March Madness

[kev]

March Madness

Original idea by: kevkev60614   |   Developed by: kevkev60614 and SteppingStone81   |  Organized by: kevkev60614

Time to send in your Cinderella story bracket-busters...

The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 teams… it is informally known as March Madness...

WHO CAN PLAY

Anyone with a forum and a chat account is eligible.  When you register in the sign up topic please include your chat name if different from your forum name, your timezone and your score.  Your timezone can be found here (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html). If you cannot find a sign up topic or if it is locked, this event is not currently active and you will have to wait for it to restart.

REGIONS AND CONFERENCES

Players will be split into the Major Conference, the Mid-Major Conference, or the Independent Conference based on score.

Major

May ban three elements from oppositionPlays each round with two elements: one chosen and one randomizedIf either element is banned it’s replaced by a random element
Mid-Major

May ban two elements from opposition  Plays each round with 2-3 elements: one chosen and the rest randomized If 1+ elements are banned the first is removed and others are replaced by random elements
Independent

May not ban elements from opposition  Plays each round with three elements: one chosen and the rest randomized  If any element is banned it’s replaced by a random element

As players register they will be sorted by region in the bracket according to time zone.  Seeding within the region will be random.  Players will PM their chosen element and their (0-3 depending on conference) banned elements to the Organizer.  These will not change throughout the event.

GETTING READY

When the Organizer has received 32 PMs he will randomize "round elements" for each round.  The organizer will then PM each player a bracket that looks like this (https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqCh8-BfWOzYdHlYWWU5bElMeHl3VVcwb29HODRvSXc&authkey=CK2555kO&hl=en_US&pli=1#gid=0) (will be embedded in thread when the event begins).  The bracket will contain each player’s name, conference, chosen elements, banned elements and “round elements” (see Deck Building and Duels section below).  Players will have two days to reply with a completed bracket that details predicted winners for every matchup (see the "Example" tab of the google document bracket).  Your predictions must include you, yourself, winning the event.
 DECK BUILDING AND DUELS

When building a deck each round you may use cards from the elements you chose and/or round elements but not elements which your opponent banned (see the Regions and Conferences section above for details on allowed elements each round).  Any mark and other cards are allowed.

Example 1:  An Independent Conference player chose as his element, the round elements are ordered , , , , , and , and his Major Conference opponent has banned and .  The player may use , , and .

Example 2: A Mid-Major Conference player chose as his element, the round elements are ordered , , , , , and , and his Major Conference opponent banned , , and .  Because one of the Mid-Major’s top three options was banned he’s limited to two elements, which become and .
Players can only use a given card in one deck per round (excluding pillars and pendula) and each match must use a different deck.  In other words if you use four Phase Dragons in your first deck you may not reuse them against the same opponent.  You may use Phase Dragons against future opponents provided Aether is an allowed element that round and you continue to use them in one deck per round.

Three days will be given per round but best-of-three matches can be played as soon as one’s opponent is known.  If the fight doesn't happen both players lose by default unless one player is clearly more active in trying to find a suitable time.  Event organizer will determine who the most active player was and his or her word is final.  It's a good idea to either record the matches or take screenshots in case something weird like a desync error happens.  A player who gets caught cheating will be permanently banned from all Elements community PvP events.  See the PvP Parasite Warning System topic  (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,25593.0.html) for further details on infractions.

After the duel winners must post the decks used in the results thread.

WINNING AND REWARDS

Players are scored according to the number of correct predictions before the event.  One point will be awarded for each correct first round guess, two points for the second round, three for the third, etc.

The player with the most points will receive the following forum award icon as well as the respect and admiration of your peers: .

Additional feedback is appreciated.

[RootRanger]

I like it, but I have one complaint. The player with the lowest score can use more upped cards than other players. I don't find that fair at all, especially because five hours of PvP1 will get you less score than one hour of AI3 (assuming you have a score of 20K +). However, the PvP1 would help you more for PvP. Otherwise, it looks like a good tournament and is still fun following when you are eliminated.

[kev]

The player with the lowest score can use more upped cards than other players. I don't find that fair at all

Meh.  It's a max difference of four upgraded cards per match.  I thought it was something different and a little added incentive for new blood to join a PvP Event.  But you're right that it does put players on unequal footing and you're not the only one to mention it.  The rule can easily be eliminated.

Otherwise, it looks like a good tournament and is still fun following when you are eliminated.

I agree.    I think it's a unique idea that'd be a lot of fun.  I've posted four event ideas and this is my favorite.  The PVPOs agree that it'd be fun but would like to see added complexity circa deck building.  Maybe banning 10-15 cards would be better.

Other ideas to promote creative deckbuilding, especially outlandish ideas, are appreciated and would share the "Developed by" line if this bad boy ever kicks off the ground.

[SteppingStone81]

Other ideas to promote creative deckbuilding, especially outlandish ideas, are appreciated

I like this event idea and would like to suggest a few possibilities for thematic ways to promote creative deckbuilding.  Here is idea #1:

1. Conferences

Teams in the NCAA tournament come from difference conferences, and teams in a given conference tend to play a certain style of basketball (some conferences more than others http://tinyurl.com/ncaabConfStyles (http://sports nerd link)).  Larger conferences tend to send 3-8 teams to the tournament per year, while smaller conferences generally send just one team per year.  Conferences could work in this event in the following way (needs balancing):

Players would be broken based on score into three groups: major conferences, mid-major conferences, and independents.

Major conferences:

There would be three major conferences, each of which gets access only to 4 different elements (mark and cards)Each major conference player may ban two elements from opponent when playing an independent opponentEach major conference player may ban one element from opponent when playing a mid-major opponentMajor conference players can use any number of upgrades

Mid-major conferences:

There would be three mid-major conferences, each of which gets access only to 8 different elements (mark and cards)Each mid-major conference player may ban one element from opposing decks when playing independents or other mid-majorsMid-major conference players can use up to 15 upgrades

Independents:

Independent conferences may use cards from any element (except those banned by their opponent)Independent players may not ban any cardsIndependent players cannot use any upgrades

[sh0e]

To make the deck building a bit more interesting...you could also ban different cards in each round.

[ddevans96]

I love the idea of conferences. Here's what I would propose, starting with my reasoning with examples of real-world conference they match with. [begin:theorycrafting]

In NCAA, there are three main types of conferences.

- Majors (i.e Big 12, Southeastern) are conferences with massive power and nationwide appeal. They have access to many different resources (9 elements) and many teams that will schedule against all levels of opponents (1 ban each match)
- Mid-majors (i.e. Colonial, Mountain West) are conferences with growing power and large-region appeal. They only have access to some resources (6 elements) and teams that will only schedule against certain opponents (2 bans each match)
- Minors (i.e. Metro Atlantic, Summit) are conferences with only a little power and small-region appeal. They only have access to a few resources (3 elements) and many teams that will schedule against only a few opponents (3 bans each match)

Upon signing up, players would have to post their score. When signups are completed, they would be placed into one category based on score. If the number of players is not divisible by three, then preference would be given to majors, then mid-majors.

In addition, I propose there would be four Regions with as close to an equal number of players as possible (32 is optimal of course) and then a Final Four. Each of these regions would have their own group of elements players must use.

In each region, the Majors will have nine randomized elements and the Minors would have the other three. No two regions would share elements for the Minors, so all 12 elements are shown exactly once for the Mnors to use and all 12 elements are shown 3 times for the Majors to use.

Then the elements would be randomized twice and 6 elements would be placed in each region for the Mid-Majors to use. Each element would be repeated exactly twice.

Upon Reaching the Final Four, the above system would be removed. For the last three matches, these four players would each be given 6 different randomized elements, which would be made public. Each element would be shared by exactly two players and each player would be allowed to ban two cards.

[end:theorycrafting]

As a final note, I have a huge interest in helping refine and organize this event if it becomes a reality. Even if my suggestions aren't used I truly like the concept of this event.

[TStar]

These Conference and Region ideas sound promising.  Definitely adds a new dimension to the event that gives it less of a standard "banned cards" tourney feel.  Keep the good ideas coming!

[SteppingStone81]

ddevans' idea is interesting, taking conferences in the opposite direction I went (allowing more "resources", i.e. elements, for higher score players).  This would certainly also fit the theme of conferences, but I worry that the higher score players will already have a skill advantage.  Compounding that advantage by further restricting the elements of lower score players makes it quite one-sided.  i.e., what do you think would happen if you put xdude with 9 elements at his disposal vs a newcomer with 3 elements at his disposal?

My proposal would give the higher score players more upgrades and let them pick an element or two to ban, while restricting their element choices (to reflect their conference's "style of play").  The specifics of how many elements are available, how many upgrades are allowed, how many bans, etc. are up in the air could be tweaked to even the playing field as much as possible.

I like ddevans' idea of regions to add a further element of deckbuilding interest.  It would be interesting, though, if we could encourage creative deckbuilding not just through restricting / banning elements but by having specific deckbuilding restrictions per region.  For example, one region could ban shields, another could ban healing, another could ban mass cc, etc.

Alternatively, the conferences could have the specific deckbuilding restrictions, while the regions would have element restrictions.

[kev]

Snip

Wow.  Overall this is a super awesome idea.  So players are broken into conferences based on score but seeding is done randomly?  I like it.  My two concerns are that 1) the conference descriptions as you have them create the sort of inequality Root discussed above, and 2) the inequality favors more experienced players, which might work to dissuade newer players from joining.

Maybe independent teams are upset specialists, so they have an advantage over major conference teams?  That way each conference type is strong versus one and weak versus another.  At the beginning of the event then each player would send in their score to place them in conference, 12 ban cards used throughout the event, and two element bans used if a conference type advantage exists.  It'll be interesting to see how the two levels of bans affect strategy.  It may not make sense to ban three aether cards if you can just ban all aether cards in 1/3 of your matches.

Alternatively we could assign four elements to each conference type.  For example:
Majors: 
Mid-majors: 
Independents: 

During a match you may use cards from either your or your opponent's conference.  I think banning 12 cards combined with the conference type element restrictions would make for some really interesting decks.

- Majors (i.e Big 12, Southeastern) are conferences with massive power and nationwide appeal. They have access to many different resources (9 elements) and many teams that will schedule against all levels of opponents (1 ban each match)

So majors can use nine elements randomized at the beginning of the event and may ban one card at the beginning of each match?  Hmmm... that may still be inbalanced but I like the idea of offsetting available elements with number of ban cards.
Thanks for the feedback, both of you.  Keep it coming!

Edit: I misread Step's post in a big way.  I guess it pushed me to continue brainstorming ways to balance the conferences.  But I like Step's idea way more now that my lysdexia is passing.

[SteppingStone81]

These Conference and Region ideas sound promising.  Definitely adds a new dimension to the event that gives it less of a standard "banned cards" tourney feel.  Keep the good ideas coming!

Getting away from "banned card" feel was exactly what I was going for.  I'm excited to hear feedback and more ideas from others along these lines.  I have further ideas, but I worry that complexity would start to make the event un-fun if we heap more and more restrictions - maybe we should just tweak those and see if they make an interesting event?

[ddevans96]

hm...that's not something I really though about, was the advantage high-score players would have. Maybe switch it around so Majors have more bans and Minors have more elements?

Maybe independent teams are upset specialists, so they have an advantage over major conference teams?  That way each conference type is strong versus one and weak versus another.  At the beginning of the event then each player would send in their score to place them in conference, 12 ban cards used throughout the event, and two element bans used if a conference type advantage exists.  It'll be interesting to see how the two levels of bans affect strategy.  It may not make sense to ban three aether cards if you can just ban all aether cards in 1/3 of your matches.

This is another thing that could put an interesting twist on things. Perhaps Minor (or independent) > Mid-Major > Major > Minor (or independent)? Whoever has the advantage could gain a bonus. Banning a whole element seems to be a lot though - maybe you could use up to X cards of one of your opponent's elements?

[truddy02]

What if regions were actual regions of the world?  This would make the matches run much more smoothly until the final four if you are matched up against someone in a similar time zone to yours.  I for one often have problems matching up against opponents in Europe as I am mostly available when it is very late at night there.  You could divide into regions after signups or hold signups for each region if you can get a somewhat even split.  I like all the ideas here, this is just another suggestion because I know I would enjoy playing in an event where during the majority of it I would be playing against someone in a similar timezone to mine.