Editor: Keh-Gan Hau. Saturday 20th September 2004.
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Editor: Keh-Gan Hau. Saturday 20th September 2004.
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 "One for the money" The first high-level event to be run under the one-game match format has just passed. As a player at that tournament, and one of those privileged enough to play both the best-of-one and best-of-three formats on the day, I feel I am in a position to make comment. This article will seek to establish the context through which the recent rules changes emerged. It will try and look at the issue from Upper Deck Entertainment’s (UDE) perspective, particularly analysing the reasons they have given as to the changes. Like UDE, I am not going to sit on the fence, and I will make judgements and assessments. I merely hope that they will reflect an informed discussion, and be motivated by the long-term interests of the VS community. Under the best-of-three format, many problems with time plagued the Vs environment. The objectives and expectations that players and organisers brought to a Vs tournament were unsatisfactorily fulfilled under the regime of rules and laws that regulated time. Games, and as a result, matches, were taking too long. Tournaments and their administration were thus taking too much time. Players were unhappy with the way matches were being resolved when they go to time. Judges were unhappy with the general processes that influenced the efficient administration of tournaments. Before thinking about the problem, recognise that these were problems that demanded a solution. UDE had to act. No solution was going to be perfect. Immediately we are ware that nobody wants draws. This is uncontested. Draws do not fulfil the objective of competitive play: to not only determine, but reward the better player. Some may argue that even in a loss, one player may prove herself the better player. This is flawed. In entering a tournament we abide by what the tournament structure has determined to be the method for establishing the better player i.e. whoever best fulfils the objectives that lead to winning and losing. Sure this may often involve large amounts of “luck” and other factors, but it is still clear. If you win the game, you have fulfilled the objectives of the tournament better than your opponent. This may seem technical, but if you don’t agree, play casually. Plenty of people have made that choice. The Vs system is a temple from which many denominations have (and will) emerged. Many players play within the time limits. Most matches end with a result that is fair to both players. However, some do not. The game is new, and some players have yet to adjust as required. Other players are just too slow, even if unintentionally. For this change to have occurred, I can only assume UDE believes too many players do not play fast enough, for the purposes of running a tournament that is an enjoyable experience for those involved. Too many matches are not producing a fair or efficient enough result. This is the crux of the problem. In some cases, players are making legitimate time-consuming decisions. The complexity of Vs is one of its major attractions to a competitive gamer. Tournaments should always be attempting to best fulfil the objectives and expectations of all involved. Under the best-of-three structure, players expect to have the time to finish three games. In most cases rounds last from between fifty to seventy minutes. Is this long enough to complete a match? It certainly is for some, even when playing archetypes widely regarded as the most complex in the game. However, just because one player can make decisions more quickly (I deliberately refer to decision-making processes, without referring to the accuracy in corresponding to tournament objectives of those processes) does not mean that everybody else should have to raise the bar to their level. We need an acceptable time limit for games based on community standards. Averages do not work, because they are permanently biased toward the faster fifty per cent of players. A standard of reasonableness is required. UDE has decided they were being unreasonable to expect players to finish a three-game match between fifty and sixty minutes. They have decided that thirty minutes should not only be enough time to finish a game, but is a reasonable amount of time to expect a game to finish in. UDE had to make a decision. Could they afford to have rounds that lasted ninety minutes? No. The time of matches was already a nightmare for judging staff. Players would be expected to sometimes play in tournaments from nine in the morning until ten at night, or worse. If you want to organise or play in such a tournament that’s fine, I just don’t think the majority of people want to, and should not be expected to. Under the old system, tournaments would routinely go for a lot longer than was enjoyable. There is a certain skill in acclimatising yourself to lengthy high-level tournaments. However, this should not be a primary skill of the tournament player, even if necessary. It is unreasonable to expect players, many whom are very young, have families, very forgiving spouses/partners, or even public transport to catch, to spend an inordinate amount of time playing a card tournament. To anyone but the hardened PCQ veteran, the strain becomes unbearable. I think more than an eight-hour tournament (outside of semi-finals), is untenable and unfair. The problem is thus: how does UDE make tournaments manageable in a way that not only rewards the players who can best fulfil the objectives of tournament play, but also makes losing as enjoyable proposition as possible? Although even more complex issues, such as the determination of what aspects of play should be rewarded by tournament structure emerge. For the moment this problem is hard enough. At this point, let us merely think of how we could improve on the best-of-three structure. To do this we would need players to play faster. I don’t think experience has much to do with it. Admittedly, Vs is a very young game, and its rules are still in many cases, unclear. Players who have not been hardened in a competitive environment before will inevitably struggle. However, across different games, you will often find the same players playing too slowly. Many Magic players have become notorious for playing slowly, even when they have been playing for many years. Judging slow play could become more militant. Yet, this is the most subjective area within the game. The only fair judgment is to ensure one player has the same amount of time as another. That is too difficult to monitor. Clocks cause too many problems (I’ve tried using them when playing Magic), as illegal plays come up too many times to monitor adequately. Additionally, because it would be likely the word of one player against another in any dispute, judges would be necessary for every table. The only fair way to play best-of-three would be to have at least ninety-minute rounds at the very least. This is unfeasible for administration. A minimum amount of rounds needs playing based on attendance. In large tournaments this would be a catastrophe. Slow play must still be judged. However, slow play can only be justified in relation to the total time limit of the round. Players have to take some of the responsibility for playing faster, yet judges need to be called in case of dispute. Judges may not have much to work with, but thirty minutes for one game gives more leeway than the current system. To take more pressure from judges, I recommend that a permanent record be kept listing the amount of times a player has failed to finish a match. When a player reaches a certain number, they should be notified, and appropriate penalties applied. I think I overheard Chris Zantides attempting to implement something like this at the tournament. At this time slow play is unavoidable, so it can only be minimised. We need to keep the time limits of games honest and also make tournaments less of a marathon. What needs addressing are the differences between the old format and the new format, i.e. What do we gain and what do we lose? Importantly, we have to decide whether or not the differences in the one-game match system are significant enough in the negative to insist we should revert to the best-of-three system. There is no escaping the fact that under a one-game system, the objectives of the tournament player change. UDE, in giving its reasons for the change, have failed to address this issue significantly enough. It seems that they have brainstormed every possible reason that supports the change, without actually analysing the significance of those reasons. The fact that 80% of matches are won by the player who won the first game is irrelevant. 80% is not 100%. The unfalsifiable decrees of statistics are too often played as trump cards. In a best-of-three format there are a wide variety of results that would count in those figures. 2-0 wins, hard-fought 2-1 wins, 2-1 wins that account for a bad draw from each player in two of the games, 1-0 wins on time, etc. Alternatively, these figures may indicate that the initiative is too important, as the player winning the roll is winning the match. The ends should not justify the means. UDE claim that bad matchups will be less relevant, as the increase in rounds will lead to an increase in exposure to a wider variety of decks. This is true on a superficial level, but not on a significantly important level. If you are playing a deck that simply cannot win over best-of-three, you are making a serious metagame prediction. This is a skill that should be understood as being something that is significant as often when restrained as much as it can be utilised. Correctly assessing the metagame, and the right deck to play within it, is a very delicate affair. The larger amount of rounds are not so significant as to reduce strange matchup tangents in any real sense. At the 10K event, I chose to play a Teen Titans build that was very good in the mirror, and I feel vindicated by winning the SIX mirrors (out of ten rounds) that I played. Big Brother and Mutant Nation were also out in force at the event, in similar numbers. These were also very good matchups for me. However, I didn’t face a BBH-based deck until the semi-finals. There was much Common Enemy, a bad matchup, at the event as well, and I managed to avoid most of it even though the deck was very successful. The justification based on matchups also fails to recognise that under a one-game system, identifying a matchup pre-scouting is not so easy, particularly given the popularity of different archetypes exploiting the many of the same cards. If my opponent was to cast Signal Flare with a blank board, I would have to assume Common Enemy, but it may be any FF variation drawing badly. This could be critical to my choice of three drop between Hank/Dove and Roy Harper or Beast Boy. These factors cannot be ignored. It seems that the matchup reasoning is somewhat superficial, even if not entirely irrelevant. UDE should have stuck strictly to the issue of time, from both a playing perspective and a judging perspective. This is where their decisions derive the most valid justification. It also would have shown a respect for the differences in each system. The fact that best-of-three has been retained for finals is highly relevant. Effectively, this is accepting the community belief that the best-of-three system is a greater indicator of the most important skills of Vs. Bad draws will occur, and sometimes in entire tournaments you may have no luck. However, over more and more time this starts to become a lot more even. If you don’t respect this, don’t play Vs. You may have to be lucky to win a tournament, but nearly all the time the most skilled players sit atop the standings of a tournament. Those players are the ones who make the most of whatever luck they have. While we are aware of these factors for the most part, we recognise that one bad draw should not cost someone a title. Anything worse than that, such as two highly improbable but unfortunate bad draws in a row, is tolerable. It may still be lucky, but luck is a fundamental part of this game, and we have to accept that. This is where I think UDE should have driven home their reasoning. Best-of-three is great, but it just isn’t acceptable at anything but the elite level of constructed play. The ancillaries are not good enough for this to continue. For too many people, the best-of-three format is simply not enjoyable, from poor performers to regular money winners. The length of matches, and tournaments, is unacceptable to the majority of players. UDE have tackled this in the best way they can. I just don’t see why they have drawn from superfluous reasons when the real issue is kicking us in the nuts. So did the one-game match system fulfil its promise at the much anticipated Sydney 10K? I think so. The swiss rounds were completed in an acceptable time and the quicker rounds enabled a much greater turnover in matches, providing opportunities to interact with a greater amount of players. The more frequent movement provided extra stimulation and the larger amount of rounds also meant that losing two rounds didn’t knock you out of the tournament. Unfamiliar strategies were advantaged as players were often unable to adapt quickly enough, though tight decks piloted by good players were still near the top of the standings all day. Scouting was obviously important but without access to exact decklists this was difficult to significantly capitalise on at times. Players still went to time but for the most part this was a select group rather than an endemic problem. Some players felt that the new system left rounds inconclusive. Even minor mistakes were punished more brutally, which must be a good thing. Overall I think the new system works well, and although not free from problems, it is preferable to the former system. I think that concerns with the mulligan should be recognised, and to minimise the bad draw perhaps the original hand could be extended to six, with players not drawing for the first turn. Four from sixty cards is too small. Consistency should be rewarded. Additionally, while the initiative was not something that I have particular problems with, I like the idea of bidding for the initiative with life. The importance of the initiative is something integral to Vs. Instead of restricting deck design by forcing players to honour both odds and evens more closely, it encourages players to think critically about how important initiative really is. Best-of-three in the finals seems good enough to maintain, as it gives something of a second chance to star performers whilst also showcasing more games between the best decks and players. This is merely a preliminary discussion and all I hope is that I have provided some food for thought. I have concentrated on the UDE perspective because I think it is important we start with the official decision making process. Although community response will no doubt have a significant effect on the long-term survival of this new format, the real power lies with UDE. This is where the decisions will be made and it is important we understand what they are saying/doing and why they are saying/doing it GG’s Alex Uly in the Forums |