Been pondering for a while but I must admit I'm not a fan of the top cut system for Armada Nationals (Regionals too if it's big enough?), Armada has a nice simple 10-1 scoring system which in my experience gives a clear result over 4 rounds. Why then do we need a top cut? *edit* (apparently H@ll is a swear word...) if 4 rounds aren't enough then replace the top cut with a 5th.... I'm sure the intention was to give a big dramatic finish to the event but is that what you are actually seeing in your areas? The nationals finals I've seen tend to be the most anti-climactic games going around as two players who know they are playing for a huge prize play an incredibly slow and careful game which usually finishes with a tiny margin of the result. They seem to compete for the second player and go for a tiny margin win rather than the first player and a big win. In fact in my experience its the exact opposite of the dramatic and interesting showcase games that the system is theoretically designed for.

Does anyone else think we need this system? I totally understand it's needed in X-wing where larger player cohorts make a big difference and in IA where game results are straight win/loss rather than margin but I don't think it's doing anything good for our game.

I'm not sure I have any strong feelings one way or another about final cuts.

I do have to say it's impressive to watch a sledgehammer fleet attempt to be wielded like a rapier.

17 minutes ago, beefcake4000 said:

Does anyone else think we need this system? I totally understand it's needed in X-wing where larger player cohorts make a big difference and in IA where game results are straight win/loss rather than margin but I don't think it's doing anything good for our game.

Over 4 rounds it’s still possible to get a perfect mix of poor players and exactly what you want to face.

you could be an average player get that mix and win a tournament. The cut allows you to have to fight the top guys. I know you should fight them on the way up but that’s not always going to happen. The cut makes it happen

1 hour ago, Benji1980 said:

Over 4 rounds it’s still possible to get a perfect mix of poor players and exactly what you want to face.

you could be an average player get that mix and win a tournament. The cut allows you to have to fight the top guys. I know you should fight them on the way up but that’s not always going to happen. The cut makes it happen

If you read through those threads that Dras posted, you'll see we've had this discussion. The solution Q presented was to have the first 4 rounds of Swiss followed by a top 25% cut and 4 more rounds of swiss. He calls it 4+4.

I think I would like to see.

4-16 players - 3 rounds
17-32 players - 4 rounds
33-64 players - 4 rounds and a 2 round Swiss top 4 cut.
65+ players - 5 rounds and a 3 round Swiss top 8 cut.

I am with Madcat. Us brits can deal with 5 rounds in one day quite happily!

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

I am with Madcat. Us brits can deal with 5 rounds in one day quite happily!

Pros and cons to both. I've done a 5-rounder, and was fine with it. It just needs to be run smoothly and promptly with minimal downtime between rounds, and managing yourself through the day (sit down when you can, bring snacks, hydrate, etc). Makes for kind of a long day, but it's doable, and not uncomfortably.

The biggest advantage of 5/3 is more games for the field, which is nice but kind of dependent on the circumstances and venue: if you're trying to fit in other games too, that can be a consideration. 4/4 is nice from an organizational perspective because you can split the days evenly, and reduce Armada's footprint on day 2, making space for Destiny or IA or whatever other crappy games they want to run. On the other hand, in a field of 80-100 players, 4 rounds is definitely few enough that one bad matchup or turn of bad luck can knock you out of the top tables without enough time for recovery.

Meh. Both have merit. Obviously I as a player prefer whichever format gets me more games, but the realities of organizational constraints are important too.

Personally, I liked the European Championship format. 7 rounds over 2 days. Consistently top players made it to a final knock-out round - which may be unnecessary. Number 1 player won the knockout rounds too.

Point is that 7 rounds is more than enough for a King of Swiss. And the top players will all end up playing each other anyway. And everyone gets 7 rounds if they like, just drop after 4 rounds on day 1 if you want to play something else. (I.e. X-wing)

I personally do like @Mad Cat 4+2 or 5+3 scheme as it allows for swiss rounds (as opposed to elimination) after the cut, it does reset the scores after the cut (so there are no issues with runaway fleets after some lucky matchups) and it does feel proportional as opposed to 4+4 (As it feels like two tournaments for a price of one with the results of the first one being underutilized). I'm not a fan of Top-2 cut in Armada as it's often meaningless and doesn't add much as opposed to a straight ranking.