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[Lackey]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to pass along info about the Dominion tournament at PAX Prime at the end of this month.

While we ran our League format at the past two PAXes, and while they were very successful, we are retiring this method due to some logistical difficulties: Namely, that it was very hard for enough people to log all of the matches necessary to qualify for the finals - as at PAX, attendees tend to wander from area to area, and only the very few dedicated players log a game in every variation needed to qualify. So, a change was necessary, to better serve the audience that attends PAX. We've moved many of our tournaments to a Qualifier Block system, where two separate heats will determine players that advance onto a Finals on Sunday.

Also, please be aware - all of the PAX tabletop tournaments will take place in the Red Lion Hotel's Emerald Ballroom. This is about 3 blocks away from the Washington State Convention Center.

The PAX Dominion tournament will work as follows:

Dominion Qualifier Block A (2 rounds) - Friday, Aug 31 - 12:00pm - 2:00 pm
Dominion Qualifier Block B (2 rounds) - Saturday, Sep 1 - 4:00pm - 6:00 pm
Dominion Finals (For players advancing from the Qualifiers only: 3 rounds) - Sunday, Sep 2 - 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Qualifier Blocks

Dominion Qualifiers will take place over two rounds, using the following versions:

Round 1 - Kingdom cards using Dominion base only (Top two from each game advance - yes, top two, not just the winner)
Round 2 - Kingdom cards using Dominion Intrigue only (Winners from each game advance)

The Kingdom card sets used for the Qualifying rounds will be posted at the signup kiosk starting Friday morning. The top eight players after two rounds will advance to Sunday’s Finals.

If you do not make it into the finals after Qualifier A, you ARE ALLOWED to participate in Qualifier B - however, you'd start out on the signup sheet on the Waitlist. This is to ensure that as many unique people as possible can participate, but if it doesn't fill up, then you'd have a 2nd chance.

Finals:

Players who advanced through Qualifiers A or B will participate in the Dominion Finals. Additional game expansions (possibly including Dark Ages - no promises though!) will be used, and revealed at the start of the event.

I know there has been discussion on these forums in the past about how PAX Dominion tournaments have operated. I hope these changes will allow for both casual and competitive Dominion players to enjoy the event.

A full list of all of the PAX Tabletop tournaments can be found at http://prime.paxsite.com/schedule/category/tt-p

Have fun, and I hope to see you there!

Lackey
PAX Prime 2012 Tabletop Deputy Manager - Tournaments

[Young Nick]

Qualifier Blocks

Dominion Qualifiers will take place over two rounds, using the following versions:

Round 1 - Kingdom cards using Dominion base only (Top two from each game advance - yes, top two, not just the winner)
Round 2 - Kingdom cards using Dominion Intrigue only (Winners from each game advance)

The Kingdom card sets used for the Qualifying rounds will be posted at the signup kiosk starting Friday morning. The top eight players after two rounds will advance to Sunday’s Finals.

Underlined part mine. Not that I intend on going, but that is just painful to read.

[Nullzone]

Qualifier Blocks

Dominion Qualifiers will take place over two rounds, using the following versions:

Round 1 - Kingdom cards using Dominion base only (Top two from each game advance - yes, top two, not just the winner)
Round 2 - Kingdom cards using Dominion Intrigue only (Winners from each game advance)

The Kingdom card sets used for the Qualifying rounds will be posted at the signup kiosk starting Friday morning. The top eight players after two rounds will advance to Sunday’s Finals.

Underlined part mine. Not that I intend on going, but that is just painful to read.

Do you mean the post formatting or the actual tournament? If the latter, would you mind elaborating?

Full disclosure: I've been working with Lackey to help make this tournament happen, so feedback is good, but I'm also just curious about the dynamic of Dominion tournaments and players on the whole.

[theory]

I think his point is that having played a lot of Dominion, an all-Intrigue or all-base Dominion sounds pretty boring.  But I think that's a reasonable thing to do for an IRL qualifying round.

[ednever]

Not sure I follow.

How many players are there in a game?

Sounds like its something like:
In each block people divided into groups on 3 (4?)
They play one game.
First and second place advance to round two (rest eliminated)
Round two players divided up into groups of 2?3?4?
Those players play a single game.
The winner of each game advances to finals.
There will be exactly 8 games in the second round?

So a title of sixteen in the finals?
Or do only 4 advance from each round?

Or something else?


On YN's point: I think he means "single set dominion, especially base-only dominion, is pretty terrible for good experienced players. Both random and limited options."

If there are 2 experience players at a base only table the winner is pretty well determined by luck and seating position.

Ed

[Rabid]

You mention top 2 from each game advance.
But not how many people will be in each game.

[Lackey]

I think his point is that having played a lot of Dominion, an all-Intrigue or all-base Dominion sounds pretty boring.  But I think that's a reasonable thing to do for an IRL qualifying round.

If we had unlimited funds and resources, and a strong tournament-minded audience, certainly, we'd love to create kingdom sets for initial rounds using the full scope of Dominion sets.

However, we plan on having 64 players in the first round for each Qualifier. That means we need to have 16 copies of Dominion base on-hand, and that's before taking *any* expansions into consideration. And at PAX we don't ask or expect participants to bring their own copies of games to our tournaments.

As such, what we use in the Qualifying rounds has to be, for seasoned Isotropic users, pretty bland. But think of it as a refreshing change! When's the last time you played just base Dominion anyway?

[Lackey]

Not sure I follow.

How many players are there in a game?

There will be 4 players per game ideally.  We simply cannot support 2-player games, as that doubles the number of copies of the game we'd have to secure.

Sounds like its something like:
In each block people divided into groups on 3 (4?)
They play one game.
First and second place advance to round two (rest eliminated)

Correct

Round two players divided up into groups of 2?3?4?

Again, 4 per table. This again minimizes the number of physical copies of Intrigue we need to secure.

Those players play a single game.
The winner of each game advances to finals.


There will be exactly 8 games in the second round?


So a title of sixteen in the finals?

Or do only 4 advance from each round?

Or something else?

Correct. 16 players will advance to the Finals on Sunday.

On YN's point: I think he means "single set dominion, especially base-only dominion, is pretty terrible for good experienced players. Both random and limited options."

If there are 2 experience players at a base only table the winner is pretty well determined by luck and seating position.

This is true, but remember, this is a casual tournament.  There's no national ranking on the line, this is essentially for fun, and to give people who may have a casual interest in Dominion a chance to play in a live structured format.  It's conceivable that someone might win both rounds in their Qualifier, and turn down their chance to play in the Finals, simply because they have other things planned for Sunday at PAX. In this case, the 9th placing player from that Qualifier would be invited to Sunday.

Also, as much as we do love Dominion, remember, it is only one of the 40+ tournaments we are hosting at PAX.

[ednever]

I think his point is that having played a lot of Dominion, an all-Intrigue or all-base Dominion sounds pretty boring.  But I think that's a reasonable thing to do for an IRL qualifying round.

If we had unlimited funds and resources, and a strong tournament-minded audience, certainly, we'd love to create kingdom sets for initial rounds using the full scope of Dominion sets.

However, we plan on having 64 players in the first round for each Qualifier. That means we need to have 16 copies of Dominion base on-hand, and that's before taking *any* expansions into consideration. And at PAX we don't ask or expect participants to bring their own copies of games to our tournaments.

As such, what we use in the Qualifying rounds has to be, by seasoned Isotropic users, pretty bland. But think of it as a refreshing change! When's the last time you played just base Dominion anyway?

Limiting factor is actually just provinces, duchies and estates.
For 4 player games you could have 16 "base cards" sets (pretty cheap. And I'll bet Jay would even send them to you if you asked nicely) and 160 kingdom cards.
If you had one of each set that would likely be enough. Randomly choose 10 cards for a kingdom. Then choose ten if the remaining cards for the next kingdom, ect.

Total cost would be less than 16 base sets I'll bet.


Unrelated question: when I go on the PAC website it looks like all entry badges are sold out. I assume that means there is no way to get into the tournament at this point if you aren't already registered to attend?

And one last thing: you should reach out to Jay. He will definitely give you a dominion treasure chest to give to the winner. And may invite the winner to US nationals next year.

Ed

[Young Nick]

I think his point is that having played a lot of Dominion, an all-Intrigue or all-base Dominion sounds pretty boring.  But I think that's a reasonable thing to do for an IRL qualifying round.

If we had unlimited funds and resources, and a strong tournament-minded audience, certainly, we'd love to create kingdom sets for initial rounds using the full scope of Dominion sets.

However, we plan on having 64 players in the first round for each Qualifier. That means we need to have 16 copies of Dominion base on-hand, and that's before taking *any* expansions into consideration. And at PAX we don't ask or expect participants to bring their own copies of games to our tournaments.

As such, what we use in the Qualifying rounds has to be, by seasoned Isotropic users, pretty bland. But think of it as a refreshing change! When's the last time you played just base Dominion anyway?

Well, when I play IRL with my family, they usually don't want to do more than Base, Intrigue, Base + Intrigue, or occasionally those with Seaside. So I've played it. It's still fun, but it's not as fun.

More importantly, it doesn't test the particpants overall Dominion ability, in my opinion, though I think this topic has been argued before in other threads.

I was under the impression that RGG would help to provide sets to play with for National Qualifiers. Maybe because your tournament is larger than most, they can't guarantee you as many sets, but you could always buy sets used, or buy them and then raffle them off at the end of PAX Prime or give them to some strategy game charity, if only such a thing existed.

Alternatively, you could by the Base Cards and use other expansions. I understand money is paramount here. An entrance fee that could be waived by providing an agreed-upon expansion the day of might also work. I admit, I am spit-balling here, but I feel like there has to be a way to get more than just ony Base followed by only Intrigue.

For the record, I am trying to convince a DC FLGS to host a qualifier so I might be learning a lot more about the logistics of such an event in the near future.

[Lackey]

Unrelated question: when I go on the PAC website it looks like all entry badges are sold out. I assume that means there is no way to get into the tournament at this point if you aren't already registered to attend?

And one last thing: you should reach out to Jay. He will definitely give you a dominion treasure chest to give to the winner. And may invite the winner to US nationals next year.

Ed

This is, sadly, true. PAX Prime attendance is strictly limited by the Fire Marshall. Turnstyle over the three days, the site will handle in excess of 70,000 visitors (i.e. about 23k+ people per day) - Tickets unfortunately sold out in under five hours from when they were made available.

As for reaching out to Jay - he's helped us in the past, and we're reaching out to him again.  But again, remember that our needs go far beyond just Dominion, and any assistance we get will be distributed across our needs.

[Lackey]

Limiting factor is actually just provinces, duchies and estates.
For 4 player games you could have 16 "base cards" sets (pretty cheap. And I'll bet Jay would even send them to you if you asked nicely) and 160 kingdom cards.
If you had one of each set that would likely be enough. Randomly choose 10 cards for a kingdom. Then choose ten if the remaining cards for the next kingdom, ect.

Total cost would be less than 16 base sets I'll bet.

This would indeed be good -- however, at PAX we also have a lending library, and tournament games may go into our general library for freeplay use after the tournament concludes. Having just the subset of cards for one specific Kingdom set wouldn't be too useful for the general non-tournament audience.

It's a delicate balance. You raise good points, and interesting ideas though, and they're not falling on deaf ears.

[Lackey]

Alternatively, you could by the Base Cards and use other expansions. I understand money is paramount here. An entrance fee that could be waived by providing an agreed-upon expansion the day of might also work. I admit, I am spit-balling here, but I feel like there has to be a way to get more than just ony Base followed by only Intrigue.

One key distinction between PAX and other large conventions is that, in general, there is no per-event charge (e.g. GenCon), no request to bring your own copy (e.g. WBC), and no extra Ribbon to purchase for access to an area (e.g. Origins) -- Your badge for PAX is in essence all access**.

Also, while the Qualifying rounds are Base and Intrigue, the 3 rounds of the Finals will be a much more diverse mix of sets. It's not as though we're asking participants to slog through 5 rounds using just Dominion base kingdom cards.


This conversation certainly is going in interesting directions.  Thank you for the comments and continued discussion.

Lackey


** (CCG events at PAX, like Magic: the Gathering events, are handled slightly differently, as they are run by third-party groups, not by PAX itself, and often have per event charges).

[jsh357]

Also, while the Qualifying rounds are Base and Intrigue, the 3 rounds of the Finals will be a much more diverse mix of sets. It's not as though we're asking participants to slog through 5 rounds using just Dominion base kingdom cards.

The PAX East runners need to hear this part.    Base only tournament was kinda dull, even though I won.  We had the "league" format one too that I thought was a lot more entertaining, but it was definitely too hard to find matches. 

[Nullzone]

I hope anyone here who was at the tournament this weekend had a good time! If you have any feedback about the tournament (other than # of players, as that point has already been covered), we're listening.

- Nullzone, tournament Enforcer

[CG19]

I attended with a bunch of my friends and we had a great time. The only qualm we had was the tie-breaker rules. My friend and I each tied by victory points and turns for 2nd place (only the top 2 out of 4 went on) and the moderator had to come up with a second tie-breaker, which was that the person with the most treasure wins. Of course, engines in Dominion typically can have cards that give coins or some other means of buying cards without treasure in the deck. So even though we both had good engines, we were eliminated.

Perhaps the secondary tie-breaker rules should be established beforehand. Also, I don't think that was a fair tie-breaker and some other rule should be used.

All in all though, the tournament was a lot of fun and it was interesting to meet other Dominion players from around the country. Thanks for putting it together! We fully intend on playing again next year and are excited to do it again.