Tie Breakers

So I was once in a tournament where the main prize was a Mox Emerald so you can imagine how upset I was to find out that when postings went up for the top four players that I was in a three way tie for fourth place, and I didn't make it in the final round. So I went to inquire just what factors went into effect that decided that only one of the three guys who tied for fourth would actually place fourth while the other two gets an "Attaboy"? Well as it turns out they had to use a tie breaker to decide just who places where. How does this tie breaker work? Do the affected players go into a sudden death match? Do we just add another round to the entire tournament? No, they check to see how well your opponents played. That's right, your place on the standings in the event of a tie is based on how well your opponents did. If the players you win against went on to lose more games or worse yet drops out of the tournament you will most likely not win the tie breakers. That's the best they can come up with? If I get matched up against a player who can't win, why does that potentially affect my place in standings? Worse yet there is a system that groups of players have come up with to exploit this flaw. Here's how it works. Let's say the prize is a card worth $200.00 Four players might get together and decide to work as a team. What they do is commit to each other that if any of them win the prize that hey will sell it and split the winnings among themselves. Unless in the unlikely event that they get matched up in a game they also commit to drop out if they lose enough games (usually 2) to guarantee that they will not place top 4. What this does is creates a situation that causes any tie breakers they may occur during the placing of the top 4 to be effected by their dropping out. They are basically trying to cause the players they lost against to lose any potential tie breakers. However if any of the four players are matched up against each other the loser of the match will then commit to stick with it until the very end to help the winner's potential tie breaker. Now this plan is not without flaws of it's own but surprisingly it works more often than you would think. Worse yet there is nothing that can be done to stop it as it's difficult to prove any intentions of the players. I however believe that any ties can be fixed just by adding another special round. Have only the two tied players play each other. If there are three tied for third then add two rounds (one of the tied players gets a bye). If time is an issue then for tie breakers only make the match only one game instead of three. However it's done something needs to be done.

1337

So if you read my last blog you would've read that I've temporarily quit playing Magic the Gathering. Although I said this is because I dislike the latest block of MTG (Forces you into 3 colors) I have a few other reasons leading up to this decision. It makes me sad to say this because I love MTG so much, but much like the famous quote " I love Jesus, but I can't stand Christians" I love MTG but I am becoming dishearten by MTG players, well the competitive ones anyway. Here's my problem, with every set that is released there is something that comes along with it called the metagame. Now the metagame tells us what decks are popular and gives us an insight to what people are playing so this gives us an advantage right? Well you may think that knowing that faeries is what 40% of the players are playing is a good thing as you build your deck full of board sweepers like Infest or Pyroclasm. Bt what happens when your first opponent is playing 5 color control? Well there goes your deck that does nothing but buy time for your opponent to get the mana to start whipping you right out of the room. So how do you build a deck that will be competitive against more than just one type of deck? Well sadly the answer is for you to simply build one of the decks in the metagame, thereby taking all the creativity right out of the game. This is only a small part of what bothers me, not only does every person in the room have a Netdeck but so do the ones who consistently win, the guys who have a DCI score of 1800 that win all the time. Now it's not the same guy who wins every week but one of about 3-4 guys who wins every week. My question is simply this. Once a player has reached a certain ranking why not have specific events for those players and restrict them from playing in tournaments with lower ranking players? I went to a draft once that had two guys in it who were both playing in a draft for the first time, as a matter of fact they were still filling out their DCI cards when I was paying to enter the event. Also in this very same event was someone who had just taken 4th place at States. Guess who won the draft. I believe that the number of MTG players who play in sanctioned events have been dwindling lately. I remember being at a draft at a place here in my hometown that attracted so many people that they had ran out of booster packs (I think it was 7 drafts in 1 night) and this was just a standard FNM and not some special event, and this happened in a region where there is at least 4 more places that have FNM within a half hour drive from where this took place. The last time I went to a MTG event only 6 people showed up. All of which were leet players (excluding myself), and the rest of the people wanting to play were reluctant to sign up for the draft based on the competition.