As I understand it, games should finish within 45 minutes, at least in competitive play. Is this correct?
If so... how?!

I have yet to get a single game in that isn't over an hour, with most taking an hour twenty or an hour thirty. Even when trying to play quickly, it's just not a fast game!

Am I crazy and/or just a slow player with a slow-playing community? What's the general consensus on time limit? How does it tend to work out at actual events?

45 min is unrealistic, except if your opponent plays a sub-par deck that you steamroll.

One hour is more realistic en competitive play, but is 45 to 75 minutes in general with experimented players

Hahahahahahhahaha. I edited out some of my laughter.

The current tournament resource document says "Swiss Rounds: 60 minuets each" (https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/69/38/6938fa38-f433-43ae-9e34-3c54d91ddb84/l5c_tournament_regulations_v101_text_version.pdf)

Their agenda was to have it at 50 min, but they decided to lengthen it for the first 3 months. I think (hope?) that fell by the wayside and it will remain at 60 min (which is supported by the tourney doc).

When we were at Worlds, I played 6 rounds. 5 of them went to time. In the time limit's defense, both I and my opponents knew what the outcome would be, and we could have pursued it under the modified win/loss and points system. I have heard rumblings from other Kotei, which were not run by the same crack team, where this was done less equanimously.

45 minuets is out of the question, and 60 is only acceptable in tournament play (for expeditious purposes), and unless you are preparing for such an event, I strongly recommend not cutting the game short unless someone concedes.

Edit:

Additionally, I am also a Dragon player, just to round out this forum.

I played in a tournament a couple weeks ago that had 50 min rounds, and I went to time limit once in 4 rounds. I think 45 isn't enough right now, but 50 is somewhat reasonable and 60 should be fine.

I made top four at Worlds, and my only game that went close to time was round one, when I had a five point tiebreaker lead and was about to clinch anyway.

I've played two local events since then, and haven't gone to time on either. Our Way of the Rings event had one game out of fifteen total go to time.

My experience has certainly been that one hour is plenty for tournament play.

I'm willing to bet that if we all dropped the pleasantries and just got down to brass tax, the games would be over with time to spare. But where would the fun be in that? The social aspect of the game is something most of us enjoy and expect. Enjoy the experience.

In a way it doesn't take much to win this game, but you have to be decisive. If you know what you need to do to win the game AND you do these things AND your deck does these things then you won't go to time as much. I think this game sometimes gets lost in a quagmire of players not quite playing towards a win condition, or their decks not aligning optimally towards their desired win conditions.

That said - if a deck is build more defensively or more honor based and it goes against a deck that is also defensive or honor based... the game could easily go to time.

Most of my tourney games to go to time. You have to change your strategy to compensate for this.

For Unicorn, tie-breakers that are too easily lost are honor (-2 pts) and Endless Plains auto-destroyed (-2 pts). I've reigned in how many honor-losing cards I run like Captive and Banzai, and replaced Endless Plains with Rally.

28 minutes ago, caseycheesecake said:

Most of my tourney games to go to time. You have to change your strategy to compensate for this.

For Unicorn, tie-breakers that are too easily lost are honor (-2 pts) and Endless Plains auto-destroyed (-2 pts). I've reigned in how many honor-losing cards I run like Captive and Banzai, and replaced Endless Plains with Rally.

NO WAY!!!!!

Embrace the honor loss and just patch it up with some Yurts and Rebuild.

3 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I'm willing to bet that if we all dropped the pleasantries and just got down to brass tax, the games would be over with time to spare. But where would the fun be in that? The social aspect of the game is something most of us enjoy and expect. Enjoy the experience.

I think you mean brass tacks

I do think the round timer shouldn't begin until everyone is finished with set-up. You should be able to seat yourself, introduce yourself to your opponent, unpack your many tokens, and go through the mulligan process before the clock actually begins to count down.

Only played in 1 tournament, of which I went to time two of the three matches. During the first match it was irrelevant, because time was called during my assault on his stronghold, but if I failed, he would easily crush my stronghold. I lost to honor against scorpion in the second match, on the same turn I was going to crush his stronghold. The third match against Phoenix was the only one that would have had no clear winner within a short period of time. I think 60 minutes should be close to the actual time for most games, but I think Time is going to be called for a large number of matches. This makes the Tiebreakers important for late game decisions, but can handicap certain deck types.

Something that could speed up play is placing your cards upside-down. Presumably you know what all of your cards do, but your opponent probably does not. This would allow them to easily read the cards without having to ask you each time. Unlike the CCG, where characters were relatively simple, I think they are now the biggest delay, because you need to know the board state before you can properly act. Theoretically players should get to know all the cards and speed up the game, but not everyone has this level of memory, nor does every player wish to put that much effort forward.

2 hours ago, Hinomura said:

I think you mean brass tacks

I do think the round timer shouldn't begin until everyone is finished with set-up. You should be able to seat yourself, introduce yourself to your opponent, unpack your many tokens, and go through the mulligan process before the clock actually begins to count down.

I dunno, I've seen (and played in) matches where these steps took nearly as long as a full round of play for the other participants. The timer helps incentive having your **** together and being ready to play. Otherwise you have everyone waiting on the slow setup-ers to finish their match.

Plus you then need separate timers for every table to accommodate their respective "start" times after they finish those setup steps.

12 hours ago, Hinomura said:

I think you mean brass tacks

Yep, I knew that. At least I should have as it was something my dad told me as some point when we were working on something because it's an old man thing to say and I'm an old man now so I should use it too, right?

I just got a pop up from TurboTax as I was typing my post...... Lol

Honestly I couldn't remember and instead of taking the time to look it up I was lazy and picked the option that required the least amount of typing.

Let this be a lesson to all you youngsters out there...........

Ishi is old and lazy.

And if I can finish a game in time, so can you

I find that all my games last 30-45 minutes unless I'm playing a hyper defensive deck or I'm playing on jigoku. A lot of players can't read boards. So if you're the type of player that takes 2 minutes to fully read any particular board state and another minute to make a decision......game are gonna run long if you're opponent is like that too. But two players that make every decision in under 30 seconds burn through games quickly.

6 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Yep, I knew that. At least I should have as it was something my dad told me as some point when we were working on something because it's an old man thing to say and I'm an old man now so I should use it too, right?

I just got a pop up from TurboTax as I was typing my post...... Lol

Honestly I couldn't remember and instead of taking the time to look it up I was lazy and picked the option that required the least amount of typing.

Let this be a lesson to all you youngsters out there...........

Ishi is old and lazy.

And if I can finish a game in time, so can you

Just consider the source. Brass is a cheaper, weaker metal than iron or steel. If we cut down to brass tacks then we're doing a shoddy rush job.

I find that all my games last 30-45 minutes unless I'm playing a hyper defensive deck or I'm playing on jigoku. A lot of players can't read boards. So if you're the type of player that takes 2 minutes to fully read any particular board state and another minute to make a decision......game are gonna run long if you're opponent is like that too. But two players that make every decision in under 30 seconds burn through games quickly.

Exactly - I've found that my games only go long when I'm unable to decide on what to do, or my cards don't do what I want my strategy to be. Being more experienced in playing the game, and more decisive on a victory condition goes a long way even if that victory condition is honor based.

20 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

NO WAY!!!!!

Embrace the honor loss and just patch it up with some Yurts and Rebuild.

Yurts give the enemy honor, so you still lose the honor tiebreaker unless you change something.

11 minutes ago, caseycheesecake said:

Yurts give the enemy honor, so you still lose the honor tiebreaker unless you change something.

Who cares if they have an honor tiebreaker if you crush them with all the extra Assassinations and Banzai and Captive Audiences you can run with that extra honor

21 hours ago, shosuko said:

In a way it doesn't take much to win this game, but you have to be decisive. If you know what you need to do to win the game AND you do these things AND your deck does these things then you won't go to time as much. I think this game sometimes gets lost in a quagmire of players not quite playing towards a win condition, or their decks not aligning optimally towards their desired win conditions.

That said - if a deck is build more defensively or more honor based and it goes against a deck that is also defensive or honor based... the game could easily go to time.

I agree with this. I think the game really drags out only when neither side is really making any progress and it becomes a battle of attrition. If you play to win instead of playing not to lose games should be quick and decisive.

I've also been focusing on a single deck lately to get it to a point where decisions are instinctual and I don't need to spend five minutes deciding which character to play or to pass.

6 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Who cares if they have an honor tiebreaker if you crush them with all the extra Assassinations and Banzai and Captive Audiences you can run with that extra honor

Most games go to time...so...you have to be breaking +2 provinces to make up for the honor tiebreaker loss.

On 1/6/2018 at 11:10 AM, Hinomura said:

I do think the round timer shouldn't begin until everyone is finished with set-up. You should be able to seat yourself, introduce yourself to your opponent, unpack your many tokens, and go through the mulligan process before the clock actually begins to count down.

Timer starts after setup.

Once players complete setup, they must wait for a leader to announce the start of the round before beginning their game. If the round has already begun, players may begin playing immediately upon completing these steps.

For the Melbourne Kotei, I will be having a 5 minute countdown, which starts when pairings go up.
The 60 minute round begins as soon as the 5 minute clock finishes.

I absolutely agree that's how it is supposed to work, Wayne.

I also state that not a single round at Worlds during the rounds I played in did that.

Perhaps it's just down to making sure TOs enforce* it more stringently.

*of course, there are currently no penalties in the floor rules other than disqualification...

Maybe we need faster rules

Speed version.
Victory conditions:
Stronghold Victory: break one province and then stronghold
Dishonor: 0 honor, you lose
Honor: 10 honor, you win.

Reduce the starting honor by 6, so if you starting honor is normally 10, it is now 4 and so on... (or just divide by two and round down) i prefer that minus, because it maintain the faction differences better.

The game time should be 15-25 min with these modifications... Maybe this would be too fast... And also the deck size should be smaller... 20 cards each and max 2 of the same?

52 minutes ago, Hannibal_pjv said:

The game time should be 15-25 min with these modifications... Maybe this would be too fast... And also the deck size should be smaller... 20 cards each and max 2 of the same?

With Way of the Chrysanthemum and a high enough first bid, the game can be a couple of minutes long.

1 hour ago, Hannibal_pjv said:

Maybe we need faster rules

Speed version.
Victory conditions:
Stronghold Victory: break one province and then stronghold
Dishonor: 0 honor, you lose
Honor: 10 honor, you win.

Reduce the starting honor by 6, so if you starting honor is normally 10, it is now 4 and so on... (or just divide by two and round down) i prefer that minus, because it maintain the faction differences better.

The game time should be 15-25 min with these modifications... Maybe this would be too fast... And also the deck size should be smaller... 20 cards each and max 2 of the same?

Nobody would draw cards. It would be 100% dependent on your initial dynasty flop.