[VictoryIsLife]

Hi everyone! For those who don't know me, my name is Chris and I've been active in the tournament scene online/offline since I returned to 1e (arguably my first love) early in 2023, after about 20 years playing in other CCG/LCG competitive scenes. This might be my second post on these forums.

I had a great time at Worlds, I enjoy hanging out with the people I've met at events, and I love the game. However, I have some feedback for the CC on how tournaments are scored, and am going to pose an argument here that a minor tweak to tournament scoring would be beneficial to the tournament circuit, meta, and the increasing participation.

I was unfamiliar with @HossDrone's thread until this morning when I came to write this (link below). I largely agree with his concerns, especially a declining tournament player base, but I have a different take on how to fix them (see viewtopic.php?f=24&t=50053). *Let's try to keep comments related to his unrelated concerns in that thread to avoid degenerating into unrelated tangents, but I wanted to make my support and that I had read the thread known.

Within HossDrone's thread Ben Deauber's early comment is relevant to my proposal, so I thought I would quote it here for reference:

I had some additional thoughts and actually logged on to start this very thread, so I'm going to piggy-back some of my observations:

1. It's a mod, mod, mod, mod world. The overwhelming number of games were mod victories. I suppose this is partly the result of nerfing AMS, but I don't think it's a bad thing. You could also look at it as playing the maximum amount of Star Trek: CCG possible. For me, anyway, it also meant I was in most games for the duration rather than just riding out the time once I'd clearly lost.

My proposal is that we consider (and test) changing the tournament scoring to remove the Mod-win. All wins would be 4 points, mod-losses would still be 1 point. Losses to an opponent that reached a full-win would still be worth 0 (Full-loss). Strength of schedule as the first tiebreaker, differential second. I am a big fan of SoS from other games, reflecting the calibre of one’s opponents in results is fair and balancing. (I could be convinced to swap SoS and differential’s order, it’s really a secondary aspect of this proposal).

First up, I did the preliminary math on how this change would affect 1e results. The people who came in 1-5/6ish wouldn't move much if at all, but the 7-10 spots would be rearranged. For complete disclosure, I went 3MW and 2 ML and came in 9th. I didn't feel that the final placement was reflective of how I actually did. I don't play speed solvers, I play hybrids. My decks try to get 100 in time, but I also want to stop my opponent from beating me. I don't play decks that win 5-0 and don't solve missions. I'm not advocating for changes that would catapult degenerate 5-0 decks into the fore and distort the meta (discussions on this topic over the weekend seemed to make out that that's what my proposed changes would achieve).

Advocates for keeping the MW argue that you don't deserve a FW if you can't get to 100, I heard one person say "The game is about getting to 100". As far as I am concerned, 100 (unless you need 140 etc) grants the benefit of an INSTANT win. 100 was also devised before all of the rich themes that make up our game were introduced. 100 does not factor in time limits, or that an opponent's deck and play (style/speed) have a massive effect on whether you will be able to achieve 100 in time. "100 in time" is therefore a meta-defining variable (speed-solvers are king) that many of the old-guard take as gospel, an unalterable principle of 1e. I don't believe that it has to be the case.

People enjoy playing decks that will MW over FW the majority of the time. People also don't like it when their opponent's choices turn a potential FW into a MW. Why are we punishing MWs for playing interesting themes, or due to their opponent? A win is a win. The complaints about Aggro-Borg, Tall decks, etc burning clock are diminished if people don’t need to get 100 against them in time (See HossDrone’s thread for more on this discussion).

The ML makes sense though: give a player a point if they have staying power. As a Canadian I'll use a NHL hockey comparison. A few years ago the league decided to change the overtime rules. Winning in regulation or overtime would be a "Win" - full points. Losing in OT however, would be granted a single point, credit where due. This replaced the old "tie" point from years prior. Some resisted, but in the end it has been a good change. Standings reflect it. Effort and play have been rewarded.

The emotional vibe of players will be better for these changes. Nobody will be salty because they received a MW. MLs still reflect that you've done your job to keep the game tight. We can't get rid of time limits, games need to end and tournaments do too. The only way to work around the time constraints is to manage how we score.

I have heard that speeding up the game will reduce the number of MWs. Speeding up the game is a much more difficult fix than embracing that the game is dynamic. If we adopt this change to scoring, it might even be possible to consider reducing time limits to 60 minutes from 75 - as there will be less pressure to hit 100 every time if you want to do well. People who like tournaments want to do well!

Some have argued for deck size limits, maybe there is a case there. However, I think that changing the scoring as I’ve suggested would alleviate a lot of the grief around those decks which run over 100 cards and download on both players’ turns (James Heaney, @BCSWowbagger already did some quality analysis on the time effects of large decks and gave suggestions for playing them respectfully here: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=50053&start=30). Changing the scoring seems like a more elegant way to affect change than imposing hard deck size limits.

We need to grow the game or it will die, and growing the tournament scene is a core component of that. That was the core of HossDrone’s post. Length of game is a complaint, but the non-viability of many deck types is a larger barrier to participation. I define viable as able to make the cut at a large event. We could move a number of ‘casual’ players across to tournaments (online and offline) if more types of play are viable. Parallel games of solitaire are not the majority’s idea of fun. Opponent’s actions preventing you from necessary FW points is the definition of NPE (negative play experience).

This is the ONLY variable I am proposing we change at this time. I need to reiterate this because conversations around the topic at Worlds over the weekend quickly devolved and I felt at times that others thought I was proposing things that I was not.

Looking forward to everyone’s feedback.

[abargar7510]

Thanks for the well thought out and articulated thread. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself and hope many others do the same thing you did. There are lots of us out there trying to get playgroups going and sustained that could use all the daring new players we can get!

Have you thought about the effect that your proposal would have on aggro/lockout decks and/or decks that are designed not to meet any win conditions? For example, recently, I was playing a test game against someone who came and blew up my only reporting location. It took them about 45 minutes to set everything up to be able to do so. They asked me if I wanted to resign. I said "no because I don't think you can actually pass my dilemma combos with the time left."

I have other examples in more open-type formats where the mod win gave me the incentive to keep playing against certain lockout strategies to try and a force double-deckout type of endgame.

In other words, do you think that the mod win could provide insurance against players who otherwise would pursue strategies that could lead to negative play experiences? If so, how would your proposal fill that role that it is currently playing in that regard?

[BCSWowbagger]

As I get older, I become more and more keenly aware that a key reason it's hard to run a 1E event is the round length: 75 minutes, not hands-down, plus very long final turns, means that, as a practical matter, a T.D. must plan on every round lasting 90 minutes. This makes every tournament feel like a marathon by the end, especially a championship-level event like Worlds or NACC. (I don't know how many rounds Worlds Day 1 was, but NACC went 5 rounds without a meal break, it still went way past the store's official closing time, and I've never felt so destroyed after playing cards as I did by the end of that night.)

I am therefore very intrigued by the suggestion that eliminating the Mod Win could make it possible to dial back the time limit to 60 minutes.

That's all. I don't have a well-formed view on tournament scoring (and never have), and I might be overlooking any number of incentives, positive or perverse, that would emerge from this change. Slaby probably already thought of three ways to abuse it, one of them game-breaking. But it's an intriguing idea and I'll be thinking about it.

It is probably worth noting in passing that today's tournament scoring system evolved at a time when bonus points fully counted toward win conditions. Therefore, decks that never solved any missions but could score a few bonus points while locking out opponent could still win. As I understand it, that dynamic is what led to the division between MW and FW. (I'll look into the early OPGs from Decipher days to try and trace this evolution, if I have time.) That dynamic is mostly gone, though, because Intermix Ratio is now a rule.

OPG question: if a single tournament changed its scoring rules to follow WeAreBack's proposal (as a test), would the tournament still be sanctioned?

[abargar7510]

That dynamic is mostly gone, though, because Intermix Ratio is now a rule.

I think we need to remember that any changes to tournament scoring would apply across all formats, including those where Intermix Ratio is not a rule. Mod wins were also the only sliver of hope any of us who had the misfortune to face Static Warp Bubble decks in this year's online sealed event had.

[Takket]

I can’t post too intellectually on this as I’m laying in bed falling asleep but....

@ptfi

This seems like a perfect scenario for this:

viewtopic.php?f=57&t=48654

[PantsOfTheTalShiar]

First, glad you enjoyed Worlds!

Second, a point of order:

My proposal is that we consider (and test) changing the tournament scoring to remove the Mod-win. All wins would be 4 points, mod-losses would still be 1 point. Losses to an opponent that reached a full-win would still be worth 0 (Full-loss). Strength of schedule as the first tiebreaker, differential second. I am a big fan of SoS from other games, reflecting the calibre of one’s opponents in results is fair and balancing. (I could be convinced to swap SoS and differential’s order, it’s really a secondary aspect of this proposal).

Currently, BOTH full losses and mod losses earn one victory point. It's an interesting idea to make mod losses count more, and I'll have to think more about its implications.

The topic of what kinds of decks the CC wants to encourage and should encourage is a big can of worms that I will avoid for now. I will just note that the current system doesn't actually discourage "degenerate" all-mod-win decks that much.

* Mod winning every game will still do well enough to make Day 2 of Worlds.
* 3 MW are guaranteed to win a 4 person tournament.
* I haven't calculated every possible scenario, but 3 MWs still has a good chance to win a 3-round tournament with 5-8 players.
* The disadvantage of a MW is less significant when MWs are pretty common among non-degenerate decks.
* In NACC, the MW-only deck was a (checks notes) 3-homeworld solver that lost out to Borg.
* This system does nothing to discourage decks that make their opponent want to concede -- unless the opponent feels obligated to play out a game they can't win, simply to spite their opponent. It's not good to have a system that relies on players hate-playing the game.

[Gul Dakar]

I can’t post too intellectually on this as I’m laying in bed falling asleep but....

@ptfi

This seems like a perfect scenario for this:

viewtopic.php?f=57&t=48654

That was also my first thought about this.

I also agree what @BCSWowbagger said: playing 5 rounds is absolutely exhausting. I only played 3 at european continentals and felt terrible after that.

I dont know If eliminating MW does give an Advantage to Battle Decks though.

[Rachmaninoff]

Hi Chris! Welcome to the boards, and thanks for an interesting and well-reasoned proposal.

Like the others, my first concern is increasing the power of lockout decks that can focus all their resources on disruption without having to worry about getting to 100 themselves. Even if you wouldn't play decks that go 5-0 and out, others would and it would distort the metagame.

Early in my tournament career I played a stasis deck (10 Space, Black Hole, Anti-Time Anomaly, Rogue Borg etc) with a very slim win condition involving just a few cards and not solving any missions; pretty much the definition of an NPE from the modern perspective, and it very possibly turned off a new tournament player from coming back

(I'm sorry! I was 15 and wanted the T-shirt you got from winning a tournament!)

. I went undefeated, even against 2 of the 3 highest-ranked players in the world that day, but only came in 2nd place due to mod wins -- which at the time was a strong disincentive for me to keep playing such a deck (

or at least to build one better at scoring points

).

I note in passing that in the Decipher era, a MW was *more* heavily penalized than today (FW/bye = 2 points, MW/tie = 1 point, loss = 0).

More recently, some tournaments have used an elimination bracket for the final rounds. This is a format where any win, mod or not, leads you to advance. Read the deck notes for Jason Drake's 2014 Worlds deck to see how this format affected his deckbuilding. He didn't play lockout himself, but played a heavily defensive deck anticipating such a meta, and left us detailed notes outlining his thought process about playing in such a format. We can look to elimination brackets in the CC era for some modern data points.

So this is the "Chesterton's fence" argument for why MWs are worth less: it's a guardrail against decks that focus too much on disruption and not enough on scoring their own points. But as you said, there are decent arguments in favor of eliminating MWs, and one of them is increasing deck diversity (which could be a positive spin on removing that guardrail). I'd also be interested in seeing how it affects the meta in some demo tournaments. If it engages more players it would be a clear win.

[The Ninja Scot]

* In NACC, the MW-only deck was a (checks notes) 3-homeworld solver that lost out to Borg.

Actually, my deck got Mod Wins against all three Borg players and a MW against Romulans due to losing almost everyone in play to V'ger. I didn't lose to Borg.

Michael

[BCSWowbagger]

I note in passing that in the Decipher era, a MW was *more* heavily penalized than today (FW/bye = 2 points, MW/tie = 1 point, loss = 0)

Mmm, I note in passing that this is a good historical fact to note in passing.

[jadziadax8]

I note in passing that in the Decipher era, a MW was *more* heavily penalized than today (FW/bye = 2 points, MW/tie = 1 point, loss = 0)

Mmm, I note in passing that this is a good historical fact to note in passing.

Is it bad that my first thought when reading this factoid was, "Hmmm, easier biermeister."

[Johannes Mette]

I note in passing that in the Decipher era, a MW was *more* heavily penalized than today (FW/bye = 2 points, MW/tie = 1 point, loss = 0)

Mmm, I note in passing that this is a good historical fact to note in passing.

Is it bad that my first thought when reading this factoid was, "Hmmm, easier biermeister."

this is the wrong way

[Dukat]

What a weird result table ...

How come no one seemed to prepare for a TOS speed solver?


The entire deck had only three ships and they were weak.
Did no one attack with something?

There was just one single outpost without protection in the deck.
Did no one attack it?


I REALLY look forward to Worlds next year, when American playstyle meets European playstyle ...

[geraldkw]

What a weird result table ...

How come no one seemed to prepare for a TOS speed solver?


The entire deck had only three ships and they were weak.
Did no one attack with something?

There was just one single outpost without protection in the deck.
Did no one attack it?


I REALLY look forward to Worlds next year, when American playstyle meets European playstyle ...

Personally I was surprised to see a TOS deck at all based on not seeing them in an online tournaments or noticing any of them doing well in other tournaments that I have looked at the results of. I think maybe a lot of folks fell in this same boat and underestimated the deck (though underestimating the player is on them, we know Michael is going to play well with whatever deck and will win if you can't slow him down or win first)

[Dukat]

That is the point ...

MVB is a proficient and skilled player who does very well with solver decks.

It is beyond me, why no one prepared for fast solvers.
They have always been and will always be something you have to expect at a high level event.

So obviously, no one prepared for that contigency.
And that I do not understand.