and ID would still be a bad rule if Roanoke had never happened.

Can we make this a thing? Like when something gets ruined we all just start saying, "Oh great, you Roanoked it."

All in favour?

"Things were better back then... before Roanoke."

Then everyone solemnly nods in silent agreement.

The Great Roanoking.

X-Wing should not have drawn results. The feel of the game is to put your plastic toys on the table and PLAY with them until there's a (modified) winner.

If the game ends with both players having the same score, then the player with initiative should get a modified win.

Initiative bids are already an important consideration in squadron building.

Fly in circles for 75 minutes without engaging? The player with initiative will have a modified win.

Fortress for 75 minutes before you break off? The player with initiative will have a modified win.

You're a lock for Top 8 and don't want to play the last round? Concede to your opponent and eat your sandwich.

When you remove the possibility to draw a game, then IDs can no longer exist.

(In contrast, a game like Netrunner SHOULD have IDs. Draws are a very common outcome and it is extremely difficult to police a 'real' drawn game from a 'fake' drawn game. It is my opinion that FFG are not considering each of their OP games on their own merits. What suits some games will not always suit the rest.)

Anyone who can't recognize that a draw should be a valid result in any competition needs a healthy reality check. It is this idea that there MUST be winners and losers that leads to so much hostility in the world. We'd all be better off if people could just admit that sometimes they aren't any better or any worse than someone else and learn to accept that.

Anyone who can't recognize that a draw should be a valid result in any competition needs a healthy reality check. It is this idea that there MUST be winners and losers that leads to so much hostility in the world.

Yet the hostility over the last few days has not been caused by people winning or losing - but by agreeing to draw.

I stand by my opinion that X-Wing does not need drawn results. The subsequent healthy reality check is that IDs will no longer exist.

Anyone who can't recognize that a draw should be a valid result in any competition needs a healthy reality check. It is this idea that there MUST be winners and losers that leads to so much hostility in the world. We'd all be better off if people could just admit that sometimes they aren't any better or any worse than someone else and learn to accept that.

Acknowledging that two people can indeed play to an even result is perfectly rationale and logical. A draw should be a valid result...

...except that valid result causes so many issues in policing and play. If draws are sufficiently rare, an effort to eliminate them entirely yields numerous benefits to simplify tournament play and reduce opportunities for collusion.

It isn't that people feel that there must be winners and losers. Draws cause issues for collusion and policing. The benefit of having them is not large enough to outweigh the benefits of NOT having them.

Anyone who can't recognize that a draw should be a valid result in any competition needs a healthy reality check. It is this idea that there MUST be winners and losers that leads to so much hostility in the world.

Yet the hostility over the last few days has not been caused by people winning or losing - but by agreeing to draw.

I stand by my opinion that X-Wing does not need drawn results. The subsequent healthy reality check is that IDs will no longer exist.

The hostility is caused by people who can not accept a draw is a valid result. It's not just X-Wing but in many sports fans just can't seem to accept that two sides may be evenly matched at that time.

Acknowledging that two people can indeed play to an even result is perfectly rationale and logical. A draw should be a valid result...

...except that valid result causes so many issues in policing and play. If draws are sufficiently rare, an effort to eliminate them entirely yields numerous benefits to simplify tournament play and reduce opportunities for collusion.

It isn't that people feel that there must be winners and losers. Draws cause issues for collusion and policing. The benefit of having them is not large enough to outweigh the benefits of NOT having them.

So what are the benefits of NOT having draws? Is it just so that some people can feel like they have one more chance to maybe make a cut before having that dream crushed by reality? Of course is that entirely fair to someone who then loses that chance in the last round when they had it all but wrapped up.

Acknowledging that two people can indeed play to an even result is perfectly rationale and logical. A draw should be a valid result...

...except that valid result causes so many issues in policing and play. If draws are sufficiently rare, an effort to eliminate them entirely yields numerous benefits to simplify tournament play and reduce opportunities for collusion.

It isn't that people feel that there must be winners and losers. Draws cause issues for collusion and policing. The benefit of having them is not large enough to outweigh the benefits of NOT having them.

Quoted for truth. Very well described.

Anyone who can't recognize that a draw should be a valid result in any competition needs a healthy reality check. It is this idea that there MUST be winners and losers that leads to so much hostility in the world.

Yet the hostility over the last few days has not been caused by people winning or losing - but by agreeing to draw.

I stand by my opinion that X-Wing does not need drawn results. The subsequent healthy reality check is that IDs will no longer exist.

The hostility is caused by people who can not accept a draw is a valid result. It's not just X-Wing but in many sports fans just can't seem to accept that two sides may be evenly matched at that time.

Acknowledging that two people can indeed play to an even result is perfectly rationale and logical. A draw should be a valid result...

...except that valid result causes so many issues in policing and play. If draws are sufficiently rare, an effort to eliminate them entirely yields numerous benefits to simplify tournament play and reduce opportunities for collusion.

It isn't that people feel that there must be winners and losers. Draws cause issues for collusion and policing. The benefit of having them is not large enough to outweigh the benefits of NOT having them.

So what are the benefits of NOT having draws? Is it just so that some people can feel like they have one more chance to maybe make a cut before having that dream crushed by reality? Of course is that entirely fair to someone who then loses that chance in the last round when they had it all but wrapped up.

To answer your question:

The reason to given to allow IDs as a tournament organizer goes as such (as I see it), using Roanoke as an example. In that situation, if we had no ID rule, it is very possible that some players might just decide to fly around until time ran out and take a draw. The rules as they were previously did not allow this type of collusion. However, it is very hard for a TO to determine that it actually was collusion. We don't want to place that burden on TOs To make that call, and we don't want to deal with the public backlash when it is suspected at a high end tournament, so we just say you can intentionally draw.

Conversely, if you eliminate ALL draws, players would not have the option to fly around waiting for time and a draw - a winner will be declared and the loser would probably miss the cut. Players no longer have this as an opportunity for collusion, and so it never happens. The TO never has to determine if a draw was collusion (draws don't happen), and there are never allegations of a fixed result at a major event.

It has nothing to do with being the Care Bear way you seem to be portraying it. Both are just different ways to solve the same problems - Limit collusion. Save TOs grief. Avoid public outcry. The latter solution is in many ways the better one for many reasons. No explanation needed for spectators (which is a thing, and will continue to grow in these markets), it encourages playing games rather than not playing games, and it gives all rounds of Swiss an equal weight rather than favoring early rounds over latter rounds (amongst other things I'm sure I'm forgetting because it is late).

X-Wing should not have drawn results. The feel of the game is to put your plastic toys on the table and PLAY with them until there's a (modified) winner.

If the game ends with both players having the same score, then the player with initiative should get a modified win.

Initiative bids are already an important consideration in squadron building.

Fly in circles for 75 minutes without engaging? The player with initiative will have a modified win.

Fortress for 75 minutes before you break off? The player with initiative will have a modified win.

You're a lock for Top 8 and don't want to play the last round? Concede to your opponent and eat your sandwich.

When you remove the possibility to draw a game, then IDs can no longer exist.

(In contrast, a game like Netrunner SHOULD have IDs. Draws are a very common outcome and it is extremely difficult to police a 'real' drawn game from a 'fake' drawn game. It is my opinion that FFG are not considering each of their OP games on their own merits. What suits some games will not always suit the rest.)

I feel a bit like a broken record at this point, but I don't like this solution. It favors the player with initiative too much. In your examples above, if a player with initiative thinks they can make a draw happen, they could try and steer it to a "draw". Although that may be easier said than done.

I'd try to even it out a bit. If the scores are tied, roll a green dice, if it's non-blank (62.5% chance) the player with initiative wins. If it's blank (37.5% chance), player without initiative wins. I think that's a fairer way to do it.

I also think that the real problem here is the system, i actually like the IDs in swiss-to-cut events as they exists right now here or in mtg. In Magic Online they solved the problem by removing draws, a match always have a winner so there are no IDs and the system looks good, the problem is the system as it is right now is not traspasable to real life.

The thing about MODO is that they eliminated draws by adding chess clocks. While chess clocks work amazing in I go you go games it's much harder to use them without computer assistance in games like magic and x wing.

The real question is do you prefer having a draw with ids and bumping for 75 minutes or do you prefer draws to be worth nothing.

The other options are to

1) run swiss until there is one person with the most tournament points and they are the winner (the important thing is that while it's effectively single elimimation you can still play if you want to, which is much better than actual single/double elim IMO).

2) run qualifying heats. You have tournaments that start at x y and z (or however many you want to have). The top x players from each heat make the final event which has y players. Ideally you put these 2-3 hours apart but with enough time to drop and register for the next heat after two losses.

3) Cut to a certain record. Let's say everyone with 4 wins gets in. You can't ID people out of the finals if that's your objection. If the 5-0s want to id for rest no big deal since they can also scoop or fly off the table

I have been wanting to make a response to the ID issue but the amount of threads generated has made choice of location very difficult.

My take away from Ranaoke is that their was an entire tournament round that had no competitive value whatsoever. The outcome did not matter.

The effect of ID's in this case was that no one in the top 8 had the risk of losing; they all gained match points.

This effect will occur again in any situation in a tournament where players don't have to fight it out in their final round to maintain their standing.

So, if this were a top 16 cut, then their would be the top 2, 3rd to 12th could ID, and 13th to 16th would still have to fight out their position or be moved out of ranking position. Therefore, 12 players would sit around and do nothing while 4 players try to keep their rankings ,while fending off up to 20 challengers in their level, only 2 of which will succeed and the other 2 will lose their match and lose ranking status.

Anything that removes competitiveness from a competition does not add any value to the event and instead detracts and diminishes its worthiness.

I am all for the ID if it is aimed at making the tournament rounds shorter, but as it is, it is locking the results of matches and preventing some players from moving up, forcing others out of the cut if the top players don't have to play, and doesn't solve the round issue anyways as it still has meaning to determine the final rankings, and can make a tournament round entirely meaningless.

X-Wing should not have drawn results. The feel of the game is to put your plastic toys on the table and PLAY with them until there's a (modified) winner.

If the game ends with both players having the same score, then the player with initiative should get a modified win.

Initiative bids are already an important consideration in squadron building.

Fly in circles for 75 minutes without engaging? The player with initiative will have a modified win.

Fortress for 75 minutes before you break off? The player with initiative will have a modified win.

You're a lock for Top 8 and don't want to play the last round? Concede to your opponent and eat your sandwich.

When you remove the possibility to draw a game, then IDs can no longer exist.

(In contrast, a game like Netrunner SHOULD have IDs. Draws are a very common outcome and it is extremely difficult to police a 'real' drawn game from a 'fake' drawn game. It is my opinion that FFG are not considering each of their OP games on their own merits. What suits some games will not always suit the rest.)

I feel a bit like a broken record at this point, but I don't like this solution. It favors the player with initiative too much. In your examples above, if a player with initiative thinks they can make a draw happen, they could try and steer it to a "draw". Although that may be easier said than done.

I'd try to even it out a bit. If the scores are tied, roll a green dice, if it's non-blank (62.5% chance) the player with initiative wins. If it's blank (37.5% chance), player without initiative wins. I think that's a fairer way to do it.

One solution would be to make the first tir breaker damage done as a percentage of total health in the list. So say you have a soontir/vader/palp list (18 health) vs brobots (16 health). The brobots list 3 shields on one ship and 1 on the orher. So they lost 25% of their total health but no points. Shuttle lost 3 shields and vader lost 3 health, which is 33% of the lists total health but still no points. Win sould go to brobots for doing more damage. If neither player does any damage, or both do same percent, then you default to initiative.

Was chatting with Dom about this in the car ride home from CaC and he had an ingenious solution.

Swiss as usual, but in the last round you intentionally pair down. For example, in a top 8 cut, #1 plays #9, #2 plays #10, #3 plays #13, etc.

This way you are guaranteed a healthy fight, as everyone of the down pairs is very likely going to play.

#1 is guaranteed to make the cut and plays their friend at #9. #1 flies poorly on purpose giving their friend the win. So you'd have to give any one that is locked into the cut a bye in the last round.

Swiss into single elimination is really what works best for x-wing.

Double elimination is no fun since 25% of the field gets just two games. Also near the end. The undefeated player could be sitting around a long time waiting to play the winner of the losers bracket.

What if players got initiative during the elimination rounds based on seeding? Magic does that. That would make the decision for people about IDing a little tougher.

Swiss into single elimination is really what works best for x-wing.

Double elimination is no fun since 25% of the field gets just two games. Also near the end. The undefeated player could be sitting around a long time waiting to play the winner of the losers bracket.

What if players got initiative during the elimination rounds based on seeding? Magic does that. That would make the decision for people about IDing a little tougher.

What is the different of 25% in the field only getting two games and people being sure to be out of the cut after two games? If it is just about the games … we usually don't have games for last place in a double elimination tourney, because it is frustrating and pointless for the players, not because we could not gather all the losers and play a few more games to get their exact standings on the bottom of the field.

Besides that: Occam's razor suggest that just eliminating draws altogether would work much better than inventing even more rules to keep the ID rule in place. "Perfection is finally attained … when there is no longer anything to take away", we clearly can get rid of draws without losing anything from X-Wing, and we get rid of a whole lot extra rules with are pointless in the process. And after the swiss rounds we already do exactly this, we don't allow draws anymore already.

Swiss into single elimination is really what works best for x-wing.

Double elimination is no fun since 25% of the field gets just two games. Also near the end. The undefeated player could be sitting around a long time waiting to play the winner of the losers bracket.

What if players got initiative during the elimination rounds based on seeding? Magic does that. That would make the decision for people about IDing a little tougher.

What is the different of 25% in the field only getting two games and people being sure to be out of the cut after two games? If it is just about the games … we usually don't have games for last place in a double elimination tourney, because it is frustrating and pointless for the players, not because we could not gather all the losers and play a few more games to get their exact standings on the bottom of the field.

Besides that: Occam's razor suggest that just eliminating draws altogether would work much better than inventing even more rules to keep the ID rule in place. "Perfection is finally attained … when there is no longer anything to take away", we clearly can get rid of draws without losing anything from X-Wing, and we get rid of a whole lot extra rules with are pointless in the process. And after the swiss rounds we already do exactly this, we don't allow draws anymore already.

Problem then is the high likelihood that you'll always have a few players getting knocked out of the top 8 last round. For instance, you can get players who submarine with two early minor losses who spend the whole tourney beating on chumps at the bottom/mid tables knocking out players who spend the whole day in the winner's circle and lose out only to top players. That seems unfair as well.

Honestly, my preferred solution would be for everyone with a certain record to qualify, with byes for those who get a better standing. For instance, all players with a 4-2 record or better qualify. The players with a 4-2 record then play while the 5-1 or better players get a bye. Then everyone is matched together and they play out single-elimination as per normal. That way you don't have tiebreakers deciding who makes it or who doesn't (since the tiebreakers aren't really a good indicator of player ability or performance), and still give all those 4-2 players a road to victory even if it's somewhat more difficult than the rest.