I'm furious about this, but I want to repeat two points that have been made by others.

First, although I agree this is collusion in any reasonable sense of the term, FFG's Organized Play has effectively defined collusion as "I bribe my opponent in front of the tournament marshal." The TO is not really in a position to DQ players for taking advantage of a rule that was explicitly added for this Regionals season.

Second, it really is silly to blame the players for following the tournament structure FFG laid out. That is, it's too much to expect players at a competitive event to deliberately put themselves and their opponents at a disadvantage in order to prove a point--especially a point like "I'm more ethical than you are."

The problem is that FFG's Organized Play put an embarrassingly bad rule into place. The people playing to win according to the clearly stated and agreed-upon rules are not in any way at fault for this outcome, and neither are the judges and tournament staff who allowed the completely predictable outcome of the terrible new rule to develop. If you want to be mad at someone--and you should be!--take it up with Organized Play.

You made the direct assertion that the players did not and could not make independent judgements because what the other players decided would have an effect on thier choice. That is unequivocally false as I show cased.

For all of those players if the goal was to make the Top Cut, everyone of them was fully capable of reaching the conclusion that a ID would be in thier best interests without having to A) Consult any other player or B) Know what other players had decided to do.

You put forth a narrative that just wasn't accurate and now are trying to back out of it when presented with the actual facts.

http://stayontheleader.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/you-cant-win-but-there-are-alternatives.html

(Not by me, I just found it on Reddit.)

Thanks for posting this MegaSilver. That was a great post and very enjoyable read on the subject.

I'm not really sure what is/did happen here? Why would you just call it quits after making it to top 8?

I don't k ow what the points were but if all the top 8 were at 20 points and everyone below had at most 15, then by taking a 1 point draw to make it 21, the 15s would never catch them. Whereas if they played, someone is bound to get 0 points and a lower player could pass them with MOV.

Graduated cut solves most of the problems of the existence of ID.

Graduated cut solves most of the problems of the existence of ID.

They don't need a graduated cut (although I don't have a problem with it). They just need to give up on the idea that Swiss to single-elimination cut is a good format for large tournaments.

It's a bit frustrating that there really honestly seems to be so many ways to avoid X-wing from needing this. They could eliminate draws altogether, give all X-1(2) players a spot in the cut and give byes as necessary to top seeds, Give bye or other incentive to top finishers to promote playing out games in the last round, restructure the scoring system to make draws less dominant over close loses...

Like I've said before, I don't think the ID rule necessarily gets the top cut any better or worse than if games had to be played out, but there are sooooo many better options that would turn this issue into a non-issue that it needs to change.

Ok, I'm not even going to touch the ethics of this, but.... if I'm taking the time to drive somewhere to play a game, paying money to play a game, liking playing the game enough to deal with crowd (what can I say, I'm shy around people I don't know when I'm not anonymous on the internet lol) why the hell would I decide to NOT play the game?

Ok, I'm not even going to touch the ethics of this, but.... if I'm taking the time to drive somewhere to play a game, paying money to play a game, liking playing the game enough to deal with crowd (what can I say, I'm shy around people I don't know when I'm not anonymous on the internet lol) why the hell would I decide to NOT play the game?

Because by not playing one game, you are guaranteed to play 1 more instead, and that 1 more gets you prize support. And if you win, you get to play even more games! So you're trading one game now for 1-3 games in an hour.

Ok, I'm not even going to touch the ethics of this, but.... if I'm taking the time to drive somewhere to play a game, paying money to play a game, liking playing the game enough to deal with crowd (what can I say, I'm shy around people I don't know when I'm not anonymous on the internet lol) why the hell would I decide to NOT play the game?

Because by not playing one game, you are guaranteed to play 1 more instead, and that 1 more gets you prize support. And if you win, you get to play even more games! So you're trading one game now for 1-3 games in an hour.

But I'm giving up the chance to play 2-4

They really should make Modified Loss a thing. So if you lose a close game you still get points for it.

http://stayontheleader.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/you-cant-win-but-there-are-alternatives.html

(Not by me, I just found it on Reddit.)

Talk about one sided.

http://stayontheleader.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/you-cant-win-but-there-are-alternatives.html

(Not by me, I just found it on Reddit.)

Talk about one sided.

One thing to note: there is no such thing as a professional XWing player.

http://stayontheleader.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/you-cant-win-but-there-are-alternatives.html

(Not by me, I just found it on Reddit.)

Talk about one sided.

Granted, but it proves that even in magic (which is one of the arguments everyone seems to use for having IDs is because magic does) not everyone thinks its the best option, and would happily drop it if they could.

In the final round, an X-0 vs and X-0 draw doesn't effect anything really. But, an X-1 vs an X-1/X-0? Those should be played out.

I'm furious about this, but I want to repeat two points that have been made by others.

First, although I agree this is collusion in any reasonable sense of the term, FFG's Organized Play has effectively defined collusion as "I bribe my opponent in front of the tournament marshal." The TO is not really in a position to DQ players for taking advantage of a rule that was explicitly added for this Regionals season.

Second, it really is silly to blame the players for following the tournament structure FFG laid out. That is, it's too much to expect players at a competitive event to deliberately put themselves and their opponents at a disadvantage in order to prove a point--especially a point like "I'm more ethical than you are."

The problem is that FFG's Organized Play put an embarrassingly bad rule into place. The people playing to win according to the clearly stated and agreed-upon rules are not in any way at fault for this outcome, and neither are the judges and tournament staff who allowed the completely predictable outcome of the terrible new rule to develop. If you want to be mad at someone--and you should be!--take it up with Organized Play.

I have seen how FFG has ruled on collusion before. I would be very, very hesitant to try a mass ID anywhere where FFG staff is present, though I think the math makes that a bit harder at the real large tournaments.

There is a clear order of operations error going here. All 4 pairs did not (could not) make an independent judgements because what other people do affects them (and others).

This is not at all accurate.

Every single one of those players could have looked at the standings going into that round, and provided that they can do addition, concluded that a Draw would get them into the Top Cut. Not a single one of them needed to know what any other player planned on doing, all they had to do was look at the stands and it's readily apparent.

1. 25pts

2. 25pts

3. 20pts

4. 20pts

5. 20pts

6. 20pts

7. 20pts

8. 20pts

9. 15pts

Are you telling me that spots 1-8 couldn't just look at those standings and instantly know that a Draw, independent of what any other pairing within the Top 8 decided to do, would lock up a spot on the Top 8? Any person could instantly look at those standings and realize 9th place and beyond can at best move up to 20pts, meaning that if you were already at 20pts any amount of pts secures your spot. Even if other players in spots 1-8 decided to play their games out, it would make absolutely no difference as 4-1-1 would still earn enough points to gaureentee the Top 8.

Whether you like the ID rule or not, please stop making things up to try and bolster your point of view. It's disingenuous debating at best.

Thank you for posting this. I was having a hell of a time figuring the math out on this. I think it bears stressing that the conditions of what is being described need a whole lot to work out. You just need one more below to potentially screw it all up. Because if 9 was at 20 points as well, and he won, it would cut to tiebreakers for 3-8. Which has a cascading effect on the other 20 pt players, because once you eliminated one of their willingness to have an intentional draw, you sort of force the rest to play it out, except for the two 4-0 players.

So, yes, what happened was sucky. But realize, it requires a lot of pieces to fall into place for it to work how it happened.

As someone who was there I am ashamed to have gone to this event. The top 8 was a joke and this needs to addressed by FFG Organized play before the next Regional. It was a good event up till the last round, no issues just one repairing due to drops after the lunch break.

When members of the top 8 are making fun of lower seeds cause they blocked them from advancing they have broken the spirit of competitive play. The language that was used towards the lower seed player was disparaging and uncalled for since they didn't even play out the final round.

When even the TO's are embarrassed when announcing the standings for the top 16, giving the 9th seed the TO dice set, it makes me not want to be a part of organized play.

Its bad because it allows people to use advance knowledge to turn a loss into a tie.

What i mean by that is lets say we have 2 players in 5 rounds of swiss that go.

Player 1: W-W-L-W-L (500 MOV)

Player 2: L-L-W-W-W (700 MOV)

However we introduce the intentional draw to the above scenario. If in game 5 player 1 was facing a similar 3-1 player they can choose to have an ID instead of playing it out giving them a single point and altering the above to

Player 1: W-W-L-W-D

Player 2: L-L-W-W-W

At the end of a normal tournament player 2 should have advanced over player 1, however since player ones second loss would have came in round 5 he had advanced knowledge knowing a tie was as good as a win and therefore advanced instead of player 2 who should have been ahead of him.

This is why the rule is stupid, it more highly rewards earlier wins as you can change your final game to a draw instead of a loss.

if you go 3-2 and have a solid mov but find out that 2 players that were 3-1 going into the final round played each other and opted for an ID and therefore knock you out without even playing a match it would be insanely frustrating, especially if your mov was strong enough to be ahead of the looser. Just because a loss for one of them was going to come in round 5 they get a massive advantage and can ignore that loss.

An ID should award a loss for both players, thus it would still be useful for those who are guarantied to advance but want to take a rest before the finals.

As someone who was there I am ashamed to have gone to this event. The top 8 was a joke and this needs to addressed by FFG Organized play before the next Regional. It was a good event up till the last round, no issues just one repairing due to drops after the lunch break.

When members of the top 8 are making fun of lower seeds cause they blocked them from advancing they have broken the spirit of competitive play. The language that was used towards the lower seed player was disparaging and uncalled for since they didn't even play out the final round.

When even the TO's are embarrassed when announcing the standings for the top 16, giving the 9th seed the TO dice set, it makes me not want to be a part of organized play.

That is really Sad.

It's just easier to make sure the same 8 people always make the top cut this way.

Nobody wants to try and learn the names of some schlep who has been building MOV all day.

As someone who was there I am ashamed to have gone to this event. The top 8 was a joke and this needs to addressed by FFG Organized play before the next Regional. It was a good event up till the last round, no issues just one repairing due to drops after the lunch break.

When members of the top 8 are making fun of lower seeds cause they blocked them from advancing they have broken the spirit of competitive play. The language that was used towards the lower seed player was disparaging and uncalled for since they didn't even play out the final round.

When even the TO's are embarrassed when announcing the standings for the top 16, giving the 9th seed the TO dice set, it makes me not want to be a part of organized play.

Yeah, I would've DQ'ed them.

And why have set number rounds for X amount of players to play Y amount of rounds to make a cut if the rules set allows the manipulation of the standings?

Edit: for angry spelling

And why have set number rounds for X amount of players to play Y amount of rounds to make a cut if the rules set allows the manipulation of the standings?

Edit: for angry spelling

Again, it is important to realize that this situation isn't exactly easy to create. One more 4-1 player, and the house of cards would come tumbling down.

And yet...it was created.

I've played in other systems that typically differentiate by more than wins and losses. For example, 20-0 system where a draw would be 10-10, then incrementally increasing in bands until 20-0. This produces far more of a spread of scores and a narrow win is often not much better than a draw.

X-wing has less granularity in possible scores (if I bring Brobots you can only score 0, 50 or 100 points from me), but it seems like a little more spread might help.

For example, if scores worked like this:

MOV - tournament points

0-19 = 0

20-39 = 1

40-59 = 2

60-79 = 3

80-99 = 4

100 = 5

101-120 = 6

121-140 = 7

141-160 = 8

161-180 = 9

181-200 = 10

This would mean while you could agree to a 5-5 draw, unless you have been killing it with all of your wins (in which case your cut spot is pretty safe), the risk is that someone would jump you.

The flip side to this system is that someone with a high loss and a bunch of massacres could score more highly than someone who won all their games, but then we have the cut to top 8 to settle by elimination anyway.