So, this weekend was a blast. However, we had several things we ran into that caused some arguments between some of the people there and I wanted to see what everyone else thought about them. I only bring these up so I can clear the air.

1. Melee Titles.

Now, I have been playing melee for about 2 years. I have won a melee regional, as well as some smaller melee tourneys like Calicon. I realize that it's not exactly a competitive format, but rules do exist. At kubla this year, I made it to the final table and laid out the 6 titles in the middle of the table. One of the other finalists asked me "Why are you laying those out? We are just going to pick up the cards and choose them in secret anyway"

I was baffled. "What do you mean choose them in secret?" He went on to explain how we should be picking them in order, and not revealing them until everyone had chosen one. I have NEVER played a game where it was done like this. I know people like to use the cards, and that seems to be standard, but why would FFG give us melee boards with figures if they didn't intend us to use them as an alternate to the cards?

Anyhow, after the tourney I checked the rules which state:

The first player selects one of the titles, from
the Small Council Chamber, to use for the rest
of that round, and places that title’s corresponding
figure on or near his House card. Proceeding
clockwise from the first player, each player
chooses one of the remaining titles to use for that
round. Any titles not chosen are not used that
round.

Doesn't say anything about secrecy there. Anyhow, thats my 2 cents on that topic.

2. Tiebreakers and Re-seeding

FFG's tournament guide only goes as far as to say that in the event of ties in record, you go to strength of schedule and then to head to head. It doesn't go further or explain what to do with 3 way ties or when head to head doesn't provide a clear winner(like we had at kubla). I expect that at this point it would be at the TO's discretion. That's fine. I think maybe those sort of situations should be planned out in advance though so there is no room for dispute. (I am not at all complaining about the TO for kublacon, but more asking that for the future we have a plan in place).

Additionally, our TO reseeded after the 7 and 8 seeds defeated the 1 and 2 seeds. As the 8 seed, I ended up having to play the 3 seed instead of the 4 seed. It didn't matter in the end, but some people showed concern that this was being done. Again, I have no real issue with it being done this way, I just think that this sort of thing should be planned out in advance if possible in the future so again, there is no dispute when it happens.

Both of these issues ended up working out fine, but in the future, more transparency and pre-planning can end up making everything run a little smoother.

Fieras said:

One of the primary points of the titles is to be able to choose them in order to define relationships (ie, supports and opposes). You can't do that in secrecy.

I'm sorry, but I don't see this as an issue. I see it as a player's mistake.

Fieras said:

It is actually very rare, unless the tournament is very small, where head to head, then strength of schedule does not provide a clear ranking. No matter how deep the tie-breaking scheme goes, there is always going to be some possible situation that is not in the rules, so there is always going to need to be some discretion - and the TO will probably need to make it up on the fly because, almost by definition, these situations are unforeseen. In all my time as a TO for this game, I have never had a situation where a tied record and a tied SoS made ranking/seeding for the elimination rounds a problem. If the possibility had occurred to the Kubla TO, they probably would have announced a method beforehand.

Fieras said:

1. What is most surprising about that is he must've convinced the tables where he played before that that was the right way.

2. At the NYC regionals, we had the tiebreakers down to four breakers in advance. What I think needs to be cleaned up is how to handle byes with strength of schedule. At Black Friday, Fatmouse was 4-1. His first round was a bye, but that bye round was counted as an opponent with zero points, which put him in fifth and out of the cuts. [note: this would have not been a problem if it had been cut to final eight, but the venue was not available for the extra round.] Then at the NJ regional, I was left in fifth with a 3-1 record because my friend Rich's bye was counted as an opponent with a full win (we assume - it was the only way the math would have worked that way). [i was just as happy because it was Rich's first semis].

In general, FFG events (such as Gencon, or this year, World Championships) handles buys in two different ways, depending on why you get the buy. If you get a buy in a round because there is an odd number of players, you get a win against a person with 0 points. So while the buy helps you on record, it hurts you on tie breaker.

But if you get a buy as a prize (eg, Regional winners getting a first round buy in the championship tournament), you get the win against a person with "full" points - which is most easily calculated by adding 5 x # of rounds to that person's final strength of schedule. So that kind of buy pretty well puts you near the top of your win/loss division every time.

OrangeDragon said:

which judging by most players at days of ice and fire wouldn't be hard to do, given their inexperience in melee. Hell most people unfamiliar with the orgins of the term "melee" assume melee is the 1v1 format.

OrangeDragon said:

That is correct. We even had a player drop at the lunch break because he didn't want to continue playing that way. I wish I would have known games were being played like that so I could have put a stop to it.

Additionally, when do you choose titles? Before or after plots resolve?

Fieras said:

ktom said:

Something that would be nice to add to the flow charts. Ktom, would you say that it is Step 5 in the listed FAW for plots, or should be a separate but immediately adjacent (like Beginning of Dominance -> Award Dominance) FAW. I think the only difference would be in the latter case that passives/responses to plot reveal, etc. (i.e. GTM) would occur before you pick your title.

Along, perhaps with a indication of the timing difference between Shadows not-really-actions and Beginning of the Phase passives.

Maester_LUke said:

Maester_LUke said:

ktom said:

No worries, I think I was imagining it as one big

[1. Choose & Reveal Plots

2. Select Titles]

gray-boxed FAW, probably blecause of the way they're listed in the Core Set rules.

ktom said:

While you're at it, can we come up with a separate wording for Shadows terminology that distinguishes between standard "opportunity" and something like Meera or Jaquen, so we know when Hidden Chambers/Tower of the Hand apply. (Kind of like play & put into play both being subsets of "comes into play")… etc, etc.

~I really wish I kind find Mythfish's old three page MS Word document full of accumulated rulings from the Westeros Block, so I could update from there.

Maester_LUke said:

"Can I use Hidden Chambers (City of Secrets F3) to reduce the cost of the triggered effect on Meera Reed (Tourney for the Hand F2) that brings her out of Shadows?

No. Hidden Chambers only reduces the cost to bring cards out of Shadows during a standard Shadows opportunity at the beginning of each phase. It cannot be used to reduce the cost of a triggered effect that brings a card out of Shadows."

…doesn't work for you? Sure, different wording would have saved months of bickering, but this entry does seem to solve the question based on "standard opportunity vs. triggered effect" timing.

ktom said:

Sorry, I should have clarified, I know the ruling and am familiar with the FAQ entry. I'm just wishing they'd have clarified things, or specifically errata'd Hidden Chambers/City of Shadows to read "If it is Winter,reduce the cost to bring your cards out of Shadows at the beginning of the phase by 1./Whenever you bring any card with a 'House X only' restriction that does not match your House card out of Shadows at the beginning of the phase,pay 1 additional gold." Since they construction of the shadows rules and the text on the cards that bring themselves out of shadow by triggered effect are the same (I think I brought it up as a red herring in this thread), I think it would have been simpler to establish the difference.

Especially since I can see someone asking the CoS vs. Meera question and there having to be either than extrapolation of that FAQ, or research to find the thread. I don't know, I guess if there was errata to correct the terminology in Ahead of the Tide & Compelled by the King, rather than a simple "they work this way" FAQ, I think it would have been more tidy. Then again, I've always been particular.

ktom said:

is there an official guideline telling us so?

i was thinking of how to handle byes for regional winners at the Tourney of Stahleck. so far i announced its the average of the strength of schedule of the played games of the player with a bye (not a full win). looks fair to me. also, a regional winner is not forced to take the bye, if he prefers to play in the first round, its okay.

thorondor said:

This seems good. Do you round up to a whole number?

Do you choose roles/titles before or after resolving When Revealed plot effects?

thorondor said:

thorondor said:

Say there are 5 rounds at the event with a regional winner taking a first round bye (yes, I agree the regional winners are completely free to give up the first round bye privilege and "play through"). In a 5-round event, the most any one opponent can contribute to your strength of schedule is 25 points (the maximum match points that can be scored: 5 points per win x 5 rounds). That means the theoretical maximum SoS is 125 points (not that anyone will lose each game to a player who wins all 5 of their games at an AGoT event, but you're bearing with me, remember?). But the regional winner, who takes the first round bye, only plays 4 people, meaning that the theoretical maximum SoS they can get is 100 points.

In your scheme, you are taking the SoS they get from the 4 players (total SoS, theoretical maximum of 100), dividing by 4 to get the average (theoretical maximum of 25), then adding that result back into the actual total SoS (theoretical maximum of 100 + 25 = 125) to get the new SoS for tie-breaks?

If that's what you are doing, I like it, and it certainly is fair. The only thought I would add is that the regional win and associated bye is perhaps supopsed to be more than fair. It's supposed to be a prize. That is the poilcy FFG has pretty much followed in giving the regional winners a first-round bye at full SoS (which would be 20 points in that 5-round event: the "phantom opponent" effectively goes on to win all other rounds and a 4-1 opponent contributes 5 points/win x 4 wins to your SoS).

Boerta said:

As mentioned above, you do the normal "reveal plots" framework action window. Then there is a framework action window for choosing titles. Then you get to the post-plot player action window.

That means that, in a Melee game, plots are revealed, initiative is counted, first player is determed, "when revealed" plot tex is resolved, other passives to revealing plots (and their effects) are resolved, responses to revealing plots (and their effects) are resolved, and moribund cards are removed from the table. (ie, the normal "reveal plots" framework action window)

THEN you choose titles for the round.

Then you move on to post-plot player actions and continue with the round.

ktom said:

thats exactly how it is meant.

i think its still a good prize - though not that good as with the max SoS of couse. not only its a full win, also the fact of one less game should be taken into account. cause playing up to 10 rounds is exhausting and keeping focus is dificult.

Being the Kubla TO for the Joust, here's my response to this.

A third level of tiebreakers shouldn't need to be announced beforehand. The chances of that happening were very miniscule. Should I have announced a fourth, fifth and sixth level of tiebreakers too? I went based on FFG's guidelines for tiebreakers, and then did the best I could with what was a very difficult situation afterwards. I think it worked out well in the end. All three players involved in the three way tie got their shot at it, and two of the three ended up in the final game.

As for the re-seeding vs. bracket, yes, that was my mistake. I did not realize that was FFG's specific guidelines, and I come from years of running tournaments as a Magic judge where the procedure was to re-seed after rounds. In future tournaments I will run it bracket style. That being said, I don't think it really matters, because if you're going to be the champion, you should be able to beat whoever was put in front of you, as you did Fieras.

Then why even have seeding, joey? Thats BS.

I was honestly surprised to learn that re-seeding (lowest remaining seed plays the highest remaining seed) wasn't the normal thing. That is how most professional sports do it, and it makes sense to me to do it that way.

Crevic said:

Hmm no it's only how some American sports do it.

Professor Nomos said:

Exactly. The World Cup, Euro Championships, Champions League knockout, none of them re-seed.

Even the best American sporting tournament, the NCAA basketball tournament doesn't re-seed. None of the pro tennis tournaments re-seed either (French Open is going on right now).

Not really sure off the top of my head what professional American sport even does this.

phoenixember said:

Anyone bemoaning the fact that a third, forth, or fifth tie-breaker was not announced beforehand or made official by FFG in the tournament document should ask themselves one very simple question: what would you have done differently during the event. Given the decision to go by how many wins/losses vs. the set Top 6 (a "win progression" strategy that is frequently used as a tie breaker in chess and other tournaments, I might add), the way to make sure you performed for that tie-break would be to try to win as many of your games during Swiss as possible. Did anyone NOT try to do that anyway?

There really is such a thing as "no harm, no foul," and what Joey left pretty much nothing to complain about in my opinion.

phoenixember said:

LaughingTree said: