Long Turns and Game Length Limitations

[BR3AKR]

So this is a question more directed at people who are playing in organized play settings than just simple friendly games.

If I recall correctly, Arcane Wonders recommends a 90 minute match length limit, with the tiebreaker being he who has the most damage.

I can jive with that just fine, but a concern of mine is this - can't people just tag a player and try to stall as best they can for the time limit? Has anyone had to deal with this in OP settings? Is it apparent when there is abuse?

[Thessial]

That tactic leads to a generally defensive or 'turtling' strategy and assumes both mages are running on the slower side in terms of gearing up.

Having said the above, boxing yourself into a corner tends to leave one with fewer options and less board control. This often gives the player with more board control more ability to attack. I can't say this has been the result 100% of the time, but it has happened often enough to deter most turtling in our local groups.

Anyhow, this has been our local experience. Timed turns also help quite a bit.

I also would like to hear about other peoples experiences.

John

[Preacher]

I've had exactly the same worries about tournaments. It's confirmed that rounds are 90 mins (Facebook post) so it stands to reason that a pretty powerful tactic is gunna be to go for the time limit/life score win with Priestess and her TON of heals, buffs and defensive strategies.

If you can get over that 'hump' of fast, rush books damaging you (Warlock fireball, creature rush etc) then I don't really see other decks being able to compete with the combo of life gain ability and mass heal.

A real issue in my opinion.

[Bjorne]

Why isn't the tiebreaker based on the difference between life and damage? I mean, that's what you are supposed to get down to zero to win, isn't it?

[Koy]

So when both players have the priestess out in a match and both heal to max life at the end of the game's time limit, what is the tiebreaker tiebreaker?  I am pretty sure this will come up as in a formal tournament setting, with the current rules, the priestess will be nearly impossible to beat in 90 minutes when playing for a time limit/life victory.  Thus, it will be the FOTM book,

I dunno, maybe once OP really gets rolling this will prove to be a false alarm?

[HeatStryke]

Going to be honest, we're still hashing out the tiebreakers.

Personally I'm going ro be interested in how effective a turtle strategy is. There are alot of unknowns in how this will play in a tournament standpoint, as in many ways this is a game unlike any others.

[DarthDadaD20]

Well, I would hope they would make a rule for tournaments like they have in MtG tournaments, and that rule is "Stalling" If you suspects a opponent is stalling, you call a judge.Here are the offical rulings.
Definition
A player takes longer than is reasonably required to complete game actions. If a judge believes a player is
intentionally playing slowly to take advantage of a time limit, the infraction is Cheating — Stalling.
It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of
iterations and the expected resulting game state.
Examples
A. A player repeatedly reviews his opponent’s graveyard without any significant change in game state.
B. A player spends time writing down the contents of an opponent’s deck while resolving Thought
Hemorrhage.
C. After 3 minutes into a round at a Pro Tour Qualifier, a player has not completed his shuffling.
D. A player gets up from his seat to look at standings or goes to the bathroom without permission of an
official

[HeatStryke]

Keep in mind slow play/stalling is a VERY subjective thing. Even in MtG  judge has huge leeway on how to determine it.

That has little to do with the priestess thing, but I will say I'm loathe to have hase tournament rules dictate play strategy. If priestess healing is THAT strong then eitw cardaher the metagame needs to adapt to it or new cards should shape it in a different path.

[paradox22]

To dissuade stalling and to keep timeing fair I think they should implement a "death clock" like they use in Warmaching/Hordes tourneys.  Basically they use a chess clock.  Each player would get 45 mins (90 mins total).  If time runs out on your turn and both mages are still alive, you lose.  

...Only problm is how to time the planning stage.

[Bjorne]

I would think a chess clock doesn't really work that well for this game, since there is so much interactivity. In WH40K and Warmahordes, it works quite well because, other than saving throws, there is not much the opponent can do while it is your turn. This game has enchantment revealing, using counter-attacks, deciding where to teleport trap someone, e.t.c that will take time from your opponents turn its going to be really difficult to time who's time it really is sometime.

The way I play it now is a 90 min total game time, the one with the least amount of remaining health at the end loses. This should of course give a "modified" win and should be awarded slightly less tournament points than actually killing the opponent. If the turteling priestess wants to win the entire tournament, she would probably have to get a real win at some point. And this would make the maximum turtleing strategy very much a non-competitive strategy. Besides, anyone can put a Deathlock in their spellbook (and probably should in a tournament).

We time the planning phase like this: as soon as one player is done, he/she turns a 30s hourglass, and that is how long time the other player has left to decide.

[Locusshifter]

We time the planning phase like this: as soon as one player is done, he/she turns a 30s hourglass, and that is how long time the other player has left to decide.

That's similar to how tournament Robo Rally is handled. What's worse is that if you run out of time your cards are drawn randomly from your hand. I know the latter couldn't be done here, but it's amusing nonetheless; unless it happens to you  

[HeatStryke]

Frankly it's going to be trial and error to figure out the best solution. The simplest answer would be to just award ties but that will be more dependent on if 90 minutesis enough in a general sense.

[Thessial]

Allow me to add some clarification to address some of this.

The tie breaker (in current format) goes to the mage who has been dealt the least amount of damage. This means that if I do 20 points of damage to the priestess over the course of a game and she heals 11 of it and in turn does 18 damage to me, I win the tie having done more damage to her during the game than she did to me.

Healing is not a factor in tie-breakers.

Just to keep you informed, we will be taking our tournament setup live for the first time at Bash Con in Toledo, OH. We will be sure to post how that went, winning decks, winning strategies, and more once that happens.

Here is the link in case you can join us!

Bash Con XXVIII

[Shad0w]

To talk about the event please use this BashCon 2013 Event Discussion Thread

[sIKE]

Mis-read Thessials post, it is the tie-breaker rule. I can agree with that.