FFG used to use Strength of Schedule for its first tie-breaker with X-Wing and others. It worked well enough, but became an issue in really large multi-day tournaments. SoS breaks down badly when people start dropping out of a tournament. It screws the SoS scores up too much.

The problem discussed in this thread would be less likely with SoS as a tie breaker, but it would really only work for smaller tournaments.

I have seen this happen in a few tournaments that I have played in or run. It's an odd phenomenon of the scoring system and not one that I have seen with other games. It is a known thing though and you can plan for it as part of your strategy.

However, most often when I see it happen it is because a player has really benefited from pouncing on a new player in the first round. That is where SoS is better.

Head to head is a direct apples to apples comparison. MOV is an approximation designed to function in the absence of direct head to head comparison. The direct is always better than the approximate substitute. That's really the only argument needed.

I understand the need for MOV and I think it functions fine given the circumstances. I have yet to hear a single cogent reason why MOV is actually a superior measure than head to head. And "it's the status quo and everyone knows it" doesn't make a logical winning argument.

I don't agree that head to head is the best method, actually. I addressed that in a previous post, but I think it got ignored.

One game does not reflect who is the better player. I've played and replayed tons of local players and friends. I win some, I lose some - against the same people! If head to head were the perfect, end all method that God created on the 8th day (I'm exaggerating for effect) then how come I haven't always won every game against the people I best, and I haven't anyways lost every game against the people who beat me? Is it because one game isn't an indicator of my overall skill necessarily? Wouldn't the composite of numerous games (factoring in the margin of my victory/loss) better demonstrate my overall skill than 1 singular W/L? Yes. Yes it is.

Adding a face to face check strikes me as adding unnecessary complications to the running of the tournament for a relatively unlikely occurrence.

Hell, you'd be adding an extra check that even if it does come up it can fail. A beats B beats C beats A, and all end on a draw - it's easy enough to say use MoV, but that still needs to be codified into the rules. What if A beats B beats C, but C didn't play A? Does A's win over B cascade down to becoming a win over C even though they didn't play?

The more I think about it, the more I believe that KISS applies here. Adding more complexity to the scoring system just to deal with edge cases is just going to create as many questions as it answers.

That would be a valid point if it somehow took time or effort but it doesn't. You already have an established order of three things to determine a winner. Currently it's points, MOV then Head to head. People are simply suggesting that head to head is a better measure of determining the winner than MOV. All that is required is a swap of #2 and #3. It's equally as KISS as the current format. In fact head to head requires no math, only who won whereas MOV requires calculations where mistakes can be made. So by your own criteria head to head is a better measure. If players don't have the same points the winner is clear. If players are tied on points, did they play head to head -> yes, who won? He's the winner. No, then go on to MOV. It only matters IF they players played a head to head game. If not score as normal. That's all.

Except, if you are able to beat your opponents and gain a much higher score how are you not the better player?

Your opponent flies off the board SHOULD give you a massive boost. That is a mistake and you get advantages for mistakes.

Because you lost to the player you're tied on points with. It's really simple. You seem to be forgetting that these players are tied on points? It's not as if anyone is suggesting that a player who wn only one match (1-2) with 6-8 points should win over a player who has 22 points and went 2-1 just because he beat hm head to head. It only matters if points are tied. Suggesting that players have performed at a fairly similar level.

Your advantage is that you wn that game and likely fairly easily. It is not however an indication of your personal skill as a player so why should you benefit from that massively after the fact vs a player whom you lost to head to head. Lyraeus you still have yet to offer up a good reason why MOV is superior to head to head as a tiebreaker.

I do wish in cases where players were tied on Tournament Points that head-to-head was the first tie-breaker, then MoV.

I heard about a Store Championship not too far from here where a guy won after getting a 3-7 loss, the Bye, and then a 10-0 win against some new guy who had not played much before. He got the plaque ahead of two undefeated players. He was tied on tournament points (21) with the second place player, and second place had beat him 7-3 in Round 1, but he still got the plaque because he managed to beat a new guy 10-0 in the end (thus had a TON of MoV).

Head to head is a direct apples to apples comparison. MOV is an approximation designed to function in the absence of direct head to head comparison. The direct is always better than the approximate substitute. That's really the only argument needed.

I understand the need for MOV and I think it functions fine given the circumstances. I have yet to hear a single cogent reason why MOV is actually a superior measure than head to head. And "it's the status quo and everyone knows it" doesn't make a logical winning argument.

I don't agree that head to head is the best method, actually. I addressed that in a previous post, but I think it got ignored.

...

Wouldn't the composite of numerous games (factoring in the margin of my victory/loss) better demonstrate my overall skill than 1 singular W/L? Yes. Yes it is.

Umm, no. While one single game isn't the 'end all be all' measure of skill, neither is a paltry three games. Also, there's a lot of wonky stuff that can and does happen in the Armada system.

It's better to get crushed in your first round (0pts) and then stomp noobs in your second and third round (10, 10) then it is to win three hard-fought matches against very tough, very skilled opponents (6,6,6). Especilaly because if you do tie on points, you'll have an unsurmountable MoV advantage with "easy mode" matches against newer players or weaker squads.

I know a guy who said his explicit strategy during the Massing at Sullest was to lose his first round on purpose with about 2-3 points so that he could pair down and play for a big 9 or 10 point win instead of playing against the tougher squad winners. It must have worked out for him, because he took home two ISDs with this method.

Your reasoning might be sound, except that the Armada points system does not take into affect strength of schedule (quality of opponent/squad) when it awards tournament points.

Let me call back to the example I gave:

- You play two grueling games against the two best players at the tournament and manage some 6-4 victories, with an MoV of 60 in both games.

- I play two guys who have never played more than an intro game and mop the floor with them, and get two 9-1 victories with 300 MoV.

- We play in the final round, and you trounce me for an 8-2 victory with a 200 MoV.

Allow me to correct the errors in this example, if you will.

I play the two best players at the tournament, and get 6-4 in each of the first two rounds.

So my first round I win with 6 points. That means that in my second round in facing someone who did very similarly to me. So my second round will more likely be against a decently average player, rather than the best in the tournament (but flukes happen, either way.)

Now you played a total newbie, and crushed him 9-1. Your next match will, again, be against someone with a similar number of points. It seems pretty unlikely that you will be facing an equally newb-ish player. You will be playing someone who scored (probably) 8-10 points.

Ok, so you crush this player, too. Now you have 18 tournament points, and I have 12. It's extremely unlikely that we will be playing at all in the first place. I did only mediocre against a mediocre player in round two. You did excellently against an excellent player in round two. If I beat you only by a little in round three, do you deserve second, even though you've played thoroughly better games than me? Consistently, you've outplayed me in all but one circumstance.

And one game doesn't mean much. What if my list was a mediocre-at-best niche list that happened to counter your generally superior list?

I'm not the best player in the tournament just because I managed to beat you, if you are the best player. That just means I beat you. Maybe I'm better than you, but worse than most other people?

Straight up points, then MoV helps to crown the statistically best player, rather than a player who can beat the statistically best player once.

You mean this post? now I just think you are lazy. In this scenario you win. You have more points so you win. If you score 22 points and go 2-1 and I score 21 points and go 3-0 and beat you you win. Is that hard to understand? We are talking about tie breakers. I have 3-0 record and 22 points and beat you. You have 22 points and a 2-1 losing to me head to head. If we are tied then you haven't outplayed me overall. You have played as well as I have but not better than I have, except you lost in direct competition to me. no issues with who p,ayes a newbie, who flew off the board just you vs me. It's the best measure when points are tied.

Umm, no. While one single game isn't the 'end all be all' measure of skill, neither is a paltry three games. Also, there's a lot of wonky stuff that can and does happen in the Armada system.

It's better to get crushed in your first round (0pts) and then stomp noobs in your second and third round (10, 10) then it is to win three hard-fought matches against very tough, very skilled opponents (6,6,6). Especilaly because if you do tie on points, you'll have an unsurmountable MoV advantage with "easy mode" matches against newer players or weaker squads.

I know a guy who said his explicit strategy during the Massing at Sullest was to lose his first round on purpose with about 2-3 points so that he could pair down and play for a big 9 or 10 point win instead of playing against the tougher squad winners. It must have worked out for him, because he took home two ISDs with this method.

Your reasoning might be sound, except that the Armada points system does not take into affect strength of schedule (quality of opponent/squad) when it awards tournament points.

So a paltry 3 games is no measure of overall skill? I agree. How much, then, is one game a measure of overall skill? Even less? Exactly. I agree with the only logical conclusion that you could possibly be trying to make by saying 3 paltry games is not a good indicator of overall skill - because it's still a better measure of skill than one game. I'm glad that we agree because any other conclusion based on your response would be ludicrous.

One guy tried one strategy twice and in your opinion it seemed to work out for him. That's cool. Everyone has a different strategy. Thankfully that kind of play seems like it's in the minority because I've never heard of anyone doing that before.

It's true that MoV doesn't take SoS into account. Neither does the binary W/L, which again, takes even less information into account to determine overall skill. A 5/5 3 point win is not better than a 10/0 450 point win. They should not be considered equal.

You mean this post? now I just think you are lazy. In this scenario you win. You have more points so you win. If you score 22 points and go 2-1 and I score 21 points and go 3-0 and beat you you win. Is that hard to understand? We are talking about tie breakers. I have 3-0 record and 22 points and beat you. You have 22 points and a 2-1 losing to me head to head. If we are tied then you haven't outplayed me overall. You have played as well as I have but not better than I have, except you lost in direct competition to me. no issues with who p,ayes a newbie, who flew off the board just you vs me. It's the best measure when points are tied.

Oh man, did I accidentally mess my math up by 1 point? That's worth calling me lazy over.

Actually, one can tie in points, and still have played a better game. Let's take an example, you and I each play a single opponent, and we both get 10-0 (high five, man, we kicked ass.) I had an MoV of 350. That close to 9/1, but I did, awesome. You banked some sick VPs, and walked away with a 500 point MoV. Obviously our games were perfectly, and exactly identical. 10-0, and that's all the information about the match that was needed. No other information is even relevant!

C'mon man, don't call me lazy and then use lazy worthless logic yourself. If I beat you by a little head to head, but in the overall tournament you played slightly better, you still deserve to win because you played better overall.

May E I am in an area with tough opponents but I don't see this happening. In facts the loss then win strategy does not work iny area because we don't have weak players.

It is very rare in my area to have someone who lost in round 1 to come back and win the tournament. Not only is it hard but at the same time it is unreliable. Not to mention boring as all hell.

It is a tournament, you are playing 2 different games when at a tournament. You are playing the actual game that the tournament is for AND you are playing the tournament. That is how they work.

Individual win scores should not matter. It is tournament points and MoV.

Why should a player be exalted for going 5-5 or 6-4 3 games in a row because they castled and hid not losing anything big throughout the tournament? Sure they got 18 points but they only got maybe 150 MoV. How is that indicative of the games they played?

At the same time, the guy who takes risks gets a 7-3, an 8-2, and then a 3-7 should win because he did more. He won by far more than 150 points and that IS deserving of the Victory.

War is not won by the meek.

May E I am in an area with tough opponents but I don't see this happening. In facts the loss then win strategy does not work iny area because we don't have weak players.

It is very rare in my area to have someone who lost in round 1 to come back and win the tournament. Not only is it hard but at the same time it is unreliable. Not to mention boring as all hell.

It is a tournament, you are playing 2 different games when at a tournament. You are playing the actual game that the tournament is for AND you are playing the tournament. That is how they work.

Individual win scores should not matter. It is tournament points and MoV.

Why should a player be exalted for going 5-5 or 6-4 3 games in a row because they castled and hid not losing anything big throughout the tournament? Sure they got 18 points but they only got maybe 150 MoV. How is that indicative of the games they played?

At the same time, the guy who takes risks gets a 7-3, an 8-2, and then a 3-7 should win because he did more. He won by far more than 150 points and that IS deserving of the Victory.

War is not won by the meek.

What if they both took risks and went balls out and adapted to each others strategies accordingly? These type of games would see 5-5 and 6-4 which also doesn't reflect the amount of high level skill played in those games especially in your meta where everyone is highly skilled.

Conversely you would know that some of your 8-2, 9-1 and some 10-0 would not reflect a crushing victory or defeat where it actually was a really close game between two highly skilled players and it swung in the last turns.

May E I am in an area with tough opponents but I don't see this happening. In facts the loss then win strategy does not work iny area because we don't have weak players.

It is very rare in my area to have someone who lost in round 1 to come back and win the tournament. Not only is it hard but at the same time it is unreliable. Not to mention boring as all hell.

It is a tournament, you are playing 2 different games when at a tournament. You are playing the actual game that the tournament is for AND you are playing the tournament. That is how they work.

Individual win scores should not matter. It is tournament points and MoV.

Why should a player be exalted for going 5-5 or 6-4 3 games in a row because they castled and hid not losing anything big throughout the tournament? Sure they got 18 points but they only got maybe 150 MoV. How is that indicative of the games they played?

At the same time, the guy who takes risks gets a 7-3, an 8-2, and then a 3-7 should win because he did more. He won by far more than 150 points and that IS deserving of the Victory.

War is not won by the meek.

What if they both took risks and went balls out and adapted to each others strategies accordingly? These type of games would see 5-5 and 6-4 which also doesn't reflect the amount of high level skill played in those games especially in your meta where everyone is highly skilled.

Conversely you would know that some of your 8-2, 9-1 and some 10-0 would not reflect a crushing victory or defeat where it actually was a really close game between two highly skilled players and it swung in the last turns.

Points are important but head to head is not.

Let's say you tie with 3 people in a 50 person tournament where you had 5 games. You tied with 2 of them and best them both but they all had amazing games and we're able to crawl back up from losing the tournament to where they were now.

Why should your wins which could have been to any number of variables, or you could have won by 1 MoV or such be a determination of how they did in the war we call a tournament?

War is not won by the meek.

Except this is a game and not a war.

I make this distinction as it leads into my other idea. FFG is not just looking at a tournament system as a means of picking the best player on the day. There is a bit of self interest from them, having players in a store playing game and having fun is a pretty good advertisement for the game. There is also a bit of self interest for the store, if players are having fun in their store perhaps they can assist that and make some sales. The players too have some vested self interest, they probably go to a tournament because the competition and challenge of things, but also because the underlying nature of the event is fun somehow.

The absolute best way to figure out the best player on the day is a DE. However, that fails to provide all the players a fun day of gaming, which in turn fails the store and FFG.

The same is true of the idea of H2H or MOV, neither is a perfect system. So the question isn't so much which is best, but rather which is the least flawed? In this regard I find I agree with the MOV peeps, the winner is the player who got in there played well and hard and did things. The players who do well at a tournament are more likely to have had fun games, closer games and be more than likely to share those experiences. If you have 18 players and 17 of them have had a good experience, stand around chatting about the results and have clearly had a good time, that is a win for the players, the Store and FFG.

Perhaps the best way is to play 3-4 rounds as you do then cut to 4-8 and play in a DE? Blend both systems?

I would also add, that store run tournaments are far more frequent, so there is always another tournament being run sooner than later in which to try again.

Tournaments feel like a war to me. You have small battles where at the end how you did, the choices you made affected how well the tournament (war) went for you.

I haven't been in a war, but death is often involved at some point or another for some of the participants.

You play in some pretty hardcore tournaments if death is involved.

I haven't been in a war, but death is often involved at some point or another for some of the participants.

You play in some pretty hardcore tournaments if death is involved.

Not Armada, but I did have a 4th Round 40k Game opponent have a Heart Attack across the table from me, once...

I haven't been in a war, but death is often involved at some point or another for some of the participants.

You play in some pretty hardcore tournaments if death is involved.

I feel like this might be stretching the analogy pretty far.

Our local tournaments don't much beyond minor dismemberment.

I haven't been in a war, but death is often involved at some point or another for some of the participants.

You play in some pretty hardcore tournaments if death is involved.

I feel like this might be stretching the analogy pretty far.

Our local tournaments don't much beyond minor dismemberment.

The fact is that you are destroying ships crewed by imaginary people.

The fact is that you are destroying ships crewed by imaginary people.

Yes, but that is my point, it is a game that we play about destroying imaginary ships and imaginary aliens.

Ultimately we do this for fun. Had you said "I play tournaments for fun and the MOV makes sure I get the most out of the experience" I am with you 110%.

In my last 4 tournament's, the last 2 turns turned the tide of the game in not only my games but for several other players as well.

Good for you. That supports my statement.

Points are important but head to head is not.

It is definately important head to head. You are playing a tournament not a casual game. Your current tournament standing has a significant influence on the decisions you make from the point of revealing your bid and deciding first or second player to making the decision of points denial or points farming from turns 4-6. In my situation after Round 2 there was only 1 player with 2 victories both 8-2 and another player with a BYE win and a victory of 10-0. The guy on 16 knew that he needed a minimum of a 7-3 victory to at least secure a win over the current 1st placer and any possible high scores from the Table 2. From his analysis of who/what he was facing, he chose first player and made the risky choice of choosing the Assault Objective in order to maximise his MoV. Throughout the game his opponent played a points denial strategy and the results came out to a 6-4 his way. Putting them both on a tie for TPs. You can see here the points clearly influenced the way both players made strategic choices.

Let's say you tie with 3 people in a 50 person tournament where you had 5 games. You tied with 2 of them and best them both but they all had amazing games and we're able to crawl back up from losing the tournament to where they were now.

Why should your wins which could have been to any number of variables, or you could have won by 1 MoV or such be a determination of how they did in the war we call a tournament?

So you are saying the guy in my situation who won all his games deserved to not win the tournament because the guy he beat had a really big win previously and a BYE and that is fair game?

I am saying that if your decisions based on your current standing in the tournament did not take into account that you could lose the tournament if you tied points that is on you. As you said, that should effect your choices.

I am saying that just because you won all 3 games, it does not mean you had the best results.

You lost too many forces to hold the system you were fighting over and as a result were pushed out in the final hours of the vicious combat.

So you are saying the guy in my situation who won all his games deserved to not win the tournament because the guy he beat had a really big win previously and a BYE and that is fair game?

I am saying that just because you won all 3 games, it does not mean you had the best results.

Apparently it does mean you had the best result to FFG now, Head to Head is the first check on Tie breakers in the new regulation.

I am saying that just because you won all 3 games, it does not mean you had the best results.

Apparently it does mean you had the best result to FFG now, Head to Head is the first check on Tie breakers in the new regulation.

Assuming thats not an X-wing copy/paste error....

I am saying that just because you won all 3 games, it does not mean you had the best results.

Apparently it does mean you had the best result to FFG now, Head to Head is the first check on Tie breakers in the new regulation.

Assuming thats not an X-wing copy/paste error....

i doubt that is, i remember the wave 1 pdf of the tournament rules had a head to head check too, perhaps it was actually forgotten in the wave 2 document and no one noticed this whole time

So everyone with a regional bye (myself included) should be expecting salty tears and being looked down upon if we do really well in the Regional? because we had a first round bye?

Even though that was the top prize for the store champs, you aren't really a winner using a bye?