Perhaps melee winner could be awarded to meta rather than players. Points could perhaps be normalized to account for number of meta-mates present. Much better IMO than fighting the inherent team aspects of the format and trying to regulate motive and intent.

I believe someone already said that if points only went to the first player at the table it would be worse. If 2 friends/meta/spouse were at the same table and one of them realized they could not win they could push for their friend to get first place at all costs.

Greg, I appreciate and respect your attempt to explain why FFG ruled there was collusion. But I don't agree. If one follows the logic, then it seems inevitable that we will condemn players for playing the same decks, regardless of their intent.

Several personal accounts and tourney reports have explained that the DC players believed their Martell build was the best deck possible. They state, and I believe them, that they ran this build for its overall strength, not because it was powerful in the infrequent situation in which two meta mates play at the same table. Whether or not that deck had a potentially NPE combo when paired with other similar decks seems to have been a minor consideration, if it was a consideration at all.

As you know, I ran a variant of this build at GenCon, and you may remember that I placed 10th in the melee (and placed third overall at GenCon). I can attest to the power level of the Hellholt Engineer + Scorched Earth + Brimstone in melee, with or without other Martell players at the table. I think it also relevant to consider that Erick consistently runs the tightest decks possible. I suspect he would never have chosen this deck had he felt it was the best deck ONLY when paired with a metamate.

I would also remind you that this is hardly the first time the DC meta has brought the same decks to a tournament. This seems to be regular practice for them in melee and joust. So I think it extremely problematic to assume intent to collude simply because DC players all had the same deck, even if there happened to be an NPE combo when compared with other similar decks. This was the best melee deck in the environment, and just as DC players all play identical builds in joust, they played identical builds in melee.

Finally, I would point out that in the finals game, Erick never had a Hellholt Engineer in play (I think..my memory of the game is hazy now), so any explanation for his disqualification that involves his use of broken combos is inaccurate. But even if he did have the combo in play (let's say my memory has failed me), that has never been nor should it be grounds for disqualification. Broken combos are grounds for errata/restriction of the cards in question after the tourney.

Greg, if I understand your argument correctly, we should ask players from the same meta to intentionally play weaker decks and go out of their way to avoid broken combos, while smaller metas or players without metas can play anything they want?

Again, I will restate for the record (since we've begun a new thread and I haven't mentioned it here) that I have no personal stake in who wins, and frankly the DC players are more "rivals" to the NYC meta than anything else. Us New Yorkers typically appreciate stomping on them when we have the chance. That said, I think the line of reasoning presented in this thread is problematic. At best, enforcing collusion rules based on the decks people bring will cause confusion; at worst, it will result in many more charges of collusion at future tournaments, further eroding the reputation of the melee format.

As i said in another thread, the problem is the Low number of people in the melee vs the high % of metamates/friends in that really organized meta.

The solution has to be something on the line of changing the format of the tourney (not the rules of melee though). Something like randomly placing people on 4 teams whenever they are registered and awarding equal points to the whole team at the end. Still there has to be a champion for the trophie, but it wouldn't matter for the overal.

Then your team points + your points in the joust make the overal points.

Also, don't place people from the same team in the same table, just rotate the people…..team A, B, C, D best players from 1st round play against each other and down. The good thing is that you could innovate in the teambuilding on the knowledge of the players, since the judges/organizers are familiar with the best players so they could balance it. Or they could select four captainsand then they could draft…..and the best part would be the people the captains don't know, since they are a sort of wildcard!!

Ok, now i'm just throwing ideas….the objective would be to detriment the friend interaction in every table.

dcdennis said:

I agree that if FFG had wanted to send a statement that Metas that decide to bring a deck that operates in concert with a copy of itself will not be tolerated, then they should have brought the hammer down and DQ'd from the get go. Doing it in the final round sent the wrong message, with the same result. Now it looks like they are picking on them or as one poster put it "looking for a reason" to DQ them. Had the entire meta been DQ'd from the start you don't have that problem, and the message is sent.

As for the message, meh, agree with it or not. In the end, it's FFG's rules (subjective as they are) you have to abide by them. Don't piss them off by trying to flaunt your intellegence or craftiness or try to embarrass them by overtly and blatently planning to break design flaws at major tournaments and you won't get DQ'd.

In the end, you build the deck you think you can win by yourself with, and you play that. It's called sportsmanship. It's called pride. It's called being respected and not being called cheaters; because now, that's what you are going to be known as. And no one will want to play a melee game if your Meta is involved.

In the end, while your Meta may have thought it was being cute, or clever, or that it was its job to expose the brokeness of the cards/deck, you ended up damaging the credibility of the melee format, the game, and the community.

Call it collusion or call it whatever you want, in my opinion (which is worth bits in cyberspace) you all deserved to be DQ'd and so did every other meta-mate who agreed to play the same deck. There is no one best deck. They could have come up with other competitive decks that could have won on their own, you all conciously chose not to do that, and this is the result.

I don't think you need any more rules than what is already in place.. let what happend to the DC meta be a warning to every other meta out there. You've been put on notice.. don't. do. this. ever.

Can't get much clearer than that, in my book.

Twn2dn said:

You offer this up as if that should make it okay, when it doesn't.

An entire Meta bringing the same deck to a Joust tournament isn't as detrimental as all of them bringing a deck to a Melee. You and I both know they are two very different animals and you cannot use that excuse equally for both formats.

And I think it's a stretch that you want us to believe that more than 10 people all thought that deck was the best deck, and no one thought anything else was better (especially since Rick has already pointed out that he would have prefered to play a different deck and only played this one because everyone else was).

I'm not saying FFG should restrict the decks a meta can bring, that's silly. But they can make it clear they prefer that not to happen, and if it does and that results in what they feel is a negative impact on the experience for all players and they want to call it collusion, then what are you going to do to stop them.

They put the community on notice, and it looks like the DC meta (and everyone else) will have to branch out into multiple decks instead of just one from here on out (at least in Melee).

Shikaku said:

Those are unrelated. Rick wanting to play another deck doesn't mean that he thought the deck wasn't the best, just that he didn't necessarily enjoy playing it. You could make an argument that a deck you enjoy more is better, but the fact that he opted to play the deck he did shows that he recognized its strengths, even if it isn't what he'd play for fun.

I don't like playing maesters, not because I think they're bad, but because I don't enjoy them. Going to a tournament, I wouldn't necessarily bring the deck I enjoy the most, but the deck I think I'm most likely to win with. All things being equal, those will hopefully be the same.

A big issue with this is the JOKE that is Overall Champion. It causes so many issues with collusion and trying to get more points towards overall that it breeds unsportsman like behavior. It should be that you win Melee, good for you! You get to make a card. You win Joust, great you're the best player in the world this year. If you can't do one of those two then you aren't champion of anything. It certainly wouldn't fix all the issues, but it would be a good start.

The problem with collusion is that its sort of like asking someone to "Not think of the Pink Elephant." I wasn't there, but from past experience, I do know in at least some cases one person does most of the deck building in DC, NoMass was similar (they had a shared card pool, and Dan was the primary deck builder). Nor would it be something enforceable. Say me and Kyle (the one guy in boston that plays agot other than me) go to gencon next year and bring the same deck… guess what? Neither of us have talked since last year's black friday, but how can that be proven? We'd be disqualified, so now we would have to communicate what decks we're bringing just to overcompensate for collusion? Which becomes collusion. Wonderful.

Its generally a given that either meta mates will collude, or overcompensate which is sort of colluding (though to not do as well).

Hence FFG should take that assumption and either not allow metamates at the same table, or factor collusion into the meele game, since kingmaking is after all a viable strategy in meele.

Granted, personally I would just avoid the melee tournament. If nobody shows up at gencon meele, and the other worlds events for melee, then we can finally get rid of what I feel never should have been part of the championship. Then we don't have to worry about collusion.

Twn2dn said:

3. Yes I don't think it is very wise from now on to play identical decks with your meta mates which contain exponentially broken combos. IMO the hellholdt engineer combo in of itself may fall reasonably and logically within the realm of bad sportsmanship / infinite combo in the tournament rules.

I think everyone involved with this knew EXACTLY what they were flirting with.

We all know what collusion is. We all know what collusion is not. Greg did a very good job of putting it all down.

What we don't exactly know, is when a judge is justified in calling some one out for collusion.

This is a grey area that FFG has left open for TO's to decide. IMHO, setting up a mine field of detailed do's and don'ts is not the answer, as it will simply trip up more honest players instead of protecting them.

If you don't want to get called out for collusion, don't show up looking to see how close you can get to the line without crossing it.

KhalBrogo said:

lol

I've been running hellholt engineer in a joust shadows deck for a year. Its a fun card. Never sat across the table from one though.

alpha5099 said:

First of all, I get what you are saying, I just think it's BS; there is no "best deck" that you are forced to play in order to win, and we all know it.

Bringing a deck you don't enjoy playing to a tournament you are paying to enter into is masochistic; the line of thinking of, "I must play this deck because it is the most broken best thing ever and even though I hate it I know it's my best chance of winning," is the kind of ultra-competitive nonesense that led to this mess in the first place.

If a player can't build something themself and run it, then maybe they don't deserve to be champion. (note the maybe)

Second, it sounds like someone in the DC meta needs to back off a bit.

On deciding what deck to play for Melee…

Rick wrote, "… both my melee and joust decks were decklists from Erick, though I knew Stark Winter was what I wanted to play after being owned by it at GenCon and the OCTGN tourney."

Chad J wrote, "I actually would have preferred to play a “real” melee tournament. I enjoy the format. I didn’t find the combo very fun to play. I’d imagine it was even less fun to play against."

He goes on to write, "Still, I knew the deck was out there and it was better to play it than get owned by it."

How many people brought that deck to the melee event from outside the DC meta? Was it really a threat to be dealt with, or did someone do a really good job of convincing his Meta that it was.

Dealing with a strong deck by playing a copy of it is not an excuse, because it doesn't address the threat. If the deck is that good, then all you have done is set your odds of winning to 50/50 at best.

There are other ways of dealing with a strong deck, if it truely is a threat to you.. adjust your build to be ready for it.

I can't say for sure, because I am not part of the meta and am not privy to the conversations that led up to this, but I would not be surprised if Erick played a large role in convincing the rest of the Meta to take the same deck. That may seem unfair, but based on what I saw in that final round of the game, Erick was doing a heck of a job yammering on about trusting him, everything would work out, that it would be okay. He clearly wasn't looking at anything but the math; but that's like the creation of the atomic bomb… sure they could do, but what were the implications if they did.

On paper the math worked, and Erick was right, Dennis could win and he could end up in second; but in the end, that kind of deal making and the way the whole day went with complaints about getting tag teamed by a single meta at multiple tables, may have crossed the line from being competitive to creating the kind precident that FFG did not want to see move forward, and so they set their own.

That being said, I don't blame Erick completely; FFG shares some fault here.. they created the multiplayer game and encouraged interaction between players that other card games stir clear of like the plague.

The only other thing they could do to stop collusion in its tracks is to kill their stance on interaction in the game; no conversations beyond the normal announcing of actions and challenges, and gameplay related effects. They won't do that because they are to invested and in love with the idea of player interaction and wanting to make it as true to the spirit of the source material as possible.

The problem is, you can't have your cake and eat it too; yet they try.

Less we forget, the company and the players are not equals. Just like at your job, your boss is still your boss and you do what he says; so too here. FFG is in charge, they make the rulese, and they enforce them as they see fit. You can like that or leave that, those are your options.

If the grey area of collusion rules makes you not want to play competitve melee, by all means don't play. I for one wouldn't shed a tear.

There are plenty of people, many of whom don't play already because of the antics of players like these, that may be willing to give it another shot if they knew that dealing with ultra-competitive players, who will do whatever it takes to win, have been put on notice.

Shikaku said:

Let's see - this deck got three people to the final table of the world championships in melee. I will use that as my reasoning to refute your point…

What is your statement based on?

Just run Burning bridges like i did in gencon (only play it when it's useful…..not like i did in gencon xD)

1. I certainly feel that in the wake of this ruling, metamates would be prudent to play diverse decks. I can't imagine why that state of affairs wouldn't be exactly the desired environment for a melee tournament.

2. I don't think it's reasonable to say that FFG should have DQ'd them sooner than they did. If a broken combo is smuggled into the tournament, if a winning deck becomes an unstoppable juggernaut in an environment with more copies of itself, then naturally this would only become apparent as the relative frequency of that combo increased. I can plausibly imagine it would have to get to a 3 v 1 situation to reach the tipping point; even at 2v2 the other opponents could try and ally to stop the other team, or at least prevent both of them from being shut out completely. (I'm also skeptical of the notion that such deck interactions were of only minor note to those bringing the decks. They had to know that a winning combo would keep winning, and the more it won, the more likelihood it would recur.)

3. I also think that if you know that combo exists and you're more likely to see it the longer the tournament goes on, then you've crossed the line. You're supposed to build the best deck, all things being equal. What Erick convinced his teammates to do was to take steps to ensure that all things wouldn't be equal--at that point one isn't competing honestly, even if one protests a willingness to defeat a teammate at any given point.

And I really don't want to overstate things either, I just think it was a good ruling. I like Dennis a lot from the interactions I've had with them, and I haven't seen very much drama-mongering in the wake of the ruling. I see a lot of people talking openly and honestly and I'm thrilled to be part of a community of mature players.

Yes, I think they had to know that it would give them an edge, and a competitive advantage. I don't think they looked at it as working together as such, they just erred in their judgment of just what the first principles were, or perhaps they didn't expect that an advantageous combo would become so broken it made them look bad. I hope the discussions yield an ever-improving tournament environment, because I'm getting to the point where I am going to start dipping my toes in, and I want my future experiences to enjoy the benefits of learning experiences like this one.

papalorax said:

papalorax said:

Not only that, this deck won a first round table on turn two against two brothers who openly said they were working together.

A good comparison for this deck is to an arsenal of nuclear weapons. As Dennis mentioned in his report, during testing there were many decks with locations that kneel during challenges and could combo off the engineer and scourge. What happens when one country has a stockpile of nukes? They control international relations, just like this deck controls the flow of a game, stripping icons, discarding cards with house dayne skirmisher, removing characters from challenges, canceling responses, and trading titles with myrcella.

Once one has a stockpile, everyone else wants it too. That's why the whole DC meta wanted to play this deck. It was a clear winner. To extend the nuclear weapon analogy, when two of these decks are at a table it's a cold war of mutually assured destruction. The card interactions force the best interest to be to strip the other two for uo power, then wait until you can afford to try to backstab the other person and take the win. You have to do it at the last minute and without your scourge, or you lose all your icons too.

Someone asked why some players didn't go with a different deck and add tech against this one. The best defense against a stockpile of nukes is to have your own. As far as I can tell, Star Wars cards aren't legal in a thrones tournament, even if FFG blew us away with possibly their best tournament support ever by giving free copies to pre-registrants.

Having a card like engineer is a great advantage in Melee…with or without teammates. It makes you a desirable friend to help someone out…it's why cards like building season are popular in melee and terrible in Joust. In melee you can generally get something for trading with someone…if you have a deck that has nothing to offer then you are not going to be making any deals.

Read Dennis' TR - The deck was great without friends. This isn't about the deck, it's about a perception that FFG brought to the tournament concerning these guys and they saw enough during the final to make them think their concerns were valid. Three strangers would not have been DQ'd for the exact same behavior.

Frankly FFG made the wrong decision in 2011 GenCon melee. They had the choice to celebrat Corey and Erick achieving the ultimate in teamwork, deal making, back stabbing, etc…or they could demonize it and say it has no place in their game. They made the wrong choice. They choose to go down the road of an policy that will be impossible to be equally enforced hoping people would act different…now they have this mess.

If nothing else, this decision by FFG will spawn something good as long as they are attentive to the community and the effect it is having on it, LoL.

Whether or not there was collusion at the final table, FFG felt there was justification to apply their authoritative powers aimed at preventing collusion and maintaining the integrity of the competitive environment.

If their thinking was, "This looks like collusion. It smells like collusion. This is undermining the competitive integrity of the game. This kind of play is unsportsmanlike." then is the disqualification not justifiable?

papalorax said:

I have to admit, I was surprised when FFG decided to try and regulate collusion. I figured Melee tournaments would always be a game of collusion, backstabbing, deal making, etc both inside and outside the actual game play.

@Papalorax

"Frankly FFG made the wrong decision in 2011 GenCon melee. They had the choice to celebrat[e] Corey and Erick achieving the ultimate in teamwork, deal making, back stabbing, etc…or they could demonize it and say it has no place in their game. They made the wrong choice. They choose to go down the road of an policy that will be impossible to be equally enforced hoping people would act different…now they have this mess."

Were you less likely to play in a competitive melee because of the decision last year?

Was the majority of the player base more or less likely to play in a competitive melee because of that same decision?

Same questions for this year's decision.

remember when melee was supposed to be _THE_ format and joust was just an after thought?

Remember when Melee was a viable format for competitive play? Me neither.