While I had a great time at Gencon this past year, one area of improvement that I would like to see, is a modification to the first, and maybe 2nd round pairings, such that we do not play meta-mates if possible. I realize Strength of Schedule and wins/losses comes first, but with 50 or so participants this year, we should be able to guarentee that the first round you are not playing a meta-mate.

For me 2nd round, I played Tony from the TN meta, and I know several of the TN meta played each other 1st and in some cases played another 2nd round.

I think it would be easy enough to include your meta when registering and use that in the pairings.

Overall a great time and a great tournament.

This is usually done out of hand - pairing for the first 2 rounds is set to exclude pairs from the same state wherever possible (usually completely possible in Round 1, mostly possible depending on the size of the 0-1 / 1-0 brackets in Round 2). They usually try to avoid too many people from the same area at the same table in Round 1 of Melee, too, but it is often much harder to accomplish in that format.

Since it was not done this year, it probably had more to do with different tournament software and a "new" Gencon TO team.

ktom said:

Look at Ktom, letting his territory get taken by as little force as necessary.

Is unoccupied territory "taken" or "claimed"?

Man we always had that same question while playing Risk...

Just saying, my first GenCon, Ktom was laying down THE LAW. (Under FFG of course).

You just don't want to play meta mates first round so you don't lose to Darryl and drop.

What constitutes a meta-mate when one plays a lot of octgn?

Kennon said:

We know this won't happen again though. I will give it to Darryl that he has gotten better, (though I'm still very sour about losing to pretty much only The Red Viper).

But after I move back soon, I will be able to start playing weekly again, and then all will be right in the world once again.

bloodycelt said:

actually at the moment I feel a galaxy meta mate :-)

Anyway I think the meaning of meta mate is "don't play first round against people that play with you every day and so knows your deck better than you"!!!

Husemann said:

That's what Milk of the Poppy is for...

Kennon said:

Pretty sure I was playing 3x. Don't remember fully.

Though I was playing bara, so that was about my only way to deal with the bastard, (that I was playing, I believe).

Husemann said:

Viper is not immune to Kingwood Trail. Nor is he immune to motley. Nor is he immune to Melisandre (well he is, but her ability still affects the power on him).

bloodycelt said:

Def wasn't playing Kingswood Trail. I don't think I've ever used that card. Motley I wanted to play, really bad, but it got cut to better cards.

As for Mel, I decided to play the new one, simply because she was better for rushing. If I was going to change anything, it would be switching Mel for the older one.

bloodycelt said:

Wrong. When Mel is out, the Viper's power still counts toward victory. Power on a character is considered to be a characteristic of the character - like STR, or icons or abilities - not a separate game entity. As such, immunity to character abilities lets a character ignore Mel's ability and contribute its power (characteristic) to victory for its controller.

Look at it this way: if you put a dupe on the Viper, it gains a "save" Response from the dupe. We know that such a gained ability is considered to be an ability of the character, right? (It's in the FAQ and it's the reason an "immune to triggered effects" character can use a dupe since you cannot be immune to your own abilities.) So, can I cancel that with something like To Be a Kraken? ("Response: Stand a Greyjoy character you control to cancel a triggered effect".) You're applying the cancel to a "triggered effect," not the character, so immunity shouldn't help, right? But it has been ruled - repeatedly - that you cannot cancel the "triggered effect" of an immune character with whatever the character is immune to because the ability cannot be separated from the character. Power acts in a similar way. It cannot be separated from the character. So power on a character cannot be affected by whatever that character is immune to.

ktom said:

Nate ruled in an opposite fashion at Gencon. And while you have proven me wrong many times Ktom, I actually agree with Nate on this one. Basically both Mel and Ellaria could effect (in their own ways) power on the Viper.

Dobbler said:

that he did -- i think nate's logic was something along the lines of, "mel and ellaria affect or target the power on the viper, and not the viper itself." not sure what details there were to that, but that definitely had an impact on a few of the melee games i was in...

Yeah, I tried to argue the precedent that power was considered a stat of the character like its str and whatnot, but Nate was not having any of it. He ruled that Ellaria could effect the viper.

Dobbler said:

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

That's why I think many things should be in FAQ. Many people may be very disappointed losing games in such tournament because of this.

For a very long time, our metagroup has been playing as if power is NOT part of the character. I've always looked at power as a separate entity, not as part of a character. Basically, I've looked at them in the same way I look at an attachment on a character.

Hard to argue with Nate on the rules.

Dobbler said:

I agree. Power is not a stat, it's temporary state much like an attachment is. The printed values on the cards never change (though they are modfied by many things), power amassed on a character is meant to be manipulated and changed.

If I would have known this, I would have had a better chance vs. Deathjester... ~I blame Dobbler.

lol... funny thing is I think I might have been around for one of the rulings by Nate. ~I was just keeping it a secret from you rings

I really don't care which ruling we go with. In the past, we've always followed the "power is a stat of the Character" rule. I don't have a problem with Nate's ruling either. It seems to make more sense to me, but ktom's ruling (having precedence in the past) might be around for a specific (perhaps no longer an issue) reason.

Either one is fine by me, as long as it's official.