considerations. the td would be able to surmise that based on many factors, yet it is still subjective. but would likely be correct in probably almost all instances. but players expect objectivity and clarity in a competitive setting. hence the long discussion regarding tie scenarios.
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The same thing is done in SFB (Star Fleet Battles) tournaments, and it has worked well there... subjective or not. I understand that that is a different game, but the premise is the same.
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I'll discuss more on this , including the objective nature of rulings after Christmas. Until then I want to sincerely thank everyone for their input and wish you all a happy Yule time.
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I'd be very against a TO decision on likely outcomes that way. In fact I might even abstain from such a tournament.
You then get into a whole "but if he did that, then she would do this, but what if he did that first..." - the only way to know is to play it. Then how do you evaluate me having the 1st quickcast and a spell with a 50% chance of winning at that point. What about 40%, but my opponent has no such clear chance? What about 60%, but I clearly lose if that fails.
What if the TO's view on how to play something is different to mine. What if he doesn't know the mind games and bluffs involved based on what FD enchantments we've got in play, and when they were cast.
No, sorry - asking the TO to decide an outcome in that fashion would be absolutely awful. Actually the more I think about it, the more I realise, I just wouldn't play in that system. I'll accept any arbitrary, objective tiebreak you care to name over that - at least it's quantifiable, and I can prepare for it, and play for it.
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To add my 2 cents, there has to be a clear rule for this. From here players can build books accordingly. I will say that timed versus non timed are two different games. I will also say that indifferent games there is a banned list for tournaments, versus causal play where any card is allowed.
From this in a timed format without banning restore that arguably the Holy school has the edge. It can mitigate any to time game with a final quick cast on the turn going to time (I watch time like a hawk when timed) with an enchantment matrix of Reverse Magic, then plan Heal and Restore for the atleast 10 (12 in the case of a Preistess) life swing, 18/20 with average rolls, and any attack spell plays into that to increase that life swing. Bear in mind this is under perfect play conditions against a non Holy mage. Against a holy mage the Heal is arguably swapped for a Dispel to ensure the swing, with the Heal being cast a turn earlier to best mimic perfect conditions.
The last sentence is the exact supporting argument to Kelanen's post about how the he does then she does paradigm is unplayable for unless you know the thought processes of the TO and then it becomes an exercise of social engineering over Mage Wars. My personal view is keep the timed format as is, as any other just complicates things, and ban Restore.
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The Priestess only gains a maximum of one life a round from her ability. Casting Heal and revealing Restore would not both count.
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I think that changing the victory conditions and victory points would be a good idea. Players lose if their mages die, players tie if the match ends without any mages dying, and players win if their mage kills another mage. If two mages happen to kill each other simultaneously, the match ends in a tie.
I favor one point in the case of a Lose, three points in the case of a Tie, and nine points in the case of a Win. In that case, three Loses will equal one Tie in points and three Ties will equal one Win in points. In the case of rankings, a player with three Wins ranks over a character with Two Wins and a Tie, who ranks over a character with Two Wins and a Lose, etc.
In addition to the above, I think that characters should receive bonus points for the following conditions in the case of a Tie or Win. They should receive one additional bonus point if they have reduced their opponent to zero Conjuration Cards in play before the end of the last turn. They should receive one additional bonus point if they have reduced their opponent to zero Creatures Cards in play before the end of the last turn. They should receive one additional bonus point if they have reduced their opponent to zero Enchantment Cards in play before the end of the last turn. Finally, they should receive one additional bonus point if they have reduced their opponent to zero Equipment Cards in play before the end of the last turn.
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They should receive one additional bonus point if they have reduced their opponent to zero Conjuration Cards in play before the end of the last turn. They should receive one additional bonus point if they have reduced their opponent to zero Creatures Cards in play before the end of the last turn. They should receive one additional bonus point if they have reduced their opponent to zero Enchantment Cards in play before the end of the last turn. Finally, they should receive one additional bonus point if they have reduced their opponent to zero Equipment Cards in play before the end of the last turn.
That's all very artificial, and completely changes the metagame - maybe that was your intention? Some books are hemorrhaging points before play starts.
In my view, the core problem is that the necessity of timed games changing things from untimed is the problem. Any solution is going to minimise that impact, not drastically increase it, so you almost have two entirely different metagames.
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All of my books, from my Druid to my Warlord, are designed for tournament play. If I can kill an opponent in 60 minutes, it does not matter if I am playing in timed or untimed play. Really, the difference between the two is that untied play is more casual, so people chat and watch TV while playing an untimed game, so play time is rarely over 60 minutes, you just have 60 minutes of other stuff happening during the untimed game.
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All of my books, from my Druid to my Warlord, are designed for tournament play. If I can kill an opponent in 60 minutes, it does not matter if I am playing in timed or untimed play. Really, the difference between the two is that untied play is more casual, so people chat and watch TV while playing an untimed game, so play time is rarely over 60 minutes, you just have 60 minutes of other stuff happening during the untimed game.
We never have TV, phones, or anything else distracting, and yet our typical game would be probably 90-120mins, and I've had games very occasionally go 4-5hrs, with only a handful of spells left in each book. In untimed play you can concentrate on being unkillable (high armour, lots of defenses and counters), and spell point efficient (good schools, lots of wands) whilst in timed play you have to balance defence with offense, and spell points don't matter to get the right card - most of my tournament books win with 20-30 SBP, and the rest are just sideboard options.
In untimed play I very rarely lose, but more so in timed, as is natural. Aggressive books honestly have very little chance in untimed play (which is a good reason for a tournament metagame being timed). To take an extreme example - my favourite Druid book is one that I have never lost a match with. I have also never gotten a win in 75 mins either, and for that reason I've never taken it to a tournament. I have plenty of other books that are good, and I've won tournaments with, but they are not so sure of a win - but probably winning in time, is more important than never losing in a tournament (and for clarity, that's just as it should be).
What I'm trying to say here is that the best book to win in 75 mins (or 60, or 90) is not the same as the best book to win untimed. It's definitely not the case of them being the same books, just played slower through distractions.
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But we are implicitly talking about tournaments and timed matches because we are talking about organized play. When I first started out five years ago with silverclawgrizzly, we started out making spellbooks that would take 2-3 hours to win, but we started to optimize our books for tournaments after about a year because we wanted to get good at organized play. I doubt that I have had a match last longer than 90 minutes in the last three years because everyone I play with wants to be capable of playing their spellbooks competitively.
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I feel you have still missed my point. It's not whether or not I can play my spellbooks competitively (I have and won), but that some very good spellbooks can't be played competitively because of time.
I agree that means that some books are better in OP, than others. You only have books designed for competition? That's great, but around here 95% of your matches won't be in a competition or with a time limit, so you'd be artificially restricting yourself to play those books in games with no time limit.
Put another way, I have around 25-30 non-Playtest books built most of the time, but only about 4 I'd take to a tournament. Those aren't the 4 books with the highest win percentage in non-timed games though, in fact there's only 1 possible intersect I think.
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All of my books, from my Druid to my Warlord, are designed for tournament play. If I can kill an opponent in 60 minutes, it does not matter if I am playing in timed or untimed play. Really, the difference between the two is that untied play is more casual, so people chat and watch TV while playing an untimed game, so play time is rarely over 60 minutes, you just have 60 minutes of other stuff happening during the untimed game.
We never have TV, phones, or anything else distracting, and yet our typical game would be probably 90-120mins, and I've had games very occasionally go 4-5hrs, with only a handful of spells left in each book. In untimed play you can concentrate on being unkillable (high armour, lots of defenses and counters), and spell point efficient (good schools, lots of wands) whilst in timed play you have to balance defence with offense, and spell points don't matter to get the right card - most of my tournament books win with 20-30 SBP, and the rest are just sideboard options.
In untimed play I very rarely lose, but more so in timed, as is natural. Aggressive books honestly have very little chance in untimed play (which is a good reason for a tournament metagame being timed). To take an extreme example - my favourite Druid book is one that I have never lost a match with. I have also never gotten a win in 75 mins either, and for that reason I've never taken it to a tournament. I have plenty of other books that are good, and I've won tournaments with, but they are not so sure of a win - but probably winning in time, is more important than never losing in a tournament (and for clarity, that's just as it should be).
What I'm trying to say here is that the best book to win in 75 mins (or 60, or 90) is not the same as the best book to win untimed. It's definitely not the case of them being the same books, just played slower through distractions.
I've heard you speak a lot about the books that you run. Could you post in the spellbook section your best book? If there is a tie just post them all? I would really like to check it out.
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All of my books, from my Druid to my Warlord, are designed for tournament play. If I can kill an opponent in 60 minutes, it does not matter if I am playing in timed or untimed play. Really, the difference between the two is that untied play is more casual, so people chat and watch TV while playing an untimed game, so play time is rarely over 60 minutes, you just have 60 minutes of other stuff happening during the untimed game.
We never have TV, phones, or anything else distracting, and yet our typical game would be probably 90-120mins, and I've had games very occasionally go 4-5hrs, with only a handful of spells left in each book. In untimed play you can concentrate on being unkillable (high armour, lots of defenses and counters), and spell point efficient (good schools, lots of wands) whilst in timed play you have to balance defence with offense, and spell points don't matter to get the right card - most of my tournament books win with 20-30 SBP, and the rest are just sideboard options.
In untimed play I very rarely lose, but more so in timed, as is natural. Aggressive books honestly have very little chance in untimed play (which is a good reason for a tournament metagame being timed). To take an extreme example - my favourite Druid book is one that I have never lost a match with. I have also never gotten a win in 75 mins either, and for that reason I've never taken it to a tournament. I have plenty of other books that are good, and I've won tournaments with, but they are not so sure of a win - but probably winning in time, is more important than never losing in a tournament (and for clarity, that's just as it should be).
What I'm trying to say here is that the best book to win in 75 mins (or 60, or 90) is not the same as the best book to win untimed. It's definitely not the case of them being the same books, just played slower through distractions.
I've heard you speak a lot about the books that you run. Could you post in the spellbook section your best book? If there is a tie just post them all? I would really like to check it out.
I second Coshade on this.
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Ok I'm back after a nice holiday break. Hope you all had a great holiday, I got my annual allotment of socks :)
In terms of the objectivity topic: a judge has to remain utterly objective. Using any sort of "judges call" system such as counting conjurations, position, etc just would not work. You'd have arguments going back of forth of "Well I would do that...." and "And I would have countered by...." and it'd be a nightmare.
Getting back on topic of a timed win. The more I think on it the happier I am just giving points and not counting matches as wins/ties/loses at all. I'd be in favor of giving more points to an opponent who was ahead at the end of timed match than the person trailing assuming a fair method of determining who was ahead could be established.
Note: I plan to have this method thought out, play tested, and sent to AW by the end of January.
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If we're doing that, here's my thoughts:
12 points to kill opponent's mage
9 points if your opponent's mage is within 5 of death
7 points if your opponent is between 6 and 12 of death
6 points for a tie (only with both mages dead 12 + 0 /2 = 6)
4 points if your opponents mage is between 13 and 20 of death
2 points if your opponent is more than 20 away from death
0 points if you die
The numbers could definitely be tweaked a bit but it seems like a relatively fair system.
And I'd include the remove all dissipates before resolving how close to death the opponent is.
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I disagree with the point allocation because it is too complicated. I would suggest the alternative:
12 points if you win
6 points if you tie
0 points if you lose
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Except we just went through 7 pages where people will disagree on if a timed win is a win or a tie. This takes care of that issue entirely.
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Ok I'm back after a nice holiday break. Hope you all had a great holiday, I got my annual allotment of socks :)
In terms of the objectivity topic: a judge has to remain utterly objective. Using any sort of "judges call" system such as counting conjurations, position, etc just would not work. You'd have arguments going back of forth of "Well I would do that...." and "And I would have countered by...." and it'd be a nightmare.
Getting back on topic of a timed win. The more I think on it the happier I am just giving points and not counting matches as wins/ties/loses at all. I'd be in favor of giving more points to an opponent who was ahead at the end of timed match than the person trailing assuming a fair method of determining who was ahead could be established.
Note: I plan to have this method thought out, play tested, and sent to AW by the end of January.
this is going to be ... wait for it ... legen
so we may be back to what i suggested for gencon?
7 win
3 tie win
2 tie loss
0 loss
i would be in favor of ties being 3 for both players in the tie scenario. no need to ban any cards, or some sort of dissipate activity, no need to decide who is ahead, no determine life deltas etc. boom done. end of time and last action, if both are alive, then both get the tie points. seems easy. good luck sorting it out.
dary
post 500
zot Legendary Mage
sweet.
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I'm more likely to give 1 point for a timed loss. If you want more points play better.
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I still have the issue that 2 wins (no matter how achieved) should be greater than 1 win.
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For the World Boardgaming Championships I use the following scoring system for 90 minute matches
5 pts for a kill
3 pts for highest health remaining at time
1 pt for lowest health remaining at time
1 pt each for tied health remaining at time
0 pt for death
Players are ranked for total points after 5 rounds and prizes awarded to the top 6 players. Tie breaker is based on opponent schedule with tougher schedules given higher ranking.
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I disagree that you should've timed based tournaments. I do understand the reasoning behind it, you want faster games but also the ability to create timetables for tournaments. Since it's still a relatively small community basing the official tournament standard around fitting into time slots at various conventions might be a bad thing in the long run.
I would rather see another time aspect. Instead of having X-minute games, I'd rather see time limited phases. Imagine if we instead had 20sec Upkeep phase, 2-3min planning phase, 20sec quick cast phase (Will you act or not) and 20sec creature action phase (which creature will be activated). Limiting these aspects of the game would give it a more natural flow.
I think this type of time limit would compliment the game more overall since it's more designed around one mage killing the other than who has more hp left when the timer runs out.
I also believe it will open up the meta for more creative books while at the same time also increasing the quality of games. I believe games will be a lot faster paced but with more mistakes and where the player who made the least comes out on top which usually means more fun games for the rest of us to watch.
I understand the most of the X-minute based books will have to disappear or be modified but I think it would be for the greater good to move away from that format. And I also doubt that games within my suggested format would be longer than 2 hours.
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The idea that tournament matches won't be timed is not open for debate for any event occurring at a large convention, at least in North America. Due to constraints of space and logistics timed matches are the only possible option.
As for timing phases. I do not see forcing people to play faster than they're comfortable with being an option. Time limits are outside a judges control as stated earlier. However a judge has an obligation to make an event as welcoming to ALL players as possible. Limiting time phases penalizes new players as well as individuals who just play a little slower than average for whatever reason.
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"You'd have arguments going back of forth of "Well I would do that...." and "And I would have countered by...." and it'd be a nightmare."
Which is why you don't have an open discussion over the board... you ask each player to tell you privately what he is going to do the next turn, and then look at the board position and status boards, and determine the winner without getting the players otherwise involved.
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All the solutions we have are unacceptable, it seems. Either it costs too much money or it interferes with the balance of the metagame. I think maybe we are at a point where ANY possible decision that can be made regarding this issue with the current constraints could potentially harm the game in a serious way, if it hasn't already.
Or maybe we could try the thing I recommended earlier in this thread which seems to have been ignored, which was that if we don't have enough time or tablespace to run a quality competitive mage wars tournament in the convention hall, we need to get at least some of that time and space somewhere else where it is cheaper. Either reserve space at a restaurant, or if weather permits go to a park and use picnic tables, then have only the semifinals and finals in the convention center proper. Or maybe just raise the ticket prices for entering mage wars tournaments at conventions, so that AW can afford more time and tablespace?
Just a thought.
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The idea that tournament matches won't be timed is not open for debate for any event occurring at a large convention, at least in North America. Due to constraints of space and logistics timed matches are the only possible option.
As for timing phases. I do not see forcing people to play faster than they're comfortable with being an option. Time limits are outside a judges control as stated earlier. However a judge has an obligation to make an event as welcoming to ALL players as possible. Limiting time phases penalizes new players as well as individuals who just play a little slower than average for whatever reason.
If we accept the fact that time will always be an issue, why is that not even a bigger reason to introduce time-based phases? From my perspective the more actions that are being played in a game, the easier it's to see who's playing better and who is more likely to win.
Will time-based phases be a disaster for the competitive community? I wouldn't think so at all, I think it would introduce a wider variety of books resulting in a more developed meta. Would this change not be for everyone? Probably, it will require both more deck design and game knowledge but also produce them as a result.
I think every mage wars competitive match should end up with a winner or a loser, preferably by killing the other mage. With more actions, it should be an easier task to accomplish but in case no one dies, perhaps the judge would step in and call a winner. Since the judge has seen the match, both decks and can, therefore, make an educated guess about who would win if the game went on further.
You would only have Winners or Losers, making scoring a lot easier.
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All the solutions we have are unacceptable, it seems. Either it costs too much money or it interferes with the balance of the metagame. I think maybe we are at a point where ANY possible decision that can be made regarding this issue with the current constraints could potentially harm the game in a serious way, if it hasn't already.
Or maybe we could try the thing I recommended earlier in this thread which seems to have been ignored, which was that if we don't have enough time or tablespace to run a quality competitive mage wars tournament in the convention hall, we need to get at least some of that time and space somewhere else where it is cheaper. Either reserve space at a restaurant, or if weather permits go to a park and use picnic tables, then have only the semifinals and finals in the convention center proper. Or maybe just raise the ticket prices for entering mage wars tournaments at conventions, so that AW can afford more time and tablespace?
Just a thought.
I don't mind conventions being restricted by various conventions variables themselves, I just want the overall competitive scene to be more strict, however, that might just be me.
If you play a tournament at a convention center its more or less implied it has to be finished at it. There's no real way around it that is worth exploring.
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Cause you'd need a judge with a stopwatch at every table timing every single phase and it still doesn't solve the issue if a match is running long and you have to call it at some point.
I think it's unfair to say we don't have acceptable solutions. I think it's just a matter of ironing out some fine points starting with whether or not a timed win is a win or a tie OR if we're going on a straight point structure; how to define those points when time runs out.
As someone who thinks a win is a win is a win but would be willing to accept a point structure...I think that's a fair compromise as long as we don't overload points in a specific way that just goes back to death being the only acceptable way to win.
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Even if players could be counted on to time their own phases you still have to time the matches due to the restraints of your venue. This just isn't a realistic way to go.
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Timed matches are the standard for every convention, so they are probably going to be the standard for every tournament. Giving the same number of point to each person during a tie prevents people from spending too much time on each phase because they cannot just wait out the clock and get a win. I play Priestess, but I really do not like timed wins, as it is not satisfying.
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Even if players could be counted on to time their own phases you still have to time the matches due to the restraints of your venue. This just isn't a realistic way to go.
Well as I said earlier I accepted that time-constraint due to the venue would be a factor and argued that it only increased the incentive to have timed-phases since more actions = higher chance of someone dying.
If we accept the fact that time will always be an issue, why is that not even a bigger reason to introduce time-based phases? From my perspective the more actions that are being played in a game, the easier it's to see who's playing better and who is more likely to win.
Will time-based phases be a disaster for the competitive community? I wouldn't think so at all, I think it would introduce a wider variety of books resulting in a more developed meta. Would this change not be for everyone? Probably, it will require both more deck design and game knowledge but also produce them as a result.
I think every mage wars competitive match should end up with a winner or a loser, preferably by killing the other mage. With more actions, it should be an easier task to accomplish but in case no one dies, perhaps the judge would step in and call a winner. Since the judge has seen the match, both decks and can, therefore, make an educated guess about who would win if the game went on further.
You would only have Winners or Losers, making scoring a lot easier.
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As has been discussed in this thread: nobody is trying for a timed win in a tournament. The logic behind that is flawed. So I don't believe it's a matter of encouragement so much as it is a method of fairness. Though I'll concede players may have a "back up" plan if they see a death is unlikely.
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If you play a tournament at a convention center its more or less implied it has to be finished at it. There's no real way around it that is worth exploring.
I don't follow. Could you elaborate on why, specifically? That sounds a bit like social expectations. Just because your'e socially expected to conduct your entire event at the convention hall proper doesn't make it a good idea.
From the sound of it, the system that appears to be in place in conventions is clearly biased in favor of shorter smaller, simpler games, and Arcane Wonders shouldn't have to pretend otherwise just to keep up appearances. If they can't afford to run an adequate competitive tournament for their flagship game in a convention center because the time and tablespace they would need for it is too expensive, to the point where they would rather harm the balance/health of their flagship game's meta, just to comply with such constraints, then that is a problem that needs to be fixed. It is not something to be tolerated indefinitely.
I don't know what Arcane Wonders is planning to do about that if anything. It's not right and it's not fair of convention hosts to punish bigger games just for being bigger. If Arcane Wonders cannot convince ANY convention hosts ANYWHERE to be more reasonable, then they should consider whether there are any other possible venues for official tournament play which would allow them to actually run an Arena tournament properly without stupid extra constraints that artificially mess with the results.
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I wouldn't be opposed to paying more for longer time slots at cons... especially GenCon / Origins, where we seem to have a pretty good draw already.
The only downside (in MW terms) I can imagine is that I get burned out by the game after 5+ hours already... we would ideally (in my mind) have the preliminary rounds go two days instead of one. Maybe a Thursday afternoon / evening time, and then Friday morning / afternoon... with finals on Saturday.
The other (player) downsides are in 1) not being able to do anything else at the con all that time... and 2) having to be available on Thursday to play.
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The downside to doing Thursdays is attendance. Historically turn out is lower for tournaments on the first day of the con.
Sailor time limits are mandatory is because we only have so much time with the tables. That's true at big cons like Gen Con and small ones like Mace. Yes we can normally play into the night, but that's cause the space is reserved for casual play and still has an expiration.
Tournaments stay in the same area the entire time because it's a logistics nightmare for the organizers and judges otherwise.
Also, and this is a very minor personal note speaking as a guy who's judged events at cons for almost 20 years now: I have other things I'd like to do other than watch a bunch of unlimited timed matches. You'd have real trouble finding qualified staff for that at a lot of events.
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exactly.
everyone might as well halt all discussions regarding no time limit. it absolutely will not happen for a sanctioned convention tournament in north america due to all of the reasons mentioned. a lot of folks go to conventions for things other than mage wars(though I do not know why). some of us die hards only want to play mw for the entire time, but that is not everyone(which includes the judges). they want to play and enjoy the con themselves. for casual play outside of a sanctioned event, sure no time constraints is fine. that is where you can play other longer books.
I would think 90 min matches is likely as long as it will realistically get.
the judges will post the final rules, limits, point system if there is one, etc, at least 30 days before an event. if they decide sooner, I am sure they will let everyone know as early as possible to give everyone as much time as they can to tune their books accordingly.
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Thank you Zot. As a note I spent over 24 hours in the tournament area last Gen Con. I do sometimes like to go to the rest room and sleep though.
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It should be noted that no one is forcing people to tune all of their books to tournament specifications. If you and your friends like playing 2-3 hour games, you should play 2-3 hour games, but conventions and tournaments have finite resources for games, so they cannot accommodate those spellbooks. I do think that most spellbooks that take 2-3 hours to win will lose within 90 minutes to a spellbook made to tournament specifications though, as tournament spellbooks are designed to cause massive damage within 90 minutes.
For example, the majority of the people who learned to play against my Priestess have had to deal an average of over 80 points of damage to my mage in less than 90 minutes to reliably win (and this is through her Guardian Angels and other protections), and I had to learn to deal an average of 60 points of damage to their mages in less than 90 minutes to reliably win. If a spellbook is incapable of dealing 80 points of damage in 90 minutes or absorbing 60 points of damage in 90 minutes, then they would have a real hard time against my spellbook. Just an observation.
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It should be noted that no one is forcing people to tune all of their books to tournament specifications. If you and your friends like playing 2-3 hour games, you should play 2-3 hour games, but conventions and tournaments have finite resources for games, so they cannot accommodate those spellbooks. I do think that most spellbooks that take 2-3 hours to win will lose within 90 minutes to a spellbook made to tournament specifications though, as tournament spellbooks are designed to cause massive damage within 90 minutes.
For example, the majority of the people who learned to play against my Priestess have had to deal an average of over 80 points of damage to my mage in less than 90 minutes to reliably win (and this is through her Guardian Angels and other protections), and I had to learn to deal an average of 60 points of damage to their mages in less than 90 minutes to reliably win. If a spellbook is incapable of dealing 80 points of damage in 90 minutes or absorbing 60 points of damage in 90 minutes, then they would have a real hard time against my spellbook. Just an observation.
What books have you found that are capable if doing that much dmg in 90 minutes?
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No one is challenging the problem of game length at a convention.
What I'm arguing for is that you introduce a time-phases to competitive games to make them more challenging for the players while also giving them a more steady game pace. Games at conventions will be played faster which may result in more player mistakes due to time constraints and nerves.
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I think I've a good idea of everyone's views. I thank you all for your input. I've got some implention to test.
Also Red as a final snark: I can put 80 damage on Obsidian Soul in that time limit :)
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Timed versus non timed books are completely different animals. They could even share the same spells but be played using different beats. In a timed game there is always that sword of Damocles hanging over you that you must finish in a set time or risk losing to a time decision.
In my experience these books do not hang about and follow a pattern of Setup/Mana, creatures, kill/mitigate problems. Huge swings of damage are important as, even if they do not kill the opponent then it will affect their ability to win during a "to time" decision. This is why I would say that Restore should be banned in competitive play it focuses a win at timed. Sure I mistyped a value, but the core of the argument is still there. The Priestess can easily swing 19 (10 + 8 dice (avg) + 1) damage on average with a heal and restore. No other mage can do this and thus it is an unfair advantage.
In untimed games then I have no time limit to worry about and my focus shifts so I can get my manas worth out of a spell. Over 4-5 hours you can easily just build an armored shell, where corrode and rust does not affect you greatly. Sure you want to go to the kill but it is at your speed and it becomes a game of poker and chess to outfox the opponent at a leisurely speed.
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I've heard you speak a lot about the books that you run. Could you post in the spellbook section your best book? If there is a tie just post them all? I would really like to check it out.
I'm not a fan of revealing my books to anyone (a book is MUCH easier to play against once you know how many dissolves/jinxes/wands/etc are in it). It's for that reason when I was playing CCG's to national and ProTour level, I rarely went back to a book for high level play once it's been published as a Top 8 decklist. As such, I never post any of my books - I much more interested in preserving my win percentages than helping anyone else! ;)
That said, the aforementioned Druid is never going to be tournament viable for the reasons named, so what the hell I'll post it. That said, we are all working from the same fairly small card pool, so I doubt it will be too revolutionary - it's more about playstyle and metagame I suspect. But sure, give me a few and I'll revert it to it's last non-playtest version and post it.
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I've heard you speak a lot about the books that you run. Could you post in the spellbook section your best book? If there is a tie just post them all? I would really like to check it out.
I'm not a fan of revealing my books to anyone (a book is MUCH easier to play against once you know how many dissolves/jinxes/wands/etc are in it). It's for that reason when I was playing CCG's to national and ProTour level, I rarely went back to a book for high level play once it's been published as a Top 8 decklist. As such, I never post any of my books - I much more interested in preserving my win percentages than helping anyone else! ;)
That said, the aforementioned Druid is never going to be tournament viable for the reasons named, so what the hell I'll post it. That said, we are all working from the same fairly small card pool, so I doubt it will be too revolutionary - it's more about playstyle and metagame I suspect. But sure, give me a few and I'll revert it to it's last non-playtest version and post it.
Well I understand you're not a fan of revealing books but realistically who on this forum is going to play them? :o
Most of the ones asking are North American players and will likely never face you unless you join ADMW.
Can't hurt that much, can it?
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Well I understand you're not a fan of revealing books but realistically who on this forum is going to play them? :o
Most of the ones asking are North American players and will likely never face you unless you join ADMW.
Can't hurt that much, can it?
Well it reveals cards and counts to my regular play partner - that's the big hit! ;)
All that work, starting with high counts of duplicates, that I slow tune down as he gives up on destroying them all. Clearly I'll need to rework it after. But yeah, I agree it doesn't matter much, if it did, I wouldn't be posting it!
I'm catching up on lost of playtesting posts in the other forum atm, but I'll get it reverted and posted at the weekend I'd think.
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So I am very late to this conversation but I would like to put my thoughts out there and a Mage Wars event runner at Conventions (Con Carolina and Mace here in NC). Warning this is a bit long, but please read it all if you are so inclined.
Overall Mage Wars objective is to take out the other mage. That said the only hic-up that we come across are games that go to the time limit. I am in the camp that games that go to time are a draw, whit no winner or loser, and should be scored as such. Either marked at a draw/tie or if going by point then award both mages the equal points. I also believe that a points-based system would be the best for tracking standings and not worry about Win/Loss/Tie. If we would do that at time limit draw, and we would give as much time as we can to players to allow a conclusion (75-80-90 minute games).
While most games do not go to the time limit, there are some who build does more to keep their mage alive than to take out the other mage. What makes this hard is a couple of things.
1. The player who may be expecting to go to the time limit, and win this way, is prepared. The other player may not be and this can be very tiring physically and mentally, as you do not get a break between matches.
2. This is a stress on the Event Runners trying to get the next set of matches going in a timely manner without allowing too much time between the matches.
Not all endings can have a clear winner/loser and Mage Wars matches going to time are that way. I have seen matches if Time would be called like normal then one player would be the loser when compared to the way things are wanting to be done, but as the play goes a bit longer this same player will easily win. I am a big supporter of an even draw. Some might think well then the player who went to time 3 time and draw won't get a chance to get to finals. This may be true, and that is something that I am ok with. Will they have more points than a mage who lost 3 times, yeah. Will they have more points than a mage that won twice and lost one, likely not. Three draws should be equal to 1.5 wins. So they would be ranked higher than any 1 win 2 loss players, but not above 2 wins.
Some might think this is penalizing players that have their match go to the time limit. You can look at it that way, but only if you compare it to how it is being done now. What I am looking at is a forward facing idea on how to make the idea of the timed game (no matter what the time limit is) be scorable and easy not only to the players but to the Event Runners as well. So, as an example, You make Wins 2 points, Loss 0, Draw game 1 point for each mage.
These are my thoughts, I have had them for a while and I just wanted to put them out.
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Well I understand you're not a fan of revealing books but realistically who on this forum is going to play them? :o
Most of the ones asking are North American players and will likely never face you unless you join ADMW.
Can't hurt that much, can it?
Well it reveals cards and counts to my regular play partner - that's the big hit! ;)
All that work, starting with high counts of duplicates, that I slow tune down as he gives up on destroying them all. Clearly I'll need to rework it after. But yeah, I agree it doesn't matter much, if it did, I wouldn't be posting it!
I'm catching up on lost of playtesting posts in the other forum atm, but I'll get it reverted and posted at the weekend I'd think.
I am also in the no deck posting group. i always had a negative view of netdecking by folks back in my mtg days. i wanted to be more unique, and never bothered looking at such things. i expected opponents to do the same. build your own stuff.
however some people just are not able to wrap their minds around how to build a tuned book. they hate that part of the game and just want to play. i don't get that, but some are that way. they are just different than me and that is fine. however, that said one of my peeves is that i do not want to face my books. i want to face an opponents book based on their own strategy or tactics. not a mirror of how i think.
for me, my books(competitive) represent many, many (in some cases - another many) hours of thought and obsessing over what makes it in. even a small change requires more agonizing over what to cut. for me that is part of the fun of mw, that deck building aspect. so for someone to just get a copy of my book obscenely short changes that process. why should they benefit from so much of my time spent on tuning and tuning something? it is sort of like looking up cheat codes for a game. so i never post books.
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Well I understand you're not a fan of revealing books but realistically who on this forum is going to play them? :o
Most of the ones asking are North American players and will likely never face you unless you join ADMW.
Can't hurt that much, can it?
Well it reveals cards and counts to my regular play partner - that's the big hit! ;)
All that work, starting with high counts of duplicates, that I slow tune down as he gives up on destroying them all. Clearly I'll need to rework it after. But yeah, I agree it doesn't matter much, if it did, I wouldn't be posting it!
I'm catching up on lost of playtesting posts in the other forum atm, but I'll get it reverted and posted at the weekend I'd think.
I am also in the no deck posting group. i always had a negative view of netdecking by folks back in my mtg days. i wanted to be more unique, and never bothered looking at such things. i expected opponents to do the same. build your own stuff.
however some people just are not able to wrap their minds around how to build a tuned book. they hate that part of the game and just want to play. i don't get that, but some are that way. they are just different than me and that is fine. however, that said one of my peeves is that i do not want to face my books. i want to face an opponents book based on their own strategy or tactics. not a mirror of how i think.
for me, my books(competitive) represent many, many (in some cases - another many) hours of thought and obsessing over what makes it in. even a small change requires more agonizing over what to cut. for me that is part of the fun of mw, that deck building aspect. so for someone to just get a copy of my book obscenely short changes that process. why should they benefit from so much of my time spent on tuning and tuning something? it is sort of like looking up cheat codes for a game. so i never post books.
Because it's nothing like looking up cheat codes for a game? If this were MTG where deck building skill was a lot more important than play skill, I would say you have a point. But this isnt mtg. Why does it matter to you so much which decks other people use? Who cares if they use the same deck as you? If they win against you using the same deck that you are playing that means they had more skill with that deck than you, regardless of who designed the deck originally.
If anything it's harder to win using someone else's deck when you first pick it up because you're not as familiar with it as someone who actually designed it. It can take a lot of practice and trial and error to figure out how to play someone else's deck well. It only makes things easier AFTER you've practiced with the deck enough, or if your own deck building skills are bad enough that the trade off between familiarity and good deck design is worth it. I suspect that it's the latter situation that you're worried about. But there are also highly skilled deckbuilders who like to try different things that other players came up with too in addition to their own.
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As this is getting into a rather rude off topic debate I'm gonna ask that the topic of posting your book be taken else where.
For the record: Any request from a player that I not share their book is respected at any event I run.
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I agree that is appropriate. In my case, it does not matter if my books are posted because they change with each iteration (though some cards always stay the same).
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I kinda agree with Zot here. Even in my mtg days i used to hate it when someone borrowed one of my decks and then beat me with it. I get that the shared books here are usually about getting feedback and looking for tweaks to make it better, and most of the edits and finished products don't make it to the boards.
I can see the draw if a sort of plug and play variety where you can just grab a book and go, but literally half of the game is in the book building. If you can't make one yourself you can't win. I imagine its a bit like what am actual mage might be like with his own crafted arena strategies. Jealously guarded I'm sure.
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I tend to disagree. The game is strategy, then spellbooks, then luck. While every spellbook has its own particularities, you start noticing enough similarities to play even a strange spellbook well after you play 500 or 600 matches. While you will always be best with a spellbook you designed, you should be able to win with any decent spellbook.
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romeo, that is why i had a well known rule. i never lent my mtg decks to anyone.
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I have made a separate post so that you may discuss net building there.
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Current Gen-Con layout:
~4 rounds of qualifying. 0 points for a timed win? *
Semifinals. If those goes to time, how will you determine a winner?
Finals. No timelimit.
*The 0 points for a timed win might create problems. What do we do if there is a group of players with 2 kills and 2 losses? (If we can´t tell who is in top 4)
And a few ideas/thoughts:
Id like 90 min matches - fewer matches should go to time.
Let all the matches run with a timelimit of 2 hours. "Winner" advances. With 16 mages that would mean we would only play 1-4 matches. If your dead your out :)
Have anyone tried or considering letting the mages start in the middle of the arena instead? It should speed things up.
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Previously with Gen Con we've given out points for timed wins. That's frankly just not likely to change. However I am increasing the time limit to 90 minutes for qualifiers.
I'm also just going to remove the time limit on semi finals and the finals.
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I would be seriously irritated if I paid for a "tournament" and only got to play one game.
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You get at least 3 and usually four with any event I run, including Gen Con.