Tournament Scoring

[SharkBait]

This is a sub topic of the conversation in the restore thread without actually trying to derail that one. So, with that in mind, I want to address this.

In timed Mage Wars games i think its to strong.

Just had 3 matches that went to time at Gen-Con, were playing that card in the lasts rounds would give me an almost 100% sure win.

What if I suggested that the problem doesn't lay within the cards, but in the way we define a "win" and the way we score tournaments? IMPORTANT NOTE: This is not an indictment of Grizzly or his crew, I have very much enjoyed my last few years of playing tournaments run by them. However, we can always strive to improve.

I think the real root of the problem is that due to the nature of adding a time limit to the game, in general we've also added additional "win" conditions (namely, have more life remaining than the other person at the end of the game.) These are actually two additional rules (1. Time limit, 2. Win condition for something other than mage death) that have been added to deal with real life time constraints. Now the discussions are moving towards adding more modified rules (limits on "restore", counting only the starting life, etc) to deal with some of the abuses that are potentially there from the new "win" conditions.

I propose instead that wins only be awarded in the case of mage death, as laid out on page 6 of the rulebook. Something along the lines of 3 points for killing the other mage, 0 points for being killed seem fair to me. If the match ends with no death, both players receive a 1 point draw. This requires only 1 rule modification (Time limits) and encourages people to play within the bounds of the tournament. If someone comes to a tournament like GenCon with a book that's meant to live until time is called without killing the other mage, then they will never win the tournament. Instead, they should (and I suspect most actually WILL) focus on killing the other mage in time alotted.

The above proposal is simpler than the current scoring system (only 1 rule modified, no grey area), stays true to the intended nature of mage wars (2 mages enter, 1 mage leaves), and will avoid many of the problems that arise with "modified wins" based on current/ending life totals that ultimately mean nothing in an un-timed match.

Thoughts/other ideas?

[jacksmack]

3 points for winning.

0 points for losing.

-1 points to each if both are alive.

[silverclawgrizzly]

While I do not discount this idea out of hand I'm going to lay out a few points. These are NOT arguments but just some points.

1. This rewards the heavy aggression style of play and punishes the slow burn style. While it's all cool to go "Kill the mage and win the match or else" realistically as a responsible event coordinator I don't see telling someone their play style is invalid just because of time limits. All styles and perspectives have to be respected as much as possible even with time limits. Furthermore newer players, who are already at a massive disadvantage fighting guys like Sharkbait, Biblofilter, Jimillia, etc are slower players by default anyway and this punishes them. While we can discuss the "spirit of Mage Wars" or the "original intent" all day long, at the end of that day any event organizer who's not trying to be as fair to every single player there doesn't need to be running events.

2. There are to the best of my knowledge no available online Organized Play rules. Or at least I searched the Arcane Wonders website, searched via online sources, and couldn't find them. That being said it would then be up to each individual event coordinator(who's not always the same guy as the judge) to determine the set up in advance. As Sharkbait mentioned to me those rules should be posted online as early as possible. Technically I break from the old rules by making my championship matches untimed for example. I do know organized play is being revamped but a time line on that is not available to me. I mention all of this so as to make clear, whatever decision is made for events like Gen Con are NOT binding to anyone else. If someone can find the link to the official rules let me know please.

3. Now in terms of quick advantages like Restore. There is not currently a viable method of stopping a last turn, final Quick Cast of Restore that reveals immediately. If I call "Last Turn" and your opponent holds their final Quick Cast until the end you do not get a chance to respond. The only thing you can do is try to bring Finite Life into the equation some how. However there are only two methods to do that. Poison Blood and Deathlock. Now obvioulsy the Deathlock is a guaranteed way to have shut that down sure as it can't be Nullified so thus putting a Deathlock in every book would deter that Restore stuff. I 100% do not believe in the concept of "Auto Include Cards" and I certainly do not believe in everyone not Dark having to spend 4 spell book points to counter a Level 1 Holy Mage Only Enchantment. The "include this card or you lose" mentality is beyond idiotic in this case and it just will not be advocated by a responsible(to say nothing of mature) event organizer. Not to mention that ties up 4 spell book points you can't use until the very end for fear of losing it. Now Poison Blood shows up in a lot of peoples books for all sorts of mages but that's a crap shoot at best given Nullify, positioning, etc. Yeah I can get it on you in a game if I really want to.....but last turn with limited margin for error?

4. Finally and this ties into #2 again, I'm debating responses to this perceived issue for events I run. I do not work for Arcane Wonders in an official capacity, just a lucky ambassador who's run events for them a bunch of times and gets told he does pretty good. I have not decided on any one correct course of action, I in fact do not believe there is one single "correct" response and that includes ignoring it. That being said while I don't claim my response is mandatory for everyone, I am going to do something and I have until November to figure it out.

[theasaris]

Hello all,

we have had a lengthy discussion at the German Nationals as well, which led to the majority of players (~24) and judges involved come up with a new scoring system which has in the mean time already been tested at a few organized play tournaments in Germany.

A time limit of 90 minutes is in effect. After 90 minutes both players note their remaining life (current total life minus damage). Points are then scored as follows:

2 + x if the opposing mage is dead
1 + x if own mage has more life remaining
1 - x if opposing mage has more life remaining

x equals the difference in life remaining between both mages divided by 20 to a maximum of 1.

* If both mages are dead players score 1 point each.

Some examples (sorry for the bad formatting):

Own Life remaining   Opponent Life remaining       Score(old)   Score(new)
   32--------------------------------0---------------------------4:0-----------------3:0

   20--------------------------------0---------------------------4:0-----------------3:0

   10--------------------------------0---------------------------4:0---------- ----2.5:0.5

     2--------------------------------0---------------------------4:0---------------2.1:0.9

   32--------------------------------1---------------------------3:1-----------------2:0

   21--------------------------------1---------------------------3:1-----------------2:0

   11--------------------------------1---------------------------3:1---------------1.5:0.5

   32------------------------------31---------------------------3:1--------------1.05:0.95

     2--------------------------------1---------------------------3:1--------------1.05:0.95

   32------------------------------32---------------------------2:2-----------------1:1

    1--------------------------------1---------------------------2:2-----------------1:1

    0--------------------------------0---------------------------2:2-----------------1:1

[Sailor Vulcan]

What if we put time limits on phases instead of games? Like a three minute time limit per phase per player. If someone goes over that time limit perhaps it means they aren't familiar with their spellbook enough to play faster. Give them a warning or two and if they're still going past the three minute mark on phases they lose the match. Also because games of arena vary so much in their length, it might be necessary to find a way for shorter games to compensate for longer games. Instead of waiting for that one 15-20 round game to finish while everyone else waits for them or cutting them off prematurely, simply give players a score card which includes a list of all of the opponents they will fight in the tournament, which will be randomly generated in advance. Each time they finish a game they can put a check mark next to that opponent's name. And instead of having separate swiss and elimination portion of the tournament, just combine them into one swiss style tournament. Whoever wins the most games is the winner, and if they're a tie you have a tiebreaker match. I know it's more dramatic for TV if people can be eliminated from further participation in the tournament, but it's always more fun to play more mage wars games rather than fewer mage wars games, and swiss style tournaments are probably more fair in general because the results are determined by just a simple win count out of a certain number of games all against different opponents.

I really don't see the need for elimination rounds in Mage Wars Arena tournaments. All it does is make things appear more dramatic on TV and increase the tournament length unless you use time limits to prematurely cut games off. And it's not like mage wars is a media sensation like some other games.

Then again it might be harder to cover a bunch of games in a swiss tournament then focusing on the "Finals" because then you have more games to focus on. But the solution to this is obviously to have some partipants volunteer to write about their matches afterwards, and to have some people taking pictures of different games at various points. While it's not the same as full video coverage of the entirety of any one particular match, it's still plenty comprehensive, and you could still sometimes video record some of the more interesting matches.

Another option which no one's mentioned yet, why not just block out more time for tournaments?  Increase the time limit to 1.5 or maybe even 2 hours per game. Explain to the event hosts why this is necessary. Alternatively just host your own events in a location where you're not competing with other shorter and more popular games for time and space.



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[zot]

i think the scoring 7/3/2/0 used worked as intended. wins were worth more than ties, and the top four at gc had at least 20 points. life gain strategies,including restore, or stall tactics gains only one point more for the player versus not playing such a strategy. ties sre 3/2 win/loss. those tactics will lose overall to books out there winning. now slow build decks  have a difficult time. i like the idea of 90 min rounds. that should be good enough for most builds and help even slow players have enough time to get the match decided. 

i felt the recent tourney was run and handled very smoothly. i did not hear of any issues or comlaints from anyone. other than the arctic conditions of the hall. maybe it was just me.

note, no one seemed to be playing such a strategy and all folks competed very hard. the best level of competition for any tourney. i have been in over four years.

[silverclawgrizzly]

@ Sailor Vulcan: We don't book more time because that costs more money. Arcane Wonders made some serious dollar bills at Gen Con this year but it isn't cheap man lol. That booth, the table space, the rooms for ambassadors(and that includes judges), all of that costs money you and I don't even want to contemplate. Getting extra time is a matter of availability from Gen Con(you may have noticed we had neighbors every second of the con) and funding.

@ Zot: You're not the only person who found that play area chilly. Though I think the hoodie and cap look makes you look like a dark and gritty battle tested warrior I'd prefer it if we weren't cold all the time also. I like the current scoring system but am looking at making a small change, maybe increasing the time limits(we do have some wiggle room) during the Friday matches.

I'll also say I don't believe a single person came to Gen Con to stall or did anything other than their best to kill the other mage. The inherent issue with the "win by life" method is it's an enormous gamble and if you put all your eggs in that basket it can do horrible for you. In the case of Biblofilter had he lost a single match he'd have never made it to finals and he came VERY close to losing at least two of his qualifiers.

[Brian VanAlstyne]

I'll have more to say later when I'm not at work on my phone, but I have a real issue with reducing timed wins to meaningless and changing rules to really limit certain playstyles. I don't think anyone goes into a tournament with a stalling strategy but neither do I believe everyone goes into a tournament with a 5 round kill or be killed strategy. There are certain cards and schools that become unusable with some of the options presented here. Priestess, pointless to play without the inherent life gain ability or pointless to play if heals are meaningless to just get 0 points, might as well just concede and let the opponent win.

There are other points to make too but I'll get to them later.

[Sailor Vulcan]

@ Sailor Vulcan: We don't book more time because that costs more money. Arcane Wonders made some serious dollar bills at Gen Con this year but it isn't cheap man lol. That booth, the table space, the rooms for ambassadors(and that includes judges), all of that costs money you and I don't even want to contemplate. Getting extra time is a matter of availability from Gen Con(you may have noticed we had neighbors every second of the con) and funding.

@ Zot: You're not the only person who found that play area chilly. Though I think the hoodie and cap look makes you look like a dark and gritty battle tested warrior I'd prefer it if we weren't cold all the time also. I like the current scoring system but am looking at making a small change, maybe increasing the time limits(we do have some wiggle room) during the Friday matches.

I'll also say I don't believe a single person came to Gen Con to stall or did anything other than their best to kill the other mage. The inherent issue with the "win by life" method is it's an enormous gamble and if you put all your eggs in that basket it can do horrible for you. In the case of Biblofilter had he lost a single match he'd have never made it to finals and he came VERY close to losing at least two of his qualifiers.

That's kind of dumb. Does gen con literally know nothing about games? Different games take different amounts of time to play, and setting up a system where time spent playing has a direct relationship with cost regardless of game length unfairly penalizes longer games compared to shorter ones. Obviously what they should be doing is making time costs be proportional to game length and player turnout. The way they're doing things now is ridiculous and I don't understand why they do it that way when any experienced gamer should be able to tell how ridiculous it is. Is it like this at ALL cons? Or just gen con?

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[SharkBait]

There are some interesting points here that I would like to address to further discussion of this topic.

1. This rewards the heavy aggression style of play and punishes the slow burn style. While it's all cool to go "Kill the mage and win the match or else" realistically as a responsible event coordinator I don't see telling someone their play style is invalid just because of time limits. All styles and perspectives have to be respected as much as possible even with time limits. Furthermore newer players, who are already at a massive disadvantage fighting guys like Sharkbait, Biblofilter, Jimillia, etc are slower players by default anyway and this punishes them. While we can discuss the "spirit of Mage Wars" or the "original intent" all day long, at the end of that day any event organizer who's not trying to be as fair to every single player there doesn't need to be running events.

This is a place I think we fundamentally disagree on 2 separate points. I'll point them out so that we can discuss them  .

1. I do not agree that this rewards "heavy" aggression style of play, nor does it punish the "slow burn" style. I have personally played both in these types of conditions and have never once gone to time. Another example from both Origins and GenCon this year: A double battleforge warlord (an extremely opposite style to "heavy aggression") was able to finish almost every match before time was called. If I remember correctly, he only went to time once at Origins. While I agree that all styles should be respected as much as possible, the literal point of the game is to win by killing the enemy mage. If someone can't build a book that does so, then they honestly don't deserve to win a competitive match in my humble opinion. Someone who brings a book designed to play a strictly 4 hour game has no business winning in a 75 min timed round tournament. You're supposed to build a book to win the tournament environment in which you're entering.

2. While I respect that newer players are at a massive disadvantage in tournaments against more experienced players, I do not feel that the playing field should in any way be "leveled" to help them in what is effectively the North American Championship tournament. Instead, those newer players interested in joining the competitive events should become accustomed to what is actually required and not given points for being "slow".

3. Now in terms of quick advantages like Restore. There is not currently a viable method of stopping a last turn, final Quick Cast of Restore that reveals immediately. If I call "Last Turn" and your opponent holds their final Quick Cast until the end you do not get a chance to respond. The only thing you can do is try to bring Finite Life into the equation some how. However there are only two methods to do that. Poison Blood and Deathlock. Now obvioulsy the Deathlock is a guaranteed way to have shut that down sure as it can't be Nullified so thus putting a Deathlock in every book would deter that Restore stuff. I 100% do not believe in the concept of "Auto Include Cards" and I certainly do not believe in everyone not Dark having to spend 4 spell book points to counter a Level 1 Holy Mage Only Enchantment. The "include this card or you lose" mentality is beyond idiotic in this case and it just will not be advocated by a responsible(to say nothing of mature) event organizer. Not to mention that ties up 4 spell book points you can't use until the very end for fear of losing it. Now Poison Blood shows up in a lot of peoples books for all sorts of mages but that's a crap shoot at best given Nullify, positioning, etc. Yeah I can get it on you in a game if I really want to.....but last turn with limited margin for error?

My opinion on this issue is that one should be prepared to deal with it when 3/14 potential mages can run it. You point out plenty of ways above to combat the issue, and that doesn't even include killing the other mage (Which would prevent restore shenanigans ). I'd also point out, that giving a draw for those not killing the opposing mage also sorts out the problem to some degree by not giving one player more points than the other for a temporary boost in their life stat. I can find videos of multiple competitive matches and can recount many instances of the saying "X person would have won in a timed match, but lost in the end" for evidence that the life total difference is not a reflective enough measure of someone winning the match.

4. Finally and this ties into #2 again, I'm debating responses to this perceived issue for events I run. I do not work for Arcane Wonders in an official capacity, just a lucky ambassador who's run events for them a bunch of times and gets told he does pretty good. I have not decided on any one correct course of action, I in fact do not believe there is one single "correct" response and that includes ignoring it. That being said while I don't claim my response is mandatory for everyone, I am going to do something and I have until November to figure it out.

Apologies if this discussion turns problematic, but i figured it'd be a good one to have to see where the community stands. At worst, it's other data to consider. I have faith that you'll make a good call either way 

Hello all,

we have had a lengthy discussion at the German Nationals as well, which led to the majority of players (~24) and judges involved come up with a new scoring system which has in the mean time already been tested at a few organized play tournaments in Germany.

A time limit of 90 minutes is in effect. After 90 minutes both players note their remaining life (current total life minus damage). Points are then scored as follows:

2 + x if the opposing mage is dead
1 + x if own mage has more life remaining
1 - x if opposing mage has more life remaining

x equals the difference in life remaining between both mages divided by 20 to a maximum of 1.

* If both mages are dead players score 1 point each.

Hello theasaris . That system definitely looks interesting, and is similar to the way Star Wars Armada tournaments are scored. How has it worked out in your tests? Has everyone been pretty happy with it? I have very little experience applying that kind of system to MW.

i think the scoring 7/3/2/0 used worked as intended. wins were worth more than ties, and the top four at gc had at least 20 points. life gain strategies,including restore, or stall tactics gains only one point more for the player versus not playing such a strategy. ties sre 3/2 win/loss. those tactics will lose overall to books out there winning. now slow build decks  have a difficult time. i like the idea of 90 min rounds. that should be good enough for most builds and help even slow players have enough time to get the match decided. 

i felt the recent tourney was run and handled very smoothly. i did not hear of any issues or comlaints from anyone. other than the arctic conditions of the hall. maybe it was just me.

note, no one seemed to be playing such a strategy and all folks competed very hard. the best level of competition for any tourney. i have been in over four years.

I agree that in general, the point system above would work out too. I just am opining that the points should take priority over "wins" as the wins are currently defined, or that we should change the definition of "win". I don't personally agree that a person wins at time unless you have killed the enemy mage. And as much as I would like 90 min rounds, I'm not sure that the money situation can allow that.

I'll have more to say later when I'm not at work on my phone, but I have a real issue with reducing timed wins to meaningless and changing rules to really limit certain playstyles. I don't think anyone goes into a tournament with a stalling strategy but neither do I believe everyone goes into a tournament with a 5 round kill or be killed strategy. There are certain cards and schools that become unusable with some of the options presented here. Priestess, pointless to play without the inherent life gain ability or pointless to play if heals are meaningless to just get 0 points, might as well just concede and let the opponent win.

There are other points to make too but I'll get to them later.

This is sort of addressed above, but I don't want to discount your views. I am of the opinion that the perception that one must win in 5 rounds or be killed in order to play in a 75 min timed round tournament is a little extreme. I find that I get through 10-15 rounds of play in that time frame and that is typically more than enough to get a mage kill even when playing a defensively minded book. Priestesses can definitely throw enough damage out to win in that timeframe, and heals are far more than meaningless. All that happens is that heals are no longer a part of the win condition outside of the fact that they may help prevent you from losing. I am interested to hear your extended viewpoint later though, you have good insight.




Ok, I think I covered most of what wasn't covered elsewhere 

[zot]

make no mistake here. cons are almost all about making money. time is money. space is money. and gen con is very good at it having now 50 years to hone it. attendance is max as the con sold out.

[Biblofilter]

Im a fan of Two Man Enters, One Man Leaves.

But we still need to find of what to do if people don´t manage to kill each other or they actually do exactly that.

One of the issues is the current format of the Tourney: 4 rounds qualifier then a semi-final and a final (without timelimit) As the final is unlimited it does make sense to build a book that could go on forever.
Besides how are the semi-finals going to be determined?

In Sharbaits system you might end up with a larger bunch of players that have an equal amount of points (3-1-3-1) How do you determine who is going to qualify?

One thing you could do is to play knockout matches - if you limit the tourney to 16 players we only need to play four matches. So you could make a timelimit of 90 min or even 150 min.

Youd still need rules handling people going to time or killing each other.

I also like the system they used in Germany even if you have to watch out for something like: "I could kill my opponent now, but I would make more points if i heal first"

And i do think more points or a better winning chance should be awarded if you have a clear lead in life. (even if more remaining life doesnt always tells us who would have the best chance to win the actual game if they had finished it.

Lets say you keep the current structure 4 rounds qualifying then semi-finals and final.

To determine the winner you could use the yellow D12

Life Difference: 0-10    = 1-6 you win
                       11-20  = 1-7 you win
                       21-30  = 1-8 you win
                       31-40  = 1-9 you win
                       41+     = 1-10 you win

I would mean that the "losing" player in a timed match would have a pretty good chance to advance.

You could use something similar for a scoring system:
                      Kill        =   7-0
Life dif             31+       =  6-1
                       20-30    =  5-2
                       11-20     =  4-3
                         0-10    =   3½-3½ 

A strict point system would mean no semi-final/final, in fact you might have a winner before last round.

Getting knocked out of Gen-Con after only 1 round wouldnt be fun i guess. But if your mage is dead..
                 

[wtcannonjr]

make no mistake here. cons are almost all about making money. time is money. space is money. and gen con is very good at it having now 50 years to hone it. attendance is max as the con sold out.

This can vary by convention. Those that are run by gaming associations or publishers are profit based, but there are some that are run by non-profit organizations managed by players. I am most familiar with the Boardgame Players Association and the World Board Gaming Championships that are held at the end of July each year. The WBC is a nine day convention and does not charge separate tournament fees for players. Players pay an annual membership fee based on the number of days they attend WBC. $20 per day or $100 for all 9 days. Other membership levels are available that provide additional benefits.

Events are organized into Open Gaming, Tournaments and Trial Events. The Open Gaming and Tournament events have no additional fees. Trial Events require a $500 sponsor level membership to run each year, but once attendance is high enough to make the top 100 list it become a full tournament and no longer requires the sponsor fee until attendance drops below the threshold in future year. This is a smaller convention than the industry run GENCON or Origins style conventions and is focused on game play rather than product sales. For example, vendors only arrive the last 3 days of the convention.  Games can take 1 hour or 6 hours for each match. There are some 'mega' style games that last multiple days to complete such as A World at War.

This year the WBC Mage Wars Arena Trial Event used the 5/3/1/1/0 scoring system and a 5-round Swiss style tournament with 23 players. The tie breaker used was the Total Tournament Points scored by each opponent a player faced. This was a measure of how tough your schedule was during that tournament and worked well.

[Grimstringer]

@ Zot: You're not the only person who found that play area chilly. Though I think the hoodie and cap look makes you look like a dark and gritty battle tested warrior I'd prefer it if we weren't cold all the time also. I like the current scoring system but am looking at making a small change, maybe increasing the time limits(we do have some wiggle room) during the Friday matches.

Where is your frost resistance now people?!?!!

frost mage hinted??

[silverclawgrizzly]

Oh boy lots of to reply to and I'm happy to have a civil discussion on this topic as we seem to be having. I'll handle the light stuff first.

@Grimstringer: Why yes a Frost mage has been hinted if you know where to look....

On the topic of conventions. There are as Wtcannonjr stated several different types of conventions. Here in my town we have a very good gaming convention known as Mace run by some friends of mine where I could run Mage Wars from 3pm Friday to 4pm Sunday non-stop through the night if I were so inclined. I don't do that mind you but we do enjoy a very healthy and competitive tournament there every year, to the point I jokingly refer to it as "Gen Con II: The Revenge." Gen Con however is there to make money and anyone who thinks or tells your otherwise is dead wrong brother. That's why each and every dealer is there and that's why the events costs money to buy tickets for.

All right now lets get into the meat of it shall we?

1. The idea was mentioned about invalidating timed wins completely. Let me just state this as clearly as I can: That just isn't an option. Every time I picture that in my head I can hear the complaints forming already. It's abstractly not a terrible idea but the fact is too many matches do go to time. The main thing that'll draw out a match is two players of equal skill range. You can actually quote me on that. Two new players are gonna play like turtles trying to figure things out, where as two skilled warriors will be able to counter each others crap. Take Zot and Biblofilter for example they had an insane match that went to time at Gen Con because they both knew each other so well.

2. No instances where the D12 determines anything relating to who advances will ever be used lol. I am however known to issue a "bonus match" if things are tied with one or more player. Yeah times an issue and all....but flexible judges and all can sometimes manipulate even that on occasion. I mean hey you came to fight....so expect to fight.

3. Tell you what we could do as we have a pretty good fanbase, and I honestly think this would fly at Gen Con is once time is called if a match is tightly in the balance I could offer the players an extra round. Normally you get an extra round anyway if time is called and both players haven't had an equal amount of turns with initiative.....but I've seen a lot of matches where I'm pretty sure even the person winning at the time would like to see it finished. May just delay the problem but it may also resolve some issues too. I know it'd help with some at least.

I don't expect a perfect answer for every situation because there isn't one but I do appreciate the ideas on how to smooth things out some what.