Manalink Vintage Competition (winners posted)

[Cognis]

How about we make it mandatory for everyone to run a 10 match gauntlet with every submitted deck and keep detailed scores. That way everyone that contributes will also testing and everyone's results will be added to the final score. We could make the duration of the tournament longer, maybe make it a monthly thing so everyone could have enough time to play every deck, I know I was a little pressed for time to test all the decks and I can imagine I wasn't the only one, maybe make the tournament last one day per submitted deck, etc. We could maybe make a theme for each contest similar to the challenge mode, etc. only creatures with mana cost less than 4, or only gold cards, etc. so we wouldn't be able to metagame (much). I think that would keep the tournaments fresh and interesting. That's my idea, could use a little work but if we all contribute as a community I think we could see a lot more of these tournaments. I had a lot of fun and I know I wasn't the only one. Again three cheers for Jatill for his awesome work, not only with this tournament but also for all his work on this wonderful game

[aww1979]

I might be willing to organize the next one. I (or whoever did so) would need to do the following:

-decide the format, schedule, deadlines, etc
-collect all the decks and make a zip file for the players
-make a nice spreadsheet and/or txt file for scoring purposes, likely using the one Jatill already did as a model
-figure out all the results after everyone is finished (I could write an excel spreadsheet to make a lot of that easier for myself or whoever scores)

I'll play around with excel and see what I can come up with for easy scorekeeping tools, and get back to everybody.

[aww1979]

Okay, I made some fairly general scorekeeping sheets, and I can add a few more functions later, like figuring out win percentages and stuff, if we think that sort of thing is important or interesting. So, unless there are any objections to it, I'll put up a thread with a new tournament for May in a day or two. I'll probably have to disqualify myself from prizes, since I'll know everybody's decks in advance, but that's okay; we all win when Jatill codes stuff :p

For my own submissions, I'd likely include one deck that was meant to actually win, and then maybe up to two more (like Jatill did) that were meant to mostly be metagame choices, silly and/or annoying. (i.e. have stuff like Energy Flux, Blood Moon, Karma, and other things that are generally a pain in the ass )

If we start getting more deck entries than can be reasonably done in a gauntlet mode tournament we can start doing an elimination style tournament, where the organizer sets up brackets and people play set decks against each other (ex: May 1-3, play Jatill v. aww1979, May 4-6 play salbei v. yggrdrasil, May 7-9 play bob v. larry, etc, until the first round is done, then have winners play winners) The idea would be the entire community, everyone plays Jatill v. aww1979 during may 1-3, and perhaps 20 people win with jatill's deck and 15 win with mine, then jatill moves on to round 2. It makes sense in my head, anyway, but I don't really want to do it that way unless we get dozens of decks and it gets ridiculous to play 40 decks all against each other.

So yeah, unless someone thinks I am a poor choice to organize it, I'll post another tournament (most likely the same format as the last one) after giving everyone a few days to register any complaints. We can start doing other formats and/or themes, but I thought having the same one again for May would give a bit more continuity to the idea.

[Yggdrasil]

Sounds good to me.

I'll probably have to disqualify myself from prizes, since I'll know everybody's decks in advance

Why ? You can build your own deck without studying the others. We trust you, you're a Magic player so you're necessarily a trustworthy person.

We can start doing other formats and/or themes, but I thought having the same one again for May would give a bit more continuity to the idea.

I agree, it would be cool to continue some times with the actual format and see how the meta evolves and how players adapt their strategies.
When people will be tired, we could consider adding variety.

[jatill]

I can't wait, aww. I already have a deck in mind that mangles Zoo, even with the AI playing it. It's nice that anyone who wants to prepare for the tournament easily can, since now there is a nice gauntlet of Vintage decks to test against.

Edit: time to write those 3 prize cards. I hope I remember how to do this, it's been months!

[Yggdrasil]

He he, Zoo will have a hard life I guess.

Perhaps we should consider keeping the last winning deck in the next tournament. Just to see how it resists to the new decks.

[juzamjedi]

Aww1979 you're a fine choice to organize it. I'm happy to play this format again or something different if that's your choice. I suggest adding 1 week to complete the gauntlet would be good; we aren't as rushed, but the competition doesn't get stale sitting around forever either.

I will be sure not to wait until the last second again to submit my revised decklist.

[Nyktorion]

Also from my side, thanks to jatill for the nice organisation of this tournament . You ran this tournament very smoothly, without that, the tournament could not have been as enjoyable as it was.

If there is another tournament happening, I'll of course happily play again.
Considering scoring, I have some critique against the gauntlet method, though.
Of course, the quality of your deck determines how favorable your odds are to turn an AI's game with your deck into a win, but how many "chances" your deck gets is determined purely by luck - in my part of scoring, this factor broke thedrigo's neck. All three of jatill's decks, and disco's Imperial Zoo also got disadvantaged here, although not as badly as thedrigo.
Therefore, I do like the idea of changing the way of scoring to something different from gauntlets, be it aww's suggestion of an elimination tournament, or something else (for instance, round robin, if the number of participants is low enough?).

[Cognis]

Maybe if each win with a deck would be awarded 2 points you could get 20 points for winning the gauntlet and still have a chance to win even if the deck isn't AI friendly or your deck got disadvantaged. I think AI win should still be 5 points since players have the advantage of actually knowing how to play each deck and have insight into the deck AI plays.

[Cognis]

Sounds good to me.

I'll probably have to disqualify myself from prizes, since I'll know everybody's decks in advance

Why ? You can build your own deck without studying the others. We trust you, you're a Magic player so you're necessarily a trustworthy person.

Exactly, the scoring in the tournament is held in good faith and trust everyone will play clean. Someone said that we're all winners when jatill codes new cards and I agree. We do it because it's very fun, hope for the win but enjoy the victory of others. There's no need to disqualify yourself from the prizes.

[discoransom]

As to the randomness of the gauntlet and the decks the AI chooses, we can just run the matches in duel mode. It depends on the number of total entries, but it may be possible for each deck to play each other deck once. If there are too many entries, perhaps there can be two brackets.

Either way, keeping a little luck and randomness doesn't hurt such a casual and friendly format. I'm in no matter what the format though.

[Yggdrasil]

Nyktorion raises an interesting point.
When I played the tournament, AI played 6 times with certain decks and 0 for other ones (Scherbchen had no luck ). With a great amount of players, these totals would be balanced, but the round robin system isn't suitable for numerous players.

An elimination tournament could look like this (it's just an idea) :

Aww1979
Salbei

Brandon
Cognis

Disco
Evil Clone

JuzamJedi
Kakodrilo

Nyktorian
Thedrigo

Yggdrasil
scherbchen

Jatill
neutral deck (perhaps the winner deck of the previous tournament)


We start with Aww1979 and Salbei. Each participant in the tournament plays 5 times (for example) with Aww1979's deck against Salbei, and 5 times with Salbei's deck against Aww1979.
We add up the scores and the winner is qualified for next round. We do the same thing for the other duels.
The 7 winners and the eliminated deck with the best score will go in the second round.

What is your opinion ?

[jatill]

wtf, why do I have to play against the best deck?
Personally, I don't like the seeding approach since it means one bad matchup and you're finished. I think the luck factor of the gauntlet balances out over the long-run.

If you kept matches to just 1 game, round-robin would be a good idea. With 12 decks like there were last tie, that's just 132 games, which is fewer that I played with the original tournament. Of course that number doubles with 16 players...

[thedrigo]

This is more interesting than Challenge Mode, hands down.
I really don't mind what kind of approach we decide on; I mean, if you really think about it, completely eliminating the "luck factor" is absolutely impossible because of the simple fact that the AI is involved. While luck will always be a factor, deckbuilding ability is also a determinant circumstance because, if you build a crummy deck, chances are that even if it gets picked tons of times by the AI, it will lose anyway. So I think it evens itself out in the end. Just my two cents...

Either way, I'm down to play whenever we have more of these.

[Yggdrasil]

wtf, why do I have to play against the best deck?

That was just an example, the matchup would be randomly determined.

I'm fine with the two tournament types anyway. Round robin will still be fine until the number of players greatly increase. I guess we have some time before that situation happens.