There Can Only Be One - Suggestions and Feedback

[TStar]

This is a thread to post any thoughts, suggestions, or comments on the TCOBO event.

[Svenningen]

I'd like to kick things off by saying this is a fun event that I feel I would have enjoyed greatly under different circumstances.  However, the current set of rules made playing at my best virtually impossible.  I feel this event could greatly benefit from some rule changes that either make deckbuilding more creative, or deck posting optional.  This event really is just a mini-scale BL that morphs into CL the longer you go.  There are no deckbuilding restrictions, but several players (myself included) could not use our top decks.  This is mostly due to the fact that you are required to post them, and while and event icon is a cute prize, it's hardly worth letting all your competition for Marks/Nymphs/Shards/Electrum see your top decks.  This is even more noticeable when you look at the posted decks.  A large portion of them were straight copy/pastes directly from the unupgraded PvP decklist.  I feel this has taken away from this event.  There are very very few interesting decks to view, and there is little imagination put into the ones that are.  If this event is run again I would suggest some serious revisions to the rules to either encourage more unique deckbuilding from the participants, or at the very least eliminate required deck posting so that players can play their top decks without fear of showing them to everyone.  I just fear this event is shaping up as very underwhelming for participants and spectators alike.

I absolutely agree, on every point. I think we need to find something to compromize deckbuilding.

Taking away the posting wont solve anything, most people have top decks ready to use and developed through BL and CL, those decks should stay in BL and CL. Theres no point in this event if it'll just be those decks over and over.

So I suggest we start suggesting something to compromize deckbuilding.

[RootRanger]

I completely agree.
The best players are forced to use decks that aren't very good or ruin BL for everyone.
The leaders of BL all avoided posting their strong decks due to the poor rules of this event.

TStar (1st place) used joke decks.
Mrpaper, Zblader, and I (4th, 3rd, 2nd) didn't enter.
Scauduro (5th) didn't post decks.
Kirchj33 (6th) used war/archive decks.

See? None of the top players in BL used or posted their real decks because they wanted to save BL from disaster.

An event that cripples the best players desperately needs a rule change.

[TheCrazyMango]

i agree that something involving decks needs to change, we need some specific restrictions to make us use creative decks, and seperate this from league

[EvaRia]

I feel like this event is basically what I'm trying to achieve in Duels done in chat rather than on forums, and official instead of unofficial.

I haven't even played and I can tell that most of it is just the same decks over and over again.

Deck restrictions are what make PvP Events unique and fun, so I agree that something about that should be done.

But what? ???

[Genuinous]

Just had an idea: What if as you power increases more and more cards get banned and other restrictions could apply. There could be multiple restrictions for each power level, so it won't make deckbuilding too obvious.
Restrictions could be anything, banned cards, banned combos, only mono/duo/trio/rainbow, etc... Certainly this would require preparation and more balancing but could create a more versatile and challenging event IMHO.

EDIT: If I knew this event was going to happen so quickly I would've joined... Now just *facepalmfacepalmfacepalm*

[TheonlyrealBeef]

I wish that after winning a match a player needs to be left alone for at least an hour to take a break and build new decks with the newly gotten upgrades. I never really got time to build more decks than the 5 that I used, as much as I'd have wanted to. Just adding in upgrades with most of them.

[Scaredgirl]

This event is about players having "power" and becoming stronger by killing other players and taking their power. It's very important not to add any random deckbuilding rules that do not fit this theme.

Lets say we managed to get 60 players to join. We could do this:

30 random players would be given "power". .
30 random players would be given a "special card".

One "power" equals one upgraded card. "Special cards" would be cards that only one player, the one currently holding that card, could use. We could just pick the 30 best cards and call them special.

This would affect deckbuilding and strategy in two ways:

1. There would be a "ban list" of 30 popular cards, forcing you to come up with something new
2. You could pick opponents based on a specific card you want to be able to use later, or if you want to be able to use more upped cards.

I also think that forcing players to take a 24 hour break after a win, is a good idea.

[CCCombobreaker]

30 random players would be given "power". .
30 random players would be given a "special card".

One "power" equals one upgraded card. "Special cards" would be cards that only one player, the one currently holding that card, could use. We could just pick the 30 best cards and call them special.

I like this concept, you could leave it at 30 players and have it be both together.  Each player gets assigned (or maybe requests, with some rule for deciding when multiple people request one card) a "power card", which only they can use, and they can use upgraded copies of it.  Running a pvp1 deck with one upgrade in it felt sort of silly, and definitely didn't encourage building a deck around THAT card.

As the event goes on, people could make more and more diverse upgraded decks (with 9 powers you could make a swell rainbow), but even after a few matches, if you tactically picked who you dueled, you could have close to fully upped decks with solid synergy.  I think this will keep people away from using their top league decks (as they may not have access to cards in them), and encourage more specialized deck-building as it will be tempting to have a mostly upped deck with power 3.  Dim shield, Fractal, Phoenix?  grabboid, RT, EQ?  Yeah, they are pretty straight forward decks, but if you acquired those three powers it would be really advantageous to use them.  BUT you don't HAVE to run those decks, which still leaves room for counter (and counter-counter (and counter-counter-counter)) decks and such.  You may have acquired Immolate but the guy with RT challenges you.  You may want to build something a little safer than DEMA.  Maybe you think he'll realize this and not run his RTs, so you do it anyways.  All the mind games of other good PvP events, but without breaking the Highlander theme.

Maybe you require people to always use at least one copy of their original power?  That forces some degree of consistency or some degree of madness.  Your power is steal, you are fighting someone whose powers you suspect won't involve them using important permanents, so you make a deck to try and counter them but have to throw in 1 steal cuz it's the rules OR you put in 6 steals to take their pillars and run mindgates to try and play their deck against them. 

I also think that forcing players to take a 24 hour break after a win, is a good idea.

By the time I got home on the first day of the event, someone already had power 6, which was a little crazy.  I'm not sure if they instigated all the duels, but I think a way to sort of balance this effect would be to restrict duel challenges to people who have equal or greater power than oneself.  If someone with power 2 wants to challenge someone with power 8, hey... they know the risk.  But it stops someone from winning 2 quick duels at the start and then bullying the other participants who have not yet had a chance to strengthen themselves (I don't think this happened, but it easily could).

But the 24hr rest after victory is also a good solution to this issue.

[kev]

The "no deckout" rule is taking a lot of heat and I don't think it should.  I really feel it had only a marginal impact on deckbuilding (except for me, who didn't notice the rule and made a deckout deck  ).  Others have said the "no deckout" rule gives an advantage to either those with one up or those with a lot of ups, but I just disagree.  It wasn't an awesome rule and it wasn't horrible.

A cooldown period has been discussed but I sort of disagree with the need for one.  Someone playing a lot of matches and earning a lot of ups doesn't have a huge advantage in this event imo, because winning increases your probability of winning the next match but losing eliminates you completely.  If someone tries to play six matches in rapid succession, what's the probability they'll make it through?  It's better to log off for a couple days and ride out the storm in some ways.

The biggest problem, as others have touched on, is that most people feel deckbuilding should be constrained in every PvP Event, and I'm in that boat.

[majofa]

Alright, since the event is coming to a close, I thought I'd share my thoughts...

From my perspective this seemed to be a fun event. Dueling other players and gaining their power in the form of upped cards. There was some strategy that could be involved in it. Fight a bunch of 1 power players, or wait and fight someone with 3-4 power. I chose the latter; fighting Onizuka when he had 5 power.

At first, I thought that people spamming duels at the beginning was going to cause problems, but, in fact, it did not. By the time I was able to play a match, almost 11 hours after the event started, there were still plenty of 1 power people to challenge. So, this issue really isn't an issue.
What could be an issue is one person having to play 3 consecutive matches with no break. A short cooldown period could be implemented. For instance, when you when a duel, you could announce: "I, [name], have defeated [opponent] and am now absorbing his power."  Then no one could challenge you for 30min-1hr. Not too long of a time. When that time is up, if you're still in the chatroom, people can challenge you.

As far as the event being too short. I don't see a single thing wrong with that. One of the biggest complaints people have with events is that they take too long. Having an event that's quick can be a refresher to those that don't want to devout a lot of time to an event.
Instituting the 24 hour cooldown period could cause more problems than it solves, which I'm not sure there's any problems that need to be solved. With it in effect, you are almost forced to play 1 duel per day, or else you will fall behind. And if you fall behind, there's no way for you to catch up, because you can only play 1 duel per day. This has been tried any many onlineGames/MMORPGs I've tested, and it just doesn't work.

Going into hosting this event, I tried to keep it as close to what SG had already. I added the 'deckout counts as a tie' rule to make it seem more like an actual fight. As I've stated before, you have to actively attack your opponent to kill him. This rule, I believe, instead of limiting deck building... actually opened it up more. You know longer had to fear your opponent sitting back behind a wall waiting for you to die. This rule is unique to this event.

The biggest beef this event got was about the no deckbuilding restriction. The three main reasons were as follows:
(1) People not wanting to reveal their Beginner's League Decks:
 - First-and-foremost, if you didn't like the rules, you didn't have to play in the event. Being negative towards it before, during, and after is not good for the event, the organizers, the players, or the community as a whole.
 - Secondly, there aren't any secret decks anymore. Everything you play most people play as well.

(2) All Events must have restrictions:
 - Some events have restrictions. Some have rules. Like: you must play with a 60-card deck. You can choose any number of cards to fill those 60 spots, so you're not really restricted.
 - This event had rules as opposed to restrictions. You can't win by decking your opponent out. You may only use upgraded cards equal to your power. Other than that anything goes. Sounds fun to me!

(3) This event was just a copy/paste tourney:
 - Well let me copy/paste what I wrote in the Rules thread...

I just went through the first 3 pages of the Battle Thread..... 31 different decks (not including mods).
The only decks that were used a lot were Scramble Shrieker (10 times) lulz, Devtal (6 times/3 players), and Grabow (5 times/all different). I hardly think there was a lack of variety.... you just have to look at it with an open mind.

- What I found was that those that complained about the no restrictions in deckbuilding rules were the same ones that just copy/pasted their decks... and they were all eliminated fairly quickly. Those that built their own stuck around for much longer. So, you tell me where the problem was?

As far as the rule change to each person having a 'special card' I'm not sure if that would be a good idea. You'd have people targeting those they autowin against (or the player would be very restricted in what they could play to even stand a chance). This was something I definitely wanted to avoid. Plus, those that can't be on at the beginning of the event would be at an even greater disadvantage.

Anyways... I'm getting into TStar (j/k) length now, so I'll stop here...

[PlayerOa]

An idea I just got:

V1: Before each match, you ban 6 (too low or high?) elements from your opponent.
V2: For each 2 power you have, you can ban one element from your opponent (example: 1/2 power - 1 element banned, 7/8 power - 4 elements banned)
I personally like v2, as it brings a new strategy and gives Power another ability.