Timeouts in Finals: Do they happen too often?

Each cycle of ashur tablets can eat away as much as 5 mins of cards
selection-put in hand-reshuffle deck;

Yes and it takes so long because players are slow. I play Ashur tablets a lot and it takes me 90 seconds at most to select the cards I want and shuffle them into my deck. That's because unlike many other players, I actually think about what I want back before playing the third tablet.

also on top of that we see lots of decks regaining an huge amount of pool with villein+lilith's blessing tricks and the like
Now consider this multiplied at least for 2 players at the table (i've seen no no less than 2 decks at table playing massively the ashur recursion + villein and /or liquidations and so on, in recent times) and to me that's why lots of tables (not only finals) ends up at time limit nowadays

When I play with friends, we hardly ever time, because we don't take minutes for the first few turns. Yet at tournaments, oftentimes you see yourself in turn 5 after 60 minutes. I can understand later turns or lunge turns need some extra consideration, but Governing down to dude X and declaring no blocks shouldn't take too long, right?

I've also seen people take up to five minutes for the master phase WHILE THEY HAD NO MASTER IN HAND (and no master phase effects on the table either, mind you). And this isn't even uncommon!

People just play too slow, that's really it.

nc-italy wrote:

Each cycle of ashur tablets can eat away as much as 5 mins of cards
selection-put in hand-reshuffle deck; also on top of that we see lots of decks regaining an huge amount of pool with villein+lilith's blessing tricks and the like
Now consider this multiplied at least for 2 players at the table (i've seen no no less than 2 decks at table playing massively the ashur recursion + villein and /or liquidations and so on, in recent times) and to me that's why lots of tables (not only finals) ends up at time limit nowadays

My thoughts exactly.

A lot of decks rely on big pool gain, then they are okay with eitheir timing out with 1,5 VP or a lose deal for 2 VP and give 3 to another, faster deck.
They often just need 1 GW to get to the finals with 1GW 5,5/6 VP. So, big problem apart, it's a always a win for those strategies.


Now, the game evolved.
Isn't it about time that the tournament rules evolves also ?
I'd say the current Victory point system tallying is obsolete. What I would like : Either you get the GW and garner the VP, or else you get nothing. So slow deck with mass pool gain will be forced to actually do something (take risks) to get to the finals.

Reyda wrote:

What I would like : Either you get the GW and garner the VP, or else you get nothing. So slow deck with mass pool gain will be forced to actually do something (take risks) to get to the finals.

Isn't that exactly how the current system works? It counts GWs first, but with such a crude measure you still need something to sort out ex-aequos. One could change the final ranking, but that would be rather drastric: no GW = no tournament winner.

extrala wrote:

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

If the top seed makes the mistake of sitting to the left of the number 2 seed, he can put himself in a position where the #2 seed can become the de facto top seed.

Can you explain, I simply don't understand the rationale. If the top seed is the prey (left side) of the #2, and #2 becomes the defacto top seed, he must have ousted the top seed. So why should the top seed care?

From that viewpoint, you're right - an ousted player shouldn't care who wins. But that's not the point in time we're talking about here. Step back to time zero, when selecting seats and think about this:

I'm #1 seed (a small subset of all tournaments I play, but OK....)

If I sit to the left of the #3-5 seed, he'll have 1 motivation to be an active predator......1 VP if he ousts me. Being #4 or #5 seed, finishing with 1.5 VP, is good - but many players won't take extra mid-game risks to reach that outcome. It's still too easy to lose in that situation.

If I sit to the right of the #2 seed, he has TWO motivations to be a very active predator earlier in the game....1 VP if he ousts me AND top (remaining) seed. Jeff's data suggests that 1.5 VP as top dog is frequently a winning position. This consideration SHOULD justify a higher risk tolerance, earlier in the game, from the #2 seed.

I know if I were #2 in that situation, I would be chanting the mantra "get my one and wall up" in that situation, starting about 30 minutes into the game. I'm notoriously left-looking anyway, but if I can get a double advantage from an oust, watch out, the fur is going to fly.

Following that thought process, the last thing I ever want to do is give my predator any additional excuse to stifle my development early, or to be looking at my pool total with too much interest. As #1 seed in a tournament, I should be extra-concerned about that.

I'm not saying it's the only thing a #1 seed should think about - but there's a subtle rationale to avoid sitting left of #2 when you're top seed.

Non-existant user wrote:

Reyda wrote:

What I would like : Either you get the GW and garner the VP, or else you get nothing. So slow deck with mass pool gain will be forced to actually do something (take risks) to get to the finals.

Isn't that exactly how the current system works? It counts GWs first, but with such a crude measure you still need something to sort out ex-aequos. One could change the final ranking, but that would be rather drastric: no GW = no tournament winner.

Let's find something else.
why not try this :
Gaining the most vp at a table is worth 1 Vampiric Point.
Sweeping a table is worth 1 Dhampiric point.
all the rest does not count.

the players going to the finals are the one with the most Vampiric / Dhampiric points count as tiebreakers.

Not that I'm also in favor of "no tournament winner if no VP" !

And for skeptical people : the tournament and GW system has already changed in the past.

johannes wrote:

Non-existant user wrote:

One could change the final ranking, but that would be rather drastric: no GW = no tournament winner.

I think that is a really bad option. People who have no chance to win will try to prevent the table from having a GW (like rolling over so there is a 2-2-1) because then everybody will be 1st (or 2nd??)

people already do that on preliminar rounds, my friend
or worse, they do some kingmaking to get 2 VP, so they can raise their chance to go to the finals.

Why not just reward offensive play by multiplying survival bonus with victory points.

For example:
You get 1 VP per oust.
You get another 0.5VP per oust if you have survived until end of game.

This will penalize people who has not ousted a single methuselah hard.

Table 1

---

A alive 1.5VP
B dead (killed by A) 1VP
C dead (killed by B) 0VP
D alive 0VP
E alive 0VP

Table 2

---

A dead (killed by E) 0VP
B alive 3VP
C dead (killed by B) 0VP
D dead( killed by B) 0VP
E alive 1.5VP

Table 3

---

A alive 6VP
B dead (killed by A) 0VP
C dead (killed by A) 0VP
D dead (killed by A) 0VP
E dead (killed by A) 0VP