7th Trials - Suggestions and Feedback

[Jenkar]

Phase 2
Masters:
-How did you feel the deck building rules were? About shards only being allowed in the 3rd game? Would it have been preferred if it was just limited to 1 game? Should have probably made them tighter. Didn't intend for 2 opposite elements to be able to be used in g5 deck.
+ I felt the deck building rules were better than last time. Only thing that really bothered me was the limit to 9 off element.  Shards were ok imo
+ If Master's tourny is removed there definitely needs to be something to replace it in phase 2.
Phase 3:
-How do you feel about a reduction in time (say, 4/5 days instead of 7 for Phase 3)?
+ could be good.
-How do you feel about the ability to abstain by voting for a 'No vote' option?
+Plz. Pleasepleaseplease. (yes)

Phase 4:
-Thoughts on amount of bans? This time there were only like 4-5 bans available if you didn't use odd/evens.
+Personally, felt like you could do very little with full bans.
-Thoughts on having shard bans being applied to both people? I'd prefer to not have plenty of battles having unofficial ban lists of shards.
+Sowwwy
-Thoughts on allowing the same deck to be used multiple times? (Consider: If all your decks can be beaten by 1, then the problem doesn't lie in allowing it more than once. It lies in the failure of the bans.)
+Agreed with ()

[rob77dp]

Fairly exhaustive and comprehensive response in yellow below.

Yay Trials are over.

More Suggestions and Feedback

Specifics:

Phase 1:
-More opinions on lack of really doing anything.  I have never paid attention to or participated in a Trials until now, but it seems (as others have stated) that something could be requested to show an active interest and desire to compete or win the title(s).  Maybe as simple as "Post your favorite in-element mono deck for you Trial element.  Provide discussion of strengths, weaknesses, and suggest one card from CIA that could be added and how it would help or improve the deck."?

-Possible suggestions of new things to do (Take into consideration: Brawl)  Refer above.

Phase 2
Masters:
-If I run trials again a Master Tournament will 99.99% not be happening. Maybe a round robin or something. Will need to work out times and stuff. Suggestions welcome.  This seems like it will vary quite a bit with how many current Masters are defending.  Also, the non-defending Masters' participation is likely best decided case by case (refer: nils <--> Shantu).

-How did you feel the deck building rules were? About shards only being allowed in the 3rd game? Would it have been preferred if it was just limited to 1 game? Should have probably made them tighter. Didn't intend for 2 opposite elements to be able to be used in g5 deck.  No comment.

Challengers:
-How did you feel the deck building rules were? How did they feel against multiple people of the same element?  I absolutely loved the deckbuilding rules.  My element was full on challengers so only one out-element matchup so the following may be biased by this - Some elements are inherently stronger against others and this Trial's ruleset for deckbuilding and element 'unlocking' furthered this in some cases.  I am not sure this needs any correcting if Standings-based points are enacted over W-L points (refer below).

-Matchups in off element. 4th Trials had only in, 5th trials had in+opp, 6th had in+random other, 7th had in+random other. Do you feel like repeat element vs elements should be manually avoided in the future? Or that it should be restricted to just opp or just in? Is it fine to do the same elements as previous trials as long as the deck building rules are different enough?  Yes, given different enough rules.  How do you feel about elements that basically can steamroll other elements (See: Fire vs Gravity this Trials)? Do you think this should be avoided?  If a certain 'disadvantaged' (in a particular element matchup) element v element occurs, so long as each Trial participant in the disadvantaged (and advantages!) element has equal matches with the other elements as fellow participants in their same element, I do not see an issue with how it went this time.

-Banning cards: How was it? How did you feel about both in element and off element bans? How do you feel about being able to ban a shard with only you wanting to? How about banning an other card?  The banning function and rules seem fine as they were done this Trials.  Shards being banned for BOTH by either banning a shard was good and prevents clever trickeration of shards in Trials (I am OK with allowing clever plots to be possible but tricky with non-shard banning).  A suggestion has been made to INCREASE banning capability and I disagree with allowing mor bans.  Too many bans kills creativity after a certain point (a few bans and the first bans done tend to INCREASE creativity).

-How did you feel that you could use a mono for every game?  If you don't ban Discord, this would be a dangerous plan.  Also, very few mono's can avoid the opponent banning a key card or two forcing duos or trios/etc.  If memory serves correctly, I did not field (I did build/test a few) a single mono in this Trials and I do not recall seeing it run rampant in other elements.

-Banning an alchemy card banned the nymph. Should the same have applied if you banned the nymph (alchemy card banned)? How did you feel about this?  This was fine.  In my element (Death) there really isn't much opportunity to encounter this as Grey Nymph's ability is not an alchemy effect/action.  Plus, who doesn't ban SoSa?  *harumph*

Overall
-How do you feel about other counting as in element? Should there be a limit to how many can count?  Some sort of limit is probably best - given time and opportunity unlimited could be asking for an abusive method to be developed/exploited.  However, I did not encounter any "Other" abuse this Trials.

-How do you feel about how shards were handled? Masters was limited to one game each match, while challengers could ban any shard they want by voting for it once (with other card bans requiring 2 votes to take effect)?  I'm confused by what bans required both players listing it to ban it.  If you mean for it to be both-sides-banned, then I was agreeable to that function/method.  As I stated above, shards be both-sides-banned-able by one player listing it is OK.  Perhaps as players get more and more comfortable with the current state of shards this could be relaxed but for now it seems fine.

**********
I suggest the following for points in Phase 2 (shown are Match Points):

 - each 3-0 match win is +4 pts
 - each 3-1 match win is +3 pts
 - each 3-2 match win is +3 pts
 - each 2-3 match loss is +1 pt
 - each Forfeit win is +3 pts
 - each Forfeit loss is -3 pts

At the end of Phase 2, each element is ranked in descending order of Match Points.  Top rank moves on to Final Battle (if Master defends) or top two ranks move on to Final Battle (if Master is not defending).  Upgrades are given as a ratio = 10 * [(Player Match Points) / 12], rounded (11.5 = 12 upgrades; 13.33 = 13 upgrades).
**********


Phase 3:
-This will probably not change much. There were some interesting vote numbers sometimes (amount of votes in one trial vs another). But I doubt there would be a change from onsite polls to something like gdocs+a forum PM saying you sent it or something.  Forcing into GDocs could cause issues for some players/members to be un-able to vote (firewalls etc).  If there isn't an actual problem associated with leaving voting where it is, then I suggest leaving it be.


-The amount of points will probably not change much unless how they are calculated changes as well.  I am OK with this and balanced my above Phase 2 points/upgrades suggestion with the voting phase being worth 10.

-How do you feel about a reduction in time (say, 4/5 days instead of 7 for Phase 3)?  If the reduced time period covers a weekend and a couple weekdays I am fine with this.  Avoid any Mon - Thu or Tue - Fri scenarios though.

-How do you feel about the ability to abstain by voting for a 'No vote' option?  I would be for this addition and players/members should be aware the 'No vote' option doesn't mean you HAVE to choose it if you don't want to vote for any candidate.

Phase 4:
-Thoughts on odd/evens? Seemed like most people avoided it and opted to just do bans and if they had spare points use it on something.  In hindsight, I would utilize the odd/even ban ability.  I did not in my Phase 4 but now realize how it could be used strategically without confusing too much.

-Thoughts on amount of bans? This time there were only like 4-5 bans available if you didn't use odd/evens.  Four or five bans seems fine.  Ideally, for me, the ban quantity should allow a player enough bans to feel useful without being so plentiful as to overly restrict meta/deck options.  It should not be feasible that the average player goes through the elements/card-list once noting what they would like to ban without having to pare that list down quite a bit to meet the ban limit/rules.

-Thoughts on having shard bans being applied to both people? I'd prefer to not have plenty of battles having unofficial ban lists of shards.  I was OK with this aspect.  Battles with unofficial lists are going to happen - some/certain players are some/certain players after all.

-Thoughts on not having other count as in element?  This should at least be capped or ratio'd or have rules of some kind.  As I mention above, in the future it could be abused if left unchecked.

-Thoughts on having the ability to ban marks? Would you use it if had cost less than a normal in element card ban?  Do you mean ban ALL Mark cards as a choice or to pick-and-choose banning certain SPECIFIC Mark cards?  To the former - I feel it would be alright to add this ban choice at the level (or just above) of the cost to ban in-element cards.  To the latter - I would be opposed to this as it delves too deep into knowing the opponents card collection or such information like that.  I don't feel Trials needs to go that way here.

-Thoughts on allowing the same deck to be used multiple times? (Consider: If all your decks can be beaten by 1, then the problem doesn't lie in allowing it more than once. It lies in the failure of the bans.)  Obviously, I am probably a bit biased on this but I am 100% okay with using the same deck multiple times.  Did I use PDials three times in 6 games in my Final Battle win?  Yes.  I don't feel it was unfair or should be ruled out in future Trials finals.

General match stuff
-How do you feel about nymphs? Disregarding marks, every other card can be gotten by playing AIs. Some element matchups can change drastically depending if you/opponent have a nymph of an element or not. Should there be a limit to the amount you can use per deck or a ban?  This is a tough one as a few elements have some really nice Nymphs - especially if you can know a bit about what the opponent can/cannot/may bring in opposing decks.  Perhaps something along the lines of the other Phase's Alchemy-means-Nymph-too ban rule so an Air Trialist could ban UG and get Nymphs (if opponent has them) without wasting an entire ban on the Nymph specifically (most players do not and should not find advantage in knowing others' card collections)?  (Read: Please please look to avoid any rules or non-rules that would give pause to a player helping/posting in the Nymph count thread!)

-How do you feel about the alch/nymph ban thing? This time it only applied to Phase 2 Challenger. If next trials also had a Phase 2 banning system, how would you feel to it applying to both Phase 2 and Phase 4?  I covered this elsewhere - in summary, I would be OK with this applying to other phases in addition to staying in Phase 2.

-Deck legality stuff. Should all decks be required to be PM'd to the TrO/another person (if TrO is playing) after each match?  This could work.  I would prefer the non-deck submitting issue be resolved by reducing the Phase 3 time (refer above for add'l comments on this) and add a day or two after BATTLE portion of Phase 2 to allow deck posting.

General rules stuff+other:
-Rules should be clearer next time. More things posted in multiple places and emphasis.  I was OK with how this aspect went in this Trials, but more clarity and emphasis rarely hurts.

-How do you feel about the disallowing of points/Phase 3 eligibility if decks weren't posted? If the system changes to having them PM'd, the same applies. Should this more lenient (decks are sent after required, get late entry into a poll (if that's possible onsite))? What about points wise if someone doesn't submit decks? Should the person who lost be awarded a win?  Revise deck posting per my comment above and I'm OK with Phase 2 being negated for a player not posting in time.  Late entry into polls should be avoided in my opinion.  A player losing in Phase 2 to an opponent that does not submit decks should not be given a result-reversal (no win awarded).


Feel free to bring up stuff not mentioned in the above or stuff I haven't addressed in the thread yet. If I've already addressed it, what I've said will probably be the same.

[Onizuka]

Phase 2 had challenger bans that were sent in that required 2 people (or 1 for shards) to list a card to have it banned for in element matches.

Meant mark cards. IE the card mark of death.


Your Phase 2 point suggestion---does that skip over Phase 3?

[Laxadarap]

Yay Trials are over.

More Suggestions and Feedback

Specifics:

Phase 1:
-More opinions on lack of really doing anything. As of now, it isn't a phase, it is signups.  I feel like pretty much anything you could do here, you would do in phase 3 anyway.  I am personally fine with not having anything else.
-Possible suggestions of new things to do (Take into consideration: Brawl)

Phase 2
Masters:
-If I run trials again a Master Tournament will 99.99% not be happening. Maybe a round robin or something. Will need to work out times and stuff. Suggestions welcome.
-How did you feel the deck building rules were? About shards only being allowed in the 3rd game? Would it have been preferred if it was just limited to 1 game? Should have probably made them tighter. Didn't intend for 2 opposite elements to be able to be used in g5 deck.  I approve of shards in pvp events, but seeing as most people don't, it is very hard to just allow them in a blanket statement.  I like how this was done (although I did not participate)

Challengers:
-How did you feel the deck building rules were? How did they feel against multiple people of the same element?I loved the deckbuilding, it was quite fun and I loved the strategic thinking behind it.  I would fully support this next trials.
-Matchups in off element. 4th Trials had only in, 5th trials had in+opp, 6th had in+random other, 7th had in+random other. Do you feel like repeat element vs elements should be manually avoided in the future?Gravity was against fire last trials as well, I would kind of like to face a separate one next time (lets not do 3 in a row). Or that it should be restricted to just opp or just in?Not quite sure what you are asking. Is it fine to do the same elements as previous trials as long as the deck building rules are different enough?Problem is, I REALLY like these deck building rules, so I don't want a change to them . How do you feel about elements that basically can steamroll other elements (See: Fire vs Gravity this Trials)? Do you think this should be avoided?No, it just needs a slight nerf, see below.
-Banning cards: How was it? How did you feel about both in element and off element bans? How do you feel about being able to ban a shard with only you wanting to? How about banning an other card?I do like the in element-noncreature ban.  It didn't destroy any elements, but you could take out a nice strategy or two. 
-How did you feel that you could use a mono for every game? In element, perfectly fine.  Everybody has the same advantages and disadvantages.  Off Element: no.  Some elements are inherently stronger than others.  In my matches vs fire, I could either ban deflag or lances.  Deflag is quite good against gravity (but lances are good in general).  Whichever one I banned, my opponents could make a deck using the other, and still kept quite strong decks.  (They are both stallbreaking cards), and gravity has a hard time outrushing fire. 
-Banning an alchemy card banned the nymph. Should the same have applied if you banned the nymph (alchemy card banned)? How did you feel about this? Ambilvalent, I don't really care.

Overall
-How do you feel about other counting as in element? Should there be a limit to how many can count? I personally hate rainbow decks, so I am perfectly fine with them being out of element.
-How do you feel about how shards were handled? Masters was limited to one game each match, while challengers could ban any shard they want by voting for it once (with other card bans requiring 2 votes to take effect)?Again, I am fine with shards in events, but as you can see for the final battle, I'm not going to make my opponent uncomfortable.  If dm doesn't like/want shards, I'm not going to give myself that advantage.  Granted, I didn't have the option, because he chose unrestricted meta - shards, but still.

Phase 3:
-This will probably not change much. There were some interesting vote numbers sometimes (amount of votes in one trial vs another). But I doubt there would be a change from onsite polls to something like gdocs+a forum PM saying you sent it or something.
-The amount of points will probably not change much unless how they are calculated changes as well.
-How do you feel about a reduction in time (say, 4/5 days instead of 7 for Phase 3)?I'm fine with this
-How do you feel about the ability to abstain by voting for a 'No vote' option?Well, as long as we all have decent self esteem, I don't see an issue with this.  Would it detract from the number of points you get for winning a vote?

Phase 4:
-Thoughts on odd/evens? Seemed like most people avoided it and opted to just do bans and if they had spare points use it on something.Well I didn't send in bans, but I like this a lot.  I think it would be better with more ban points.
-Thoughts on amount of bans? This time there were only like 4-5 bans available if you didn't use odd/evens.Despite what I just said above, less bans is better.  War is unrestricted, this should be as well.  (Now before somebody calls me out on my rage against vang's monofire decks: In war, you can start with any decks you want, you don't have to play through elements to unlock counters, and you can play them again (or pack multiple copies), instead of just being able to use each one time.)
-Thoughts on having shard bans being applied to both people? I'd prefer to not have plenty of battles having unofficial ban lists of shards.  I'm fine with shards, but dm wasn't, so I wasn't going to push it.  No use trying to force something onto somebody that doesn't want to (and with the limited amount of bans, I feel somebody who seriously dislikes shards couldn't competitively ban if they banned shards as well, as opposed to somebody that didn't (because of it affecting both people).  There is no net gain.  (It actually makes it worse to ban shards than it does to ban other cards, which I feel was not the intent)
-Thoughts on not having other count as in element? Ambivalent, I usually don't use a lot of other cards.  However, if you are building rainbows, it severely nerfs the capability of a rainbow (you need a LOT of in element cards).  I like this.
-Thoughts on having the ability to ban marks? Would you use it if had cost less than a normal in element card ban?Standalone marks or deckbuilding marks.  In my opinion, if you have won it, and gotten it for your element, you should be able to use it.  Shows dedication.
-Thoughts on allowing the same deck to be used multiple times? (Consider: If all your decks can be beaten by 1, then the problem doesn't lie in allowing it more than once. It lies in the failure of the bans.)This is part of mindgating/countering.  It should be allowed (again, on even playing grounds).

General match stuff
-How do you feel about nymphs? Disregarding marks, every other card can be gotten by playing AIs. Some element matchups can change drastically depending if you/opponent have a nymph of an element or not. Should there be a limit to the amount you can use per deck or a ban?I would be perfectly fine with allowing nymphs, even though I have no gravity nymphs.  I was playing against one of my challengers, and a purple nymph cost me the game.  However, it is counterable, and if I packed CC, I could have steamrolled her.  Nymphs aren't OP enough to limit.
-How do you feel about the alch/nymph ban thing? This time it only applied to Phase 2 Challenger. If next trials also had a Phase 2 banning system, how would you feel to it applying to both Phase 2 and Phase 4?I think they should both be banned.  You don't ban a nymph for the attack, you ban it for the alchemy spell that it casts.
-Deck legality stuff. Should all decks be required to be PM'd to the TrO/another person (if TrO is playing) after each match? Not sure on my response to this, it is a lot of work to the TrO, and most of the time you can see if a deck is illegal playing against it.  In the cases that you can't, you can still do a quick check and change decks if you really want to cheat, it won't really stop much.  (Except for unintentional, which would help a lot with finishing matches with less hassle).

General rules stuff+other:
-Rules should be clearer next time. More things posted in multiple places and emphasis.
-How do you feel about the disallowing of points/Phase 3 eligibility if decks weren't posted? Yes, (this would have won me my last trials XD)If the system changes to having them PM'd, the same applies. Should this more lenient (decks are sent after required, get late entry into a poll (if that's possible onsite))?That sounds good, don't put person into poll until all decks are finalized, no other penalty (unless illegal decks) What about points wise if someone doesn't submit decks? Should the person who lost be awarded a win?  It depens on the timing, there should be a late grace period, but if after a couple days, still nothing (or the person has been online after the deadline, and still nothing), award the win to the loser for "illegal decks".  Give the "winner" warning though imo.


Feel free to bring up stuff not mentioned in the above or stuff I haven't addressed in the thread yet. If I've already addressed it, what I've said will probably be the same.

Well, I read your wall of text, lets see if you will read mine

[Onizuka]

Phase 2 not asking: Basically, how do you feel about Phase 2's challengers matches. Do you think they should be strictly in element, or only in+off, or in+any.

If no vote has 70 votes, you have 20, and dm has 10, you would get 2 points and dm would get 1.

Mark cards. Finally went back to edit that in.


And I doubt it would be much more work. All it does is eliminate the chance that people can point it out before you get to it.

[Laxadarap]

Phase 2 not asking: Basically, how do you feel about Phase 2's challengers matches. Do you think they should be strictly in element, or only in+off, or in+any. In + off/any is fine, but with restrictions on monos.  Also, if we use the same "card" as last time, some element start with 4 elements, others start with 3.  Would be great if there was  a way to remedy this.

If no vote has 70 votes, you have 20, and dm has 10, you would get 2 points and dm would get 1.  I'm fine with this.

Mark cards. Finally went back to edit that in.


And I doubt it would be much more work. All it does is eliminate the chance that people can point it out before you get to it. I am fine either way.

[rob77dp]

Phase 2 had challenger bans that were sent in that required 2 people (or 1 for shards) to list a card to have it banned for in element matches.

Meant mark cards. IE the card mark of death.


Your Phase 2 point suggestion---does that skip over Phase 3?

I had already forgot in-element Phase 2 bans were done that way!  I was ok with that - changing to be more in-line with the other phase's bans would be OK too.  Just don't OVERDO the ban quantities.  Fewer is better than too many if erring one way or another on bans.

Phase 3 remains as-is (10 points that relate to vote percentage with the rounding etc etc) with my suggested scoring change(s).

[Zso_Zso]

I understand the time-limit problems of the master-tourney, i.e. too many games for too short time.

How about making it the same size as the challenger phase-2, i.e. fixed 4 games for each master, i.e. not a tournament format but a random pairing (part of a round-robin). It could even use the same deck-building rules as the challenger battles.
That way the scoring and amount of point gain possibility can also be equivalent.

So phase 2 would be much more uniform, the only difference between masters and challengers is the opponent-circle which is separated for the 2 camps.