6th Trials - Suggestions and Feedback

[willng3]

Make both players PM their decks to trials overseer and he posts those when phase is over or something?

Or someone not in Trials, if the Overseer is participating.  Good idea here.  Especially if the rules are on the complex side and there's a chance a challenger accidentally used a card more than was allowed, for instance.

Well, if it was someone not participating in Trials then you would really have to make sure that they have a firm grasp of what's illegal according to the rules and what's not.  Hypothetically speaking, would there be a greater negative response if the Overseer made an error when judging if a deck was legal versus a non-Trials participant?

[deuce22]

Regarding master's tourney, I think some changes need to be made regarding the rules for next trials.

The current environment of 100% upgrades and limiting off-element cards results in a tournament that is almost entirely dependent on cointoss or RNGfail. Pretty much every element can field a 5ttw deck and the limit of off-element cards makes it more difficult to create decks that have a chance of controlling/countering.

In my matches, will RNGfailed all 3 games. Against nilsje, cointoss determined the winner in 3 of our matches and RNGfail determining the 4th.

As nilsje pointed out in chat, there is a significant lack of creativity in the master's tournament.

Simple suggestions include having a 50% in-element and/or limiting upgrades to phase 1 points and war bonus points.

Also, I'm not a fan of a double elimination tourney if multiple players are given byes. Theoretically, I can win the tourney in 3 matches, but it would take everyone else 6 or 7 matches to win the tournament. Given 6 participants, I feel a round-robin would have been better with 3 points per win (or some other scoring system).

[justaburd]

Make both players PM their decks to trials overseer and he posts those when phase is over or something?

Or someone not in Trials, if the Overseer is participating.  Good idea here.  Especially if the rules are on the complex side and there's a chance a challenger accidentally used a card more than was allowed, for instance.

Well, if it was someone not participating in Trials then you would really have to make sure that they have a firm grasp of what's illegal according to the rules and what's not.  Hypothetically speaking, would there be a greater negative response if the Overseer made an error when judging if a deck was legal versus a non-Trials participant?

I'll add that people don't always know what deck they intend to use for a match, as it depends on what they perceive the other play to want to play.
Requiring an overseer for a match will just delay it further.
Plus it's not really feasible for players to pm one person all of their decks. I have 15 decks and I intend to have more if I think of a good ones that I can work with.

[kev]

Make both players PM their decks to trials overseer and he posts those when phase is over or something?

Or someone not in Trials, if the Overseer is participating.  Good idea here.  Especially if the rules are on the complex side and there's a chance a challenger accidentally used a card more than was allowed, for instance.

Well, if it was someone not participating in Trials then you would really have to make sure that they have a firm grasp of what's illegal according to the rules and what's not.  Hypothetically speaking, would there be a greater negative response if the Overseer made an error when judging if a deck was legal versus a non-Trials participant?

I'll add that people don't always know what deck they intend to use for a match, as it depends on what they perceive the other play to want to play.
Requiring an overseer for a match will just delay it further.
Plus it's not really feasible for players to pm one person all of their decks. I have 15 decks and I intend to have more if I think of a good ones that I can work with.

I don't think I was clear enough.  I was proposing each player send the decks used immediately following each match.  It's just an alternative to being forced to post decks immediately which would give future opponents an advantage.  So as soon as I'm done playing Cal I send my 5 decks to Xeno.  Now I'm not forced to remember which decks I used for over a week.  If he has time, Xeno could look the decks over and say "dude, you used Flooding in games 1 and 5" and thus we'd have it sorted out earlier rather than waiting for everyone to reveal and then having to hash out potential problems.  But the onus still falls on me to follow the rules.  If Xeno doesn't look my decks over, Cal will still catch my error when the decks are posted next week.

[Calindu]

Make both players PM their decks to trials overseer and he posts those when phase is over or something?

Or someone not in Trials, if the Overseer is participating.  Good idea here.  Especially if the rules are on the complex side and there's a chance a challenger accidentally used a card more than was allowed, for instance.

Well, if it was someone not participating in Trials then you would really have to make sure that they have a firm grasp of what's illegal according to the rules and what's not.  Hypothetically speaking, would there be a greater negative response if the Overseer made an error when judging if a deck was legal versus a non-Trials participant?

I'll add that people don't always know what deck they intend to use for a match, as it depends on what they perceive the other play to want to play.
Requiring an overseer for a match will just delay it further.
Plus it's not really feasible for players to pm one person all of their decks. I have 15 decks and I intend to have more if I think of a good ones that I can work with.

I don't think I was clear enough.  I was proposing each player send the decks used immediately following each match.  It's just an alternative to being forced to post decks immediately which would give future opponents an advantage.  So as soon as I'm done playing Cal I send my 5 decks to Xeno.  Now I'm not forced to remember which decks I used for over a week.  If he has time, Xeno could look the decks over and say "dude, you used Flooding in games 1 and 5" and thus we'd have it sorted out earlier rather than waiting for everyone to reveal and then having to hash out potential problems.  But the onus still falls on me to follow the rules.  If Xeno doesn't look my decks over, Cal will still catch my error when the decks are posted next week.

I like PMing people after the match, but I consider PMing someone outside of trials which is a respectable member of us community the decks before the match would be better:

• You won't risk doing silly mistakes(me in game 1 vs. kev).
• You can't add the same card 2 times because you didn't used it before(One of the best examples would be explosion and control cards.
• Can't switch decks anymore because you was in and I wasn't and saw a hard counter.

[MyNameIsJoey]

Suggestion:
change part 1 - Proving of worthiness
for
part 1 - proving of Activity

[Jenkar]

I think having a system that rewards winning for master's tourney would be best. As in points per win, not by ranking :v

[Helston]

I've really enjoyed the deckbuilding for phase 2 for the challengers. At first I was unphased at the 33% in-element restrictions, but was wondering how difficult the "twice per Bo5" for off-element matches would be to work around.

Then I started deckbuilding. I came up with some ideas and tried to make them into decks, but for every deck I made there seemed to be two ideas that I couldn't bend into only having ten off-element cards for. Being a Life challenger, this was particularly challenging as Life has very few splashable cards to fill a deck with. I began cursing how difficult this was and was thinking how much I would love a few more off-element cards.

Slowly, as I started making more extra decks I realised that I was being pushed to my limits in Life. I would have to work out every nook and cranny I possibly could to keep my decks fresh and relevant for my opponents. Since then I've really enjoyed working with these limits, and I'd say they're quite suitable for the Trials.

The biggest downside to these rules have been the unfortunately large number of illegal decks played, which has left me with an extra, hollow, victory. The limit to the number of times an in-element card can be played appears to be the biggest problem. While I can understand that it's there to prevent one element abusing a card which is a weakness of their opponent, it looks like many people have found it too easy to forget that they included a specific in two of their previous matches.

[ddevans96]

I've really enjoyed the deckbuilding for phase 2 for the challengers. At first I was unphased at the 33% in-element restrictions, but was wondering how difficult the "twice per Bo5" for off-element matches would be to work around.

Then I started deckbuilding. I came up with some ideas and tried to make them into decks, but for every deck I made there seemed to be two ideas that I couldn't bend into only having ten off-element cards for. Being a Life challenger, this was particularly challenging as Life has very few splashable cards to fill a deck with. I began cursing how difficult this was and was thinking how much I would love a few more off-element cards.

Slowly, as I started making more extra decks I realised that I was being pushed to my limits in Life. I would have to work out every nook and cranny I possibly could to keep my decks fresh and relevant for my opponents. Since then I've really enjoyed working with these limits, and I'd say they're quite suitable for the Trials.

The biggest downside to these rules have been the unfortunately large number of illegal decks played, which has left me with an extra, hollow, victory. The limit to the number of times an in-element card can be played appears to be the biggest problem. While I can understand that it's there to prevent one element abusing a card which is a weakness of their opponent, it looks like many people have found it too easy to forget that they included a specific in two of their previous matches.

Basically agreed. For me, the problem is also more the two-card, off-element rule, than the less-than-third off-element. In fact, I had not paid any attention to the first rule until after my match with Cal, which was a full 5 matches. It's only by luck (I believe, though I have not had an outside source check for me, but I have audited myself several times) I didn't use a deck against him that was illegal because of this.

That said, the rule is more of an interesting challenge than an annoying one, and it's definitely possible to use to your advantage.

[ARTHANASIOS]

I've really enjoyed the deckbuilding for phase 2 for the challengers. At first I was unphased at the 33% in-element restrictions, but was wondering how difficult the "twice per Bo5" for off-element matches would be to work around.

Then I started deckbuilding. I came up with some ideas and tried to make them into decks, but for every deck I made there seemed to be two ideas that I couldn't bend into only having ten off-element cards for. Being a Life challenger, this was particularly challenging as Life has very few splashable cards to fill a deck with. I began cursing how difficult this was and was thinking how much I would love a few more off-element cards.

Slowly, as I started making more extra decks I realised that I was being pushed to my limits in Life. I would have to work out every nook and cranny I possibly could to keep my decks fresh and relevant for my opponents. Since then I've really enjoyed working with these limits, and I'd say they're quite suitable for the Trials.

The biggest downside to these rules have been the unfortunately large number of illegal decks played, which has left me with an extra, hollow, victory. The limit to the number of times an in-element card can be played appears to be the biggest problem. While I can understand that it's there to prevent one element abusing a card which is a weakness of their opponent, it looks like many people have found it too easy to forget that they included a specific in two of their previous matches.

As the other challenger of , I have to mention that I 100% agree with Helston. Life seems to suffer quite a bit for being unable to use the same card 3 times, but this also helps in using every single life card effectively. However, I admit I didn't really made a serious deckbuilding for most of the games, though I think some ideas were really interesting and/or refreshing.

[Jenkar]

Regarding master's tourney, I think some changes need to be made regarding the rules for next trials.

The current environment of 100% upgrades and limiting off-element cards results in a tournament that is almost entirely dependent on cointoss or RNGfail. Pretty much every element can field a 5ttw deck and the limit of off-element cards makes it more difficult to create decks that have a chance of controlling/countering.

After having done a bit of the master tourny,  i feel exactly the same.

[furballdn]

Wouldn't it make more sense to first put up phase 3, and then open up the voting after a few days so candidates can get their words out and answer some questions? Just sayin.