"Who runs these events, the organizers, or the players?"
Well duh. That's irrelevant though. I can make statements too: Who makes these events happen, the organizers or the players? The players. The organizers just set up an event, they can't make people play. The players will make their own events if others don't. Unofficial tournaments anyone? The organizers run the event FOR the players, when properly done, as the players want. Running an event in a way the players don't it to run is a deplorable act. Waiting for the next time to change it may not an option when the event takes three months.
The players found a flaw in the rules and acted within their power to change it. Does anyone really think the players would have boycotted if it was directly against the rules? That's a silly assumption. If it had been a veil card (which are just as bad if not worse) there would have been even more yelling and whining instead.
We can work all we want, but it just doesn't matter if our vault doesn't have the cards to handle it. It's not necessarily bad vault building either: "The problem is that, at this rate, some team is going to lose because of something it couldn't possibly have known about when it was strategizing." The reply? "Some things, like Event Cards, are better left a secret until they happen." Yep.
War started as SG's brilliant idea, but it's now a community event. It would happen without her. Perhaps not as well, but someone would step up and run it. As such, praise/blame for changes falls on SG's head. Praise not as much, because there's always the question of whether we would have done something similar. This time however, SG really messed up, in a way the community wouldn't have. So she gets full blame for that and only partial credit for her other work. It's not really fair, but with 'not fair' being a large part of the drama.... Luckily, it's fixed now.
I'm also completely baffled at SG thinking the community would want or even accept this. People HATE luck. They complain about the amount that already exists, but they can't do much about it. Putting more luck into a prestigious event when it could be avoided is never going to get a positive reaction. It doesn't matter if it's significant or not, except if the boost to skill involved is greater. People DO assume that measures are going to be taken to maximize the amount of skill involved and minimize luck. All major competitive tournaments do. This is the biggest event in Elements. Of course people expect the same. That's all forgetting the problem of relatively new people and upped cards. Our teams were set before we could know how important it might be for the members to be able to afford upped cards.
Oh and anytime anyone feels like pulling out that "it's just a game" argument again, try to remember that the super bowl is also "just a game". Winning or losing does, in fact, matter to people. Whether it should or not.
