Timeouts in Finals: Do they happen too often?

Aside from judges giving out slow-play warnings is there anything that can be done to give players incentive to play faster?

No, not really. Which is exactly why this is being discussed. Tournaments are simply too small for that and there is basically nothing at stake. I mean, over half the tournament reports on this site are about tournaments with 10-15 people where out of five finalists only 3 actually had a gamewin.

At bigger tournaments you see people generally play faster (especially in round 1 and 2) because you need at least a GW to make the finals. On EC Day 1, for example, the cutoff for day 2 is usually around 1GW4VP so people have more incentive to move on.

Also, at the EC in Paris the organization did a GREAT job at providing extra incentives to get gamewins in the form of boosters and starters for whomever got the gamewin and promo's for VP's. It worked pretty well on tables where I played. Especially for people that come mostly for fun and are not really interested in winning the whole thing, little extra's gives them a reason to try harder.

In Poland lasy year the price support was terrible, even for the finalist of the daily events and as a result the play attitude of a lot of people that I personally played with/against was different, especially in round 3. Some people, if they go 0-0 in the first two rounds they really can't be fucked anymore and start dicking around which may influence the results and chances of people who are, for example, 1GW2,5 and really need to score to move on.

On Day 2 of NAC/EC level events there is no chance to make the finals without a GW, although last year I believe 1GW4 was enough as there were TONS of timeouts in the prelims and Enrico and myself were the only ones with 2 GW. That at least provides some incentive to move on as long as you don't have a GW.

I'd be all for making surviving until time worth zero VP and removing the the VP you get for being sole survivor. Then remove GWs from tables that timed and the result will be that less shit times. As a bonus, you'd get rid of the ridiculous situation where a wall deck basically cannot lose a 4-player table (as at worst it gets a 2-2 split) and people that get 2 VP at a 4-player table can actually get a gamewin.

Izaak wrote:

Also, at the EC in Paris the organization did a GREAT job at providing extra incentives to get gamewins in the form of boosters and starters for whomever got the gamewin and promo's for VP's. It worked pretty well on tables where I played. Especially for people that come mostly for fun and are not really interested in winning the whole thing, little extra's gives them a reason to try harder.

I'm sure it worked fine but is appeal to greed really a great way for speeding up the game?

Izaak wrote:

I'd be all for making surviving until time worth zero VP and removing the the VP you get for being sole survivor. Then remove GWs from tables that timed and the result will be that less shit times. As a bonus, you'd get rid of the ridiculous situation where a wall deck basically cannot lose a 4-player table (as at worst it gets a 2-2 split) and people that get 2 VP at a 4-player table can actually get a gamewin.

And in the final? It is easy to decide that everyone loses in the preliminary games. In the final, someone must win, or so it seems, even when the table times out.

Ye finals are still a problem in that case.

Maybe there should be a similar rule for the finals as their is in the prelims: with 1,5 VP you don't get the GW. So the scenario where everyone jockeys for position to get the only VP at the table with 3 minutes to spare gets thrown out of the window. If nobody manages to get the GW, tough luck - the guy with highest seed wins by virtue of better prelims.

(Note that this is significantly different from the current situation where *everyone* can play the finals for 1 VP + timeout)

If you want to win, you have to oust people.

Izaak wrote:

If nobody manages to get the GW, tough luck - the guy with highest seed wins by virtue of better prelims.

There is a big problem with that: the top seed can just play to slow the game down, and if he is good enough at it he can win despite getting ousted with 0VP. That's why I proposed to give the tournament to the highest seed still alive instead, so that at least the top seed still has to defend himself from the his predator and the second seed at least.

the top seed can just play to slow the game down

Well, except that stalling is illegal.

And if four other players plus a judge don't mind the top seed stalling, then well... no change will help.