Grid - Round 9

[Gyrodiot]

Grid - Round 9

Warning, the round event has been edited (2nd to 5th greater reward)

Round 9 : time's up !

Useful notes

This round comes late. Real life interfered... Thanks for your patience ! :)Remember to send me your picks before the deadline, whether or not you played your match.6x Relics slots. This is getting serious.

Event : I don't need them anymore !

I sense the end of the battle is near.Yup. I have to confess something... I want to stop my quest for Relics.Are you kidding me ? After all we've gone through ? All these adventures and you want to drop out ?I will walk with you. I'm just... tired of receiving shiny sparkles in my eyes. It hurts, you know.... don't you have glasses to protect you ?[/list]
Special Rules : If you don't pick any Relic slot and win, you gain the fifth greater amount of Relics earned by the other winners.

This round event is nasty. You can basically let other players do the work for you... with the risk that everyone does the same.

Winners will be split in 2 groups : the first one picked some Relic slots, and will earn them as usual. Their rewards are sorted. The second group didn't pick any Relic slots, all players in it receive the fifth best reward from the first group. Some examples :

If first group earned 9, 6, 4, 4, 3, 2 and 1 Relics, second group will earn 3 Relics for a win.
If first group earned 9, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7 and 6 Relics, second group will earn 7 Relics for a win.
If there's 4 or less winners in group 1... the second group wins nothing !

To be clear, the group you belong to is determined by your picks. No Relic slot picked (only card slots) ? Second group. Otherwise, first group.

Here's a reminder of the slot picking and deckbuilding rules :

No 2 picks in the same row or columnNo card slot you picked last round (see the ban list below). If it's now a Relic slot, you can pick itYou can use 3 upped cards in all your decks for each Relic you spendAny size, any mark, any Pillars and PendulumsCards from the slots you have chosen (not necessarily all), any number of copies of themDouble-check your picks : once you sent me valid ones, you can't change them.

Standings

All the results in a pretty table are here ! (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,28043.0.html)

Bans

majofa	Hope - Luciferine - Coclatrice - Purify - Mind Flayer - Feral Bond - Horned Frog
ak65ala	Ice Shield - Purify - Ice Bolt - Antimatter
kevkev60614	Shield - Arseinc - Sapphire Charger - Fire Bolt - Poison
Seraph	Adrenaline - Discord - Horned Frog
The Mormegil	Bone Wall - Arsenic - Poison - Fire Bolt - Sapphire Charger - Sundial
SteppingStone81	Arsenic - Bone Wall - Fire Spirit - Fire Bolt - Poison
ddevans96	Plague - Hematite Golem - Purify - Earthquake - Chaos Seed - Trident
TheForbiddenOracle	Wyrm - Azure Dragon - Dragonfly - Fog Shield - Adrenaline - Fallen Elf
RavingRabbid	Bone Wall - Poison - Pandemonium - Arsenic - Parallel Universe - Antimatter
coinich	Plague - Hematite Golem - Purify - Earthquake - Chaos Seed - Trident
Terroking	Dune Scorpion - Sundial - Arsenic - Bone Wall - Reverse Time - Ghost of the Past - Poison
agentflare	Dune Scorpion - Chaos Seed - Deathstalker - Blessing - Bone Wall - Poison - Trident - Fate Egg - Procrastination
kirchj33	Bone Wall - Arsenic - poison - Sapphire Charger - Fahrenheit
Kakerlake	Fog Shield - Dragonfly - Dagger - Azure Dragon - Poison
valuka	Freeze - Heal - Adrenaline - Cockatrice - Steal - Poseidon - Horned Frog - Purify
Napalm Grenade	Arsenic - Bone Wall - Fire Bolt - Poison
nilsieboy	Bone Wall - Poison - Sundial - Arsenic - Trident
DevilLoss	Empathic Bond - Deathstalker - Poison - Chaos Seed - Dissipation Shield
dracomageat	Steal - Deja Vu - Shield - Vampire Stiletto - Fire Bolt - Dagger
calindu221	Freeze - Parallel Universe - Pandemonium - Arsenic - Bone Wall - Fire Spirit - Poison
mrpaper	Mind Flayer - Arsenic - Bone Wall - Poison
Five In One	Bone Wall - Poison - Liquid Shadow - Deathstalker - Chaos Seed - Antimatter
Jocko	Mind Flayer - Steam Machine - Gnome Rider - Fire Bolt - Ice Bolt
truddy02	Empathic Bond - Deathstalker - Poison - Chaos Seed - Dissipation Shield

Matchups

majofa	vs.	kirchj33
ak65ala	vs.	RavingRabbid
kevkev60614	vs.	dracomageat
Seraph	vs.	nilsieboy
The Mormegil	vs.	truddy02
SteppingStone81	vs.	TheForbiddenOracle
ddevans96	vs.	Terroking
coinich	vs.	mrpaper
agentflare	vs.	DevilLoss
Kakerlake	vs.	Napalm Grenade
valuka	vs.	Five In One
calindu221	vs.	Jocko

Grid

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

HTML version

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

1

Lightning

Silence

Ice Shield

Skeleton

Gnome Rider

5 Relics

Steal

1 Relic

Toadfish

Bone Dragon

Short Bow

1 Relic

2

Freeze

Mind Flayer

Owl's Eye

1 Relic

Deja Vu

Flooding

Thunderstorm

1 Relic

Photon

1 Relic

2 Relics

Ice Dragon

3

Nightfall

Crimson Dragon

Firefly

Otyugh

Spark

Plague

Wings

Chrysaora

Graviton Mercenary

1 Relic

6 Relics

Nymph's Tears

4

Schrödinger's Cat

Dimensional Shield

Sundial

Dragonfly

Luciferine

1 Relic

1 Relic

1 Relic

Fire Spirit

Fahrenheit

Solar Shield

Procrastination

5

Dune Scorpion

Shield

Pandemonium

Mindgate

1 Relic

Miracle

Emerald Shield

Hammer

Armagio

Rustler

Hematite Golem

1 Relic

6

Gravity Shield

Immortal

Lobotomizer

Ash Eater

Blessing

Nova

1 Relic

Purple Dragon

Soul Catcher

1 Relic

1 Relic

Forest Spirit

7

Chimera

Rain of Fire

1 Relic

1 Relic

Devonian Dragon

Cockatrice

Abomination

Colossal Dragon

Pulverizer

3 Relics

Parasite

1 Relic

8

Sky Blitz

Mitosis

Steam Machine

Deathstalker

3 Relics

1 Relic

Pharaoh

Flying Weapon

1 Relic

1 Relic

Lycanthrope

1 Relic

9

Graviton Fire Eater

Forest Scorpion

1 Relic

Earthquake

Basilisk's Blood

Holy Light

Boneyard

1 Relic

Momentum

Ghost of the Past

1 Relic

Aflatoxin

10

Guardian Angel

Thorn Carapace

Heal

Flesh Spider

Enchant Artifact

Wyrm

1 Relic

Eternity

Antlion

Fate Egg

Ice Bolt

Nightmare

11

Fallen Elf

1 Relic

Chaos Seed

Anubis

Stone Skin

Dagger

Sapphire Charger

Quintessence

Emerald Dragon

1 Relic

1 Relic

Phase Spider

12

1 Relic

2 Relics

Fire Shield

Precognition

Dissipation Shield

Golden Hourglass

1 Relic

Virus

Trident

3 Relics

Lava Golem

Vulture

[SteppingStone81]

This event is pretty crazy   

Last round?

[Gyrodiot]

Nope. Grid lasts 10 rounds. But I kept the biggest event for the end ^^

[TheForbiddenOracle]

Lol if everyone decided to play by the event this round

[The_Mormegil]

Lol if everyone decided to play by the event this round

Will not work. The event is pretty much rigged in favor of those on top, actually.

EDIT: yes, the more I think about this, the more I think it's unbalanced. Take a look at the possible strategies for SteppingStone:
1) He doesn't follow the event, gaining normal amount of Relics upon winning. Good, but normal.
2) He DOES follow the event. Now, he has an enhanced Grid selection of top-notch decks, thus he wins more easily and takes the second most number of Relics. Since he's still in the lead, he keeps his distance - unless there is a 10 2 1 situation, but that's very unlikely with this many matches.

Now, the best course of action for him is clearly following the event and keeping his advantage UNLESS he fears we all follow the event. But, those further down in the ladder HAVE NO REASON TO. See it as follows:
1) They take Relics, gaining a normal amount of Relics upon winning. The leader keeps his distance.
2) They follow the event, gaining the same amount of Relics as SteppingStone. Be it 10 or 2. Thus, SteppingStone keeps his distance.

The only possible bad outcome for Stepping is if one of us runner-ups (me, majofa, kirchj) win a lot more Relics than he does. Thus, we have the choice:
1) Taking the Relics, and hoping that either Stepping, the others or possibly all three lose, in order to limit their Relic gain. Stepping follows the event, has a good selection of cards and wins his match. Hope that the other two either didn't take relics (which is stupid, see below) or lost, otherwise Stepping will keep his distance.
2) Following the event. Stepping does too, wins easily, and gains the same amount of relics as you, thus keeping his lead. Hope the other runner ups didn't take Relics too, otherwise they might pass you...

This event is rigged in Stepping's favor (as in, the leading man's favor, nothing personal ).

[Gyrodiot]

Originally, I decided to base the event on the second best reward, considering that the one who takes the most risk has an advantage on other winners.

Problem is, the leaders have an advantage indeed, as their goal is to keep their position, not to have the most Relics (in an absolute way).

... and I don't like unbalance. Especially this close to the end of the event.

I thought of having a fixed number of Relics as a reward, but it would have been hard to balance... now that everyone is focused on the relative positions in the standings, it is a bit difficult to balance.

Event may change soon... maybe a fixed reward is the way to go.

EDIT : After some testing, I slightly changed the event, as second group will earn the 5th greater amount, not 2nd.

The spirit of the round event was "I'll go for first group. I'll take the relics. Sure, but if everyone does that, I prefer ensure a win by going in second group. But if everyone does that... and so on".

Problem is, if the leader takes the second group, there are still 4 people that will have a greater reward than him and... maybe I'm thinking too much. The event won't change anymore.

[The_Mormegil]

Definitely better.

[Calindu]

I think no one will go for event anymore...

[truddy02]

I think no one will go for event anymore...

Fifth most was 11 relics last time and is usually at least 7 or 8.  With the big numbers on this grid, I would bet it is double digits easily and still has a good chance to be within 3-4 of the top relic getter.  But then if too many people decide to try it using this reasoning then it becomes not worth it again.  It is more of a gamble now which means less will try it which means less of a gamble which means more should try it and so on in constant circles.  This makes it really interesting to see if people try it or not.

[Terroking]

It's time for those vs. the leaders to go balls to the wall, epic decks, all options covered, 100% win chance. Hopefully the leaders do not do this

[Jocko]

Well, if SS uses 40 relics to build 2 60 upped decks in next two rounds and loses, and i win 10 relics...
*punches a bunch of numbers in calculator*
YES I WIN.

[SteppingStone81]

This round's event seems likely to give zero relics for a forfeit win (as long as a few winners choose zero relics).  Given that TheForbiddenOracle is not responding to PMs, I am concerned I will lose my lead because of a forfeit win. 

I know other people have already suffered from forfeit wins, so I won't whine; I would however like to propose a couple alternatives for future Grid events:


1.  Normalize the number of relics won per round

The range of relics won could be scaled to a fixed scale, e.g. highest total always gets 10 relics

Advantage:  Each round has similar importance - currently a tough victory one round might be worth only 4 relics while another round someone can get 20 relics with reasonably strong decksAdvantage:  Forfeit wins could get some reasonable total, such as 6 relicsDrawback:  The capped max relics does not reward risky Grids as much[/list]

2.  Give bonus relics (win or lose) for "using" the event

In many rounds, it has been advantageous to ignore the event and just grab as many relics as possible with solid grid picks

Advantage:  Encouraging people to use the events each round will result in greater variety of decks each roundDrawback:  Some events, such as dispersion, work less well if there is no cost to using it[/list]

3.  Give each players 2-3 relics income each round

Each player gains 2-3 relics income each round which they can spend on upgrades, spend on event abilities, or just hoard

Advantage:  Players who have lost in the early rounds would still be able to use upgrades and/or the event[/list][/list]