Anyone got any intell on the tournament rules?

We are discussing the following in our group:

Each player plays one "match" per round against a single opponent. Match: 2 "games: 1 DS and LS.

During the match, 3 points are up for grabs, 1 point for winning a game. If both players win a game each, to avoid a tie breaker, the extra points goes to the player with the best for and against.

For and against (as posted by another player on this forum):

LS win - (# of DS objective the LS destroyed x 4) - Death Star Dial

DS win - Death Star Dial - (# of DS objective the LS destroyed x 4)

Tournament played in swiss format - 3 rounds for 8 players or less.

Thoughts?

I understand the set up, the question I have is why not make it just 3 games 1 pt a win each and for the third game to choose which side people are on flip a coin. Simple enough.

Denied said:

Fair question. Some players in my particular group believes that one side has an advantage at the moment and that the 3rd game is disadvantage to one player.

Yes people think Dark Side has an advantage, which I think is hilarious. I know why they feel this way because you just need to stall the other player, but I disagree I have been playing since I got my copy from the FFG World Championship event and I have yet to loose as light side.

Denied said:

Yep they think the DS has an advantage however, I have yet to win a game with the DS (Ive only played with Sith).

But on the tournament note, regardless of advantages, no one wants to play the same player 3 times, hence the for and against.

Roman_Sandal said:

You realize that many CCGs, particularly Magic, follow a best of three format? If I remember correctly so did the older Star Wars card games. In fact most games that feature a reasonable short play time follow a best of three format.

Your suggestion has a few major issues.

First, it is needlessly complex

Second, it is meta defining. Under any type of frequently used tie breaker system you'd come to invalidate many decks. It isn't enough for a deck to win, it has to win with a good score to be viable. This would further narrow competetive play.

Lastly, it leads to a false game state. Under that system many times a player wouldn't be playing to win, they'd be playing to lose by a small enough margin as to win the round. This would lead to a many a false situation where the game is not really being played because the tournament rules force a different game to be played. It also means that one bad openning draw could mean a round loss. If you have a bad start one game and get trounced you are then going to lose unless the same thing happens in reverse so you can even the score. A bad start is bad enough as it costs you a game, but under such rules it be even worse,

Thanks for the feedback mate. The original star wars was just rock up with both decks and you played one game per round in a swiss format. I actually dont mind the idea with this version but the main complaint has been that you could play all your games with the same side.

To me the best system, and the one I will use until I hear otherwise is playing best of 1 in which you play half your games as ls and half as ds. While the games are somewhat fast I don't think 3 in an hour will be viable. However, once we cut to top 4 I'm thinking best of three with the higher seed choosing his color if it's a tie after the first two. If the games are as fast as I think they are, 8 4o minute Swiss rounds might be viable.

I'm a long time Star Wars card game player and play tester for this game ( althought an older version then what came out ) I loved the tourney rules used in the Star Wars TCG game by wizards of the coast.

Star Wars TCG:

Each player would build a 60 card light and dark side deck. They would roll off to see who started the bidding. Each player would normally start with 30 build points but they would bid away some in order to get th e deck they want. Ie I would bid 29 dark side. Then if my opponent wanted to play dark side they would bid 28 dark. You continue in that way until someone folds. You play a round and then after one game the loser gets to start the bidding for the next hand. Best of three.

This model could be adopted to Star Wars lcg by bidding starting hand size or number of focus points that they must start with or something. That way if someone really wants to play one of the other they have to pay for it, hence hedging their hypothetical advantage.

Also if people think light or dark is better that will constantly change with new sets. It's the Meta game. I will also change just basted off the group you play with.

Tournaments will most likely be like Netrunner, play as both sides during a match.

Toqtamish said:

I think its very interesting the LS vrs DS who is better (i know this is off topic) but i have struggled with LS, and never had a problem stomping faces in as DS (sith) won about 90% dark won about 30% light. I think after getting about 20 games in that LS and Dark are balanced, if you top deck what you need your gunna pull it off…. But LS can require you to play a bit smarter, and if your oponent can nullify your attacks and keep the force for a turn or two, its a very uphill battle. Rebel i think is better at the uphill battle, as they can nuke objectives with rebel assult and combo 1 objective with the wookie. In the end struggling to gain footing as LS can be frustrating as you are fighting a player and the clock, struggling to win as DS seems more fun.

I think back to all my time trials on Mario Kart 1, not fun.

Magni

as for turnys its for sure to be best of 3.

As Toqtamish said, precident from Android: Netrunner suggests that matches are 2 games, 1 as each side, with ties decided by margin of victory.

D.Knight Sevus said:

which is the system the op suggested

aussiecossie said:

Which as I stated with this game would bottleneck competetive play further then it needs to be and lead to bastardized games.

ScottieATF said:

There is no reason to believe that any more than that happens in Netrunner.

Sorthlador said:

That's an interesting idea. Though I feel that having a permanently reduced reserve would be far more crippling than the loss of a few build points were in SWTCG tournaments. Resource exhaustion sounds like the far better option, or perhaps a smaller reserve that is raised to its printed value on the player's second turn.

Toqtamish said:

I don't know enough about Netrunner to say it does or does not happen to any degree.

But at a cursory glance then constant need for tiebreakers renders a card like Trench Run to be an almost unplayable liability. Already it has it's up and down sides. Losing objective targeting cards for instance in order to lower the overall damage required to win the game. With anything like to proposed tiebreaker the number of situations where Trench Run would see play reaches near zero. You can't afford to not kill objectives in that type of tournament system. That is just the first thing off the top of my head.

ScottieATF said:

Re: trench run

if LS loses we have done 12 - the amount of damage done to the death star dial.

I honestly can't see why we can't have a tied scenario. You either win 2-0 or you draw 1-1 and leave differential out of it. It seems too hard to me to come up with a fair differential system that caters for special game winning strategies like trench run and any others that may be included in future expansions.

ScottieATF said:

The tiebreaker could be measured in terms of distance from each side's win conditions, or alternate win conditions if applicable. In cases where there were multiple win conditions in play (including the built-in win condition), only the closest one to being achieved would be counted. For example, in a situation where Trench Run is in effect and there are five damage counters on the Death Star dial, the LS would be treated as being 5 points away from achieving victory. If there were six or more damage counters on The Heart of the Empire, LS would be 4 points away, and the damage on the Death Star dial would be ignored. This way, putting a card like Trench Run into play immediately strengthens the LS in terms of tiebreaking, while running The Heart of the Empire as DS carries a similar risk.

We had this conversation in our local store today.

My take until oficial rules:

Make 2 teams, LS and DS and make swiss style rounds matching the best LS players with the best DS players. then go to a top4/8/16 (2/4/8 DS & 2/4/8 LS) to have a final LS vs DS epic match. The problem is with the team distribution. Random with the posibility of change if you find a player willing to change maybe? that way you have to make both decks but play only one side.

Maybe the winner can be knighted (or the proper starwar title) and has the option to choose side in subsequent tourneys

In our store we may or may not put a "trophy board" so the winner side can brag.

My plan for any events until official rules are released: each player brings a LS and a DS deck. Run tournament in the same way as current SWCCG tournaments are run (modified swiss with SOS for tie breaking). SWCCG has been handling the dual deck trick for years, might as well use the system that has been proven to work.

Since the game is so short, I guess having multiple games in a match wouldn't be the worst thing. But how do players determine who plays which side during a tiebreaker game?