Finals are boring. Pt. 3: Rules for the finals

Which leaves only the other option available: if the table times out without a GW, everyone at the table must lose. Give the TW to the sixth, to another random player, to the organiser or to nobody, but none of the finalists should get it.

Non-existant user wrote:

Which leaves only the other option available: if the table times out without a GW, everyone at the table must lose. Give the TW to the sixth, to another random player, to the organiser or to nobody, but none of the finalists should get it.

Finalist are the best five players of the tournament during the previous round, for me not having one of them as the tournament winner is not logical.

acbishop wrote:

Finalist are the best five players of the tournament during the previous round, for me not having one of them as the tournament winner is not logical.

Then there is still the option of not appointing a winner at all: no TWD, no qualification for continental championships, no rating bonus. Maybe the winner's prize could go to the lucky loser?

Finalist are the best five players of the tournament during the previous round, for me not having one of them as the tournament winner is not logical.

In a perfect world, where table seatings and deck choices have a neglicable effect on the outcome of games, I'd agree. In a tournament system where one lucky draw or one unlucky seating can mean the difference between winning the whole thing or not being remotely close to the finals, not so much.

The five players in the final are those with the best decks for the meta and/or the luckiest seatings and/or just the best players.

I mean, I don't have a solution for the problem or anything, but to claim that under the current ruleset (ie, 3 rounds) and circumstances (ie 15-player tournaments) the finalists are the best players that day is ludicrous.

Any other arguments about changing the rules for the finals aside, this just doesn't work.

2) If at end of time, all players are tied at 0.5 VPs, the winner is the player whose prey has the least amount of pool (not the first seeded player). This means that the only advantage enjoyed by the top seed is seating. Each player is then racing against all others, not just against the top seed.

Player pool totals are a small portion of table state. Everyone here has been in a game where they had 1-3 pool and everyone else had more but they were all but a lock for the game win. Pool total just doesn't indicate table strength and the five players who made the finals knows that.

The finals in a tournament should be played like every other round: each player plays to maximize the amount of Victory Points he or she can get. If you change that, then you aren't playing V:tES anymore, you are playing "V:tES Tournament."

If the finals are boring: it's because V:tES at the most competitive level is boring. The players who most regularly make the finals tend to play very conservatively, because "more is at stake."

In reality, if every player played like it was the finals, the preceding rounds would tend to be more boring. The "exciting" players and/or decks don't make the finals over conservative players/decks.

If you think about this, it reflects the theme of the game very well. Vampires don't take risks and are very conservative. I've seen vampire LARPers spend their time socializing, accumulating experience and never risking themselves, meanwhile all the neonate players are running around getting into combat and getting killed or progressing the story of the game.

There will be the elders, playing it conservative, and there are the neonates throwing sewer lids at each other.