Hey guys I just want to point out that many of the tournaments I have gone to this month are not doing the events correctly. FFG is very specific on rules and hosting for official FFG events including strength of scheduling.

In open gaming or non ffg sanctioned events I have no problem with how the tournaments are run as long as they are fairly organized.

However when it comes down to the wire, it rubs me the wrong way when I have gone 3-1 for the day (after the final table) and place 4th because I had less points killed than the other guy that lost earlier.

I am curious if anyone else has had this issue. I have also seen a lot of posts about "if the TO says its ok" or "both players say its ok" then "X" rule or ruling can be changed during an ffg Sanctioned event.

I really want the community as a whole to know that during an FFG event, a TO is there to make ruling calls, not ruling changes. Sorry to vent so much but this is bothering me and I know for a fact for regionals I will bring this up with the TO an hour or so before the matches begin.

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Yeah, that's terrible that they did that. So you are saying you should have come in third, or second? Either way things need to be run exactly per the rules when it is an official championship.

I traveled about 1.5hrs to a store that apparently was a rather casual store. They used tape on the bottom of the asteroids so they don't move, which I thought was a great idea... until they got mad at me for pulling them up so we could set them up for the start of our match. And then they didn't want to participate in placement of the asteroids. They also claimed that imperials always had init.

I wasn't particularly happy with this, but seeing as everyone but one other person were all locals to that store, I decided to go with it... I can say that I now know for sure that giving a TIE swarms perform like 10x better in a less dense asteroid field than a dense one. I already knew that instinctively, but never experimented with giving them a relatively empty field before...

Ah well. Part of me wanted to respect their local "rules" but the other part wanted to shout at them that they're running an official sanctioned event and need to play the official rules, but I had already won a store champ, so I was just playing for fun anyways, so I kept my mouth shut.

I was wondering are asteroids mandatory?

I did my first tournament last weekend, had to drive over 2 hours, and after registering and then signing up with my squad the TO said that we were not going to use asteroids which I wasnt to happy about.

This gives tie swarms huge advantages and had I known I probably would have used a tie swarm.

Also according to the faq, I'm sure that I read in the that the player who had initiative, uses their asteroids and dmg deck, where as everyone had used their own dmg deck which I also thought wasnt quite right, as there are 7 crit hit cards, if 2 players are using one deck then I would think chances of hitting those cards or any other cards is a little more balanced is instead of just one deck per person. You don't burn through the cards as quickly

So when playing tournament do you have to use asteroids?

I really was disappointed, as that makes a huge difference

One set of asteroids, placed in order of initiative. One damage deck per person. I anticipate a change to the tournament rules sometime in the future.

One set of asteroids, placed in order of initiative. One damage deck per person. I anticipate a change to the tournament rules sometime in the future.

Also what really sucks was it was suppose to be 4 games, but due to 2 people having to leave at 8pm (we had 12) they decided I think either jai before or after the first match to play 3 games which I again was not to happy about. Seeing as u drove over 2 hours. If you can't stay for the whole event why go?

I'll be sure to bring they up when I go to the pre wave 4 Release tournament.

But ya I was 2 and 1 and just a point or 2 from third place and the was a tie for third, so I didn't get any prize, but had we gone that extra game I may have had a better chance to place.

One set of asteroids, placed in order of initiative. One damage deck per person. I anticipate a change to the tournament rules sometime in the future.

Why would the tournament rules change (other than to include Aces?) They work more than well enough, and the locations that are not running tournaments in accordance with these rules need to have something done. Game night kits can be run however the store wants, and that is even mentioned in the pamphlet in the kits, but the official championship level tournaments need to be run using the official tournament rules.

The only change I foresee happening is adding whatever new wrinkles Epic adds. And only for Epic tournaments. Until a new starter comes out, I don't foresee any change to the basic dogfighting format.

Yes but can the. TO make the call not to use asteroids?

No, if the TO decides to play without them he/she is breaking the rules.

From the Tournament Rules, Squad Deployment Procedure

The player with initiative places the six unique asteroid tokens from his core set next to the play area. He chooses one of these asteroid tokens and places it into the play area. Then, his opponent chooses one of the remaining asteroid tokens and places it into the play area. The players continue to alternate until all six tokens have been placed. An asteroid token cannot be placed within Range 1–2 of any edge of the play area or within Range 1 of another asteroid token.

So clearly you have to use the rocks in a tournament.

Delete, thanks for answering

Ive only been to a couple of tournaments so far and it amazes me how little some of the TO know about the rules.

I mean one store told me that they werent going to play the standard dogfight, they were going to play scenarios from the books with random number of asteroids, some tables with none, others with 10. Thats the official FFG store championship as well.

The tournament rules are only a few A4 pages, not a hard slog really to get it right.

I could see them updating the scoring, they did it for SWLCG once they saw how skewed the results were becoming. I've actually warmed up to the idea of:

4pt win

3pt mod win

2pt draw

1pt mod loss

0pt loss

That way every game has 4 points up for grabs, and you're playing for how those 4 points are distributed.

They also need to do something about their tie breakers. Not only does their tiebreaker not go deep enough, it isn't based on player performance. I can't help it if in the first round I'm matched up against the worst player at the tourney. I had a swift victory and got my 4 points (according to my system)... but then ended up tied with someone who got a decent player at the beginning, and had a stronger SoS. I have no control over how that works. Plus, it severely handicaps the player that loses to someone undefeated in the first round and then won the following 3 games, vs someone who won 3 games and then lost to the same undefeated person in the 4th round. I've done the math on the SoS, and ignoring modified wins, the person that lost in the 4th round has a variance of 6 games on his SoS... the guy that lost in the 1st has 10 variance, and is down by 3 on SoS to begin with.

So if you split the variance, the guy that loses in the first round loses SoS by 1 game. If we give each game a 50% win ratio, that means that the person that lost in the final round to the same person that lost in the first will win the tie breaker only 22.7% of the time. Meanwhile the guy that lost in the final round will win the tie breaker 59.8% of the time. They will tie 17.4%... And that 17% of the time, there is no further tiebreaker to determine who wins.

when I run my local tournaments, I use points killed as the primary tiebreaker, using SoS to break THOSE ties

SOS is a terrible tiebreaker, and has to go. But it's in the rules for now, and ought to be used until those rules are revised.

I traveled about 1.5hrs to a store that apparently was a rather casual store. They used tape on the bottom of the asteroids so they don't move, which I thought was a great idea... until they got mad at me for pulling them up so we could set them up for the start of our match. And then they didn't want to participate in placement of the asteroids. They also claimed that imperials always had init.

I wasn't particularly happy with this, but seeing as everyone but one other person were all locals to that store, I decided to go with it... I can say that I now know for sure that giving a TIE swarms perform like 10x better in a less dense asteroid field than a dense one. I already knew that instinctively, but never experimented with giving them a relatively empty field before...

Ah well. Part of me wanted to respect their local "rules" but the other part wanted to shout at them that they're running an official sanctioned event and need to play the official rules, but I had already won a store champ, so I was just playing for fun anyways, so I kept my mouth shut.

That asteroid one really irked me too. A big part of the game strategy is lost when youvare randomly assigned a table with asteroids already on it.

The only problem with moving away from SOS is, what do you use next?

I'm not sure points killed is the right answer, feels like some squads would have advantages, or some matchups would be more advantageous.

All tiebreakers are terrible. There is no one that doesn't screw someone.

Solve tiebreakers with a coin toss.

So as far as tournament rules go, how do you determine a winner when the time limit expires?

I've heard:

A) Total Point value of Ships Destroyed

B) total point value of Damage dealt - IF half damage on a 40 point ship would essentially worth 20 points.

The only problem with moving away from SOS is, what do you use next?

I'm not sure points killed is the right answer, feels like some squads would have advantages, or some matchups would be more advantageous.

I would recommend point kill ratio. It means that being put on the bye (via odd # of people) doesn't affect positively or negatively anyone. Furthermore, it doesn't favor defensive/offensive squads since it's a kill ratio, instead of points destroyed. Also, the ratio is used instead of net points to address the bye. As for earned byes, you can still easily consider that 100pts destroyed 0pts lost.

The problem with it though comes from when you severely overmatch your opponent. You get a 100-0 kill on that match. Meanwhile, someone who had a close game gets a 100-88 record. This means the guy playing against the easy player gets a stronger tie breaker. But it is more fair since the guy wiped the board as he was supposed to. If the next person playing that low level player lost a ship, he wouldn't have done as well of a job and deserves to have a lower tie breaker.

So as far as tournament rules go, how do you determine a winner when the time limit expires?

I've heard:

A) Total Point value of Ships Destroyed

B) total point value of Damage dealt - IF half damage on a 40 point ship would essentially worth 20 points.

Only thing that matters is ships destroyed. A Falcon with 1 hull still counts as 50 points alive.

Thanks for clearing that up.

The only problem with moving away from SOS is, what do you use next?

I'm not sure points killed is the right answer, feels like some squads would have advantages, or some matchups would be more advantageous.

I use differential (kill - lost) for my events.

The mere fact of a structured event will influence which squads are good or bad for that event. It's impossible to avoid. For example, despite the popularity of the swarm, it has notable issues dealing with time limits. Which squads are better/worse would depend on the setup, but that influence is always going to be there.

I prefer differential because it doesn't seem any worse than any other structure as far as which squads are favored or how heavily they influence it. It also does a decent job of capturing quality of win, which should theoretically be influenced by quality of opponent, which is what SoS is trying to capture in the first place. A 100-0 stomping is a much different thing than a 100-79 or 100-88 squeak.

But all that said, when it was championship time I warned all my players that we'd be dropping to the standard SoS for the store championship. As Vorpal said, SoS may suck but it's the rules, and once you're in the Championship season pipeline you need to stick to the rules.

So I haven't competed in a tournament yet but will be in may. My question is why don't they just do it single eliminatation? Get all the players, draw the matches and set the byes, then run the tourney that way? Seems like it would clear alot of headaches and be the simplest way of running it. Granted it sucks losing in the first round but that's just competition.