Hey everyone, need a ruling on a situation that happened in a store championship this weekend. The fourth place guy that made top 4 cut wasn't feeling great and couldn't finish out the top 4 cut single elimination rounds. If a top 4 cut player drops, what happens. Does the #1 seed have a bye or does the #5 guy in swiss get bumped up?

The #5 player joins the elimination rounds.

thanks

The #5 player joins the elimination rounds.

Not according to the tournament I attended.

The #5 player joins the elimination rounds.

Is that in the rules somewhere? If it is, then I missed it.....

It's not, but it's both common sense and exactly how FFG handles the situation for Gencon and Worlds.

Sadly common sense is not that common.

Sadly common sense is not that common.

The #5 guy argued that that's the way it should have gone, but they ruled the other way because in their magic tournaments that is how it is done. This should defiantly be ruled on. If anyone knows the emails to the Organized Play guys I would appreciate an official answer before I run my Store Championship in late March.

one of our top 8 guys had a commitment, and one of our top 4 guys almost had a commitment (he lost to me, had he won he would have dropped anyway) and in the top 8 case we just had #9 fill that spot. #7 dropped moving 8 => 7 and 9 => 8

Our larger events, we explain up front we are not passing out cut prize support until after the round starts and the expectation is to be playing in order to win. We will take the top 4, in order, that play in the cut.

The #5 player joins the elimination rounds.

Is that in the rules somewhere? If it is, then I missed it.....

It's not directly stated, no. Here are the relevant rules, from version 4.01 of the X-wing Tournament Rules:

In larger tournaments, the TO may “make a cut” after a predetermined number of rounds. To determine which players make a cut all players are ordered by tournament points from highest to lowest. If players are tied, all players with the same number of tournament points are ordered by Margin of Victory from highest to lowest. The top players then begin single-elimination rounds, and all other players are finished playing in the tournament.

I would argue that "all players" here implicitly means "all players who are still in the tournament". If someone drops after the final round of Swiss play, why would he or she be included in the list of players who may qualify for the cut?

Furthermore, there's actually no mechanism specified for handling drops at any point in the tournament. So the same logic that would lead to bringing three players and a bye into a four-player cut would lead to replacing any player who leaves the tournament with a bye--that is, continuing to match that player as if he or she were still participating, but awarding a bye to his or her opponent.

But that would lead to a potentially large number of byes each round. But as far as I'm aware, no one runs things that way: instead, players who drop are simply removed from the pairings in future rounds. Applying the same principle to the elimination cut means taking the highest-ranked players who are still playing in the tournament, regardless of those players' rankings with respect to players who aren't participating.

I would argue that "all players" here implicitly means "all players who are still in the tournament". If someone drops after the final round of Swiss play, why would he or she be included in the list of players who may qualify for the cut?

I could see them making the argument that they played well enough to make the top 4 and therefore deserve no worse than 4th place. Not sure I agree with that reasoning, but I wouldn't be surprised if that case was made.