Cockatrice tournament system May 12, 2016, 4:53 PM
GalacticPresident I think the system for the cockatrice tournaments with group stage and final stage is great, with one exception. Two people from each group advance to the final pool to play against the successful players from the other pools. The result from the match between the two players from the same group is transferred, which means it counts double, once for the group stage and again in the final pool. It is now possible to win the group stage but still go to the final pool with a loss if one happens to have only lost against the second seed of one's group. I think we should find a way to change that because it is just not fair and also distorts the end result!
Imagine this: Player 1 wins group A with 4 wins and 1 loss to Player 2. Player 2 comes in second with 3 wins and 2 losses. In the final pool, both players win the same amount of matches. In this case, player 2 ends up in front of player 1 in the final standings, despite having won 1 match less.

In my point of view, the player with the most points in his group should have an edge in the final pool, no matter if he won or lost against the player who happens to come in second.

I can think of 2 fair scenarios who the system could be changed:
1: The results from the group stage are not transferred at all.
2: The results from the group stage are not transferred at all and the group winners enter the final pool with +3 points.

What do you guys think of that?
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sister_morphine May 12, 2016, 6:35 PM Thx, GalacticPresident, for mentioning this! Until now i did not even know, that the system works that way ;-). And I think you're absolutely right. The transfered 'victory' or 'loss' causes a strange taste of unfaireness.
I don't see, why the top-two Players of the same group should not play against each other one more time in the final rounds. Take gps and pts as a reference: The Players of win-and-in-rounds happen to play against each other once more in the finals from time to time - and these matches are often the most interesting ones.

So, i would say: Option 1 with the possibility (one would need a randomizer for the pairings then), that the two players from the same pool can play against each other once again.

Opition 2 is too much an advantage for the #1-players, especially if they have won with 9 points and the 2nd one has also 9 points. In my eyes, it would then be better to transfer each result to the finals-pool and ad the new results to the existing ones. But this would mean, that someone, who managed a 5-0 result in the first round would be almost through the finals, too. Even if he looses two or three rounds.
Max2070 May 12, 2016, 6:39 PM xD interesting point of view but the match transfer respond to several issues :

1- First of all, we do not report matches on every tournament. We are doing that when there is 6 matches to proceed in "one week". The experience showed us that it was too long ...

2- A positive point of the report is that a player which is sure to finsh 1st or to be qualify won't distort the pool result by concede the last match (which will be unfair for some players)

3- avoid to redo boring match several times (thopter mirror is the worst), which is sometimes really horrible, note that it's also forbid to redo interesting matches.

Moreover, I think your point of view can be discuss :

1- where is the point to redo the same match against the same player ? the second match would deserve to be more relevant (I don't know why) ? sometime the winner of the pool would win and loose afterward ... sometime it will be the opposite. I don't see in what way it would "generally" benefit to the pool winner.

2-

The results from the group stage are not transferred at all and the group winners enter the final pool with +3 points.



seems to be a great injustice to me, especially when both players are qualified with the same amount of point. Moreover, because the pool levels are not the same, when you finish 1st in an easy pool with misplays and bad deck, I don't think you deserve to have more point that a second ranking of a big pool.

For me pools are only step to qualify bests players for the next pool. When you come in this next pool, you must prove that you are one of the bests player in order to qualify for the next one. to prove that, count old opponent matches doesn't seem relevant. I find the best way is simply face every player of the pool.
Max2070 May 12, 2016, 6:45 PM

And I think you're absolutely right. The transfered 'victory' or 'loss' causes a strange taste of unfaireness.



true !! but I think it's more a subjective feeling than other. We could also win a good MU in first phase and loose because of mulligan in final phase, it will also be unfair ... one rule is not especially more or less fair, it could be lucky, it could be unlucky ...

In my eyes, it would then be better to transfer each result to the finals-pool and ad the new results to the existing ones. But this would mean, that someone, who managed a 5-0 result in the first round would be almost through the finals, too. Even if he looses two or three rounds.



yes, it is better but still, it doesn't take account of the difference of level between the first pools ... (which is an advantage of the actual system)
GalacticPresident May 13, 2016, 11:15 AM Ok, so let's see.

General structure:
I think we should definitely stick to the "two phases" (group stage and final phase) model, because it would take too long for everybody to play against every other player in the tournament. Plus, it has been proven over time that it works for everybody. This bears some inequality as well, because it is easier to reach top2 in a group of 5 players than in one that consists of 6. This cannot be changed and is ok in my point of view. The players end up in their groups by chance (correct?) so it is fair.

I don't think any match should be replayed in the final phase, because of the reason Max mentioned. Experience has shown that there shouldn't be more than 5 matches per phase in order for the maximum amount of people to finish their matches. I would not touch that rule, unless we prolong the time for the tournaments, which I also don't like.

I also like the fact that the group stage somewhat evens out the powerlevel of the different groups, so taking all the group standings into account when counting points for the final pool does not make things fairer.

Winners of group stages:
I think both of you didn't understand what I meant with my initial point 2, maybe it was poorly put. What I meant by "the group winner should enter the final pool with +3 points" is:
Right now, if we take one result from the group stage into the final stage, one of the two players enters the final pool with a win, which means +3 points. What I wanted to say is that we could just not report the match between nr.1 and nr.2 from each group (in order to not having to play more matches), but instead "give the win to the nr.1" by letting that player enter the final pool with +3 points, regardless of who won that match.

I like this solution, because it rewards winning the group stage, which should be a small advantage if at all but never a disadvantage.

The other possibilty (my initial point 1) is to not transfer the result between nr.1 and nr.2 from each pool and don't give any free point to anybody. This means that it doesn't matter who came in first or second in groups, both players enter the finals on the same level and with the same chances. I like this option too, it opens the field in the final pool and provides even chances among everybody who made it to the finals. The basic question is, do we want to reward players who won their group stage or do we say that it's enough to be amongst the two best (because some results are questionable anyway, with people conceding and dropping and so on...).

Additional topic: League points for everybody who reaches final pool
Max we talked about that already and I think it would be better to grant points to everybody who managed to reach the final pool. The amount of points is based on the wins anyway, so the two players at the bottom of the final pool get significantly less points than the others anyway. But it is fun to get points and having fun is our main goal, so let's get more people in the league rankings!

GalacticPresident May 13, 2016, 11:19 AM @Max:
"1- First of all, we do not report matches on every tournament. We are doing that when there is 6 matches to proceed in "one week". The experience showed us that it was too long ..."

Really? That means in the current tournament the match will not be reported? But that would mean we have to replay, doesn't it?
Vlalutscher May 13, 2016, 2:31 PM As far as I understand what GalacticPresident wrote, the result is not reported and the match is not replayed.
So the problem that was described at the beginning of the topic would be solved. Nobody starts with a "bonus" in the final phase. This also means that each player in final phase has to play one less match.
In tournaments with 4 pools we reported the result and one other, "random" match was not played. I think it could be enough not to play the match from the first round. You still can discuss whether to leave out another "random" match or just play 6.
In tournaments with 3 pools we played all matches in final phases. Also the match from the first phase. No results were reported. No one started with "+3" in the final phase. So why should there be such a differnce in same tournaments?
I checked this for the tournaments I took part in. I can only say that Max would not have won the tournament on 2016/02/20, if our match wasn't replayed. I don't mean that Max didn't deserve to win that tournament, but that reporting the results from the first phase have the impact GalacticPresident has mentioned. And like him I would also say that it would be better not reportng it. It shouldn't matter if you have 3 or 4 pools in first phase, because rules should cover close to all circumstances.
I also agree with Max and morphine, that starting the final phase with "+3" for the gruop winners is a way too big award and depending on the different circumstances a group in the first phase can have (1 less player, 1 Drop), it seems not be fair or better representative.
The only problem I see is, the amount of matches being played in the final phase and the smaller difernce of the final scores. But usually tournaments with less people have less matches and more participants result in more matches. Of course it is not that easy for an online tournament with a timeframe like we have here, but this is what I think.

I also would like to talk about the additional topic. I wouldn't care about this change. I take part on this tournaments, because I want to play peasant. I complained about the rule/decision, how manny decks/players are mentioned after the tournament and I still don't like it. If I get league points instead of being mentioned in the results on this page, my opinion would not be affected I think. I understand, that you have to find a reasonable way to make a "cut", but sometimes, it feels arbitrary to me in relation to other (smaller) tournaments. You have to qualify for a "elite" of players by winning and after not winning enough "elite" matches, you are not worth mentioning, but someone winning 3 or maybe just 2 random matches is? Or do I get it wrong? Of course I would have the same chance if only there would be small tournaments around my area.

To put everything into a nutshell, I would suggest neither reporting nor replaying the match from the first phase and play the amount of matches in final phase given from the amount of pools. (i.e. 4 matches with 3 pools and 6 matches with 4 pools). Should be manageable.

There is no real need to change the league point system, but it could be good/motivating. My motivation in first place is to get a own brew mentioned. Just like showing people music I like/love, hoping they also do so.

GalacticPresident May 13, 2016, 6:06 PM All of you are saying that entering the final pool with +3 points is way too much and unjust, but you do realize that's the case right now, do you? It's even worse, because it's not even always the winner of the group stage that enters with a free win, sometimes it's the nr.2. (=the reason why I started this thread)

@vlalutscher: "As far as I understand what GalacticPresident wrote, the result is not reported and the match is not replayed.
So the problem that was described at the beginning of the topic would be solved. Nobody starts with a "bonus" in the final phase. This also means that each player in final phase has to play one less match."

Your summary of my arguments is pretty poor unfortunately, because I wrote about two different scenarios that I can see being better than the current one. So once again, a short summary of both scenarios.

Scenario 1: No match replay, no report. Difference: 1 match result less is taken into account when counting the points in final phase but number of played matches is the same, since the reported match is the one that's missing.

Scenario 2: No match replay, no matter the result between nr.1 and nr.2 in group stage, nr.1 enters final pool with +3 points (=with a win). Difference: Exactly the same as it is now, with the exception that it is always the group stage winners that enter the final pool with the free points, and never the one who came in second.


League points:
There is a rule on this page which defines how many decks appear in the rankings based on the number of players who took part. The rule is (number of players)/4, rounded up. This rule was not always applied unfortunately but that's how it should be. For our online tournaments we could expand that rule to the full final pool, no matter the amount of players (max 8 anyway, there hasn't been an online tournament with 33+ players yet). I think we would benefit from such a change, because everybody likes to be listet and to get points. This has to be decided by the tournament organizers (Max & Zombie I guess). I just offer my opinion as a regular player.

(@vlalutscher: The rule is the same for smaller tournaments. But league points can only be gathered by playing cockatrice tournaments, real life tournaments don't count here.)
GalacticPresident May 13, 2016, 6:09 PM Appendix:
My scenarios only make sense for tournaments with enough players for 4 groups. If there are only 3 groups, where no results are transferred to the final pool, I wouldn't change anything.
Max2070 May 14, 2016, 1:55 AM @GalacticPresident:
I have the bad feeling that you didn't read my response at all. I was trying to explain the following statement :

The report is objectively not less fair than rematch


There is only 4 case possible with rematch :

- case 1 : rank 1 win group stage match + rank 1 win final stage match
- case 2 : rank 1 win group stage match + rank 2 win final stage match
- case 3 : rank 2 win group stage match + rank 1 win final stage match
- case 4 : rank 2 win group stage match + rank 2 win final stage match

the relevant part :

in case 1 and 4, both players don't care of the system used.
in case 2, the rank 1 would have prefer the report
in case 3, the rank 2 would have prefer the report

it is 25%/50%/25%, it is totally fair, there is absolutely no case with report where it would be an advantage for the 2nd ranking player. You seems to think that the report is a bonus for the ranking 2 player. It is WRONG, because with the rematch, you also expose the ranking 1 player to loose his advantage (in case of win) ...

All the point is the following :

Why the first match would be more relevant than the second ??


I would like you to respond to that question because the only thing that could be in favor of rematch is the response to that question. From my point of view the second match is not more relevent, bad luck could interfere in both match for a player or another. The following scenario are really fair ??

- player A (the pool winner for instance) win honestly his first match and loose with bad draw only on final match ?

No !! it is unfair but it could totally be the oposite ! and it would be great because, it would restore the justice. IT IS JUST RANDOM !! the rematch could benefit to any player RANDOMLY (the winner or the 2nd ranking player) ...

Obviously, the better solution is to do a rematch (it's why we do it on small tournament size), but objectively the difference with a report are not relevent at all because the difference is just random. Having said this, the report offer just an overall gain of time and repsond to a logistic problem. I don't see why to remove it.

What I think!
for me the, the only impact of a rematch is the experience gained from the first match which could be useful for the next. And regarding that, I think it advantages (a little little) experienced player who could adapt their games plan.

do we want to advantage experienced users in that kind of tournament ? I'm not sure !
Max2070 May 14, 2016, 1:58 AM @GalacticPresident, @Vlalutscher:
regarding the league point, if it was just from me, every player would have league point. But it would require to develop a specific program for that, And I don't have that time ... so for now, it only take the top list which are put into the database ...

regarding the number of deck in top, the explanation on the "new top page" is old and bad, the new one was clearly explained in this forum after the question from vlalu