Organized Play

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[zot]

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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

90 minutes might not be impossible.

[Brian VanAlstyne]

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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[Coshade]

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.

[SharkBait]

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. 

[Brian VanAlstyne]

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.

[Sailor Vulcan]

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?

[Coshade]

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.

[silverclawgrizzly]

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.

[zot]

any feel for whether 90 min would have been sufficient?

[Reddicediaries]

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.

[Coshade]

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.

[Reddicediaries]

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.