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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zombie33 May 16, 2016, 11:27 AM I think, it would be a good thing to test Online tournament with swiss round. Here how i imagine the organisation :
- Each Week you must play a game.
- When everybody have play it, we can play the next round.
This is a 4-5 weeks tournament with 1 game per week. It's very long but :

But the main point of this is : parallel tournaments ! If each week we start a new tournament many problems are solved :
- Players who wants to play a lot of game can do it. Just subscribe to as many tournament as you want.
- Players who just want to play once per week can also do it.
- We increase a lot the number of online tournament.
Bri May 16, 2016, 6:56 PM Sounds nice to me.
GalacticPresident May 17, 2016, 3:59 PM Sounds like something we could try out. It is true that the number of tournaments will increase and there won't even necessarily be less players participating but there will be a lot less number of rounds. Right now, 9-10 rounds are played whereas in the Swiss tournament it will only be 4-5. This will increase variance but it's not a big deal since no paper tournament has more than 5-6 rounds (except for CDF). I'd like to try it out!
Manudesbois May 17, 2016, 4:36 PM It might to try it again, but when it was previously tried it did not work, because people generally don't want to play the same deck for 4-5 weeks without having a chance to apply changes in the middle, may they be slight changes or radical ones.

I personally wouldn't try such a tournament without a list I feel already "validated".
Manudesbois May 19, 2016, 10:37 AM *It might be good to try...*
Max2070 May 21, 2016, 2:52 PM
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1- Report VS No match VS Rematch


@GalacticPresident :

The correct way to look at it is: The group stage is played and 2 players advance. In the final pool we only want 5 matches to be played for everyone, in order to be manageable in time. If there are 8 players, everybody would have to play 7 matches, so we need to reduce it by 2. One is simply discarded and since the two players of each group have to face each other again, instead of replaying the match, the result from the group stage is transferred. All of this happens only because we don't want more than 5 matches in the final pool because of time reasons.


yes, you are right !

@GalacticPresident :

The question now is if it is fairer to transfer a result or to not take it into account (no rematch played!).
Because I strongly disagree with you Max, that the outcome of a rematch randomly restores balance or not.
...
If one player gets extremely unlucky, it is far better to replay the match, because with doubling the outcome, extreme luck or bad luck are doubled as well.
...
In magic, there are a lot of close matchups. Let's look at an example. Let's assume we play a matchup twice, where player A is a 55% favourite (and both players are equally players). The probabilities look like that:
Player A wins twice: 30,25%
Both players win once: 49,50%
Player B wins twice: 20,25%



your thinking would be correct if we were considering the average of the results. In that case, indeed, more the matches you play, more the result is accurate. But here only the last match count. So considering % based on "wins twice" and "win once" is not relevant at all. (it is also why I detailled case by case who win the last match in my explanation)
For instance, I can loose 99 matches (because of bad MU) and win the last by luck ! in that case only the last match would be take into account (let's imagine 100 pool phase xD), your probabilities above would be 99% for the player who deserve but in the and with rematch the 1% player win ...
An other way of doing would be to take this average but on two match only it's not relevant ... (which can be discuss)

so for me this statement remains true => rematch is equivalent to transfert (detailled here)

Now come your question : Is that fairer to not play the MU (consider no result) at all in the final pool?

1- The rematch is the fairest option.
2- The report is objectively not less fair than rematch
3- The report gives more match than not playing the match at all
4- Not playing the match against the opponent of the first pool implies having less matches played
5- More the match we proceed in the final pool more the result of the tournament is accurate

Considering those statements, report is strictly better than "no match at all" in order to having the most accurate final result keeping the fairest options between players.

I tried to explain my point of view the clearest I could and I truly think that there are absolutely no issues with transfert matches.

@GalacticPresident :

So if we assume that Peasant matchups in general are rather close than one-sided, it is for sure fairer to not transfer any results.


I really don't understand why it would be fairer to not transfert in that case ...

@GalacticPresident :

[One more thing: It is possible to give the winners from the group stages a very small advantage by not making them play against all the others in the final pool. That means that the "deleted" matchup in finals for the nr.1 players is always another nr.1 player. The deleted matches of the nr.2 players are always other nr.2 ranked players.]


please, help me to figure out why a pool winner would deserve an advantage ? as i recalled in my previous message the levels of pools are not the same at all (easy pool, difficult pool, ...). a second rank player in difficult pool can deserve far more than a first rank player in an easy pool (and it's what we observe some time in final pool)


2- Swiss round tournaments


I can't see any advantage (maybe only the one pointed by zombie) and I see a lot of drawbacks, like galactic and @Manu explained already.

Anyway, what is the point in doing 5 tournaments in parallel with the same players ? I understand that the players who have not the time keep the option of doing only one tournament which is good (it was the reason we organized a big tournament + 2 little ones on one evening per month).

But there is a lot of drawbacks, we was organizing tournaments like that for several years with manu. pool system was like a revolution, but there are not a lot of player remaining from this time on currents tournament and I have the feeling that those new players need to experience this system for really see the drawbacks.

In my opinion, the system which offer the better option is the system with linked chain proposed by zombie. We organized only one of this kind of tournament and we didn't have a lot of experience in doing it but I really see only good points.
Max2070 May 21, 2016, 2:55 PM and in the current swiss tournament with 19 players (for now), 4 rounds is not enough ...
zombie33 May 21, 2016, 3:50 PM I write "4 rounds" somewhere ? of course we used the same rules as in irl tournament for the number of round ceil(log(n)/log(2))

I see a lot of drawbacks, like galactic and @Manu explained already.



This system was the same as IRL tournament. If pool system is really better than swiss tournment, we should use it in IRL tournament too... The only "bad" point is the duration of the tournament.
It's the system used during 4 years for peasant tournament in MTGO each week and this system allowed a tournament of 42 players.


I have the feeling that those new players need to experience this system for really see the drawbacks.



Well, manu subscribe quickly to this tournament anyway.


it was the reason we organized a big tournament + 2 little ones on one evening per month



It was a long time ago and it's not possible to do it anymore
Max2070 May 21, 2016, 9:46 PM

This system was the same as IRL tournament. If pool system is really better than swiss tournment, we should use it in IRL tournament too... The only "bad" point is the duration of the tournament.
It's the system used during 4 years for peasant tournament in MTGO each week and this system allowed a tournament of 42 players.


seriously ? isn't obvious ? I really have to say that the drawbacks are specific to online tournament ? of course there are no issue with swiss round in "real time" tournament (like MTGO)

And anyway the most accurate tournament result will always be "everyone against everyone".But once again please, isn't obvious that we cannot organize a "pool system" or "everyone against everyone" IRL because of time limitation ??

If everybody choose the "swiss round" it is because of time limitation and because it is the best compromise to get an accurate result (I don't this any problem with that)

I write "4 rounds" somewhere ? of course we used the same rules as in irl tournament for the number of round ceil(log(n)/log(2))


I see that I have to recall this REALLY BIG DRAWBACKS already pointed :
Only 1 guy can delay every round every week to this maximum duration. More the guy you have more the round duration will be equal to the maximum duration you fixed. So 5 round ? ok go for 5 week (if you are lucky it will be less). Ok now comes the problem of tournament of one entire month to play only 4 matches :
- It is long so people full their mind with their other stuff and forgot the tournament
- even for the guy who win his match it is difficult to stay involved the tournament is going for already 3 week (with a really low involvement in terms of matches)
- some guys are doing tournaments only in order to test their decks which would be sad for them
- people generally don't want to play the same deck for 4-5 weeks without having a chance to apply changes in the middle

globally :
- loose of involvement and motivation
- boring

Well, manu subscribe quickly to this tournament anyway.


what is the point ?

It was a long time ago and it's not possible to do it anymore


in fact it could, it's only a question of motivation ... but it's really not the point here ...
zombie33 May 21, 2016, 11:53 PM - We are agreed on the first point.

- About the second point, you are talking about loose involvment and motivation. It's true, this could happened... In fact it depends mostly of the players involved. How did you explain this : "It's the system used during 4 years for peasant tournament in MTGO each week".