Your last reply didn't really address Ringkichard's points, Hedge. All you said was "It doesn't matter in swiss rounds, but when it does matter a Judge can decide." If we allow in your system for having a Judge decide, I would personally want to know how the judge is basing his decision. I would again want a clear, concise, standardized system for determining the winner. Without that, it would simply be the judge's opinion of who he thinks would have come out on top. That doesn't seem fair to me at all.
Let us imagine a worst case scenario, shall we. Two players playing in the finals end with a legitimately tied game. After listening to their plans, the Judge decides to give the win to Player B. Obviously unhappy with that decision, Player A uses the race card and says that he lost because the Judge was racist and didn't like African Americans.
Not only does the Judge not have a way to defend himself against this accusation, BUT IT MIGHT ACTUALLY BE TRUE! It could very easily be the fact that the judge didn't like the way the losing player looked, or smelled, or acted. Something about him could have just gotten under the Judge's skin, and the only thing the Judge has to fall back on is "Well, I think he would have won" when there is ample chance that the other player could have won as well.
Now, if instead we have a clear system for how the judge would base his decision in place, then there would be no reason to have the concession rule in effect. The person who knows he would win by Judge's decision would never concede.
Ties in Swiss are fine, can we please stop discussing what happens during swiss rounds.
And that is the reason the two players would work toward an agreement because they do not know what the judge will take into consideration, they will decide what is fair on thier own. You guys are simply not understanding that it works. All your conjecture is unfounded. Based on Shadows reports from Gencon he would have only had to make a single descision on one game that weekend, and that is only if the two players could not decide it themselves. This is on his 87% of games finished on time.
If the judge cannot put aside personal issues they should not be a judge in the first place. Again this is only for conventions and a high level member of the rules team would be that judge in most if not all cases.
Then come up with a clear system that is simple, doesn't take more that 2 minutes to do, requires no algebraic functions or a calculator, and does not favor one deck type over another. On my next post I will post a full overview of the tournament format, I will not address any response of the things before this post. I don't think I have fully fleshed out the format. I see that outlining it from beging to end will help some of the parts that are missing or have not been questioned.
Thanks
Hedge