Organized Play

[Kelanen]

I feel you have still missed my point. It's not whether or not I can play my spellbooks competitively (I have and won), but that some very good spellbooks can't be played competitively because of time.

I agree that means that some books are better in OP, than others. You only have books designed for competition? That's great, but around here 95% of your matches won't be in a competition or with a time limit, so you'd be artificially restricting yourself to play those books in games with no time limit.

Put another way, I have around 25-30 non-Playtest books built most of the time, but only about 4 I'd take to a tournament. Those aren't the 4 books with the highest win percentage in non-timed games though, in fact there's only 1 possible intersect I think.

[Coshade]

All of my books, from my Druid to my Warlord, are designed for tournament play.  If I can kill an opponent in 60 minutes, it does not matter if I am playing in timed or untimed play.  Really, the difference between the two is that untied play is more casual, so people chat and watch TV while playing an untimed game, so play time is rarely over 60 minutes, you just have 60 minutes of other stuff happening during the untimed game.

We never have TV, phones, or anything else distracting, and yet our typical game would be probably 90-120mins, and I've had games very occasionally go 4-5hrs, with only a handful of spells left in each book. In untimed play you can concentrate on being unkillable (high armour, lots of defenses and counters), and spell point efficient (good schools, lots of wands) whilst in timed play you have to balance defence with offense, and spell points don't matter to get the right card - most of my tournament books win with 20-30 SBP, and the rest are just sideboard options.

In untimed play I very rarely lose, but more so in timed, as is natural. Aggressive books honestly have very little chance in untimed play (which is a good reason for a tournament metagame being timed). To take an extreme example - my favourite Druid book is one that I have never lost a match with. I have also never gotten a win in 75 mins either, and for that reason I've never taken it to a tournament. I have plenty of other books that are good, and I've won tournaments with, but they are not so sure of a win - but probably winning in time, is more important than never losing in a tournament (and for clarity, that's just as it should be).

What I'm trying to say here is that the best book to win in 75 mins (or 60, or 90) is not the same as the best book to win untimed. It's definitely not the case of them being the same books, just played slower through distractions.

I've heard you speak a lot about the books that you run. Could you post in the spellbook section your best book? If there is a tie just post them all? I would really like to check it out.

[Reddicediaries]

All of my books, from my Druid to my Warlord, are designed for tournament play.  If I can kill an opponent in 60 minutes, it does not matter if I am playing in timed or untimed play.  Really, the difference between the two is that untied play is more casual, so people chat and watch TV while playing an untimed game, so play time is rarely over 60 minutes, you just have 60 minutes of other stuff happening during the untimed game.

We never have TV, phones, or anything else distracting, and yet our typical game would be probably 90-120mins, and I've had games very occasionally go 4-5hrs, with only a handful of spells left in each book. In untimed play you can concentrate on being unkillable (high armour, lots of defenses and counters), and spell point efficient (good schools, lots of wands) whilst in timed play you have to balance defence with offense, and spell points don't matter to get the right card - most of my tournament books win with 20-30 SBP, and the rest are just sideboard options.

In untimed play I very rarely lose, but more so in timed, as is natural. Aggressive books honestly have very little chance in untimed play (which is a good reason for a tournament metagame being timed). To take an extreme example - my favourite Druid book is one that I have never lost a match with. I have also never gotten a win in 75 mins either, and for that reason I've never taken it to a tournament. I have plenty of other books that are good, and I've won tournaments with, but they are not so sure of a win - but probably winning in time, is more important than never losing in a tournament (and for clarity, that's just as it should be).

What I'm trying to say here is that the best book to win in 75 mins (or 60, or 90) is not the same as the best book to win untimed. It's definitely not the case of them being the same books, just played slower through distractions.

I've heard you speak a lot about the books that you run. Could you post in the spellbook section your best book? If there is a tie just post them all? I would really like to check it out.

I second Coshade on this.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Ok I'm back after a nice holiday break. Hope you all had a great holiday, I got my annual allotment of socks

In terms of the objectivity topic: a judge has to remain utterly objective. Using any sort of "judges call" system such as counting conjurations, position, etc just would not work. You'd have arguments going back of forth of "Well I would do that...." and "And I would have countered by...." and it'd be a nightmare.

Getting back on topic of a timed win. The more I think on it the happier I am just giving points and not counting matches as wins/ties/loses at all. I'd be in favor of giving more points to an opponent who was ahead at the end of timed match than the person trailing assuming a fair method of determining who was ahead could be established.

Note: I plan to have this method thought out, play tested, and sent to AW by the end of January.

[Brian VanAlstyne]

If we're doing that, here's my thoughts:

12 points to kill opponent's mage
9 points if your opponent's mage is within 5 of death
7 points if your opponent is between 6 and 12 of death
6 points for a tie (only with both mages dead 12 + 0 /2 = 6)
4 points if your opponents mage is between 13 and 20 of death
2 points if your opponent is more than 20 away from death
0 points if you die

The numbers could definitely be tweaked a bit but it seems like a relatively fair system.

And I'd include the remove all dissipates before resolving how close to death the opponent is.

[Obsidian Soul]

I disagree with the point allocation because it is too complicated.  I would suggest the alternative:

12 points if you win
6 points if you tie
0 points if you lose

[Brian VanAlstyne]

Except we just went through 7 pages where people will disagree on if a timed win is a win or a tie. This takes care of that issue entirely.

[zot]

Ok I'm back after a nice holiday break. Hope you all had a great holiday, I got my annual allotment of socks

In terms of the objectivity topic: a judge has to remain utterly objective. Using any sort of "judges call" system such as counting conjurations, position, etc just would not work. You'd have arguments going back of forth of "Well I would do that...." and "And I would have countered by...." and it'd be a nightmare.

Getting back on topic of a timed win. The more I think on it the happier I am just giving points and not counting matches as wins/ties/loses at all. I'd be in favor of giving more points to an opponent who was ahead at the end of timed match than the person trailing assuming a fair method of determining who was ahead could be established.

Note: I plan to have this method thought out, play tested, and sent to AW by the end of January.

this is going to be ...  wait for it ...  legen

so we may be back to what i suggested for gencon?

7 win
3 tie win
2 tie loss
0 loss

i would be in favor of ties being 3 for both players in the tie scenario. no need to ban any cards, or some sort of dissipate activity, no need to decide who is ahead, no determine life deltas etc. boom done. end of time and last action, if both are alive, then both get the tie points. seems easy. good luck sorting it out.


dary

post 500

zot   Legendary Mage

sweet.

[silverclawgrizzly]

I'm more likely to give 1 point for a timed loss. If you want more points play better.

[Brian VanAlstyne]

I still have the issue that 2 wins (no matter how achieved) should be greater than 1 win.

[wtcannonjr]

For the World Boardgaming Championships I use the following scoring system for 90 minute matches

5 pts for a kill
3 pts for highest health remaining at time
1 pt for lowest health remaining at time
1 pt each for tied health remaining at time
0 pt for death

Players are ranked for total points after 5 rounds and prizes awarded to the top 6 players. Tie breaker is based on opponent schedule with tougher schedules given higher ranking.

[Drefan]

I disagree that you should've timed based tournaments. I do understand the reasoning behind it, you want faster games but also the ability to create timetables for tournaments. Since it's still a relatively small community basing the official tournament standard around fitting into time slots at various conventions might be a bad thing in the long run.

I would rather see another time aspect. Instead of having X-minute games, I'd rather see time limited phases. Imagine if we instead had 20sec Upkeep phase, 2-3min planning phase, 20sec quick cast phase (Will you act or not) and 20sec creature action phase (which creature will be activated). Limiting these aspects of the game would give it a more natural flow.

I think this type of time limit would compliment the game more overall since it's more designed around one mage killing the other than who has more hp left when the timer runs out.

I also believe it will open up the meta for more creative books while at the same time also increasing the quality of games. I believe games will be a lot faster paced but with more mistakes and where the player who made the least comes out on top which usually means more fun games for the rest of us to watch.

I understand the most of the X-minute based books will have to disappear or be modified but I think it would be for the greater good to move away from that format. And I also doubt that games within my suggested format would be longer than 2 hours.

[silverclawgrizzly]

The idea that tournament matches won't be timed is not open for debate for any event occurring at a large convention, at least in North America. Due to constraints of space and logistics timed matches are the only possible option.

As for timing phases. I do not see forcing people to play faster than they're comfortable with being an option. Time limits are outside a judges control as stated earlier. However a judge has an obligation to make an event as welcoming to ALL players as possible. Limiting time phases penalizes new players as well as individuals who just play a little slower than average for whatever reason.

[DaveW]

"You'd have arguments going back of forth of "Well I would do that...." and "And I would have countered by...." and it'd be a nightmare."

Which is why you don't have an open discussion over the board... you ask each player to tell you privately what he is going to do the next turn, and then look at the board position and status boards, and determine the winner without getting the players otherwise involved.

[Sailor Vulcan]

All the solutions we have are unacceptable, it seems. Either it costs too much money or it interferes with the balance of the metagame. I think maybe we are at a point where ANY possible decision that can be made regarding this issue with the current constraints could potentially harm the game in a serious way, if it hasn't already.

Or maybe we could try the thing I recommended earlier in this thread which  seems to have been ignored, which was that if we don't have enough time or tablespace to run a quality competitive mage wars tournament in the convention hall, we need to get at least some of that time and space somewhere else where it is cheaper. Either reserve space at a restaurant, or if weather permits go to a park and use picnic tables, then have only the semifinals and finals in the convention center proper. Or maybe just raise the ticket prices for entering mage wars tournaments at conventions, so that AW can afford more time and tablespace?

Just a thought.