Organized Play

[Reddicediaries]

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  ), 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.

[Brian VanAlstyne]

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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[SharkBait]

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  . 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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[zot]

   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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[RomeoXero]

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

[silverclawgrizzly]

Yes it does cause that issue Romeo....on purpose lol.

[Reddicediaries]

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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

That's a cool idea but wouldn't be practical for many events.

[Kelanen]

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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[Kelanen]

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.

[RomeoXero]

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.