Elements PvP Tournament - Suggestions and Feedback

[rob77dp]

Deck/meta comments are rare nowadays compared to before and not that disastrous when dealt with swiftly.

Community feedback often proves vital to improving the rules and is necessary to build hype.

I fully support community feedback.  Any player with a forum account (required with minimum 10 quality posts etc etc for entry to tournament anyways) is able to send PM's to TO's of anything they consider as "OMG this one card should be banned it is OP!" or "Is <cardnamehere> allowed?" (my answer:  read the rules).  It would also cut down on frequency of having to check the newest posts and finding an "I'm in" or "I cannot make it at that time" post, which doesn't add to the purpose of the topic anyways.

When one of these type of PM's to TO's is relevant and determined to have value for all players to see, TO's can post (with topic still locked of course) the PM question(s) (with or without user that sent...) and the response with accompanying rule revisions (as necessary).  I just do not see your supporting statement (it is one I have certainly encountered before when making this lock-topic suggestion in the past) as being strong enough to continue to prevent this change.


--Rob

P.S. - No, I do not think I could squeeze in more abuses of parenthetical asides in that post.  Yes, I am a STRONG and avid supporter of my suggestion and until recently only passively suggested and supported this change.

[Submachine]

Now now, rob77dp, listen to me, a junior, for a while.

You quoted 2 of my posts from the said topic, so I clearly get it that you find them annoying. After you said that I shouldn't post questions about cards being OP IMO, I realized my stupidity and took your advice, being ready NOT to do that again, ever (I even deleted the post afterwards). Now you didn't say it, but I read that you also have problems with posting availability of players. Your points do make sense (however the second one was always a usual thing, so it's easier to get used to it), but I can only say what you said. We are all sensible human beings, so do I (even if I'm not a smart forum-user yet), so you should have just sent me a PM about it, and I would have done the necessary measures. I deleted my annoying comments anyways, I'm just saying that people understand each other, or if not everyone, I do.
So next time if you have something to say targetedly, I have open ears for you (eyes, if we count that we read with those).

I fully support community feedback.  Any player with a forum account (required with minimum 10 quality posts etc etc for entry to tournament anyways) is able to send PM's to TO's of anything they consider as "OMG this one card should be banned it is OP!" or "Is <cardnamehere> allowed?" (my answer:  read the rules).  It would also cut down on frequency of having to check the newest posts and finding an "I'm in" or "I cannot make it at that time" post, which doesn't add to the purpose of the topic anyways.

When one of these type of PM's to TO's is relevant and determined to have value for all players to see, TO's can post (with topic still locked of course) the PM question(s) (with or without user that sent...) and the response with accompanying rule revisions (as necessary).  I just do not see your supporting statement (it is one I have certainly encountered before when making this lock-topic suggestion in the past) as being strong enough to continue to prevent this change.

--Rob

P.S. - No, I do not think I could squeeze in more abuses of parenthetical asides in that post.  Yes, I am a STRONG and avid supporter of my suggestion and until recently only passively suggested and supported this change.

[rob77dp]

It's just I consider Tournaments to be a totally one-on-one type contest.  Get rules, follow rules, and ask questions about them in a manner where each person has access to all information but where each player must use their own brain to peruse possible decks and counters.  Mentioning that "XXX card is OP" now clues EVERYBODY in on that one concept taking away the requirement of skill to discover that combo or card.  PM'ing to a TO in case of it being over-powered or unintended is A-OK 100% yes yes PLEASE do this.  If it is agreed by organizers it should change, then post on the locked topic to change it.  Easy pee-sy!

I apologize if you felt singled out as it was not my intention to berate you or come down on you.  You were simply my perceived "offender" (term used loosely here) my statement pertained to at the time.  Side note:  it is great seeing your activity in the CIA section - keep it up!

I suppose I will go away quietly (from the tournament scene) if I am told convincingly and by those with that access/command that tournaments are NOT meant to be one-on-one short (ish) competitions of the mind within the confines of rules.

(Also, I am continually amazed by how opposed people are to this idea.  Totally amazed.)

[Jen-i]

Rob - I like your suggestions, I think they would be a solid addition to our tourney rules, my only concern would be that our T.O.'s would need to have the time to deal with the pm's they would receive (not knowing how many that might be or what their current work load is, its hard to evaluate their capacity for additional work).

While the occurrences of posts in tourney threads noting OP cards/decks/archetypes may have decreased slightly Nevermind I just checked - in 8 of the last 10 tournies (excluding the speed building one) there have been posts regarding the metagame, either declaring particular decks or cards to dominate the meta, and while our rules state that this behaviour is not allowed, without some means of control it seems to just continue. In the majority of cases in these last tournament threads it was rare, if it happened at all that anyone said anything about these statements breaking the rules.

If we really don't want to lock the threads we need some means of either ending the pre-tournament meta-game discussion, or we need to get rid of the rule. One option might be that anyone discussing the meta-game in a tourney thread before a tournament will be asked to leave the next tournament for which they show up in chat. Probably a little harsh, but it will enforce the desired outcome. My preference (because punitive systems are by nature demotivating) would be to go with Rob suggestion and lock the tourney thread.

[Shantu]

I agree it is a bad thing but I don't any better idea than to edit/delete posts as soon as possible.

The main problem with locking is that it prevents discussion, which, as far as I know, the main reason forums exist. Discussion gives feedback and shows there is life and interest in tourneys and might compel more people to join. The tourney topic popping up in unread posts also helps remind people that there is a tourney coming. Personally if I didn't have such a reminder I would forget about them most of the time.

I suppose I will go away quietly (from the tournament scene) if I am told convincingly and by those with that access/command that tournaments are NOT meant to be one-on-one short (ish) competitions of the mind within the confines of rules.

Please don't do that. Take it easy.

[Higurashi]

Deck/meta comments are rare nowadays compared to before and not that disastrous when dealt with swiftly.

Community feedback often proves vital to improving the rules and is necessary to build hype.

I fully support community feedback.  Any player with a forum account (required with minimum 10 quality posts etc etc for entry to tournament anyways) is able to send PM's to TO's of anything they consider as "OMG this one card should be banned it is OP!" or "Is <cardnamehere> allowed?" (my answer:  read the rules).  It would also cut down on frequency of having to check the newest posts and finding an "I'm in" or "I cannot make it at that time" post, which doesn't add to the purpose of the topic anyways.

When one of these type of PM's to TO's is relevant and determined to have value for all players to see, TO's can post (with topic still locked of course) the PM question(s) (with or without user that sent...) and the response with accompanying rule revisions (as necessary).  I just do not see your supporting statement (it is one I have certainly encountered before when making this lock-topic suggestion in the past) as being strong enough to continue to prevent this change.


--Rob

P.S. - No, I do not think I could squeeze in more abuses of parenthetical asides in that post.  Yes, I am a STRONG and avid supporter of my suggestion and until recently only passively suggested and supported this change.

No. Forum discussion happens in the open, where feedback begets feedback. People are not robots; they forget and miss out on points that other people can see plainly because they're replying with a more overarching point of view, and thoughts breed thoughts. Same reason I need newbies to ask for deck advice in public instead of PM'ing Staff (me).

People talking about the time isn't off topic, and contributes to showing us how the rotating schedule is working. Yes, they're a little low-content at times, but a forum is for posting. I'd rather see people encouraged to do that than see activity die out.

If you do some research you'll find that many times (but still a small minority) the winner of a tourney, if new to the game or just a team player, has gotten help from friends. We're a community and can only keep collaboration away during the tourney, really.

[dragonsdemesne]

Hello!  I just wanted to ask that once the event organizers have access to reward codes once again, that they could post somewhere (like in this thread) that this is the case.  I can be patient waiting for mine (well, kind of patient, anyway :p) but I figure a heads up once that happens would be nice.

Also, the idea for the halfblood prince looks very interesting, and I'd definitely be there if RL circumstances permitted... but they don't :p  At first glance, it looks like it would create a very diverse metagame, and I'm hoping that this will be the case.  (and maybe the idea will get reused in a week I can participate!)

[dawn to dusk]

i asked ddevans in chat but he didnt know so i might as well post it here. when 1.4 goes live, will we be able to get the mark of chroma (or whatever its called) from winning tournaments and various other PvP events?

[ddevans96]

i asked ddevans in chat but he didnt know so i might as well post it here. when 1.4 goes live, will we be able to get the mark of chroma (or whatever its called) from winning tournaments and various other PvP events?

No one knows yet because Zanz hasn't said anything about it. Nothing else to add here.

[serprex]

The most recent tournament had pretty complicated rules. Illegal decks are a hassle for both players and TOs (player, TO). Having a tool site which could verify (to a degree) when the Limited Resources tournament was held was really useful

What APIs are used by current tools? The tools seem to use PHP, I personally feel there's no need for the computation to be serverside. Would a scripting language designed specifically for ease of use in specifying tournament rules be welcomed?

What I'm saying is that having rules formalized would help clarify rules, and being able to deck check on our own would be helpful. The main caveat is that implementing this on my own would be flawed any time I misinterpret the rules, as then the verifier would misinterpret

In the end it doesn't make errors impossible, but it makes misunderstandings impossible, as everyone essentially agrees on the implementation of the rules. Setting a date (Like Thursday) to freeze rules (Leaving any edge cases defined as is, even if arguable) would make it so that players would have a point in time where they'd be secure in knowing that if they're deck verifies after the ruleset freeze, it'll pass deck check

[Submachine]

I planned to do something else with my 200th post, but the latest tournament had some issues that I just cannot disregard.
I encountered the following problems.

1. State The Rules Correctly

This was the second tournament where the rules were not clear enough (Revenge of Half-Blood Prince and RPG Triangle), because a word in the rule list was used incorrectly. I took into consideration that I might be wrong about that word, because I'm not native english, but I looked up the words and turned out that I was right.

Contain - if a deck must contain XYZ cards, it means that the deck can have any amount of any cards, including the stated XYZ specified cards.
http://www.audioenglish.org/dictionary/contain.htm

In a "reveal-rules-15-mins-before-start" tournament it is imperative for the wording to be correct and be Easily understandable for the first time the player reads it, otherwise they won't be able to take enough time into the speedbuilding part. This time a table was submitted with the numbers of usable creatures, permanents, spells and pillars listed in it. There were 2 problems with that:

• The table stated that we can have 12-14 pillars, but only 4 permanents, disregarding the fact that pillars are also permanents.
• The table only stated that we can use 4 creatures. Since it was speedbuilding, I only looked at the numbers separately, thinking that i can use maximum 4 and not exactly 4 of them. There were at least 2 other people who had this same problem as me with this rule, and the TO only posted clarification when the tournament has already started.

Suggestion: Use the words correctly, especially "contain", and use the words "minimum, maximum, exactly, must, can", etc literally everywhere where they clarify unclear informations.


2. Have a Plan-B for unexpected events

Fortunately, this problem was solved immediately. The special rule said:

• Every player needs to declare a class for themselves 15 minutes before the tournament starts.

The Main Rules state that only players late from the tournament are excluded (except when waiting for players to join), but it was unclear for me what happens if someone misses the "15-mins-before-the-tourney" start, but is there before the actual tournament begins.

Suggestion: for future reference, in speedbuilding tourneys clarify what can be done or what happens if someone is late from the pre-beginning but is there in time.

[serprex]

... There were at least 2 other people who had this same problem as me with this rule ...

I lost both my games, so it doesn't matter, but the second game I played a creatureless deck