In spite of what the popular quote says, it seems to me that in the books it's usually "win AND die."

Shenanigans said:

I disagree, I think Melee needs to *literally* be more cut-throat.

Lol, I was going to make a costume for thrones this year. It may have involved a childs dog costume where the head piece was turned grey, with fake stitches put along the bottom. Maybe next year I will put in the time to make it happen...

Saturnine said:

Wow, that's one of the few things I've read here that actually did make me laugh out loud. So true, ser. So true.

Mathias Fricot said:

Ok, what if we combine the Queen of Love an Beauty voting with a costume contest next year? We really need more thrones cosplayers. I'm sorely tempted to do Littlefinger next year, though another player from our group pointed out that I'd make a great Red Viper as well....

Kennon said:

I actually ran a Halloween tournament as a NW back in... Valyrian(?) Edition where a couple came as a quite convincing Robert & Cersei. Jerod had inked a scar on his nose as Tyrion, and I made the point that Littlefinger would never show up at a mall hobby store in a costume.

And seriously, "win _and_ Die" is priceless.

Now I just wish we could run polls on this board and see what kind of consensus we can have moving forward. At some point later, I'll have to explain my secret shame from the tourney.

So, from what I'm reading, I think this format would benefit from simply instituting the "win or die" philosopy... if you don't win your table, you don't move on... and if you don't win the final table, you get no credit in any way shape or form for making it to the final table...

In this case, since Corey came in second in round one, he would have been out.

At least this way, the winner would have actually had to win ALL of his games to win the title... even if one win was lucky enough to be won with collusion.

Archon said:

I like this idea...heck let's even take that "Win or Die" mantra one step further...if you don't win your table, We behead you in front of the other winners. I guarantee that would stop collusion altogether.

In all seriousness I really do like this idea. I think it might make tournaments a little too short though unless we start getting 100+ people there yearly.

It definitely makes for a shorter tourney, since you would typically have 3 rounds at most without an enormous number of participants... but it would be a more effective one... kinda like playing a 50 card deck... Not as much to it, but more effective

JackT said:

hahahaha! and boom goes the dynamite.

Kennon said:

You could be Lil' Drogo.

I know the guys who used to play in Portland (Dave and Binder) had a Bday party with everyone dressed up as various aGoT characters. It looked like a blast.

Kennon, you are WAY more Littlefinger than Viper

alexfrombeyondthewall said:

Huh, I was thinking people were not complaining about the competitiveness...they were complaining about having no chance to win, which is the opposite of competitiveness. I know if I went to a table and knew I had a 1% chance of winning, I wouldn't think of that table to be 'competative'. I guess if I was the one with 99% chance, I would think it VERY competitive.

widowmaker93 said:

you can be offended by the truth all you want. Your team was fined six figures and a draft pick for its part in breaking the NFLs rules. Never proven? let me know any other instance of 750,000 worth of fines being given out for lack of evidence.

I agree with Rings...the melee competition is characterized by its lack of competitiveness, not over-competitiveness. I realize I am about to pull a 180 degree turn here, so apologies for my inconsistency above. I had a very thoughtful conversation with Corey over the weekend about melee, and especially how it's played competitively, that challenged some of my assumptions and have led me to rethink my opinions.

There is an important question about melee that nobody here has asked: Is the melee championship supposed to be "competitive" in the traditional sense (ie in the same way joust is a competitive event)? Maybe melee is *THE* format FOR casual players who want to play a big event with a lot of strangers. It's kind of like playing Bingo at home with 10 people vs. playing it at a charity event with 200 people.

Let's look at it this way. How many people enjoyed playing the Core Set fresh out of the box with 3 other friends? I know I did, and it is precisely *because* of the alliances and lack of control that the Core Set is fun. Throw a few cocktails/beers into the mix, and games become even more silly and, quite frankly, even more enjoyable. Such games are rarely decided by the cards themselves, and often come down to kingmaking, seemingly illogical alliances, and lots of play mistakes. I am MUCH more likely to be attacked by my friend because I drank the last beer in the fridge than because of my in-game board position. And if outside-the-game factors aren't a bad thing in casual play, then why should they be at the world's tournament? Assuming the world's event is supposed to somehow epitomize or reflect the intrinsic nature of the game, if anything, outside-the-game reasons probably *should* have a significant influence the game's outcome. I'm not saying I personally would prefer to have less control over my in-game performance than I already do, but I'm beginning to believe it's unfair to judge people for bringing crap/fun decks just to mess with opponents.

I'm sure that it would surprise some readers here, but Corey has told me on a couple occasions that he actually PREFERS melee...and not because it's "competitive" or similar to joust, but rather because melee is INTENTIONALLY DESIGNED to play differently. Corey cited an example where during one game, he convinced an opponent (through a seemingly innocuous but purposeful off-hand remark) to trigger Rhaenerys' Hill during the wrong round. As he spoke, I got the feeling it was a high-point...and I will admit, it can be pretty fun to convince someone to do the exact opposite of what they *should* do and, by doing so, ensure that you win. Melee is also the only format where you can play 5 games with the exact same people/decks and have the game swing in entirely different ways/moments. (In joust, top-tier play can often feel mechanical, with games hinging on who draws *the* winning card in that match up.)

So I think the problem that many of us have (including me) is that our gut tells us melee is *supposed* to reward a certain type of play but doesn't. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't be thinking about ways to make melee better, but only that rather than criticize the players or even the format for a perceived deficiency, many of us (me included) still have to recognize that many of the aspects we dislike about melee are the very aspects that others love.

Twn2dn said:

Hah, that would be me, and I did it, and then immediately regretted it, HOWEVER, it definitely did teach me some useful things that I took into my next two rounds (Gencon was probably my 4/5/6th melee games total ever.) It was one of those moments where afterwards I thought, "Man, that guy is skilled at melee..."

Twn2dn said:

Didn't Ktom suggest this 40 pages ago?

@Rings What's all this talk about if you sat at a table of Melee? Are you hinting at next year's GenCon plans?

goshdarnstud said:

There's nothing wrong with a casual format, or a casual format tournament. You probably shouldn't make the reward for a causal tournament the ability to make a card though.

EDIT: And as it stands, melee is a great format for some casual fun.

fhornmikey said:

Agreed. Legitimately psyching out and misdirecting an opponent like that is one of the really great things about melee.

I was at the table when Coery pulled that and i was thinking to my self...O boy did fhornmikey just fall for that.

It does seem like this discussion is over what melee is about . Suppose I showed up and payed people to let me win. We'd all agree that that was pretty low, because melee shouldn't be about how much cash you can shell out, regardless of whether paying people is legal or not. It sounds like a contingent of people feel that melee also shouldn't be about how many friends you have, regardless of whether collusion is legal. I tend to agree, and feel that someone who shows up alone ought to have a chance at winning. But either way, there needs to be some agreement over what the game is about , and then structuring the rules accordingly.

jack merridew said:

Yes they were fined for violations during the Jets game to begin the 2007 season. But there is no proof that they cheated in any way during their superbowl winning seasons which is what was implied in the earlier post.

Honestly, I can't believe people are still talking about this. Whether it be on this forum or otherwise. This conversation is so 4 years ago.

widowmaker93 said:

heh, i think people are still talking about it because it puts a question mark around the Super Bowl wins (with or without cause), i think it becomes hard for people to believe that the only time the Pats cheated was the 1 time they were caught for it.

plus. . . .. . . .. . im a Jets fan!

jack merridew said:

AN THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE!!! Finally it's all clear as to why you're so sour over this.

p.s. - Thanks so much for Shaun Ellis. Good luck with the running game vs the PATS this year.