tl;dr: record damage done for a three round tiebreaker instead of for the whole game, and use that to break tied games.
Speaking of tiebreakers, I've given a lot of thought to an alternate tiebreaker for tournament games that go to time. I share Piousflea's and others' concerns that the current
"Who did the most damage this game, total?" tiebreaker system heavily favors aggressive decks like Forcemaster and Warlock, and adds an additional level of bookkeeping to tracking damage, which slows normal play.
If a control book starts the game by taking 22 damage in the first forty minutes, but thereafter kills all the opponent's creatures, takes no damage, gains 1 health and is does 2 points of damage to the enemy each turn, it's clearly winning. And it would be very likely to win if given enough time. But it's going to have a hard time proving it with the current tiebreaker system.
At the same time, I don't want to try to judge the game-state with a points system that awards victory points based on the levels of creatures and conjurations in play and tries to compare that to life totals (because who can say, exactly, how many points something should be worth?). I also don't particularly like the, "Everyone starts losing life each turn," elimination methods that try to impose a game shortening condition on play, because winning under those circumstances is very different from winning during normal play, and can distort the metagame badly. Warmachine's experience with "Victory Point Sniping" comes to mind, where one player does a little damage, then retreats for the rest of the game, and thus wins on tiebreakers.
But really, what I want to know isn't, "Who has done the most damage?" I want to know, "Who has come closest to winning". To use a mathematical analogy, I want to know the slope of the direction the game is heading, not the sum of where the game has been. If one player has an overwhelming creature advantage, I want to give them a chance to use it and prove their strength, while at the same time giving their opponent a last opportunity to win the game on the back of the damage they've already done.
Here's what I propose:- The final portion of every tournament game is reserved for tiebreaker play. In a 90 minute tournament game, the final 15 minutes is reserved for tiebreaker play. In a 60 minute game, the final 10 minutes is reserved. Prompt play during tiebreaker game rounds is strictly mandatory.
- When the expiration of normal time is announced, the current game round is finished and the final three rounds of play begin. The game will end when the third game round finishes, or when final time is called.
- The three rounds of Mage Wars Tiebreaker play proceed normally, with the exception that each player must record the damage done to his or her opponent. Each round, the player who does the most damage to the opponent's Mage (including loss of life, tainted, etc) wins the round and one of three possible tiebreaker points.
- After three tiebreaker rounds, the player with the most tiebreaker points--two out of three--is the winner.
- If, during tiebreaker rounds, one player takes damage in excess of his or her remaining life, that player loses as normal.
- If a tiebreaker round is tied because neither player did any damage, or because the players did equal amounts of damage, no point is awarded.
- If, at the end of tiebreaker rounds, the players are tied in round points awarded, the winner of the game is the player who did the most total damage summed over all three rounds
- If both players did the same amount of damage totaled over all three rounds, the game is a draw.
- If tiebreaker time expires without the completion of all three tiebreaker rounds, end the current tiebreaker round as it stands, and score it as above. The player who has done the most damage in the portion of the round that has been played scores the point. The player with the most tiebreaker points is the winner, as usual. If the points are tied, check total damage done during tiebreaker play. If that is tied, the game is a draw, as normal
My thinking is that while 50 minutes may not actually be long enough for a control book to win, it should certainly be long enough for the control book to stabilize the game and be on its way to winning... if that's what it's going to do. If the control book can limit the damage from the agro book's last desperate gasp to kill, for two out of three rounds, it probably has the game well enough in hand that it would eventually win.
The agro book, on the other hand, is given three more rounds to kill the opponent, or at least to prove 2-out-of-3 that it is still capable of putting up a a superior fight and is not controlled. If it can do that, it wins.
Of course, either book can win the game outright--by killing the opponent-- during the overtime turns, and may very well do so now that both books must concentrate on doing at least some damage immediately, and cannot win by defense alone.
I settled on three and a half rounds of overtime (finish the final round, then take three more rounds) because it is a relatively short amount of play that two skilled and motivated players will be able to finish in the time available, and because it prevents a single surprise unrepeatable nova-damage turn (e.g. Wall of Thorns + Forcepush) from deciding the game. Whatever a player does to win, they must be able to do it twice (or do it well enough to kill the other mage). 3.5 rounds is also provides a fair distribution of initiative between the players. Each player will have the benefit of initiative twice during the overtime period.
Any thoughts or improvements?
