Timeouts in Finals: Do they happen too often?

I'm seeing an awful lot of 1.5 VP tournament wins in recent reports.
Are you seeing the same thing locally?
Are players playing the clock rather than playing the game?

People just play too slow in general, not just in the finals.

Some players just have obnoxiously slow styles of play. discussing for ten minutes as to IF your calling a krc then arguing another 5 over terms is unacceptable. I don't think many players intentionally time out finals, but sometimes play more defensively during them. a trend of girls style decks has probably led to the increase, since it moves forward very slowly and gains mounds of pool, 1 vp is often all it does before just sitting as the table does whatever.

When the only players with .5 VPs are those that are in the finals, and those .5 VPs were earned in the finals, it isn't a problem with their slow play. It is a problem with their changed behavior because it is a final round.

How can you judge it? You would need to do an experiment in which you time and record the time for each person's turn.

I recently played in a final in which the judge asked a player to pick up the speed of his play. The player argued with the judge, indicating that he did not accept the judge's subjective opinion for what amounted to an unofficial warning against stalling. The judge said that he had been timing the player's most recent turns, and, citing those times, he indicated exactly how much slower the player's turns had become. The player then accepted the informal warning and play continued.

But without using a timer it's hard to really judge. I've played in slow finals, I've played in slow non-finals. I've played in fast finals, I've played in fast non-finals. If most games end with a timeout, why wouldn't most finals end with a timeout?

I have only ever played in one final in which I was certain a player was trying to time the game: he played very slowly in the mid-game (it was subtle but noticeable) and then sped up his turns towards the end. He miscalculated, however, because the game ended on his predator's turn and all he needed was one more turn in order to win the tournament.