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From: Matb <mbreton@**.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: National Tournament???
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 18:44:02 -0700
hansen wrote:

> I'm a judge for M:tG tournaments here in Singapore. I've helped run
> sactioned tournaments for S'pore and Nationals for Singapore/Malaysia. Let
> me share some of my opinions in reponse to Matb's comments.

> >> The current "agreement" rule in the rulebook is too loose...

> >Not at all. In another game, the dispute would be left to the tourney
> >judge; I actually like to democritization -- leave it in the hands of
> >the players involved in the game.

> W/o strict guidelines you get more work for the officials. This allows
> players to really abuse the system. The problem with democracy in a
> tournament is that it may lead to "did not, did too" arguements.

The, ah, problem of only having one or two expansions solves this:
There are only so many "did not"s that would arise. More importantly:
SRTCG isn't about strict guidelines. It isn't about trying to hack
timing mechanics to your whim. You raise a question; the judge makes a
ruling or leaves it to the D6; end of story.

What you don't get is the sometimes unforeseen consequences of ruling a
card or game mechanic as being one way or another: no rules reversals,
because they were never ground in stone to begin with. Live, and live
easy; it's my particular belief that most people will be cool rather
than turn into pricks in such a situation.

> Also it
> allows a player to build a deck for the given situation (or environment if u
> prefer). Let's give the example u gave above regarding the 75 pt vs the
> 300pt deck. The 75pt deck will probably rely on speed (Big bruisers,
> rockers) rather than control while the 300 pt deck will concentrate more on
> resource and control(sticky fingers, riots, fuchi industries, elite security
> mage).
> Let's say a comprimise at mid point of 180pts. I'd put my money on
> control....

I wouldn't really call a Big Tough Guy deck speedy. In fact, my bets
would swing their way in the long run: there's only so long you can keep
resources under your control, and many of the anti-control cards cost
nothing (Bar Fight, Riots). The resource-manipulator is more likely to
run into problems on shadowruns, and its easier to score eight or ten
decent shadowruns than sixty-odd visits to Fuchi.

That's, of course, just speculation, and I wouldn't be surprised to
learn that the actual tournament results swung toward a third, unknown
category.

At any rate, the point of mentioning the Reputation total was that
there's a diversity some other games completely lack: since Magic
tournaments are (correct me if I'm wrong) all two-player format, it
eliminates certain deck types from the get-go.

It also enforces the concept that there's One Right Way to play, which
eventual becomes One Deck to Play.

> Nobody likes to lose.... And if they have on chance of winning they'd rather
> not play.
> Standardization allows all players an equaled chance of winning varied only
> by the player's skill or luck. Give the players a goal and a path and you'll
> have more players than if u gave them a goal in the dark......

On the other hand, standardization also kills non-tournament play (a
much-heard gripe about MtG). Obviously, each tournament will a follow
slightly different format; the difficulty is in ranking different types
of tournaments on the same post, which is something no other ccg seems
to be concerned with.

Part of the fun inherent in *any* card game is the flexibility inherent
in it -- paradoxical since the actual amount of rules are so small. I'd
like to be able to rate, say, one group that likes to play 300-point
games, and one that likes to play 75-point games, and -- since a
tournament system is going to have the trappings of officialty about it,
*encourage both*. That's the point I'm getting at here.

> >> Also, winning decks are always built based on ways to abuse the rules...
> >> When a combo abuses the rules too greatly, a way must be devised to
> control
> >> this combo or the game will become a "Play this combo, or have no hope
of
> >> winning" game.

> >Haven't found that combo in SRTCG (yet?). However, one of the major
> >sore points many players have with MtG is the tendency to a) have one
> >Power card in every expansion that you *must* play with; and b) the
> >follow-up banning/limiting of that card three months later. As powerful
> >as some cards are (Torgo, Skwark, younameit), I don't see any need, at
> >the moment, to limit them, or any combinations worthy of suppressing.
> >(In fact, my hackles are raised at the very talk of limiting card play.)

> No. Not yet. But so far only the basic set and one expansion have been
> released. So let's keep our fingers crossed......

And if it still doesn't happen...?

"All winnings decks ... abuse the rules..." I'm sorry, but that *was*
an extremely offensive statement; more importantly, it only leads into
the spiral of revamping the rules every release. Encourage the use of
decks that don't abuse the rules: *that* is the solution.

> >> Ok... I know a lot of you have a bone to pick with Magic but I'm going to
> >> quote it's tournament breif evolution because it does happen to be the
> >> longest running card game....

> >> When Magic tournaments were first organized there was no limit to the
> number
> >> of cards in a deck only that the deck needed to contain at least 60
> cards.
> >> A lotta smart asses built decks with 40 lightning bolts and 20 mountains.
> >> Anybody who has played Magic knows what this does....
> >> They then ruled that you can only 4 of each card besides basic land to
> stop
> >> this abuse.
> >> Most card games now are smart enough to limit no of a card.

> >I assume 'limits numbers' of a card? Already in SRTCG.

> Yup.. This was just to illustrate poor playtesting.... I mean 40 LBs????

That actually happened because Garfield wasn't expecting big print runs
or, more accurately, big purchases: He had played in an environment
where there were only one or two 'bolts in print, yet alone in play, so
in that sort of situation almost anything looks balanced (since it'll be
limited by draw).

On the other hand: OK, it's a twink deck - but the guy who first thought
it up probably thought he was a genius for it. Give him that proud
moment. It was, incidentally, before any official MtG tournament I'm
aware of (at least -- in place by Beta).

A while ago there was some talk of using Swiss-format scoring for
tournaments, which at the time I was rather outspokenly against;
however, given the possibilities for multiple tiers of game types, a
similar system might be used. Any suggestions? I'd much rather allow
(several) different gaming environments than one rather strict one, even
if it makes direct comparison a bit limited.


- Matt

------------------------------------
Ask me tonight why love is strange
For I am drunk and full of reasons....

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