Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[loppo]

Lately i'm thinking a lot about ways to improve tournament play, mostly because i'm very uneasy with the way we have them here. Having a little magic background i always think of randomized sets of 10 as "standard" format. So why not have a sort of "limited" format?

The idea is sort of similar to 8 man drafts in Magic. You have 8 people, everybody gets 8 randomizer cards picks one of them and passes the remaining 7 to the left. He then picks on out of the 7 he receives from his neighbour, passes the remaining 6,... till all cards are gone.

After each player has his 8 Kingdom cards, or piles of kingdom cards, you get to play rounds of 2p- games. 1st player is determined randomly and puts 5 of his 8 Kingdom piles on the table. 2nd player then chooses 5 of his 8. Winner advances to the next round. After 3 rounds there is a winner.

I think this format could be great for mini tournament at a games con, and could also be used as deciding the Top 8 in a larger tournament like nationals. Any thoughts about this?

[Tables]

The problem is, it's not so interesting for the players. Once you've chosen your cards, you don't really have any advantage from them (okay, I guess you might be able to pick 5 which you think you can play with better than your opponent, if you know your opponent really well), and all it does is ensure half the cards you see in each game are not new. It adds an extra setup step for, it seems to me, no real advantage in terms of playing.

[Piemaster]

I agree with tables.  Essentially all you're really doing is taking the 30-second formality of choosing a Kingdom and making it last half an hour instead.  And the only benefit you derive from doing so is adding a (highly questionable) level of strategy that won't make much difference most of the time.

[ddubois]

Essentially all you're really doing is taking the 30-second formality of choosing a Kingdom and making it last half an hour instead

What he said ^^.

For this to be interesting, you'd have to to do it "Nightfall-style", where people have private archives.  And that could lead to some pretty dumb blowout games, like where only one person has access to King's Court, or only one person has access to a curser, etc.  Nightfall mitigates this with a "first pick is veto" mechanic, but it could still make some dumb games when someone open two overpowered cards and has to pass one to some lucky recipient.

(I guess you could try semi-private archives?  You pay face value, but anyone else can buy from your archive at +2 over face value?)

[Insomniac]

Essentially all you're really doing is taking the 30-second formality of choosing a Kingdom and making it last half an hour instead

What he said ^^.

For this to be interesting, you'd have to to do it "Nightfall-style", where people have private archives.  And that could lead to some pretty dumb blowout games, like where only one person has access to King's Court, or only one person has access to a curser, etc.  Nightfall mitigates this with a "first pick is veto" mechanic, but it could still make some dumb games when someone open two overpowered cards and has to pass one to some lucky recipient.

(I guess you could try semi-private archives?  You pay face value, but anyone else can buy from your archive at +2 over face value?)

For giggles I talked with my girlfriend about private archives in dominion a while ago and we decided that to be possible certain cards would have to be completely banned which basically takes away from it being worth it.