Planeswalkers and other sundry rogues,

I am working on the Amokhet series of tournaments rules. I am planning some changes in the rules and other portions of the OP. If anyone has any valid suggestions please either PM me or leave a message here.

I plan to have the rules out near the time Amokhet drops for Duels or soon after. Tournament timeline will be included as well.

Thanks.

Kryder

What are these changes about? I can suggest you something, but maybe you already know

Changes I am keeping under wraps as I am trying out some ideas with a test group.

Those persons know who they are.

I was thinking of, and I wonder what you guys think about this, making all matches from the top 8 best of 5.
That would lessen the "luck" factor. It just seems kind of sad that after the grueling effort of making it to top 8 eight you can just get knocked out after 2 unlucky games ( which aren't that uncommon).

At least before top 8 even if you get unlucky one round, you have other rounds/chances to circumvent that. But oddly enough , once you reach top eight - you got unlucky ? too bad ... your out .. done ... finished.

Ok so it's not something about recording requirement or stuff like that. My ideas are obviously the sideboard (even if i don't have much hope) and maybe a rule about that the loser of a game chooses to start first or not in the following game. I know it could be inpractical since it requires to restart the game, but any rules that get us closer to actual tournament rules is welcome for me.

it will be interesting if we allow sideboarding. I guess 80% submitted decks would be Izzet based burn/control, most likely grixis for black planeswalkers and intimations. The options are just good - I would main deck visions+tutelages+counters against mirrors and planeswalkers midrange control. Sideboard a couple sweepers, some extra spot removals against the 20% midrange aggro.

Not saying it's bad, but something interesting to see.

Loser go first is good idea. Restarting a few times isn't going to take a lot of time.

Best of 5 sure I'd like that!

I second this suggestion; elimination round matches should be best of 5.

I'm not in the test group! I can't believe that Stasis is and I'm not!

#object

I know it can be awkward, but alternating being on the play/draw. Yes it might take a remake or two to set up, but it an aggro centric meta being on the play for all your games puts you firmly in the driving seat and can leave a bad taste in your opponents mouth.

Obviously it isn't an insurmountable advantage, but in a tournament setting I think we should do as much as possible to ensure fair play.

I say random luck is about as fair as you get. No bias at all, so if your on the draw every game... Tough, it can happen on the ladder too. (and I've been hosed in the showdown by being on the draw plenty of times).
I say build decks that can win on the draw... How about that?
Best of 5? Sure, why not? Still, top-8 is for the best of the best, not for luck prone decks. If you get to top-8 and lose because of "bad luck", maybe you just got very lucky and made top-8...

yeah, i much prefer the random luck thing too. MUCH simpler. Vert and I have been through hell trying to get matchmaking to work between us. I would hate to think we'd be adding a process that would require sending even more invites.

I'm fine with the luck aspect of "who is on the play", but this is ****'ty af take. If you lose because you are on the play every game, you didn't "get lucky" to make the top 8 and you didn't have a poorly designed deck. That's the dumbest ****'ing thing I've ever heard. Sometimes luck is not on your side and it is what it is. If two exactly equal decks play each other and they draw equally, the deck on the play will win more often. That's just a statement of fact. Denying that is dumb as hell.

objection overruled

It basically comes down to is the solution a bigger hassle then the problem? In theory it should even out over time however it rarely works out like that(checking my matches this tourney after round 1 I was on the play every game until top 8 where i was on the draw all 3 games)

I'm not sure it's worth implementing, don't get me wrong it sucks, but when you throw in stuff like players having trouble connecting to each other, having to restart games where you have a great hand ect ect i think it gets close

and that's already happening (Vert has thrown out some awesome opening hands against me cuz of connection issues). I hate thinking of trying to further stress the matchmaking

Your confusion is because I was commenting 2 different things, hence the the separate paragraphs.
First, being on the draw is part of Magic, you should roughly play on the draw 50% of the time. So if you don't build your deck with that in mind and just hope to be on the play to win, then your probably not gonna do so well.
For clarity's same, I'll even give an example: if your running a counter deck, you better have Answers for a 3-drop you can't counter on the draw or your toast.

Next, as to final 8, nothing to do with being on the draw/play. The way I see it, if you get the results necessary to make top-8, your deck/ playing skills are Beyond luck. So getting unlucky in top-8 can happen, but you owe it to those you beat during the rounds and missed top-8 to do better than that. If you can't, then you probably only made it there on a fluke.

No, I took exception to the concept of "don't be mad you lost if you were always on the play. Just build a better deck." As though it's a deckbuilding error to be stronger on the play vs. on the draw.

That's nonsense , and I think (hope) you already know that. I like how you quoted "bad luck" but didn't do the same for "very lucky".

It's much more likely for you to get unlucky one round in the top eight and lose, then for you to get very lucky and win multiple matches to get to top 8.

Either way , best of 5 post top 8 will not only make it less likely you lost because of bad luck/discredit your excuse of losing because of "bad luck",
it will also make it less likely that you are winning in the top 8 because you got very lucky/discredit other's excuses that you got "very lucky".

In theory Best of 5 will punish the player who has the bad unlucky match-up. So luck in the pairing is still a factor. I'm actually fine with best of 5, I just don't really believe it makes that much impact on reducing the luck factor, that's just a Part of the game.
Good Luck/bad luck just has a habit of going on streaks, that usually end rather abruptly.

Interested to hear what sort of change ups will be made with this upcoming tournament, as this will be the first I will be able to take part in since 2015 was a thing. Hooray for getting off my lazy bum and setting things up so I can stream/record.