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.

I never said otherwise. But... in round 2, there will be a whole bunch of people who spent byes for round 1, who have a win. The field of round 2 winners will be on average probably stronger than the overall field in the competition, because it includes all the people who've been good enough to receive regional byes. Accordingly, you're much more likely to face a strong opponent in round 2 with a win.

The MoV doesn't affect your standings at all until the cut. The point about MoV is that even with a bye giving a 200-0 MoV, it's still possible for your MoV to be worse after two rounds with a bye than without it.

I think we're getting way ahead of ourselves. By that logic you might as well delibarately lose the first match so that the second one is easier but then the third one is even easier than that if you lose the second one as well... except you need to get those wins in the end. Super-bye is a no-brainer to use because there's simply no way to get a better result for your first match. After that - of course you might end up facing a very good opponent (that's actually what happened to me - I got paired with a regional winner) but it's the same as if you simply played the first match normally.

The advantage for you is that if you happen to lose 2 games in Swiss, thanks to the full points for super-bye you still have a reasonably good chance of making the cut as long as you had good MoV in your other games. With a regular bye - not so much. Competition among the 4:2 players for the few spots left in the cut is fierce. A player with a 4:2 record who won all his victories 100:50 has practically no chance of making the cut, so every such win on your record diminishes your chances of making it.

As I said earlier, I spoke to 2 regional winners who both lacked about 15 points or so to make it. In other words, had they not taken the bye and managed to win the first round while losing no more than 35 points or so, they would have made it. You might argue that there's no guarantee they'd have managed that and you'd be right. But I know for a fact that they were convinced they'd have made it and felt bitter about it. For that matter, they regretted having used their byes as soon as they found out they were regular ones - and that was well before the conclusion of Swiss so at the time they couldn't have known it would make such a difference.

This is why FFG needs to just adopt cryodex and drop tome from the earth. IIRC (and I do), it hasn't been amazing in any of the tournaments that FFG has thrown it in. Pay Killeraardvark to maintain it, make changes and let that be that. Honestly they could probably pay him in ships and he would be happy.

I think we're getting way ahead of ourselves. By that logic you might as well delibarately lose the first match so that the second one is easier but then the third one is even easier than that if you lose the second one as well... except you need to get those wins in the end. Super-bye is a no-brainer to use because there's simply no way to get a better result for your first match. After that - of course you might end up facing a very good opponent (that's actually what happened to me - I got paired with a regional winner) but it's the same as if you simply played the first match normally.

The advantage for you is that if you happen to lose 2 games in Swiss, thanks to the full points for super-bye you still have a reasonably good chance of making the cut as long as you had good MoV in your other games. With a regular bye - not so much. Competition among the 4:2 players for the few spots left in the cut is fierce. A player with a 4:2 record who won all his victories 100:50 has practically no chance of making the cut, so every such win on your record diminishes your chances of making it.

As I said earlier, I spoke to 2 regional winners who both lacked about 15 points or so to make it. In other words, had they not taken the bye and managed to win the first round while losing no more than 35 points or so, they would have made it. You might argue that there's no guarantee they'd have managed that and you'd be right. But I know for a fact that they were convinced they'd have made it and felt bitter about it. For that matter, they regretted having used their byes as soon as they found out they were regular ones - and that was well before the conclusion of Swiss so at the time they couldn't have known it would make such a difference.

You can always convince yourself you could have done better if not for $thing out of your control, though. Blaming it on the bye just stops them blaming it on the dice, or the lists they brought or faced, or where they put the asteroids, or... etc. This is a game with a strong element of luck in it, and sometimes even the best players take unlikely or painful losses due to those luck factors.

Making the byes 200-0 rather than 150-0 changes the luck factor of them, but not much. Consider: if they had had 200-0 byes... so would everyone else with a regional bye. They might still have missed the cut, because a significant chunk of the cut would ALSO have gone up by 50 MoV each. Maybe all of the cut.

What you just said is illogical. It doesn't matter how large a chunk of the cut would go up in MoV as a result of super-byes because they don't compete with majority of players who made the cut (who are mostly 5:1 or 6:0). They only compete with the other 4:2 players. If regional byes granted 200 MoV, in the worst case scenario (if they competed for the last spots directly with the other regional winners who only got 4:2) their situation would remain unchanged. It's far more likely however, that they would compete with the regular players and an extra 50 MoV would make a massive difference in such a situation.

Also, while a regular bye is admittedly a good scapegoat to blame, the regional winners I spoke to admitted to simply performing poorly. After all, if they had 5 wins or more it wouldn't matter what kind of bye they got. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable for players of their caliber to believe that they would get a great result when paired with a random person in the room - and that's precisely what happens in the first round.

*shrug*

We'll have to agree to differ I guess. From the outside byes seem fine to me at 150 MoV. If all I cared about was winning, and I had one, I wouldn't hesitate to use it.

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're upset that you're being given a tool that may or may not help that you're under no obligation to use? Pardon me if it seems you're looking for something to complain about.