Who made this rule?

It's one of the stupidest things ever. Why would you have that kind of rule when throws exist?

I was extremely skeptical of the ruling when it first came out. Did they not realize throws were in the game?
I was bitter about it after what happened at Team Worlds 2008.
I am furious after what happened at King's Games Regional.

In top 16 of Team Worlds 2008, John Macek's team played against Adrian Bautista's Team. They both each had 1 win on both teams and the remaining game ended in a draw with same RFG, life, yadayada. Staff ruled that they had to play First Blood. San drops his deck in anger as he sides in his Broken Legs. Seth Morrigan, former STG staff member and opponent of Adrian's team immediately says that is not fair because Macek got to choose who went first and the existance of throws in the game. Seth fought so hard that staff had to re-rule the match so they play a 4th game and whoever won that took their team to top 8.

In top 8 of King's Games Regionals, MickyD lost to John Macek because Ira Spinta is the most heavily played throw to date. Seriously, 50% of tournament decks play that card, and other throws like Mega Spike and such are populated elsewhere. John Macek even said that the win was bull because of how broken throws are in First Blood. Just mulligan for a Spinta and you win. Chun-Li with Spinta is stupid too because it forces you to play with 1 foundation a turn to avoid getting Spinta'd [losing] on your own turn.

The best bet you have is to mulligan for a Rev's Calling, but not all decks can play that card.

Also, what happens when two decks that have no attacks are playing First Blood?
Don't even say that it won't happen because TWO of the top 8 decks at King's Games didn't attack.

My proposal:

I understand First Blood is a little better than a coinflip, but why not just have the players continue their game until one has more RFG cards or takes damage? That can definitely happen in the time it takes to pick up your cards, sideboard, reshuffle, draw, decide to mulligan, and play First Blood.

If you're afraid of time then just force them to play with 2 minutes on the clock for each turn.

What is this First Blood?

and that sucks to hear about the players' anger.

knew_b33 said:

First person to deal damage wins; it's a "sudden death" type, done after a draw and time is called.

The only way I could see First Blood working is if they were to remove the "Half damage" ability on throws when First Blood is in effect.

But as it is, First Blood is bull and needs to be eliminated from the environment.

yeah. being an aggro player i dont hate it buuuuut i do know that it is stupid. At Cannats t8 round 1 shajir pulled a tie at time and they decided to just let them have a game 3 cuz it would be stupid if turn 1 he drew 2 spintas (1 hacked by akuma). If they made throws lose the throw keyword then i wouldnt mind. sure it screws more control based decks but..... meh cant always win.

Link said:

I love it when Antigoth makes those calls.

Homme Chapeau said:

Forgive me... but I'm having a hard time figuring out if that's sarcasm, or you're actually agreeing with my judgement call.

Antigoth said:

Last year you called the judge on pile shuffling and I loved that call.

This year you make this call of awesomeness.

You deserve your hugs.

You didn't deserve to get Spiked on time though :( Forgive me?

Omar is very loyal to the official rules of the game, and tournaments, more or less. He simply went by what was supposed to be do. That being said, though, it is a shame that it came down to such a case.

And Macek was really unhappy about that for like the rest of the night, Shane. Though, I did make a funny point when i said it would have been a little amusing if after both players mulligened in game 3 that mickey D Tag Along'ed Chunners and then Macek would have won because of the removed pile (no idea if Tag Along is in the deck, but the thought is funny)

First off how often does a First Blood even happen at an event? I'd say not that often. Does it suck that games end like this? Yes. I lost to Matt Khols team last year in top 8 of the team event because I was playing a mill deck and didn't (and pretty much couldn't even if I wanted to) deal any damage during the game. But what is a more fair or better way to determine a winner? Flip a coin? Roll a dice? Doesn't sound much better to me. Or how about both people lose because they couldn't finish their game in 50 min?

Take away the throw keyword? I don't like the idea, Ispin is one of the most played cards but other then that and Mega Spike what other throw is played? And what are the chances you draw the 3 or 4 your playing in your deck? It would be just as easy for to draw a attack and a Kung-Fu and pump up the speed by 5 or 6 thus making it pretty much unblockable 1st turn. I just don't think there really is a better alternative.

JDub said:

Play the third game. In Top 8, there must be a winner anyway.

i agree with hatman, just do what we did at SEC just let the game play out NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES, unless a store is closing there should be NO reason to go to first blood, and First Blood should never EVER be used anyway, throws make that TOO good to be true... i NEVER use first blood and as far as i am concerned the ability to DRAW in any event should be taken out there should be clear winners and losers and this should be adressed in the Tourny Rules when they are done, but i guess thats up to FFG, so i'll back off of that for now.

N.J.

Homme Chapeau said:

That would be great but there is obviously a time limit for a reason.

Now I dont think that top cuts should be timed but there are times when certain venues won't stay open or a tourney needs to be finished by a certain time etc, so a rule like this is needed. Besides "play the thrid game" there is no fair way to do it, period.

So people are complaining about probably the most fair way within reason to finish a draw? What else? Play the game, draw it out another 45, 50 minutes? This rule PUNISHES decks that run like two to three attacks, and force people to actually try to hit folks. Yes throws are a big bonus, but they're run for a reason. To take away the throw ability would more or less make those cards a moot point in sudden death, which is unfair to the folks who actually run the cards in the first place.

Allow me to ask some loaded questions:

1) How would people feel if Draws were eliminated in UFS? Either somebody wins, or both players loose?

2) One of the challenges with UFS is that final games can take several hours. When Mark & Shajir's first game took 45 minutes, it's entirely possible that a round if no time was involved at all could take well over 2 hours. First blood is currently random and imperfect.

What if the following system was implemented:

When time is called, the current player finished his turn. If a draw state is present, then his opponent gets a full turn.
If time was called as the first player was passing his turn, he will then get 1 more turn if a draw state is still present after his opponents turn.
At that point, both players enter "First blood"

During First blood, both players take discard, removed from game, staging area, hand and shuffle them together. A new game begins, however all text boxes on all cards are now blank. The game proceeds until one player has successfully played an attack that deals damage.

Keeping in mind that yes, it may slant the game slightly towards Aggro decks, but at the end of the day, UFS is about Fighting back and forth like a video game. The above system to me feels like it captures First Blood in Soul Calibur. I don't know enough about the other games to be able to speak about alternate game modes.

I'm interested in what suggestions and ideas everyone has on this subject.

~~~

Hatman - I completely forgive you. I really have no issues if anyone Kitty Spikes me. It's a card in the game, and as a player I have no issues being on either end of it. Thanks for clarifying, the hugs are appreciated.

Antigoth said:

I know. It was more of a "Dude I loved that call." and then simply carrying the ball waaaaaaaay past the goal line.

Eliminating draws would be a SERIOUSLY bad idea. You could seriously mess with the time you have at your disposal for a tournament. What if a game three begins and one person is playing a mill deck, and time is called? Do you mean to tell me you'd have that match play out to it's entirety, knowing it could very well take as little as a half hour to as much as an hour to finish?

UFS is very unconventional since decking out has to be forced by an opponent's strategy most of the time. Because of the rules of the game, Draws MUST exist.

I can't find the card on any search engine but after just hearing what it does to 'throw' (bad pun) off the fun of the game is just 'absurd' like before when Absurd Strength was really powerful and seriously (possibly by me even) over played.

I would not like playing against a card that made a game end too fast like that on first turn, even if I do block it I lose. I also would never play with the card either. By the way can I see a pic of it???

HolyDragonCloud said:

The only way to truly eliminate draws is to create a metagame where every match is solved under the 50 minute rule.

I remember that game at worlds. I had to hide from San because he looked very mad. I wanted to say something since I was the captain of the team, but I didn't want to piss anyone off and there were people already angry.

Personally, I rather start a new game where at the end of each turn, each player loses 3 vitality and life gain is not possible. Each player must also play their starting character from round 1. And yes, 3 is an arbitrary number but you get the idea. This way, the game can end fast within the time limit but not as quick as a throw being played first. I think that gets the best of both worlds and vitality is still significant.

Antigoth's idea of everything having blank text boxes also gets the best of both worlds. However, I think it's kinda of a bland way of playing the game, there's no excitement in playing blank cards. Assets and actions cards with no blocks are completely useless (and a blank character card = sad panda). Vitality is not significant also. Regardless, I rather have that than the current first blood rules.

I believe Draws should be in the game... I think First Blood is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of...
What if both players are playing 'mill' decks that over all don't attack? If someone DOES attack than it'll be reduced to 0 damage or blocked.

The game will last depending on how patient the players are just like when Higher Calibur was around if Chester's Backing had come out before Worlds (I thank Scott Gaines for helping prevent that)... and if both players had great patience than the game could last hours and the rest of the event could not continue without dropping the 2 players from the event all together...

I suggest giving both players a set amount of turns each after time is called or whatever and these turns may NOT BE EXCEEDED. If there is still a Draw than the match is a Draw... If this is NOT the case however than the player who succeeded in dealing the most damage and/or bringing his/her opponent's Vitality to 0 WITHIN THE AFFOREMENTIONED SET AMOUNT OF TURNS will be declared the winner.

And Draws I believe should be allowed because of a little thing in ALL of these games (of course other than Shadowar considering it's not a game that I know of) called Double K.O.

Mind that this is just a suggestion that I put alot of thault into... If you don't like the idea than don't like it... It doesn't matter to me just PLZ O' PLZ hear what I'm saying.... better yet read what im typing.

yeah i dont like that system at all even though i usually am playing the aggro deck but recently ive been playing more hybrid decks because im tired of one card screwing me over and that just seems like something that first blood really hates on and even the player who tries to throw the first attack is at a disadvantage because that just means that if they dont deal damage with it then there opponent has had more time 2 set up and do more things

in short it just changes your mindset about the game totally and i dont like that plus it makes bitter rivals even more broken then it already is....oh look i just played this 2 speed mid attack 2 try and deal damage 2 you....oh you dont have all 3 zones of blocks ok i win now k thanks

Obviously the big problem here is in top cut rounds where draws are not going to solve anything.

First Blood is the most effective (time-wise) way to solve this situation short of an impartial judge or panel.

The problem faced at Can Nats was a 1-1 game draw after a last turn of a match (i.e. even an impartial judge would have had to see the third game to determine the winner).

First Blood is fine in my opinion. As long as all of the players going into the finals and the tourney understand that this is the way things are to be settled. Compare it to our current situation - we are required to build decks that have answers to certain things in them, we are required to build decks that won't draw or that can compete in long games.

Why is it argued so vehemently, that with prior knowledge, First Blood is not fair to both players? One bad experience does not make a bad situation.

Players need to make the choice, do they build an agressive deck that will win any First Blood chance they see? Do they build a defensive deck that can counter First Blood situations? Do they build control decks (with few attacks and longer setups) that cannot win First Blood Situations in many cases and therefore know going in that they are at a disadvantage come time?

If there is choice, and the rules are understood beforehand, I do not see why First Blood is such a big problem... It is just one more thing players have to consider when building a deck. Can your deck do everything well? Or, does it shine in one particular area that you think matters most? There are pros and cons to everything you put in a deck, a First Blood situation (widely understood beforehand) is just one more constraint to consider when preparing for a match.

Of course, any other way of settling things is just a different constraint and would likely equally impact your deck building decision.

Keep in mind, I am all for diffrerent win conditions in different parts of the tourney. For instance, TO states First Blood in top 16, top 4 there is no time limit, all players entering agree, etc.

In the long run, and if both players are tied after a full 50+ minutes, whose to say First Blood or even a coin toss isn't the best way of settling everything (both players were given fair chance to kill each other in the time limit and failing to do so means they have failed to secure their own fate).

- dut

Homme Chapeau said:

Exactly.

There is no truly fair tiebreaker in this game right now. Its always going to favor throws or characters with higher vit or what have you. Ideally play out the last round should be the best method, but if your goign to tie breakers it's almost always because thats not an option.