In case you guys didn't see it, FFG has made an official response regarding Intentional Draws

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/4/18/intentional-draws/

In any case I think it's worth making a separate topic to not flood other threads with ID talk.

The TL;DR:

They are removing draws entirely in the next tournament rules update (July). Changes will be live from 1st August.

Personally I love this change. I don't think draws are required. I hated that IDs removed gameplay from a tournament.

So now that that's done, there's no need to discuss IDs.

Let's instead discuss how (if at all) the lack of a draw will impact skirmish gameplay.

I don't actually think it will make much difference. No one actually plays for a draw and it's stupidly hard to actually achieve.

That being said.... I do still think that IA needs some sort of MOV or modified win system.

Beating someone 40-0 shouldn't be the same as scraping through 38-37 or 6-4

Yes! I'm so happy to read that a change is coming! Thanks for posting the link.

I had several problems with the whole idea of an Intentional Draw, but probably the most basic unanswered question that I had about it was this: How is agreeing to an Intentional Draw different from Collusion? Interestingly, they answered this in the article: " By explicitly allowing players to offer and agree to an intentional draw with a leader present, we are deeming this action legal and not collusion. " So in other words , they created an arbitrary distinction between the two...in the end, I think that is why there was so much of a protest recently against the Intentional Draw decision that was made a few months ago. It seems to me that people were reacting to what they saw as an unfair situation, which for all intents and purposes was Collusion...the only difference between Collusion and an Intentional Draw was that the tournament organizer was in on an Intentional Draw, whereas Collusion was done in secret...regardless, it was unfair for others in the tournament.

I'm encouraged to see that IDs are soon to be no more.

Honestly I think the big point here is that draws all together are being removed.

It's already almost impossible to get one naturally, but this removes the issue completely.

The real question is what will the new system look like?

Will it be something like Loss/Minor Win/Major Win

will be something like Loss/Minor Loss/Minor Win/Win

or something like Loss/Win with MOV?

so many different options, and quite a few of them may significantly affect how the game is played.

Ultimately I think that everyone should just play to the best of their ability to win... but having a risk/reward type points system could be a good thing.

There's incentive in that case to continue playing and continue trying to win by a greater margin than just jumping ahead in points and running away.

I come from Magic which has lots of draws. At the high level, they serve somewhat of an important function in tournaments by letting players who have a good record get a break before cut to the top. At the low level, our store judge tried to ban them at lowly Friday Night Magic events so people would just 'play' to time limit, which was even worse than just letting people draw. So you have to be careful how the system is structured so that the desired behavior is incentivized.

So, I'm not sure what to think because I'm unsure what the replacement system is...

opps wrong par of the forum....

Now all we have to do is get rid of SOS and the top 2/4/8/16 cut (in favor of every player playing more games played all around) and we'll be in good shape.

Intentional Draws have no place in miniature gaming. The point of going to a tournament is to play a bunch of games and have the best player win, not to have a bunch of people run the numbers to see if they'll make the cut and ID out. Because of this, it also encourages players to drop out of a tournament, which is really sad. IA needs Tournament Points similar to Armada, and winners should be paired with winners based on TOTAL battle points, not just what they scored last round randomly.

Sample IA Tournament Points:

MOV - Win - Loss

1-4 5 5

5-9 6 4

10-14 7 3

15-19 8 2

20-24 9 1

25+ 10 0

Personally, I think there should be a top level prize for the person who has the best Win/Loss record, as well as the person who has the most Tournament Points. I would also add a player vote system for "Favorite Opponent" (to promote decent conduct, and good sportsmanship, and hopefully remove some player saltiness) and a player vote for "Favorite List" (to promote list diversity, and to encourage lists with a theme instead of whatever the top 3 meta internet lists are for the season).

Now all we have to do is get rid of SOS and the top 2/4/8/16 cut (in favor of every player playing more games played all around) and we'll be in good shape.

Intentional Draws have no place in miniature gaming. The point of going to a tournament is to play a bunch of games and have the best player win, not to have a bunch of people run the numbers to see if they'll make the cut and ID out. Because of this, it also encourages players to drop out of a tournament, which is really sad. IA needs Tournament Points similar to Armada, and winners should be paired with winners based on TOTAL battle points, not just what they scored last round randomly.

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Personally, I think there should be a top level prize for the person who has the best Win/Loss record, as well as the person who has the most Tournament Points. I would also add a player vote system for "Favorite Opponent" (to promote decent conduct, and good sportsmanship, and hopefully remove some player saltiness) and a player vote for "Favorite List" (to promote list diversity, and to encourage lists with a theme instead of whatever the top 3 meta internet lists are for the season).

I think these things you described, particularly the last paragraph, are very similar to how Warhammer (and 40K) tournaments are run. That's just from overhearing them running tournaments at my game store (I've never played Warhammer) so I'm not sure that's precisely right or universal, but it would be good to hear from someone with experience in Warhammer or Warmachine to see if they have tournament structure thoughts based on that experience.

I think these things you described, particularly the last paragraph, are very similar to how Warhammer (and 40K) tournaments are run. That's just from overhearing them running tournaments at my game store (I've never played Warhammer) so I'm not sure that's precisely right or universal, but it would be good to hear from someone with experience in Warhammer or Warmachine to see if they have tournament structure thoughts based on that experience.

That may be because they are.

Full Disclosure: I was a GW Outrider for the better part of a decade, and ran more Warhammer 40k/Fantasy tournaments than I can count. Constantly changing, altering and adjusting tournaments to see what works well, and what could use some improvement. There are good and bad things to every tournament system, I have just picked out the bits I feel help to contribute to a positive gaming experience, while fostering a competitive, yet fun gaming atmosphere. Aside from Warmachine/Hordes, I have personally witnessed some of the worst salty player behavior in X-Wing/IA/Armada, because the FFG system does absolutely nothing to promote anything other than *WIN* in their tournament structure. Promote the other aspects of the game, and you'll start seeing less saltiness and more list diversity.

I am also not saying that I am right, or that my way is the best way. But, all things considered, adding things like this couldn't hurt.

The tournament points chart I lifted directly from Star Wars: Armada, with adjusted values for 40pt games as opposed to 400pt games.

Personally, I think there should be a top level prize for the person who has the best Win/Loss record, as well as the person who has the most Tournament Points. I would also add a player vote system for "Favorite Opponent" (to promote decent conduct, and good sportsmanship, and hopefully remove some player saltiness) and a player vote for "Favorite List" (to promote list diversity, and to encourage lists with a theme instead of whatever the top 3 meta internet lists are for the season).

As far as sportsmanship goes, I've played in numerous tournaments with a sportsmanship score and ones without across a number of systems (Warhammer, 40k, flames of war). I find the best sportsmanship tends to happen at tournaments where there is NO scoring system; I find that people sportsmanship bomb intentionally to put good players out of the running for best overall when they're really doing nothing different than anyone else. Then you also have people who bomb them because they got brutalized by a better player who was not being a jerk; they just know the game better!

Odd as it sounds, players are nicer and more gracious generally, from my experience, when there's no official scoring system!

Secondly, I don't like favorite lists as you'll often have very one dimensional lists that take a bunch of randoms (with a "theme"....which can mean anything to anyone) and then people are like "that's a fun list" even if it leads to very dull and tedious matches to play against; not necessarily difficult, just boring as either you stomp the guy or there is a gimmick that works vs. some, but not others.

Just my opinions!

I like the MOV idea... haven't played Armada so I don't know how that works but it's interesting that it's different from Xwing.

Can't say I agree with your win/loss point numbers but the general idea is great.

As for sportsmanship scoring... I hate that. Not only is it subjective (which I believe makes no sense in a very black/white rule set like IA), but it also provides the opportunity for top tier players to score each other low to maximize their own chance at a top cut. It also penalizes new players because experienced players tend to mark them down for taking longer, making mistakes or being unsure of rules.

I haven't played many 40k tournaments (even though I've been in the hobby for 15 years) but the last one I did play (about 6 months ago), it was the worst part of the day.

In general I hate anything that's subjectively judged (either by opponents or a TO). Too many times you get situations where friends of the TO get more points, or something like that.... **** like that shouldn't affect the gameplay and tournament rankings. Same goes for painting to an extent... It's subjective.
Two equally impressive armies, both painted to the same standard will always get vastly different scores. It's too hard to be completely unbiased in these situations.

Things like favorite list and favorite opponent are pretty cool but I think they should be in addition to and outside the regular structure.
Making the top cut should be the best players period. Not a middle of the pack player who's just really friendly.
Some tournaments do "best general", "best painted", "best sportsman" and "best overall". The problem is adding them all up. The final standings are always everything combined. That's all anyone cares about, so even the best player is going to be low on the list because they lost a game or didn't paint as well.... perhaps if the 3 categories are completely separate it would be a clearer picture. A player can still win all 3 categories but it places more importance on each category individually rather than one overall score.

Ultimately, games like warhammer are always a bit "hand-wavy". The game is simply not precise. There's rules issues, poor wording, non exact measuring etc.... IA doesn't have that. IA is closer to chess than it is to tabletop gaming. And because it's so black and white, I think the tournament structure should also be black and white..... no stupid intentional draws and no subjective or biased scoring

IA is a bit weird like that because there are hobby aspects as well as game aspects but in the case of high end tournaments I think the game aspect is the main one. Everything else is secondary.

Of course everyone gets something different out of the game/hobby.... but the more casual and friendly aspects are probably more suited to local leagues and small store tournaments rather than the top end competitive events.

I definitely like that Inquisitorsz pointed out the similarities to chess. It's one of the main reasons I left X-Wing behind - I really liked the idea of having a grid system, with clear (enough) rules, and don't have to worry about someone making a simple bump or misplacement messing everything up. That and the campaign idea was huge to me getting involved, but since I only get my campaign group together once every month or two, I have spent a lot more time doing skirmish. And I've even gotten half the campaign group to get into skirmish (with my stuff of course but it's great having two sides to the game.

All that said, I didn't like the idea of intentional draws because a natural draw in this game sounds absurdly hard to actually get - unless both people run around scoring zero points...on purpose more than likely. I get that the designers wanted to cut out worse collusion by allowing a sanctioned way to call a draw with no other foul play going on...but, I agree that especially in IA almost any draws actually do more to hurt the system. So I'm hopeful that their plans deal with it well and continue to improve the tournament scene (though I haven't personally had any problems at all other than we wondered how some of our group got certain rankings in a tourney - we thought we should have been lower, oh well). We'll see how the Regional goes in a few weeks that we're heading to.

Even running around getting zero points doesn't guarantee a draw because then it tie-breaks by damage done and remaining health... so you'd also have to have a complete mirror match list and do zero damage to each other.... which is obviously just cause for the judge to rule collusion or unsportsmanlike conduct and disqualify you. Rules for that sort of stuffing around are already in place, which is why I don't see the need for IDs.

That being said... it's going to be hard to not to use one in the upcoming regionals if given a chance. I don't like it morally but a tournament environment is primarily about winning and why shouldn't I use all the legal tools available to me?

EDIT: disregard the health/damage tiebreaker. It would still be a draw if zero damage was done all game.... but even then, the collusion/unsportsmanlike conduct kicks in.

I need to elaborate that we dumped "sportsmanship scores" in favor "favorite opponent". There is no "score", no "sportsmanship points" to affect an overall total. Each player simply casts a single vote for the person they had the most fun playing against, that's all. Additionally, we also dumped the "Overall Champion" (which was an combination of all the "scores"). So there is no "tanking" of sportsmanship, only an additional prize for the person who got the most votes. Same goes for "Favorite List". Each player gets a single vote, nothing more.

The only points scored are Battle Points.

Award breakdown is as follows:

• Field Tactician (Highest total tournament points)
• Ruthless Commander (Best Win/Loss ratio)
• Favored Opponent (Most "favorite opponent" votes)
• Favored List (Most "favorite list" votes)

Each award category is completely independent of each other, and none of the "scores/votes" carry over to any other category. Awards in blue are considered traditional scoring. Awards in red are considered "soft" scores.

I am also a big fan of having drawings for prizes where the only means of entry is a lost game. If you lose a game, you automatically get an entry added to the random drawings for prizes. If a player loses 5 games, then they get 5 chances at swag. This helps to discourage dropouts.

Also note, in this system, there is NO CUT. Pairings continually match the highest overall tournament points against each other (ensuring a player does not play an opponent more than once). Everyone continues to play games. No reason to send the majority of players home...play more games!!!

Yeah that sounds like an awesome system.
That was my issue with sportsmanship being "scored".

I have no problem with it (and encourage it) if it's a separate and parallel thing.

Yeah I think it's a great idea to have several separate prizes for other elements of the game, like sportsmanship and squad theme. Best-painted squad is also a great option.

Since painting the figures in IA is not a requirement, some could see having a painting competition inside the tournament as a barrier to entry. That said, if something like that were added, it would have to be absolutely clear to all participants that painting figures is optional, and not a requirement.

Two categories I could see judging would be:

Best Unit (Consisting of a single Deployment Card figure count. Examples: 1 Royal Guard Champion, 2 Tusken Raiders, 3 Rebel Troopers)

Best List (Consisting of an entire 40 point list)

Two methods of judging would be to have an impartial paint judge, and player votes. Again, no scoring. Totally optional.

Since painting the figures in IA is not a requirement, some could see having a painting competition inside the tournament as a barrier to entry. That said, if something like that were added, it would have to be absolutely clear to all participants that painting figures is optional, and not a requirement.

Two categories I could see judging would be:

Best Unit (Consisting of a single Deployment Card figure count. Examples: 1 Royal Guard Champion, 2 Tusken Raiders, 3 Rebel Troopers)

Best List (Consisting of an entire 40 point list)

Two methods of judging would be to have an impartial paint judge, and player votes. Again, no scoring. Totally optional.

No, I absolutely do not think that anything needs to be painted in order to play in a tournament. And obviously it's important to have a fair method of judging the more subjective things (like theme-ness, painting, etc).

I think you're looking at this whole thing too "officially"...I simply think that it's nice when there are more prizes than just being the Champion in an event. However it is that those things happen to be run or allocated is up to the local TOs; if someone has a problem with how the TOs run things then they are welcome to TO themselves if they'd like.

I think you're looking at this whole thing too "officially"

I take that as a compliment.

I like to view the tournament scene not just as what it is, but what it can become. An official tournament system is unlikely to adopt changes unless those changes can be viewed through a lens of officialism. Much of what I have outlined are simple steps that can be easily implemented, that foster the building of a community of players and an environment that values a positive atmosphere, embraces all aspects of the game and hobby, while still remaining competitive. Unfortunately, steps like these wont be implemented in an official capacity unless they are tested, re-tested, and put through the ringer. We, the players, have the burden to find things that work well and are viable ideas in an unofficial capacity so that they can be brought to the powers that be at FFG for review.

Perhaps every tournament kit should include "extra" prizes.

These are for the TO to distribute as he sees fit, completely outside the normal tournament structure.
Could be painting, could be wooden spoon, could be best sportsman, could be random door prize etc....

That way it's clear that this is a bonus TO/store specific thing, and not an official FFG painting competition.

I've had some stores do extra door prizes with stuff from old kits or just store stock or store credit in the case of larger X-wing tournaments.

After winning a regional event this past weekend, I got some more experience with Intentional Draws.

1. I took an ID with another player for the 4th round before the cut to top 8. We were both the only players with a 3-0 record so we would have been ranked 1st and 2nd no matter what we did. Playing a game could have potentially changed the strength of schedule of other players and/or flipped which player was 1st and 2nd, but those are pretty small differences. Instead we opted to draw and conserve our own mental energy.
2. Two other pairs of players that were 2-1 took IDs that same round because they had good tiebreakers and were guaranteed to make top 8 that way. This frustrated some of the other players who were 2-0 at that point, because it left only 1 seat open for the player with the best 2-2 Strength of Schedule (another 2-1 player played his 4th round game).
3. I also turned down my girlfriend who wanted to draw with me round 2 because that seemed a lot more like collusion.

Some thoughts:

1. I think an ID like I took with another 3-0 player is fine. Playing the game would have changed so little before the cut. It did help me save my mental energy which I think improved how I played subsequently though, but that's a realistic bonus for going 3-0
2. I think it's really the structure of these events that promotes IDs because of the Cut to Top X. Cutting to a top 8 in a 14-player event is silly. After 4 rounds there should be 2 undefeated players anyway: just make it 4 rounds and then give prizes based on standing after that. A cut to top-whatever only makes sense when you don't have enough time to play enough rounds to determine a true winner (and the top X players that you're rewarding with meaningful prizes).
3. Without the cut to top: if you wanted to make the event extra serious, you could just play more rounds: eg, there were 3 players in the top 8 that I never got to play (4 if you count my ID).

After winning a regional event this past weekend, I got some more experience with Intentional Draws.

1. I took an ID with another player for the 4th round before the cut to top 8. We were both the only players with a 3-0 record so we would have been ranked 1st and 2nd no matter what we did. Playing a game could have potentially changed the strength of schedule of other players and/or flipped which player was 1st and 2nd, but those are pretty small differences. Instead we opted to draw and conserve our own mental energy.
2. Two other pairs of players that were 2-1 took IDs that same round because they had good tiebreakers and were guaranteed to make top 8 that way. This frustrated some of the other players who were 2-0 at that point, because it left only 1 seat open for the player with the best 2-2 Strength of Schedule (another 2-1 player played his 4th round game).
3. I also turned down my girlfriend who wanted to draw with me round 2 because that seemed a lot more like collusion.

Some thoughts:

1. I think an ID like I took with another 3-0 player is fine. Playing the game would have changed so little before the cut. It did help me save my mental energy which I think improved how I played subsequently though, but that's a realistic bonus for going 3-0
2. I think it's really the structure of these events that promotes IDs because of the Cut to Top X. Cutting to a top 8 in a 14-player event is silly. After 4 rounds there should be 2 undefeated players anyway: just make it 4 rounds and then give prizes based on standing after that. A cut to top-whatever only makes sense when you don't have enough time to play enough rounds to determine a true winner (and the top X players that you're rewarding with meaningful prizes).
3. Without the cut to top: if you wanted to make the event extra serious, you could just play more rounds: eg, there were 3 players in the top 8 that I never got to play (4 if you count my ID).

I agree that a top 8 cut for so few players is weird. We had an X-wing tournament last weekend with 16 players and a top 8 cut.... just made the first 4 rounds almost pointless because the top 8 was pretty much sorted after 2-3 rounds.

I can't be bothered working out all the possible score combinations but it sounds like after 4 rounds you should be able to cut maybe to top 4 or just a top 2 final if both players are equal wins.

I hate SoS or MoV deciding a winner... I think people should play off for the grand prize.

I can't be bothered working out all the possible score combinations but it sounds like after 4 rounds you should be able to cut maybe to top 4 or just a top 2 final if both players are equal wins.

I hate SoS or MoV deciding a winner... I think people should play off for the grand prize.

With 16 players you should have 2 undefeated players after 3 rounds and 1 after 4 rounds. With 8-16 it's more like 1-2 undefeated after 3 roads and 0-1 after 4. So a cut to top 2 would be fine.

I agree that playing for the top prize is reasonable too.

So the simple solution for small tournaments is to just play until there are only 2 undefeated for the top prize.

"The cut" should be removed as well. Every player should play as many games as possible.

"The cut" should be removed as well. Every player should play as many games as possible.

But at how many rounds? I'd prefer having a cut and playing elimination style as opposed to playing 4 rounds, and having say 3 of us unopposed. And one of them is basically crowned champion at random. I remember some game night tournaments where the top were 3 -1, and some lucky bastard that I beat gets 1st over me, seems unfair for a competitive event.

"The cut" should be removed as well. Every player should play as many games as possible.

But at how many rounds? I'd prefer having a cut and playing elimination style as opposed to playing 4 rounds, and having say 3 of us unopposed. And one of them is basically crowned champion at random. I remember some game night tournaments where the top were 3 -1, and some lucky bastard that I beat gets 1st over me, seems unfair for a competitive event.

I agree with the main idea here. Summarized: I think that SoS is a horrible way to decide a tournament's champion. In those cases (and IMHO perhaps only those cases) you have a "cut," or a championship match, or a rubber match, or whatever you want to call it.

Ideally you'll usually have a situation where after X rounds you have 1 undefeated player...IMHO, that guy is the champion and there's no need for a cut of any sort.

Just my 2 yen.