July Tournament (in progress)

[aww1979]

Here we go again...

The rules:
1) All decks must be legal in LEGACY
2) All decks must be PMed to me (aww1979) by the end of Friday, July 2.
3) Deck name should be in the format "Legacy_YOURNAME_DECKNAME"
example: Legacy_aww1979_affinity
4) Only use cards that are in the main version of manalink. (not limited or custom) If any cards are coded by jatill by the end of June 30, you can use those. If they aren't coded by then, you cannot use them, as I want to make sure that everyone has time to test them out.
5) In addition to normal Legacy deck construction rules, the following cards are also BANNED:
Burning Wish
Cunning Wish
Living Wish
Ring of Ma'ruf

Format: (NOTE: round 1 will be different than June, otherwise it is identical in format)

1) I will randomly place players in a certain number of groups. (like the world cup) The number and size of groups will vary depending upon the number of entries, but will likely be something like four groups of four. In each group, the two decks that score the highest will advance to round 2. In round 2, you will be paired with another winning deck, and the schedule will be worked out in advance, i.e. the 1st place winner of group A will play the 2nd place winner of group B, and so on.

2) For rounds 2 and on, all players will play both sides of a pairing in a best of 3 duel. For instance, if one pairing is Finkel and Budde, then *everyone* will play a best of 3 duel, once where they play with Finkel against an AI Budde, and once where they play with Budde against an AI Finkel. Once all players report their match results, I will determine who advances to the next round, and new brackets will be set up between the winners of the previous round. Other decks will be eliminated from the tournament, though all players may continue to test decks. This process continues until only two decks are left; they will play in the final, and the winner of this match wins the tournament.

Scoring: (identical to June)
-if you win the gauntlet with a 2-0 match score, the winning deck gets 2 points
-if you win the gauntlet with a 2-1 match score, the winning deck gets 1 point
-if you lose the gauntlet with a 1-2 match score, the AI deck gets 3 points
-if you lose the gauntlet with a 0-2 match score, the AI deck gets 5 points

Ties: (slight change to avoid my having to play sudden death matches, because they slow the tournament down)
If there is a tie, the following criteria, in this order, will determine who wins a tie:
a) The person who won by the most points. For instance, if deck A wins 40-30 and deck B wins 40-39, deck A did better and advances
b) If (A) still results in a tie, then the higher score advances. If deck A wins 40-30 and deck B wins 30-20, then deck A advances.
c) If (A) and (B) still result in a tie, then apply the criteria for A and B to the previous round scores, if there was one, to break the tie. If that is a tie, go back to the next round, and so on.
d) If after all this there is still a tie, then I'll play a sudden death matchup between the decks.

Prizes: (jatill wants it kept to 5 max, so this is the new format for prizes for July)
1st place - 2 coded cards of their choice
2nd place - 1 coded card of their choice
3rd place - 1 coded card of their choice. 3rd place will be determined in a 'consolation match' between the two semifinal losers
BONUS - 1 coded card to the deck voted 'most fun to play' after the tournament is completed, regardless of finished position (if this is a tie, preference will be given to a player who didn't win anything else; my personal vote will break a tie here otherwise)

Other:
-You MUST play best of 3 matches; best of 1 or best of 5 reports will be IGNORED.
-a minimum of 5 decks must be received or the tournament will be cancelled (this has not yet been a problem, we had 15 last time and I think about 10-11 the time before that)
-if a number of entries is received that is not a convenient number for dividing into groups (like 13 or 7 or something) I will at my discretion either give some byes out randomly and/or I will add some extra decks myself, but I will designate one (the one of mine I think is best) as the one that I can win prizes with; if a different one of my decks wins, I'll put up a list of a half dozen or so of my favourites and let the community vote. For instance, last time we had 15 entries, so I added one extra deck myself to make 16, which is a convenient number for tournaments.

If something in the rules above doesn't quite make sense to you, here's the summarized version:
-send me a legacy legal deck by the deadline
-I'll make a schedule of who plays who
-you will test each deck out in the schedule and they will all be scored
-winners advance to the next round, and it is repeated for the following rounds

Reporting Games:
Report games in this thread. Feel free to include summaries if desired, but please put the scores somewhere very clearly on their own lines, like so:

Finkel defeats Budde AI 2-1 (Finkel +1 pts)
Budde defeats Finkel AI 2-0 (Budde +2 pts)

People were pretty good with that last time; it makes things a lot easier for me

If anything is unclear, just ask.

EDIT: Round 2 is over. These are the results and the brackets for round 3 :

ALPHA: Cognis 31 vs Serbitar 12
BETA: Yggdrasil 40 vs Shantak 6
GAMMA: Juzamjedi 32 vs Jatill 10
DELTA: Aww 22 vs Monopoman 26

Round 3:
Cognis vs Yggdrasil
Juzamjedi vs Monopoman

edit: At any point after finishing Round 1 (so that you've tried each deck) you can vote for the 'most fun award' deck. You can vote up until the end of the finals, so you don't need to do it right away, and if you change your mind, you can do that up to the end of the tournament. Either post your vote or send it in a private message, whichever you prefer. You don't need to say why it's your favourite, but you can if you want. (also, you may not vote for your own deck, no matter how awesome it is!)

EDIT: Due to personal circumstances, there is a good chance I will not be able to run a tournament in August, as I will probably be away for a week (most likely the second week). I don't know for sure yet, though; when I find out I'll post whether I will host one in August.

[Yggdrasil]

The bonus card for the most fun deck is a great idea !

For the new players, decks of the previous tournament are available here (Scherbchen's deck was the winner).

I'm curious about how we will deal with the current meta. Good luck everyone.

[Cognis]

Yeah, I can't wait, I already have a deck that the AI plays pretty well but I'm hoping Jatill will be able to code the reward cards before the 30th so I can use some in a deck that will be something completely different, I just hope the AI won't suck overly much like with the UB and UWB mill decks I made.

[jatill]

I for one was hoping Progenitus would be banned. I guess for this tournament you'll have to either beat it or join it. I will be choosing beat it, even though I had a pretty sick idea of how to improve the deck

I will be trying very hard to get all the new cards coded by the June 30th deadline. It would definitely happen if I get some help, so please visit this thread: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2783. Also, that lists all of the cards that I am trying to build, so you can brainstorm ideas.

Thanks.

[aww1979]

Well, I'm hoping everybody got the progenitus decks out of their system last time :p I don't really like the idea of banning cards that aren't banned in real legacy tournaments, but if things get out of hand, we can look at banning certain cards.

If those eldrazi cards come in, I might have to try and make up a deck that abuses those Eureka comes to mind... Creakwood Liege would also kick ass in one of the deck ideas I'm testing.

[jatill]

If those eldrazi cards come in, I might have to try and make up a deck that abuses those Eureka comes to mind...

The way I'm coding Eldrazi, they will trigger their ability off Eureka, so that would be frowned upon. Now that you give me the idea, though, I think I can maybe make them not trigger. I'm coding Emrakul right now, so we'll see.
Edit: Eureka, it works!

Can you do a sanity check for me? Right now I see that Red Ward is in the constructed version still. I can't believe that hasn't been removed yet. Is it in your version too?

[scherbchen1]

Can you do a sanity check for me? Right now I see that Red Ward is in the constructed version still. I can't believe that hasn't been removed yet. Is it in your version too?

I see it as well. *rubs eyes*

[aww1979]

Yes, I have Red Ward and White Ward still. The other 3 are not here. Also, since Jatill just made an update today with some new cards, you are all permitted to use any of those cards, unless we find some gigantic huge bugs in them. (like an eldrazi costing 0 mana or something lol)

[taron]

Oh I am SO in. Hopefully last tournament 4th wasn't just beginners luck and I can pull it off again

[discoransom]

This will be fun. I'm deck brewing like a madman!

[aww1979]

I've been trying out a few ideas, too. I'm not really sure which one I'm going to settle on though; I keep trying to build decks that a human would succeed with, and then watch the AI completely screw up :p I'm also quite terrible with the metagame; I'm a good player, and an okay deckbuilder, but downright awful at trying to predict what other people might do, and that's only made worse by trying to predict what other people might try to design for the AI.

[Cognis]

I don't care about the metagame, I'm a crappy deck builder but a good player, so I build decks for people that will know how to use them, I started with a UB mill deck, then simplified it into an UWB deck, then simplified it again, then tried mono black control but to no avail. The AI just doesn't know how to play a non creature oriented deck. I'll try something in the next two days

[Cognis]

After the AI repeatedly killed every deck idea I had I go back to my original idea for an easy deck, it's not much but the AI seems to play it well.

[juzamjedi]

You can rest assured that I will be building a deck that the AI can play well. That's pretty much my main criteria when I brew decks for this tournament

For anyone reading this thread you should also note that the BANNED / RESTRICTED list for Legacy is changing. I don't think people were using Mystical Tutor, but just sayin'

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/A ... eature/95b

[thedrigo]

The deck I'm thinking about submitting is CRAP in the AI's hands but tonsa fun to play. I'll make some changes but I'm pretty sure it'll be the one I'll use. 8D