Finals are boring. Pt. 2: Defensive play

Most finals in VTES are boring. Nothing happens, every one sits on his ass and waits, that some other player makes a mistake. Mostly finals end with time-out. I have seen three finals at the EC 2012, all boring as hell. That is not the fault of the players, they tried their best to win. But it is a problem.

We have the best card game in the world and it has the worst finals, you can think about. In the finals VTES should show its potential and not its negative side. Think about it: Even if the whole world would be playing VTES, nobody would watch it at TV. We need finals at least as thrilling as poker.

I will offer three possible solutions to the problem in different threads and hope you will discuss them with me.

Problem 2: Defensive play
All the players in the finals I have seen, play like there is some price for sitting on the table until the end. Maybe they do it, because these game style is good for getting into the finals.

Solution 2: Aggressive and maybe irresponsible play of the finalists.
The changed tournament rules give all players the second place. But the players in the final don’t play so. What would happen, if a player starts the game with the statement, he will oust himself, if 15 minutes before the end the game hasn’t ended? That would be Kingmaking, but it would be absolutely legal, because he would play for the best possible place, the second. Or alternatively attack forward with all his power, even if he gets ousted. I really don’t know, why all players in the finals play like they get something by being there at the end. There is no half point for a later score.

A tried and tested way to win finals is to lunge a VP in the midgame and then wait out the clock. There are few ways you can discourage this other than having multiple people lunging all in the midgame and more than 1 player gain a VP. Yes, this favours wall-ish decks or those that can engage in a fair amount of crosstable interaction (to ensure that other VPs don't fall). But short of ousting the player with the VP as a table, nobody has a significant benefit in helping another.

johannes wrote:

... those are the 5 best players / decks of the day and they are just damn hard to oust

So you think boring play is a condition for beeing a good player?

The question remains, why someone plays for time-out, if you dont win anything beeing longer on the table. (That is different to the prelim rounds, where you get 0,5 VP.)

johannes wrote:

Another solution could be a commented final, like sports. Maybe in a different room on a video wall.

I really like this idea for major events, like that final could be in a small room without spectators, like that players will be concentrated without being disturbed by others, and in a different room a screen with the final and one comentator could be nice