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[theory]

The Ten Official Rules

1. Registration will close in one week, on Sunday, November 27 at 11:59:59PM EST.

2. Dominion Strategy ("We", "us", "our") will make every effort to accommodate all registrations.  But we reserve the right to cut off registration after a certain number if necessary, and to deregister any player suspected of registering under multiple names.  People associated with Dominion Strategy (namely, theory and rrenaud) are not permitted to enter.

3. To register, you must post in <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1017.0">this forum topic</a>, stating both your time zone and Isotropic username.

4. Players will be seeded into a single-elimination bracket.  Seeds will be determined by <a href="http://dominion.isotropic.org/leaderboard">Isotropic rankings</a> on a date of our choice.  Any player who does not appear on the Isotropic leaderboard will receive either an appropriate seed based on past Isotropic leaderboard rankings, or be unseeded.

5. Every game will be a 2-player game and must be played on <a href="http://dominion.isotropic.org">Isotropic</a>.  Each round will last for one week.  The first round begins on Monday, November 28 and ends on Sunday, December 4.

6. Each match will be first to four wins (ties do not count).  Players may, upon mutual consent, agree to play under any constraints they wish (e.g., with/without veto mode, sets limited to a particular expansion, with/without point counter).  If the players are unable to reach an agreement, they shall play with randomly selected cards (excluding any fan-made cards), no veto mode, identical starting hands, and the official point counter.  (Although we understand the objections to point counters, we have no choice but to permit their use because we simply cannot effectively enforce otherwise.)

7. The most recent losing player should go first in the next game; Isotropic should automatically give starting position to the person who most recently lost.  If the match has already been completed, however, failure to alternate starting positions is not grounds to dispute the match result.  First player in the first game of the match is randomly determined.

8. Players are expected to arrange convenient times to play with their opponents.  In the event of a dispute, players can provide evidence of their presence on Isotropic at the agreed-upon time by linking to an Isotropic or <a href="http://councilroom.com">CouncilRoom</a> log of themselves playing a solitaire game at that time.  If neither player submits such evidence, both will forfeit.

9. Results must be posted in <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1018.0">this forum topic</a> with links to Isotropic or <a href="http://councilroom.com">CouncilRoom</a> logs.  We greatly encourage players to review their games and discuss the match in the topic.

10. The winner of the tournament will receive a copy of Dominion: Hinterlands.

[glasser]

7. Players shall alternate starting position throughout the match; Isotropic should automatically give starting position to the person who most recently lost.  If the match has already been completed, however, failure to alternate starting positions is not grounds to dispute the match result.

I don't understand what this means; it appears to be two conflicting statements. Let's say I am player 1 and I lose.  "Players shall alternate starting position throughout the max" implies I should play second next game; "Isotropic should automatically give starting position to the person who most recently lost" (and my understanding of Isotropic's behavior / the rulebook) implies that I should play first next game (assuming we play the next game of the match immediately). Which should we try to make happen?

[theory]

My mistake.  I meant to write that loser goes first, but somehow it got turned into something else entirely.

[painted_cow]

Would be cool, when theory and rrenaud would also play in this tournament :-) Apart from the first pairings or matchups you dont have any advantages?

[Mean Mr Mustard]

I agree with cow.  I see no conflict of interest.  If this is a best of the best tourney than two of our best should play.

[Geronimoo]

They need to decide on the Kingdoms for the final.

[theory]

What Geronimoo said.  Plus, we can't award prizes to ourselves.

[Rabid]

First player in the first game of the match is randomly determined.

Above is kind of hard to enforce on iso I think.
Is there any way to tell if your opponent won or lost there last game before you start?

Also, who goes first after a draw?

[theory]

You can always just both log out and in.  If you really don't trust your opponent, you can play an unrated game, have one person resign immediately, and have the other log out and back in.

[popsofctown]

Im so confused.  Why can't you just both log out and back in?  I watch your name disappear from isotropic.  You come back.  You watch my name disappear from isotropic. I come back.  Isn't that easiest?

[papaHav]

What if shipping the prize costs more than the prize itself =[

- Sydneysider

[theory]

UPDATE: We're going to cap this tournament at 256 entrants.  Not in my wildest dreams did I think we were going to reach this number, but I simply cannot imagine running a tournament bigger than 256.

[Thisisnotasmile]

What if shipping the prize costs more than the prize itself =[

- Sydneysider

If I won (which I won't) I wouldn't expect theory to send me a package from the US to the UK. I'd just find a copy of the game on a local website and get him to order it to my address from there. I doubt the prizes have already been bought.

[theory]

What if shipping the prize costs more than the prize itself =[

- Sydneysider

If I won (which I won't) I wouldn't expect theory to send me a package from the US to the UK. I'd just find a copy of the game on a local website and get him to order it to my address from there. I doubt the prizes have already been bought.

This sounds fair.  We're happy to work out any arrangement necessary.

(By the way, if you DO win, I might just hand-deliver your prize, since I'll be in the UK for work for a couple months ...)

[painted_cow]

It looks, that this tournament is a really good idea, seeing that many players to participate. This also should push this forum a little bit with that many new accounts.

On the other hand I have to ask myself: Is a single elimination mode really appropriate with 256 (+) players? What about double elimination with Loser Brackets or Group Phases? Just my two cents about it.

[theory]

It looks, that this tournament is a really good idea, seeing that many players to participate. This also should push this forum a little bit with that many new accounts.

On the other hand I have to ask myself: Is a single elimination mode really appropriate with 256 (+) players? What about double elimination with Loser Brackets or Group Phases? Just my two cents about it.

I'd love to do double elimination, but that's much more practical with a smaller bracket than a 256 player bracket.

Besides, there's only a prize for first place.

[16hp]

The tournament rules do not mention anything about if the games should be with identical starting hands or not. Does that mean identical starting hands won't be used if an agreement can't be reached?

I would prefer that identical starting hands were enforced in order to reward skill rather than luck.

[theory]

The tournament rules do not mention anything about if the games should be with identical starting hands or not. Does that mean identical starting hands won't be used if an agreement can't be reached?

I would prefer that identical starting hands were enforced in order to reward skill rather than luck.

Done.  Identical starting hands are a default rule -- but this can be changed by the players if desired!

[Reyk]

Done.  Identical starting hands are a default rule -- but this can be changed by the players if desired!

That's a shame. You might get screwed by different starting hands sometimes, but not so often I guess. In a best of 4 skill will still prevail.
I'm very much convinced that some very interesting games with diverse strategies are the result of different starting hands, at least partly. I don't like this rule change, especially considering the kingdom design challenge. I understand why you have to allow point counter (it's simply not controllable), but this seems to be unnecessary.

Anyway I don't have to complain, because I don't even take part in the tournament (I've thought about kingdom design though). I've decided that I'm too busy this time and didn't want to risk a forfeit loss. I really like the tournament ideas - thank you, for organizing. Just wanted to point out the identical starting hand issue for future events. But like point counters this will cause many different opinions I guess ;-)

Good luck to all players!

PS: I understand that you can't design a kingdom speculating on certain starting hands - but the resulting games might become even more interesting if different starting hands appear.

[theory]

I think you're right that it lowers the interestingness of a game, but on the other hand, in a 7-game match, you'd expect around one or two instances where someone starts 5/2 and the other doesn't.  I'd hate for a top seed to get knocked out early on by Mountebank/Chapel.

For the finals, if our sets don't end up supremely favoring 5/2 over 4/3, we might scrap this rule.  But for now, I'll take slightly less interesting games in exchange for a little less luck. 

(If I had my way, we'd enforce identical splits through turns 3-5 as well, but c'est la vie ...)

[toaster]

I can understand the point counter rule because there's no way to enforce otherwise, but this start split rule is just moving away from the rules of Dominion out of personal preference.  I think the variation adds a lot to the game, it's part of the rules, and with 4 wins needed to win a match, it's very unlikely to "knock a top seed out early".  Luck is a part of the game, and a 7 game series should be plenty to deal with the few cases where different starting hands is a strongly determining factor in a game.

[greatexpectations]

I can understand the point counter rule because there's no way to enforce otherwise, but this start split rule is just moving away from the rules of Dominion out of personal preference.  I think the variation adds a lot to the game, it's part of the rules, and with 4 wins needed to win a match, it's very unlikely to "knock a top seed out early".  Luck is a part of the game, and a 7 game series should be plenty to deal with the few cases where different starting hands is a strongly determining factor in a game.

moving away from the rules of dominion?  that is a bit extreme.  this change only will only affect half of the games played (arguably 3/4) and is only a small deviation from the original rules. not only that, the rule is explicitly for the purpose of ensuring a more balanced tournament. it is not a matter of personal preference, and the ones making the rules have no vested interests that they are catering to here.

and fwiw (allowing for random openings) probability would indicate that 1 person in the tournaments first round will get four straight games of a 5/2 open to an opponents 4/3. im going to go out on a limb and bet the people on the receiving end of that kind of luck would favor the identicial opening hands. as it is, there is sure to plenty of lamenting over luck in the match reports.

edit: my quick maths are all a bit off

[Fabian]

moving away from the rules of dominion?

is only a small deviation from the original rules.

Not really sure what's going on here, but I don't think I understand your post since you seem to be agreeing that using identical starting hands is moving away from the rules. It also seems theory is specifically saying he's catering to a group of players, namely the top seeds, with this decision.

Anyway I don't think it's a huge deal I guess, but I'm firmly in favor of allowing 5/2 vs 4/3 splits, both in regular play and in this tournament. I'm a top seed too, so supposedly I shouldn't be. Oh well

[toaster]

moving away from the rules of dominion?  that is a bit extreme.  this change only will only affect half of the games played (arguably 3/4) and is only a small deviation from the original rules. not only that, the rule is explicitly for the purpose of ensuring a more balanced tournament. it is not a matter of personal preference, and the ones making the rules have no vested interests that they are catering to here.

Well, based on theory's posts, I know that he has a dislike of the more random elements in Dominion: he favors layouts, cards, and rule sets which minimize the influence of luck.  I don't think his decision is coming from maliciousness or a desire for personal gain, of course not.  I do, however, think the ruling is colored by his own personal preferences for minimizing luck in Dominion.  Also, fwiw this change will affect about a third of games (the probably of one 5/2 split and one 4/3 split in a game is 10/36).

and fwiw (allowing for random openings) probability would indicate that 1 person in the tournaments first round will get four straight games of a 5/2 open to an opponents 4/3. im going to go out on a limb and bet the people on the receiving end of that kind of luck would favor the identicial opening hands. as it is, there is sure to plenty of lamenting over luck in the match reports.

Yep, that's bound to happen, although I'd also point out that there's a 50% chance that person you gets the 4/3 splits is the lower ranked player, plus 5/2 isn't always the better split.  Dominion, however, is not chess.  The presence of luck does not make skill-based tournaments unworkable, just look at poker.  I know there are many people who wish Dominion had less luck than it does, but there are also those who would probably want more.  I just think the tournament should be done with the rules as written, not modified by personal taste.

[Kirian]

I can understand the point counter rule because there's no way to enforce otherwise, but this start split rule is just moving away from the rules of Dominion out of pure personal preference.  I think the variation adds a lot to the game, it's part of the rules, and with 4 wins needed to win a match, it's very unlikely to "knock a top seed out early".  Luck is a part of the game, and a 7 game series should be plenty to deal with the few cases where different starting hands is a strongly determining factor in a game.

We discussed this for several weeks when the BGG Dominion League still existed (essentially, before the advent of the leaderboard).  Though those were best-of-three matches, there was widespread agreement that identical starting hands were the way to go for competition.

The thing is, the 5/2 vs. 4/3 split does not make the game more interesting in most circumstances.  On some boards, one or the other split is vastly superior; in the great majority of cases this advantage is much higher than the first-player advantage.  The outcome of one person opening Witch/Chapel vs. 4/Chapel (or Silver/Chapel) is determined (90% is a good estimate) at the start of the game; so is the advantage of someone opening Double Ambassador (or Amb/Silver) vs. a forced Ambassador/-.

This isn't more interesting in a competitive environment.  Sure, in a non-competition game, a skilled player might find the challenge interesting (oh, hey, look, a possible within-the-rules way of handicapping!), but in a competitive game it just predetermines the outcome of some games.  So, let's look at this mathematically:

30.6% of games will open with an unequal split.  In a best-of-seven setup, one expects an average (over all 255 matches) of 2.15 unequal splits per match.  Even if only half of unequal splits give one player an advantage (and I would argue more do), then on average one game in each match has a predetermined outcome.

In the first round of 128 matches, we can expect 4 matches to have 5 or more unequal splits.  Mostly five, with the small (0.5) chance of 6.  In 25% of those (so, one match) we can expect 4 or 5 of those splits to all favor the same player.

This is looking worse and worse.  We can actually mathematically expect one whole match is almost certainly predetermined.  That's an average.  With N=128, we might see zero, or maybe two.

But if we can expect, on average, one match is literally rigged by the very cards... then there's no reason to include this luck factor.

Certainly there are shuffle luck factors that might be similar.  I'm not going to spend time calculating the chances that, in a theoretical 906 games, one game with Familiar will see P2 getting 2-P on T5, which is still probably only a 70% win (the chance is probably in the realm of 10 games total, with an infinitesimal chance of two being in the same match).  But we can't expect those bad shuffles to determine the outcome of an entire match.

We can expect allowing unequal splits to determine the outcome of at least one match.

And that's unacceptable.

[theory]

This is a difficult problem for me to resolve. 

My knee-jerk instinct is that identical opening splits is a simple and sensible tournament variant of the game, in the same way that most competitive video games have different rulesets for competition (see, e.g., SSBM, Starcraft, TF2, Halo).

On the other hand, players are free to alter the rules if they mutually agree, and the default rules that we impose ought to be the rules of Dominion as written.

My ultimate reasoning was grounded in the fact that this default rule comes into play only when one side insists on it and the other insists on the other.  These situations seem likely only to occur when one side stands to gain some sort of advantage from the variance (e.g., a player is significantly worse), and in such situations I'd hate to be siding with the player seeking an advantage through random luck.  I have no problem with -- and indeed, encourage -- players to decide on their own to abandon identical starts.

But I'd love to keep hearing all your thoughts. 

[guided]

I moderately prefer identical starting hands, but I wouldn't rebel and quit the tournament or anything if we randomized the starting hands.

In any case, tournaments in all kinds of games use variants for one reason or another. I don't find the argument "oh, this isn't Dominion anymore" to be convincing.

[Jorbles]

Regardless of the benefits of identical starting hands vs random starting hands isn't it a little late to bring this up? Some people have already played their matches and been knocked out (and other people will likely play while this is being debated). Changing the rules after it has started seems unkosher regardless of whether it would have changed the outcomes of the games already played. This debate should be for the next tournament, not this one.

[popsofctown]

So if I used the combination calculator right, there are 42/252 different ways to draw a 2/5.  Nearly 3% of the time you play a 2/5 mirror.  Nearly 71% of the time you play a 3/4 mirror.  So the remaining 26% of the time either player A or player B gets a unique 5/2 - 13% apiece.


7 * 13% is rather conveniently 91%, nearly 100.  So in my view, if you want the tournament to measure general Dominion skill in the least variant way possible, you designate that each player plays 5/2 against 3/4 each set (you could just write down the first random set you get, then repeatedly pick it until you get the desired result.  Or, much more easily, just pass 4 turns without buying anything until it starts the way you need it to.)
To compensate for the fact that these games are actually a little less than 1/7 apiece, I'd put them at the end of the set rather than the beginning, so they might not get played.

5/2 vs. 5/2 is just 3%, which doesn't even come close to being an expectation to arise in a seven games set.  So there's no reason to micromanage the mirrors, so long as they're mirrors.

That's my two coppers.

[DStu]

You could say that you recommend identical start hand, but if one player insists on random hand, that's the fallback.
So to say two different defaults...

[popsofctown]

Why would you insist on random hands though? I doubt it'd be because of the spirit of Christmas, it'd be because you want to luck out.


This isn't breaking the spirit of Dominion in half or anything.  Jester is specifically written not to snatch Provinces, for instance.

[toaster]

My ultimate reasoning was grounded in the fact that this default rule comes into play only when one side insists on it and the other insists on the other.  These situations seem likely only to occur when one side stands to gain some sort of advantage from the variance (e.g., a player is significantly worse), and in such situations I'd hate to be siding with the player seeking an advantage through random luck.  I have no problem with -- and indeed, encourage -- players to decide on their own to abandon identical starts.

I think the flaw in our argument is your perception of the reasoning for wanting random hand splits.  I'd prefer and wish to insist on them regardless of my seed in relation to that of my opponent, simply because that's Dominion as written and because I value the extra interest created by the potential for asymmetrical starts.  I also think that when a certain setting is added to the default rules, it adds an endorsement behind that options as the preferred approach.  It seems to me that the default rules should be those of the game as written unless there's a reason that that wouldn't work (as in the case of point counters).

[popsofctown]

Do you dislike my method of preserving the asymmetry, toaster?

[theory]

@Jorbles: You're right that we should have discussed this before, but I screwed up and didn't think about it.  It's a small enough decision that if we end up changing our rule, prior results can still stand under harmless error.

@popsofctown: That's way too complicated to expect 256 people to follow.  It might be theoretically appealing, but there's a cost to rules complexity.

@DStu: This is the same as just imposing random start hands as a default rule.  I'm borrowing the contract law principle of default rule, as a baseline imposed only when two parties fail to agree otherwise.

@toaster: I agree that having the default rule tacitly endorse a variant of the rules is problematic.  On the other hand, is it more or less problematic than the potential for screwing up a match?

[popsofctown]

Both players could agree to simpler rules.

I don't think anyone who understands why Goons can't gain you VP chips off a Possession will have trouble with such a rule.

*shrug*

[toaster]

Well, first of all the combinatorics are a bit off.  The probability of a 5/2 split is 1/6 ((5 choose 2) * 2)/(10 choose 3).  Thus, the probabilities of opening hands are:

double 4/3: 25/36
4/3 and 5/2: 10/36
double 5/2: 1/36

When push comes to shove though, I prefer to let the luck of the draw take its course.  It's a part of the game, and especially in a best of 7 series, it shouldn't affect the outcome of the match unless the players were closely matched in skill to begin with.

[toaster]

@toaster: I agree that having the default rule tacitly endorse a variant of the rules is problematic.  On the other hand, is it more or less problematic than the potential for screwing up a match?

I think the term "screwing up a match" reflects a very strong bias about what the rules of Dominion should be.

[toaster]

This discussion does raise an interesting question: what is the win rate in 4/3 vs 5/2 games in general?

[popsofctown]

I was 1-2% off from rounding errors, and iirc I rounded against my own argument to be fair.

[Kirian]

I value the extra interest created by the potential for asymmetrical starts.

Can you please explain to me how, in a competitive setting, making the outcome of a random subset of games predetermined (to about 90% confidence) makes the game more interesting?

Might as well have both players roll d16 seven times, and if one player rolls a 6 when the other doesn't, give them a 1-0 lead to start.  Some matches will even start 3-1 with only three games needed to determine a winner!

That's not interesting, that's the very definition of dull.  If I wanted to participate in a RPS tournament, I'd go do that.

[Kirian]

It's a part of the game, and especially in a best of 7 series, it shouldn't affect the outcome of the match unless the players were closely matched in skill to begin with.

Please read my post on page 1 for even more combinatorics that show you're wrong.

[popsofctown]

2/5's win 90% of the time?  Where are you getting that figure?

[toaster]

I saw your math...however, for the most important figure (the extent to which an uneven split favors one side or another), you seem to have pulled numbers out of thin air.

[Fabian]

Kirian, I appreciate your side of the argument, but if you're seriously trying to pass off that 90% number (which has now morphed into an automatic 1-0 lead) as real, no one is going to take you seriously.

[Kirian]

2/5's win 90% of the time?  Where are you getting that figure?

No... someone in an unequal split (it could be the 4/3 player with Ambassador or Sea Hag on the table, for instance) has approximately a 90% advantage something like half the time.  I'll admit 90% is an approximation and dependent on the cards on the board--I'd guess Witch/Chapel vs. Silver/Chapel is closer to 95%, but obviously some unequal splits are going to be more in the 70% range... and some will be in the no-advantage range.

I'm also using "advantage" more statistically, which I guess does muddy some things. It is not "win rate."  Maybe two-sigma would be better?  A 75% win rate is way away from the mean.

In my opinion, even a 75% win-rate (both players going BM-Witch, best I could simulate while trying to post in a rapid thread) is devastating to a game.  It's disruptive to the tournament and, most importantly against toaster's argument, dull.

[theory]

To try to keep this civil, someone's done some number crunching on this already.  This is with Isotropic data about a year ago, so before a lot of the newer cards.

It's not an absolute advantage, but it's substantial.  Moreover, the inequality is greater than the win rate difference; 5/2 is a substantial disadvantage with certain cards (Ambassador, Masquerade), and a substantial advantage with others (Mountebank, Chapel).  The fact that these tend to even out doesn't change the fact that the opening split significantly influenced the outcome of the game.

So in other words, it does promote varying strategies, but those varying strategies almost always end up tilting the game to one side rather than just lead to diverging play.

I'm not suggesting that this is enough justification for playing a Dominion tournament variant.  But I'm pretty convinced that allowing random opening splits has an overall negative impact on a competitive tournament.  The question is whether this negative impact outweighs the fact that we're asking people to play with rules that are not officially in the rulebook.

[popsofctown]

If that's what you've simplified the question to, it's pretty slam dunk, people aren't that uncomfortable playing mirrors only.

[Kirian]

Thanks for finding that, theory.  I think there was an even better one at some point on the BGGDL board, but I can't find it.

I'll admit to what seems to be exaggerating but was not intended as such... but the point remains that there will be an average of 2.15 unequal splits in a best-of-seven series.  An average of 4 out of 128 matches will have 5 or more unequal splits. (These can't be exaggerated, only miscalculated; happy to have someone recalculate to check.)  Even if the advantage is only 60% on average, I think that's significant enough to be disruptive.

I'll try to back off a bit, but I'll maintain this lessens, not increases, the interest of the game in a competitive setting.  It is the singular fundamental flaw of Dominion.

[theory]

Well, there are intangible considerations.

Maybe someone ragequits our tournament because he had to open Ambassador/nothing against Tournament/Ambassador.

Maybe someone decides not to play our tournament because he has a distaste for tournaments that make up their own rules reflecting the organizer's bias rather than the official rulebook.

To play devil's advocate, where does it end?  Ignoring practical difficulties, ought a Dominion tournament regulate the turn 3-5 reshuffle as well?

[toaster]

Or, for that matter, the game end rules.  We know that the existing rules have a persistent pro-first player bias...and though it's a smaller magnitude, unlike the split it's an effect that's guaranteed to benefit one player over another in every single match.

[olneyce]

I don't really care one way or the other.  I never play with identical hands (I suppose because I enjoy the minor randomness generated by 4/3 5/2 splits), but I wouldn't mind if the tournament games were played that way.

It does seem to me that as a general rule the default ought to be *totally random* unless the individual players agree otherwise.  Same goes with veto.  I normally always use veto (because I enjoy it more) but if my opponent in the tournament refuses, that is 100% legitimate, and I would feel obliged to defer.

[theory]

Or, for that matter, the game end rules.  We know that the existing rules have a persistent pro-first player bias...and though it's a smaller magnitude, unlike the split it's an effect one that's guaranteed to benefit one player over another in every single match.

Add in a debate about point counters, and we'll be able to turn this thread into the trifecta of Dominion arguments!

[rrenaud]

You are assuming that there are 7 games in a best of 7 split, but that's also not true in expectation, even if players are equally skilled.

Also, it's certainly not the case that players are equally skilled. 

Of course, I'll certainly agree with you that the 5/2 luck effect is real and that forcing equal starting hands will tend to reward better play and better players, but really it's fundamentally a game design decision.  When I second guess Donald's game design decisions, it's going to be over something more important than deciding to apply shuffle luck to the entire game, rather than just the 90% subset where it's effect is the murkiest.

[permanoob]

What if I can't get in touch with my opponent (barsooma). I've sent him a PM and I'll keep an eye out on isotropic. What's the time limit for this?

[theory]

What if I can't get in touch with my opponent (barsooma). I've sent him a PM and I'll keep an eye out on isotropic. What's the time limit for this?

At the end of the week, on Sunday.  barsooma has logged in today, so I expect that you two should be able to arrange a time to play.

[mischiefmaker]

So, full disclosure: I am strongly in favor of identical starting hands for tournament play, I used to play only with identical starting hands, and I sometimes wish that automatch had an identical starting hands option.

I don't buy the "different splits make more interesting strategies" argument. I agree that they often make *different* strategies, but I would guess that the ratio of games that I've played in and would describe as "less interesting because of different splits", versus "more interesting because of different splits"* has got to be something like 3:1 or worse. I freely admit that number is completely made up and that it is likely highly influenced by selective memory, or whatever the term is that describes my tendency to remember the time I lost to a level 1 because he opened Witch/Chapel. (Not that I'm still bitter about that or anything.)

I'm not sure I buy the "these aren't the rules" argument either, and for two reasons:

1. The rules do not specify that the winner must win a best-of-seven, and they don't specify that point counters are required, and they don't specify that an opponent may/may not reject the proposed set until he finds one he likes (which is not addressed in the rules post, not that I would expect anyone to do this...at least, not if he wants to be respected in the morning). Since the tournament rules do specify best-of-seven and random kingdoms, clearly we are already making *some* concession to mitigating the effects of luck.

2. Imagine that the rules DID specify that each player were to get identical starting hands. Would you argue, for the purposes of running a tournament and determining a champion, that it would be better or worse to determine starting hands randomly?

[jonts26]

1. The rules do not specify that the winner must win a best-of-seven, and they don't specify that point counters are required, and they don't specify that an opponent may/may not reject the proposed set until he finds one he likes (which is not addressed in the rules post, not that I would expect anyone to do this...at least, not if he wants to be respected in the morning). Since the tournament rules do specify best-of-seven and random kingdoms, clearly we are already making *some* concession to mitigating the effects of luck.

The issue is not that some things aren't mentioned in the rules (best of 7 tournaments etc. and I'm not touching the point counter argument here) but that identical starting hands is explicitly AGAINST them. That's not to say you can't play any variant rules, but it's not a good comparison.

[Reyk]

1. The rules do not specify that the winner must win a best-of-seven

No and they don't have to. Rules for running a tournament could be an appendix or something like that, not more. You have the rules for the game itself on the other hand. This is this and that is that. Best-of-fourseven doesn't effect the rules for the game. Identical starting hand option does effect them.
Btw I think Best-of-fourseven is ideal. To play for more wins would take too much time. Best-of-threefive on the other hand puts you under pressure much more after an unlucky start.

2. Imagine that the rules DID specify that each player were to get identical starting hands. Would you argue, for the purposes of running a tournament and determining a champion, that it would be better or worse to determine starting hands randomly?

Hm, some kind of rhetorical question? ;-)

[DStu]

Btw I think Best-of-four is ideal. To play for more wins would take too much time. Best-of-three on the other hand puts you under pressure much more after an unlucky start.

With four = seven and three = five?

[Reyk]

Btw I think Best-of-four is ideal. To play for more wins would take too much time. Best-of-three on the other hand puts you under pressure much more after an unlucky start.

With four = seven and three = five?

Yes, thx. I somehow mixed it up.