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

direwolf wrote:

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."

I've been in a lot of finals and I think that's disingenuous, some do but others e.g. Otto, Ruben Feldman etc are complete loose cannons who zooooooom along.

In larger tournaments e.g. EC day 1 you also would expect decks that are more make or break to make the final due to the numbers of GW/VP required (in practice this doesn't necessarily seem to be the case but the Day 1 finals this year had 3 fairly powerful damaging decks, one moderate and one wallish, Day 2 was a bit more mixed up)

I don't like the 'hotfix' saying if no one makes a VP, then no one wins (or the 6th wins, or whatever). It would favor an attitude of "ok, if I can't win then no one will".

Frankly, the best solution is simply that of the players themselves. I watched the finals of day 1 and day 2 and think the pace of day 2 was influenced by that of day 1, i.e. most players of day 2 realized what would happen if the game was too slow. Something similar happened in last year's french NC (there is also a qualifier system, so the NC is a 2-day event with a LCQ): the final of LCQ timed out due to 1/ players not realizing the top seed was legally doing whatever he could to get to a time-out without anyone ousted 2/ a gross amount of wasted time due to endless talks about Owen Evan's ability. The next day, pace was a little bit faster (I confess I contributed as a judge by announcing the remaining time very, very often).

Some players simply don't realize that if they spend 5minutes running their turn, there is no reason other players won't need the same amount of time. Some players blindly believe that even though a full table turn takes 20mn and there is 30mn remaining, there will somehow be 3-5 turns. And the worst thing is some of them will keep talking at length, consuming even more time. I mean, sure one might say that players can be tired at the end of the day, but it's simple to keep track of time using a clock, and simply do the math to estimate the remaining number of turns.

One additional difficulty is the perception of time that differs a lot depending on whether you're sitting at the final or a spectator. Maybe for regular tournaments, if there is a volunteer willing to type a transcript of the final taking into account the time spent at specific moment (ex a lengthy deal, resolution of Ashur, a Heart of Nizchetus that takes forever...), some players might better get the...err...feel of time or whatever.

A running gag in france is saying "there are two things that matter in this game : pool and vamps", as a very good player said once very seriously in a tournament (he actually meant something else, but it's more fun that way). But back on topic : in a final, time is an equally valuable resource as pool/vamps/cards in hand. Changing the rules of the finals won't solve the issue, it's changing the habit of players that will.

But it's just my newbie two cents.

direwolf wrote:

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.

As stated elsewhere, there is no such rule.

KevinM wrote:

direwolf wrote:

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.

As stated elsewhere, there is no such rule.

Play to Win
For tournaments, playing to win means playing to get a Game Win if it is reasonably possible, and when a Game Win is not reasonably possible, then playing to get as many Victory Points as possible.

I think Direwolf is suggesting that change finals rules to be the same as the round rules above rather than winning tournament through timeout you must go for GW.

Sure, he might mean that, but that isn't what his sentence meant. I was pointing out that there was no such rule so that no one else would spread the idea that there was such a rule.

Decebalus wrote:

- If there is no GW in the finals, the 1st place goes to the sixth player. (He is innocent, that the final was boring. You would immediately see, that the first five player start playing agressive.)

This is the most hilarious and spiteful solution, and therefore the best one in maintaining the spirit of the game.

I vote yes.