Organized Play

[silverclawgrizzly]

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?"

[zot]

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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[RomeoXero]

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?

[Coshade]

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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[zot]

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.

[RomeoXero]

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

[Kelanen]

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).

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[RomeoXero]

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

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[Kelanen]

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!

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.