Hi!

I have one question about bye's fron regional championship. In my country (Poland) there were six regional championchips this year and at my national championships there were about 250 people. And there comes the question, why the bye from regional championshipsl is worth only 150 points? There is no sense to use it becouse about half of people who won first round have 150 or more points. I think that for national championship the bye should be the super bye, i mean 200 points. It's not fair for the people who made something and won regional championship.

What do you think about that?

I think you may have a good arguement there if I could assume that attending multiple regionals isn't easy. If there are only six prequel tournaments feeding into your National it make sense that the award super byes especially considering the relative numbers. It's one thing if store championship byes are only 150 points at a Regional as the level of play at those should vary but winning a regional should be hard enough to give that extra MoV when going into that much larger tournament.

Of course an advantage of a bye is one fewer game worth of stress and when there are 250 people there are likely a lot of rounds and games.

Going one step further maybe people shouldn't be allowed to enter a tournament knowing they'll get to skip a game with a free win regardless of the MoV awarded but especially with the super bye. If the idea is that EVERYONE NEEDS TO PLAY EVERY ROUND THEY CAN then having a bye is just as bad, or even worse, than an intentional draw ever was. I guess people will give it a pass because it counts early instead of late but both are effectively awards for good play.

It lets you sleep in late.

It also means you don't risk losing, it's one game less of dice luck.

I also dont get why the bye isnt a perfect 200-0, you earned it by winning already a couple of rounds. Doesnt matter how many regionals you attended, at the end of the day you won one.

If you dont have a bye since tournaments dont require qualifications you could very much be playing a worst player than all of the opponents you would have faced at the regional, even being a better player than half the players you still would have to play plenty of games and win them.

Supposedly, it's because their TOME software can't distinguish byes from super byes. Also, it doesn't let you sleep in as you have to be there at the start anyways to hand it in. Realistically, it ensures a R1 win, and even if you're 90% confident in achieving that on your own, 50 potential mov points is worth that 10% chance of a loss.

The byes should be 200 points and intentional draws weren't bad for the game and I miss them.

Didn't regional byes used to be full 200 MoV last year? When did it change?

Didn't regional byes used to be full 200 MoV last year? When did it change?

Changed at Nationals (GenCon). They started awarding 150 points then. They didnt tell any of us until we already used it (I would have passed on mine if I had known beforehand).

I agree, with the new graduated cut system, they should be 200. I wouldn't use one if my list was stingy with MoV points. I'd rather roll the dice and try to get a better MoV.

The reason super byes were dropped was simply because FFG's official tournament software couldn't handle them. Which caused a bit of an uproar at the 2015 Chicago Regionals when people used to tournaments run with cryodex (A fan-made tournament program that did make the distinction, and is legal for use at official tourneys) ended up with "only" 150 MoV (And since this was during the height of point fortressing, that was a big deal).

Ultimately, though, it's not a big deal. A lot of lists still benefit from the 150 point bye, and frankly, if it means point fortressing lists have to play first round to get the high MoV they really want... Cry me a river. Point fortressing heavy metagames are awful, and if the tournament rules happen to mildly inconvenience such lists, I really can't be bothered to care.

Byes should not exist period. I would rather sit out myself or have someone else sit out than be involved in a tournament with byes.

The only fair tournament is one were everyone has to play the same amount of games and no freebie points are given out.

I think byes should be removed as a price. Winning a tournament should not give people a easier tournament at another point

Didn't regional byes used to be full 200 MoV last year? When did it change?

Changed at Nationals (GenCon). They started awarding 150 points then. They didnt tell any of us until we already used it (I would have passed on mine if I had known beforehand).

I agree, with the new graduated cut system, they should be 200. I wouldn't use one if my list was stingy with MoV points. I'd rather roll the dice and try to get a better MoV.

Unless you mean GenCon last year, as Regionals this year it was 150.

Actually that is a serious issue. I've personally spoken to 2 regionals winners who missed the cut by 15-20 points or so. While you can never be sure who your opponent will be, most players of this caliber can win the first round way more convincingly than that. With that many players attending, you need 5:1 to make it, and if you end 4:2 (which can happen even to the best) your MoV must be absolutely stellar for you to have any chance at all. In practice getting just 150 MoV for what is typically the easiest match of the tournament might sink your chances of qualifying to the top cut if you don't manage 5:1.

Now, using a bye is not obligatory, so I suppose you could say it's not an issue. However:

1. AFAIK in Poland regionals winners were not informed that their BYE is a regular one until after the first match. That made it impossible for them to make an informed decision, so I'm not surprised they were upset.

2. BYE was supposed to be the main prize for winning regionals - not an easy thing to do by any measure. If the best course of action is not to use it because it actually decreases your chances of making the cut, what exactly is the point of winning regionals? Well, ok - personal satisfaction and bragging rights I guess - but what is the point of the "prize"?

Actually that is a serious issue. I've personally spoken to 2 regionals winners who missed the cut by 15-20 points or so. While you can never be sure who your opponent will be, most players of this caliber can win the first round way more convincingly than that. With that many players attending, you need 5:1 to make it, and if you end 4:2 (which can happen even to the best) your MoV must be absolutely stellar for you to have any chance at all. In practice getting just 150 MoV for what is typically the easiest match of the tournament might sink your chances of qualifying to the top cut if you don't manage 5:1.

Now, using a bye is not obligatory, so I suppose you could say it's not an issue. However:

1. AFAIK in Poland regionals winners were not informed that their BYE is a regular one until after the first match. That made it impossible for them to make an informed decision, so I'm not surprised they were upset.

2. BYE was supposed to be the main prize for winning regionals - not an easy thing to do by any measure. If the best course of action is not to use it because it actually decreases your chances of making the cut, what exactly is the point of winning regionals? Well, ok - personal satisfaction and bragging rights I guess - but what is the point of the "prize"?

If you're arrogant enough to assume you're going to win more than 150-50 in the first round at nationals, go ahead and don't use your bye. But don't whine about it if you lose when you could have taken it, especially if you happen to luck into being matched against someone (else) really good, or that bugbear matchup your list really struggles with

If you do win more than 150-50, congratulations, your arrogance is justified

The point of a bye is that it's a guaranteed win out of the 5 you needed. You now only need to win four games total to guarantee the cut, whilst others need to win four amazingly well, or 5 total.

Actually that is a serious issue. I've personally spoken to 2 regionals winners who missed the cut by 15-20 points or so. While you can never be sure who your opponent will be, most players of this caliber can win the first round way more convincingly than that. With that many players attending, you need 5:1 to make it, and if you end 4:2 (which can happen even to the best) your MoV must be absolutely stellar for you to have any chance at all. In practice getting just 150 MoV for what is typically the easiest match of the tournament might sink your chances of qualifying to the top cut if you don't manage 5:1.

Now, using a bye is not obligatory, so I suppose you could say it's not an issue. However:

1. AFAIK in Poland regionals winners were not informed that their BYE is a regular one until after the first match. That made it impossible for them to make an informed decision, so I'm not surprised they were upset.

2. BYE was supposed to be the main prize for winning regionals - not an easy thing to do by any measure. If the best course of action is not to use it because it actually decreases your chances of making the cut, what exactly is the point of winning regionals? Well, ok - personal satisfaction and bragging rights I guess - but what is the point of the "prize"?

If you're arrogant enough to assume you're going to win more than 150-50 in the first round at nationals, go ahead and don't use your bye. But don't whine about it if you lose when you could have taken it, especially if you happen to luck into being matched against someone (else) really good, or that bugbear matchup your list really struggles with

If you do win more than 150-50, congratulations, your arrogance is justified

The point of a bye is that it's a guaranteed win out of the 5 you needed. You now only need to win four games total to guarantee the cut, whilst others need to win four amazingly well, or 5 total.

Cut down on sarcasm please. For somebody who managed to win a regional championship expecting to win the first match by a landslide is not "arrogance", it's just realism. And for the record, I've never won one (my best was getting to semi-finals) and I still did win my first match with way better MoV than that. If you're a top player you typically have it rather easy for the first couple of matches (barring getting unlucky with opponent draws). So, in the first matches the challenge lies less in winning and more in winning as convincingly as possible so you have a cushion of good MoV for later. It's usually from the 3rd round onwards when you stop encountering random casual players and with every consecutive round it gets increasingly harder to get a win. That's why getting an average-ish win for the first round isn't much of a boon and might end up being actually harmful to the player in question.

Or to put it in other words: if the winner of the prize doesn't value it, something about it must be wrong. If the regionals winners I speak to say that they wouldn't have used their bye if they knew it was a regular one, you can only accept it as a fact. If you don't play at their level you might not understand their reasoning or even call it arrogance but it doesn't change the fact that they obviously do not believe the prize they won is worth using. That's a problem.

Actually that is a serious issue. I've personally spoken to 2 regionals winners who missed the cut by 15-20 points or so. While you can never be sure who your opponent will be, most players of this caliber can win the first round way more convincingly than that. With that many players attending, you need 5:1 to make it, and if you end 4:2 (which can happen even to the best) your MoV must be absolutely stellar for you to have any chance at all. In practice getting just 150 MoV for what is typically the easiest match of the tournament might sink your chances of qualifying to the top cut if you don't manage 5:1.

Now, using a bye is not obligatory, so I suppose you could say it's not an issue. However:

1. AFAIK in Poland regionals winners were not informed that their BYE is a regular one until after the first match. That made it impossible for them to make an informed decision, so I'm not surprised they were upset.

2. BYE was supposed to be the main prize for winning regionals - not an easy thing to do by any measure. If the best course of action is not to use it because it actually decreases your chances of making the cut, what exactly is the point of winning regionals? Well, ok - personal satisfaction and bragging rights I guess - but what is the point of the "prize"?

If you're arrogant enough to assume you're going to win more than 150-50 in the first round at nationals, go ahead and don't use your bye. But don't whine about it if you lose when you could have taken it, especially if you happen to luck into being matched against someone (else) really good, or that bugbear matchup your list really struggles with

If you do win more than 150-50, congratulations, your arrogance is justified

The point of a bye is that it's a guaranteed win out of the 5 you needed. You now only need to win four games total to guarantee the cut, whilst others need to win four amazingly well, or 5 total.

Cut down on sarcasm please. For somebody who managed to win a regional championship expecting to win the first match by a landslide is not "arrogance", it's just realism.

I disagree entirely. Nationals will have EVERY amazing player in the country, and often a number of touring amazing players from other countries.

The assumption that you won't get matched against some amazing player in round one is a risky one, and even if you were not, losing half your list in points is not unlikely, even in an easy matchup. The bye shouldn't be as good as a perfect win, because there's no risk attached to it. If you wanna risk losing to get 200-0, you can do that, but you might get unlucky and get 0 points. If you don't wanna risk losing, you get 150 MoV points, but you don't risk getting 0.

The bye shouldn't be as good as a perfect win, because there's no risk attached to it.

And again: the bye is supposed to be a prize for winning a large and competitive event. A prize that should be beneficial, period. Not "maybe beneficial", not "calculate if it's beneficial", just beneficial. What on earth made you think that some kind of risk was ever meant to be attached to it in the first place? Especially since - as someone already pointed out - the change from super-bye to regular bye occurred due to technical limitations of FFG software rather than anyone's deliberate decision to make it so?

The bye shouldn't be as good as a perfect win, because there's no risk attached to it.

And again: the bye is supposed to be a prize for winning a large and competitive event. A prize that should be beneficial, period. Not "maybe beneficial", not "calculate if it's beneficial", just beneficial. What on earth made you think that some kind of risk was ever meant to be attached to it in the first place? Especially since - as someone already pointed out - the change from super-bye to regular bye occurred due to technical limitations of FFG software rather than anyone's deliberate decision to make it so?

It is beneficial. It earns you a risk-free win, when those without a bye have to risk losing.

Congratulations for winning our regionals. You managed to beat 60 other people. Here's your prize: it might help you, it might not help you, it might actually cost you a cut if you're unlucky. Now think long and hard whether to use it. There's 250 people at the nationals. Against 150 of them you'll probably win by a landslide because you're just much better. Against another 50-60 you'll probably win but maybe lose more than 50 points. Against the rest, you might lose. Now make a spread sheet and calculate your chances. Good luck!

Really? That's not a prize. It's more like a way to annoy the unlucky guy who won the thing. No matter what he does, he risks ending up feeling screwed over. Use your bye - risk getting angry with yourself for doing so if it costs you the cut. Not use it - risk getting angry with yourself if you're unlucky and draw a champ in the first match. To be honest I'd rather not have that option at all. It just sucks.

Congratulations for winning our regionals. You managed to beat 60 other people. Here's your prize: it might help you, it might not help you, it might actually cost you a cut if you're unlucky. Now think long and hard whether to use it. There's 250 people at the nationals. Against 150 of them you'll probably win by a landslide because you're just much better. Against another 50-60 you'll probably win but maybe lose more than 50 points. Against the rest, you might lose. Now make a spread sheet and calculate your chances. Good luck!

Really? That's not a prize. It's more like a way to annoy the unlucky guy who won the thing. No matter what he does, he risks ending up feeling screwed over. Use your bye - risk getting angry with yourself for doing so if it costs you the cut. Not use it - risk getting angry with yourself if you're unlucky and draw a champ in the first match. To be honest I'd rather not have that option at all. It just sucks.

You know, when I read your opening paragraph I thought it sounded like a pretty good prize.

Congratulations for winning our regionals. You managed to beat 60 other people. Here's your prize: it might help you, it might not help you, it might actually cost you a cut if you're unlucky. Now think long and hard whether to use it. There's 250 people at the nationals. Against 150 of them you'll probably win by a landslide because you're just much better. Against another 50-60 you'll probably win but maybe lose more than 50 points. Against the rest, you might lose. Now make a spread sheet and calculate your chances. Good luck!

Really? That's not a prize. It's more like a way to annoy the unlucky guy who won the thing. No matter what he does, he risks ending up feeling screwed over. Use your bye - risk getting angry with yourself for doing so if it costs you the cut. Not use it - risk getting angry with yourself if you're unlucky and draw a champ in the first match. To be honest I'd rather not have that option at all. It just sucks.

You know, when I read your opening paragraph I thought it sounded like a pretty good prize.

It is not a pretty good prize, nationals are free entry, the asumption that you will only find good players there is wrong, is like the assumption that the best players are at worlds, when the reality is the fastest players or the ones who can afford travel are the ones participating. I assume there are a lot of bad players on a national. A regional winner, and a winner of big regionals we have had like 100 players, is probably better than the average player at a national so why would you give a prize that might be worst for a player than actually playing?

A circuit is meant for that, usually regional tournaments classify you for nationals, nationals for worlds, if we get entry for all then give a full bye, it should be like those players are seeded the way its done in everyother competition like tennis, magic.

Congratulations for winning our regionals. You managed to beat 60 other people. Here's your prize: it might help you, it might not help you, it might actually cost you a cut if you're unlucky. Now think long and hard whether to use it. There's 250 people at the nationals. Against 150 of them you'll probably win by a landslide because you're just much better. Against another 50-60 you'll probably win but maybe lose more than 50 points. Against the rest, you might lose. Now make a spread sheet and calculate your chances. Good luck!

Really? That's not a prize. It's more like a way to annoy the unlucky guy who won the thing. No matter what he does, he risks ending up feeling screwed over. Use your bye - risk getting angry with yourself for doing so if it costs you the cut. Not use it - risk getting angry with yourself if you're unlucky and draw a champ in the first match. To be honest I'd rather not have that option at all. It just sucks.

Your perfect 200-0 bye still might not help even if you take it though?

Taking a bye just means you're MUCH more likely to be matched against really good players in round two because they all spent their bye as well. If you lose with good MoV in round 1, you end up down among the mid-to-low-table people and your round 2 match is way easier. You might, say, go lose 13 points to your opponent's 12 at time (for the best possible loss ever) giving an MoV of 87 then clean up 200-0 in round 2 for a total of 287, but if you'd spent a 200 point bye, then lose 0-200 in round 2, get only 200 MoV points, not 287. The bye would have been a penalty in that hypothetical case.

There are ALWAYS potential problems with taking a bye. You can ALWAYS have made the wrong decision.

150 MoV for a guaranteed win against a field including all of your scariest opponents is a good prize IMO.

I wouldn't use it if I had it, personally, because I've paid a fairly steep price to play a lot of games of x-wing, why would I skip one?

It is not a pretty good prize, nationals are free entry, the asumption that you will only find good players there is wrong, is like the assumption that the best players are at worlds, when the reality is the fastest players or the ones who can afford travel are the ones participating.

That's fine, I'm not assuming that.

I mean, I get that it's not a cast-iron amazing prize with no drawbacks. But having the option to stick or twist seems nicer than having no option.

Your perfect 200-0 bye still might not help even if you take it though?

Taking a bye just means you're MUCH more likely to be matched against really good players in round two because they all spent their bye as well. If you lose with good MoV in round 1, you end up down among the mid-to-low-table people and your round 2 match is way easier. You might, say, go lose 13 points to your opponent's 12 at time (for the best possible loss ever) giving an MoV of 87 then clean up 200-0 in round 2 for a total of 287, but if you'd spent a 200 point bye, then lose 0-200 in round 2, get only 200 MoV points, not 287. The bye would have been a penalty in that hypothetical case.

There are ALWAYS potential problems with taking a bye. You can ALWAYS have made the wrong decision.

150 MoV for a guaranteed win against a field including all of your scariest opponents is a good prize IMO.

I wouldn't use it if I had it, personally, because I've paid a fairly steep price to play a lot of games of x-wing, why would I skip one?

Arent pairings nowadays random between players with the same victory points? Winning by 1 point or winning 100-0 ony change your standing not the pairings you will get.

It is not a pretty good prize, nationals are free entry, the asumption that you will only find good players there is wrong, is like the assumption that the best players are at worlds, when the reality is the fastest players or the ones who can afford travel are the ones participating.

That's fine, I'm not assuming that.

I mean, I get that it's not a cast-iron amazing prize with no drawbacks. But having the option to stick or twist seems nicer than having no option.

Do you think is easier to win a round 1 national or a regional? Because i think its way much easier to do the first. In which case i think that just having an option is not a good enough prize. That is,exagerating a bit, like saying "well, those ships are bad but you still have the option to field them or not so why would we bother fixing them?"

PS: after reading, maybe i sound a little rough, sorry bout that. Prob bad wording.

Do you think is easier to win a round 1 national or a regional? Because i think its way much easier to do the first. In which case i think that just having an option is not a good enough prize. That is,exagerating a bit, like saying "well, those ships are bad but you still have the option to field them or not so why would we bother fixing them?"

I wouldn't expect it to be any different - the percentage of top players at both seems about the same, nationals just have more people there. How easy that first game will be is just a roll of the die either way, I guess nationals have a wider variance in results. Or you can just cash in your bye and not roll the die at all.