True but then again in duplicate bridge there is not a whole lot of hand building either. It is a means to challange players to wrok with whawt they have in front of them. You see the problem with the actual deck building idea is that LoTR is a cooperative game. Whcih means that in order to have a tournament of any kind you need to pit the players through the challanges. However, and we see this on MTG, there will be "deck types' and everyone will have those decks. It further complicates things as your opponents can not really design a deck to counteract that current trendy deck. If two people have the same deck well then what, you can not have 2 of the same kind of hero.

The truer skill comes from working together to beat the game, knowing all of the cards. there is no sense of rarity, everyon has an equal chance of lhaving those car5ds. they should then be working to play all of those cards to see the combos and to understanding the mechanics. Forcing them to build decks or practis with all of the schools because you never know. Any tournaments with this game would become too easily bogged down with the same old same old. I am already hearing that a dwarf deck will be super strong. HOw boring woudl a tournament be if everyone had a dwarf deck. Maybe one or two peopel would build a complimentary deck but still you are faced with night mares of same heros etc....bah

Taking a duplicate bridge style of play will constantly make players look for other combinations and constantly be playign with all kinds of cards to get them familiar with everythign instead of just one. To test their ability to play all of the schools and to work with your partner and talk to each other and work to get the best scroe.

Much like duplicate bridge is a cooporative game, and yes partners must cooporate, LoTR is also one but instead of other opponents you are going up against the game.It would remove the problems of the same kidns of decks and be hyper challanging.

Videtta said:

As designers declare before tournament system will work fo 2 players who will declare themself as a team against other same teams. In this case in my opinion deck list required.

Wednesday Announcement: February 9, 2012

So this week’s Wednesday Announcement is a little tricky because… it’s actually being posted on a Thursday!

Continuing with a string of tournaments to garner feedback for the possibility of an upcoming Living Tournament System, I’ll continue to be eager to hear your thoughts, feelings, analysis, and feedback - of all sorts. For this next week, however, I think it’s finally time for one of my tournaments (now that a lot of the regulars seem to have received their copy of KD) to enter the mines!

Here’s the deal…

February 12-18, 2012
Scenario: Into the Pit
Deck Parameters: Open Build
Tournament Mechanics: Sets of 3*
Number of Players: Solo Player

*Sets of 3:
1) A valid result in this tournament consists of reporting your results (wins and losses) from 3 back-to-back games, using the same deck for each of those 3 games. (Please observe the mulligan rule, and all other rules, from the LOTR LCG rulebook and subsequent official FAQ documents.)
2) After you post your results, the results from your 3 games will be calibrated using the RGun formula** to obtain your Weighted Result.
3) Weighted Results will then be ranked against other player’s Weighted Results in the Top Ten for this week’s tournament.
4) You may play and report as many games (in Sets of 3) as you would like (so you can try out different deck builds over the week).

**The RGun formula has been designed to value both Final Score (per game) and overall Win Ratio (from your 3 games, cumulative). The formula is: (Average Score of Games Won) x (Total Games Played/Games Won). For an expanded discussion on how this formula was created, you can read the thread called Measuring Success.

I can’t wait to continue playing with this new approach, and I eagerly await your feedback on what your play experience is like as you tackle this challenge in 3 game chunks!

As always, thanks for playing,

juicebox

Play allows us to develop alternatives to violence and despair; it helps us learn perseverance and gain optimism.
Stuart Brown MD
Contemporary American psychiatrist

Just one more note, summing up what I hope for next week's tournament:

1) Well... fun, of course.

2) Another trial of playing in Sets of 3. (We'll see how the discussion goes... I'm curious if anyone who actually plays in the Sets of 3 format ends up wishing it were organized in Sets of 4 or Sets of 5 - for the sake of a better experience, more balanced outcomes, etc... I guess I'm specifically looking for that kind of feedback after actual play experience before I feel good about offering a tournament that asks for Sets of 4 or Sets of 5, as my bias is clearly for Sets of 3, but I'm trying to remain open minded while looking for some general consensus.)

3) Khazad-dûm!!! Bring on a completely OPEN BUILD tourney!!!

New Announcement: February 18, 2012

Hi everybody... I can't really justify calling this a Wednesday Announcement, as Wednesday is just too far gone.

I do want to share a few thoughts though:

My sense from the forums, both from those who have enjoyed the player created tournament scene and those who don't, is that we may be experiencing a bit of tournament burn-out around here. That combined with the frustrating reality of the lack of content categories for these forums (meaning threads fall off the front page faster than you can start raking in the resources from a sprightly constructed Ziggy deck) has me feeling the need to take a little break from hosting a next Solo Player Tournament. The break may just be for a week, maybe a couple weeks... let's see how it goes.

In the mean time, in terms of evaluating possibilities for a new Living Tournament system, from the feedback there has been over the last couple of tournaments I have run as well as the ones that Zjb12 has run requiring results be posted in Sets, it seems that Sets of 3 is the way to go. I find it meaningful to have this feedback offered after playing through the tournaments. Feedback based out of experience is more meaningful than feedback based out of theory. So, for those of you who have offered your thoughts on the experience of playing games in Sets, thank you. If there's anything that's been left unsaid, feel free to chime in here. And another note about the Living Tournament scene... I've had some meaningful conversation with Darksbane over at CardgameDB about possibilities for hosting them there at some point. Also, there has been some initiatives to get forum categories going here. In either case, I'd like to wait a bit for a more ideal interface to exist before launching something like that. Once that's in place (whether it's on CardgameDB, here, or somewhere else - whatever reasonably comes together first), I think it will be quite excellent and fun and very much worth the wait for a quality Living Tournament experience.

After a break, the next juicebox Solo Player Tournaments will likely be quite thematic. Looking forward to those after some rest.

As always, thanks for playing,

juicebox

Thank your veeeeryyyyyyyyyyyy much for hosting these tournaments, Juicy! I enjoyed all of them!

You're right that we apparently have too many touneys going on at the same time. I hope that your break won't be too long though. Perhaps it would help to give your tourneys a bigger timeframe, like, two weeks instead of one?

Amd Zjb, I hope that I can at least post one attempt for your tourney. The main problem is that I love ItP so much that I haven't even tried the other tow KD scenarios yet.

leptokurt said:

Thanks leptokurt. I really enjoy hosting them, and I've really enjoyed your involvement!

I think you'll have fun with some of the upcoming more thematic type tournaments.

And with more tournament options happening, perhaps a longer time frame would be helpful.

I may give that a try.

leptokurt said:

I second all that!!

Well, except the part about the KD scenarios.

muemakan said:

Thanks muemakan!

Well everybody, it looks like we've got subforums!!!

This is a really wonderful day, and hopefully, it will serve to enhance the FFG LORT LCG forum experience for everyone.

I have already created a new (combined) The juicebox LOTR LCG Tournaments ~ Top Ten Hall of Fame & Ideas Thread for my tournaments in the subforum called Player Community. From now on, please post all thoughts and ideas and what not to that new thread. It's the new juicebox Home Thread.

My plan is to finish out the current active 2 Player and 4 Player Tournaments here in the general thread, but from that point, any new tournament activity I instigate will be in the Player Community subforum. I'm excited about this, I think there will be more felt freedom. I may even feel free enough to start an alpha model for the Living Tournament idea there in the Player Community subforum. Yes, I think I just may... so keep your eyes open for that too.

Good times ahead.

Signing this thread out... thanks for co-creating the joy that has been version 1.0.