5 hours ago, Elavion said:

So? A good amount of nationals in europe get won by foreigners. Doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority of players at every 'worlds' are from USA, and most european players will never be able to play in them. Wouldn't be a problem if it was an invitational, but it's an open.

Foreigners winning national championships in Europe has nothing to do with anything. Considering the relatively short driving distances and cheap flights, it's really not equivalent. I think we both know that.

Sure, the overwhelming majority of players at worlds are from the US. But writing that off as "little more than US nationals" is pretty disingenuous. US nationals have almost no foreign presence.

Waiving off dozens (maybe 100?) of foreign participants including the last two worlds champions as "little more" is both disrespectful and intentionally misleading.

27 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Foreigners winning national championships in Europe has nothing to do with anything. Considering the relatively short driving distances and cheap flights, it's really not equivalent. I think we both know that.

Sure, the overwhelming majority of players at worlds are from the US. But writing that off as "little more than US nationals" is pretty disingenuous. US nationals have almost no foreign presence.

Waiving off dozens (maybe 100?) of foreign participants including the last two worlds champions as "little more" is both disrespectful and intentionally misleading.

100? Doubt.

If anyone's being disrespectful here it's FFG for pretending an event held at the exact same location each year is somehow the most prestigious tournament in the world. Just to compare, EU champs had only slightly fewer players despite

a) short notice- they were announced what, two months before the event? At the time most accomodation options were already sold out due to the event happening at the biggest UK tabletop convention.

b) bad location- it wasn't exactly the cheapest place to travel to, and IIRC you also had to pay the entry fee for the convention itself (seriously, why do companies keep doing those high tier tournaments at paid events?).

I wouldn't be surprised if the 2018 EU Championships attract 50% more players than 2018 worlds. I personally know at least a few people who would've went this year had they been announced earlier.

P.S. While we're at it, what's with SOS having better loot than store champs, regionals and nationals combined? o_0

11 hours ago, Polaritie said:

No, if that happens the next game ends it no matter what, as both players have a loss.

Top 4 with current format takes 2 rounds of play.

1. A vs. B & C vs. D

2. Winners play each other and that's it.

Top 4 with double elimination.

1. A(winner) vs. B & C(winner) vs. D

2. A(winner) vs. C & B(winner) vs. D(eliminated)

3. B(winner) vs. C(eliminated)

4. A vs. B(winner)

5. A vs. B

On 8/21/2017 at 5:41 AM, tortugatron said:

East coast? Do you know where Minnesota is?

I would do an 8 hour drive over a 8 hour flight any day ?

It would be cool, but it is not gonna happen; if FFG isn't willing to shell out 4K for an Ethernet circuit at gencon to live cast one of their biggest events of the year, does anyone really think they be willing to send a bunch of their employees oversees, along with any supplies they might need? And also give up any sales they make from food, booze and board games at their excellently stocked home store?

17 minutes ago, sozin said:

It would be cool, but it is not gonna happen; if FFG isn't willing to shell out 4K for an Ethernet circuit at gencon to live cast one of their biggest events of the year, does anyone really think they be willing to send a bunch of their employees oversees, along with any supplies they might need? And also give up any sales they make from food, booze and board games at their excellently stocked home store?

Not saying you're wrong, but I wish you were

On 8/20/2017 at 10:47 AM, Elavion said:

Should it? Absolutely. That would be expensive though, so they will remain little more than US nats #3.

It should also be an invitational-only for national championship winners (+some other proven players, like SOS winners, previous champions etc.) The way it's set up right now Coruscant Invitational is IMHO a higher-ranking event than worlds (to be precise: CI>Worlds>Continentals>SOS>Nats).

Then again, there are so many things wrong with tournament rules I don't even know where to begin. For example, a top cut single elimination "best of one" is a joke in a game with rather high RNG and a rock/paper/scisors nature.

The problem with going double is people are already complaining about how long these events take. Go to double elim and now nearly double the number of rounds needed in the cut. Suddenly the top 16 cut at something like say Gencon has more rounds than the initial flights did, and it already takes something like 9 hours to play out those 6 rounds as it is. A Top 8 at a regionals has a very high chance to be more rounds than the Swiss had. As much as double elim is structurally preferable, I can't see that flying.

50 minutes ago, Hujoe Bigs said:

I would do an 8 hour drive over a 8 hour flight any day ?

8 hours of driving from anywhere on the east coast isn't going to get you anywhere near Minnesota.

31 minutes ago, sozin said:

It would be cool, but it is not gonna happen; if FFG isn't willing to shell out 4K for an Ethernet circuit at gencon to live cast one of their biggest events of the year, does anyone really think they be willing to send a bunch of their employees oversees, along with any supplies they might need? And also give up any sales they make from food, booze and board games at their excellently stocked home store?

Now there is irony in that as they actually have a super expensive home turf. Would be nice to have a similar center at the Asmodee HQs as well. ;-)
Speaking of that, they should have everything avaible in europe anyway. Equipment should be there, the European Championships are a similar sized event anyway, just like the NA championships at gencon.

29 minutes ago, sozin said:

It would be cool, but it is not gonna happen; if FFG isn't willing to shell out 4K for an Ethernet circuit at gencon to live cast one of their biggest events of the year, does anyone really think they be willing to send a bunch of their employees oversees, along with any supplies they might need? And also give up any sales they make from food, booze and board games at their excellently stocked home store?

Thing is they don't really need to send more than a couple of people, if any at all: asmodee employees have already proved to be able to organize and run big events (Europeans and those 350+ players SoS). Ffg doesn't actually have to fly anyone overseas.

The sales from their own store on other hand is probably a bigger obstacle, but if they really want to at least try to get on mgt level, they should really start exiting their own garden in Minnesota

21 minutes ago, Otacon said:

The problem with going double is people are already complaining about how long these events take. Go to double elim and now nearly double the number of rounds needed in the cut.

Double Elimination increases the number of rounds by ONE. Two in the worst case when the guy who comes from the loser bracket wins his first final game. Imo just playing straight double elimination instead of swiss would be kind of nice. A 512 player double elimination tournament is just 7 rounds.

There are variants with even more brackets which only increase the number of rounds marginally, because all the brackets can play mostly in parallel. Those variants can give you perfect placings for the top ranks as well without blowing up the number of rounds.

3 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Double Elimination increases the number of rounds by ONE. Two in the worst case when the guy who comes from the loser bracket wins his first final game.

Is my math wrong then? Top 8 cut. In single elim you go 8 > 4 >2 > Winner.

In double, the brackets go
Winners: 8 > 4 > 2 > 1
Losers : 4 > 4 > 3 > 2 > 1

So 5 rounds to get down to two players, and another 1 or 2, depending on if the Loser's bracket player wins the first, to determine the winner, for 6-7 rounds instead of 3 straight.

Top 16 goes much the same:
16 > 8 > 4 > 2 > 1
8 > 8 > 6 > 4 > 2 > 1

6 to get to 2 players then 7 or 8 to determine the final winner. Right? Or am I way off?

Nah, you are right, I just went the path of the winners bracket and forgot the constant stream of players into the losers bracket which increases the rounds played there. IIRc there was 3-bracket system which solves this issue, but people in the bronze tier can not win there , just get to 4th place at best. This could replace the swiss round completely.

36 minutes ago, tortugatron said:

8 hours of driving from anywhere on the east coast isn't going to get you anywhere near Minnesota.

Sorry I was thinking east coast -> gencon there usually is only 1 store championship in 20 minutes of me then it goes 1 3/4 to 3 hours (multiple in this direction). I forget Roseville is another 8, so around 16-17. 15 if you are driving with me...

Even then, a 5 hours flight is still cheaper than an 8-9 hour one.

2 minutes ago, Hujoe Bigs said:

Sorry I was thinking east coast -> gencon there usually is only 1 store championship in 20 minutes of me then it goes 1 3/4 to 3 hours (multiple in this direction). I forget Roseville is another 8, so around 16-17. 15 if you are driving with me...

Even then, a 5 hours flight is still cheaper than an 8-9 hour one.

I am saddened when I hear people live so far from even things like store champs. There were like 8 in the Twin cities and then at least 6 more within an hour and a half tops. I actively decided not to go to some close ones because there were just too many clustered around the same dates... :/