Tournament Finals Structure Promotes Stalling

Why not having a mix between timelimit and number of turns limit?
A final have to last at least 2h and a minimum of 50 turns for example
If at the end of 2 hours , there weren’t 50 turns played, the game last until they are reached.
If they are, this is time limit.

Have higher seed only affect seating. Have ties determine the winner randomly from among the tied players. There is no longer an incentive for anyone to not gain VPs in that scenario. If the table times out completely, with .5 VPs, then you have a 20% chance of winning via die roll.

I think I suggested a while back that holding on to the Edge for a full round grants you 1 VP (in addition to the 1 Pool it gives you.) IDK anything about tournaments but if players are "stalling for the last 20 minutes, grinding slightly to get to lunge range, go for an oust and trust the table to time out before others have time to react" [Kraus] then maybe just the threat of holding onto the Edge for a VP will pressure players to try to bleed - if only to prevent another player from getting a VP.

Similarly, if "timeouts in finals usually happen because finalists tend to be more conservative than usual, and therefore neither do they want to be ousted (the understandable "primum vivere") nor are they willing to let another Methuselah oust their prey." [Damnans] then make not bleeding your prey (via the pressure of holding the Edge for a VP) a dangerous option.

Acknowledge VP in the final, even without a GW. Provide some additional prize, or a bonus to player ranking or whatever, but the goal of the game should still be to maximize VPs.

Bottom line: if you want finals to look like VTES, make them follow the normal rules of VTES.

Alternatively, for multi-day tournaments, there could be an optional rule to waive the time limit in finals. If they want to grind it out, then let them grind to death . Might not look like tournament VTES anymore, but it will look a lot of home games.

Damnans wrote:

As I already said on Facebook, poor time management is actually one of the aspects of bad play. And since bad play is not illegal, it is really up to the players to improve their playing skills.

Sadly, one cannot improve the time management of other players.
I don’t disagree with your statement, but it sidesteps the real issue.
Stalling is a problem in other games too, like MtG; some players will spend several minutes shuffling or pretending to think something over, just to play the clock.
Oneself playing quickly won’t stop other players from stalling.