Should Online Tournaments Count Towards TMD Rankings?

[Prospero]

TMD Vintage Rankings for 2012 will be better than 2011 for a few reasons (the prize pool being one...), but I wanted to see if the community at large felt that the inclusion of all, or some, TMD online Vintage tournaments would make the system better. 

This voting will have an impact on the eventual decision, but it isn't guaranteed to be the final decision.

So, thoughts?

[AmbivalentDuck]

I vote for ALL responsible (ie. unrigged) online tourneys counting.

I don't see how a weekly tourney in a brick and mortar is different from a weekly tourney on Cockatrice.

[Commandant]

Agree.

[quicksilvervii]

I vote for ALL responsible (ie. unrigged) online tourneys counting.

I don't see how a weekly tourney in a brick and mortar is different from a weekly tourney on Cockatrice.

I do.

Potential disincentive to travel or go to B&M tournaments for one.  I don't need to explain why this is bad for the format.
Why have an 8 man at a store when I can sit at home in my sweatpants drinking a beer?
Sure, prize support may not be the same, but the only way to get more people playing vintage is through exposure.

Easy abuse of the system for two.

EDIT:

For clarification -
I have nothing against online tournaments, like those Prospero are running counting towards points, they just can't be constant.
For instance, would the Duck weekly tournaments count?  And aren't those just "first 8 people to sign up GO?"

[Commandant]

I vote for ALL responsible (ie. unrigged) online tourneys counting.

I don't see how a weekly tourney in a brick and mortar is different from a weekly tourney on Cockatrice.

I do.

Potential disincentive to travel or go to B&M tournaments for one. Â I don't need to explain why this is bad for the format.
Why have an 8 man at a store when I can sit at home in my sweatpants drinking a beer?
Sure, prize support may not be the same, but the only way to get more people playing vintage is through exposure.

Easy abuse of the system for two.

EDIT:

For clarification -
I have nothing against online tournaments, like those Prospero are running counting towards points, they just can't be constant.
For instance, would the Duck weekly tournaments count?  And aren't those just "first 8 people to sign up GO?"

Negative Nancy, I disagree.

1. I really doubt these events will take away from B&M events. At worst it fosters higher quality play via practice a lot people are unable to do in person at regular intervals due to life. At best it fosters more players and a desire to play in big events.

2. It's pretty easy to make these legit. How is it any different from someone running an 8 man IRL and making up results? Also I'm pretty sure both are below the community especially when the prize is bragging rights over say 150 individuals who actually play Type 1 in NA, wooptieee dooo dah.

3. Grinding online Type 1 events for practice so I can finally beat Steve Houdlette in the blue mirror makes me hard.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Why have an 8 man at a store when I can sit at home in my sweatpants drinking a beer?

Did my client murder this man?  By holding this here gun like so?  And shooting it like this? Bang bang!  Why of course he did.  Your honor, gentlemen on the jury, my client is a dirty, rotten scoundrel, now please put him away for life.

[Delha]

Potential disincentive to travel or go to B&M tournaments for one.  I don't need to explain why this is bad for the format.
Why have an 8 man at a store when I can sit at home in my sweatpants drinking a beer?
Sure, prize support may not be the same, but the only way to get more people playing vintage is through exposure.

Easy abuse of the system for two.

1. Lots of people on TMD have mentioned that they live in areas with little to no scene. Including online events serves as a way to change things so they're not entirely stranded. It's generally accepted that we already lose a lot of players to Real Life Stuff and makes it more likely they'll stay active in the scene. Also, by treating online play as somehow inferior, you're making Vintage much less attractive to potential players who are in the same boat.

2. How so? People still have to play. If worried about people falsifying results, that's even more of an issue for RL tournaments. If no TMDer lives nearby, it's very unlikely for the fraud to be discovered. The broad access to an online tournament however makes it much more likely for real players to join, and thereby forces the tournament to actually happen and be accurately reported.

[Tabasco]

Why have an 8 man at a store when I can sit at home in my sweatpants drinking a beer?

Why sit at home when you can go play an 8 man in a store wearing sweatpants while drinking a beer?

[Prospero]

Unlike last year, there is going to be an actual prize for winning the TMD Vintage Rankings this year.  What I would like to do is have a custom, artist done, alter to a Vintage staple.  I intend on raising a few hundred dollars.  Ideally, it would be something like the alteration seen here:

http://teresenielsen.typepad.com/the_world_of_terese_niels/2009/06/mtg-artists-ron-spencer-and-terese-nielsen-team-up-on-altered-cards.html

So, please keep in mind that there is going to be a financial incentive to winning the TMD Player of the Year race.

@AmbivalentDuck - The frequency of your online tournaments puts a burden on players who play in the real life events to play in as many of them as possible as well.  If you followed through with this throughout 2012, you'd have 52 tournaments in which players could, theoretically play.  This is a tremendous amount of points over the course of the year and frankly I think it's too many.

Online tournaments are probably going to be an important part of the future of Vintage, but I would much prefer counting the Invitational/Open tournaments for a few reasons:

1.   The Community tournament is open to everyone.  There is no cutoff.

2.   There is going to be a break between events.  The holidays were crazy for me, as I’m sure that they were for most everyone here.  It’s much easier to plan for something that’s a month or two away (and plan to have the time off to play) than it is to find time, every week, in order to play.

3.   This lessens the importance of the tournaments run in brick and mortar stores.  This shouldn’t be something that we encourage; on the contrary, the Rankings system should be something that pushes players to attend more tournaments at brick and mortar stores, not less.

Online tournaments give players who live hundreds of miles apart the opportunity to play against one another.  It lets players who may not be adept with a given pillar to test against those who are.  It lets you fix the holes in your game.  These are all great things, but I don’t want the end of year prize to go out to someone who just played in as many of these tournaments as possible, I want it to go out to someone who did well at playing Vintage over the course of the full year.

I won’t do full inclusion, but I’m open to having some form of inclusion.  Starting this off with the three or four TMD online tournaments that are run over the course of the year is a good place, in my opinion.  

This poll was meant as a means to gauge whether the community felt that those three-four events should even be included.  I did not mean for this to be about counting weekly tournaments.  

[AmbivalentDuck]

I'm forced to disagree primarily because not counting regular online tourneys puts an undue burden on those who must drive long distances to events to compete with those who live near a vibrant vintage scene.

I see several solutions:
1. Adjust the points awarded for attendance of frequent (online) tourneys.  Sure, showing up to Duck#4 shouldn't count as much as going to Gencon.
2. Run MORE online tourneys such that everyone who wants to play weekly/nightly Vintage has the opportunity.
3. Adjust the "cap" on the weekly tourneys I presently run.

I see no reason to advantage B&M stores.  Several of them hold weekly tourneys and therefore the frequency of their events raises the same issues we're presently addressing with online tourneys.

When/if I have too much free time, we might also consider changing the point system to use Bayesian inference to get a maximum likelihood estimator of match outcome.  The person most likely to win an all-TMD tourney at the end of the year wins.

[Prospero]

To respond to your points:

1.  While counting the weekly events towards the Vintage Rankings isn't on the table for 2012, some variation of it may be done for 2013.  In that case there would have to be something like that.

2.  More tournaments may be the answer.  They may also just be an extension of the problem, as it's then possible to play in nothing but the online events and still win.  That's not what we're aiming for. 

3.  See response #1.

Brick and mortar stores should be supported because they're a means to introduce new players to the format, they're a means to offer a great prize pool on a consistent (monthly) basis and because they're a great source for the innovation and content that drives TMD.  If we're prejudiced in favor of brick and mortar stores, it's done on purpose, openly, and without reservation.  Sorry.

I'm open to suggestions.  The end of year Community/Ringer tournament could be adjusted to be something bigger.  I'd like to hear what you have in mind.

[Smmenen]

My vote is NO. 

However, a couple of exceptions:

If MTGO finally fires up Vintage tournaments this year, I would ask for them to count.   Cockatrice tournaments shouldn't count because they aren't played under DCI floor rules, and don't have DCI judges. 

[Smmenen]

And, before you post a Reply to my post, which I see you doing now: NO, Ambivalent Duck, your tournies should not count towards Vintage Rankings.  I will not engage in a back and forth with you as why this should not be. 

[mikekilljoy]

My vote is NO. 

However, a couple of exceptions:

If MTGO finally fires up Vintage tournaments this year, I would ask for them to count.   Cockatrice tournaments shouldn't count because they aren't played under DCI floor rules, and don't have DCI judges. 

I agree with no. Adding these tournaments to the rankings will do nothing but reward people who have time through out the week to participate, which is something that everyone does not have.

Also, if these were to count, who is to say that we shouldn't count every small tournament that Nick runs whern there are no other events.

[mikekilljoy]

2.  More tournaments may be the answer.  They may also just be an extension of the problem, as it's then possible to play in nothing but the online events and still win.  That's not what we're aiming for. 

Brick and mortar stores should be supported because they're a means to introduce new players to the format, they're a means to offer a great prize pool on a consistent (monthly) basis and because they're a great source for the innovation and content that drives TMD.  If we're prejudiced in favor of brick and mortar stores, it's done on purpose, openly, and without reservation.  Sorry.

I'm open to suggestions.  The end of year Community/Ringer tournament could be adjusted to be something bigger.  I'd like to hear what you have in mind.

Just one thought on this. Any consideration to an online champion and a Brick and Mortar champion?

[Prospero]

2.  More tournaments may be the answer.  They may also just be an extension of the problem, as it's then possible to play in nothing but the online events and still win.  That's not what we're aiming for. 

Brick and mortar stores should be supported because they're a means to introduce new players to the format, they're a means to offer a great prize pool on a consistent (monthly) basis and because they're a great source for the innovation and content that drives TMD.  If we're prejudiced in favor of brick and mortar stores, it's done on purpose, openly, and without reservation.  Sorry.

I'm open to suggestions.  The end of year Community/Ringer tournament could be adjusted to be something bigger.  I'd like to hear what you have in mind.

Just one thought on this. Any consideration to an online champion and a Brick and Mortar champion?

No, mostly because it separates something that should be whole and because it's another layer of tremendous work that gets put on my back.  Besides, at the end of the year there should be one champion, not two.

[Smmenen]

Without sidetracking this thread, I think there is another problem: IIRC the Vintage Championship was not factored into the Vintage Rankings for 2011, which greatly affected my standing -- since I Top8ed both the Vintage Champs and the Waterbury, and play in very few tournaments per year relative to players like Paul M who live in an area with regular touranments.

Was that because you didn't have the final standings or something?  Could that have been corrected, and can that be corrected for 2012?

[Diakonov]

Why have an 8 man at a store when I can sit at home in my sweatpants drinking a beer?

Why sit at home when you can go play an 8 man in a store wearing sweatpants while drinking a beer?

I like the way you think, friend.

[Prospero]

Without sidetracking this thread, I think there is another problem: IIRC the Vintage Championship was not factored into the Vintage Rankings for 2011, which greatly affected my standing -- since I Top8ed both the Vintage Champs and the Waterbury, and play in very few tournaments per year relative to players like Paul M who live in an area with regular touranments.

Was that because you didn't have the final standings or something?  Could that have been corrected, and can that be corrected for 2012?

There were two problems with GenCon:  

First up, I didn't have the full final standings, with drops.  I don't know what the response from the staff is going to be if I ask for that - I'd imagine that I should be able to get it when we all play in 2012, but I'm not sure.

Second up, I only started calculating the events in September of 2011, leaving us just four months worth of events that were calculated.  Not having August hurt me too, as the top eight that I had at Grudge Match III would have pushed me up around 200 points.  

[nataz]

I suspect the benefit of additional play online or otherwise > any benefit the TMD POTY standings has to brick and morter stores, but that's really neither here nor there.

If you feel strongly about it, just keep all online/IRL events separate (including the TMD Online Open) if you want to support BM stores more then online play.

@duck, there is no reason why you can't have standings for your own events over the course of the year. In fact I'd say those would be more valuable  to the large group of people who don't live anywhere near an IRL vintage metagame.
 

 

[Smmenen]

Without sidetracking this thread, I think there is another problem: IIRC the Vintage Championship was not factored into the Vintage Rankings for 2011, which greatly affected my standing -- since I Top8ed both the Vintage Champs and the Waterbury, and play in very few tournaments per year relative to players like Paul M who live in an area with regular touranments.

Was that because you didn't have the final standings or something?  Could that have been corrected, and can that be corrected for 2012?

There were two problems with GenCon:  

First up, I didn't have the full final standings, with drops.  I don't know what the response from the staff is going to be if I ask for that - I'd imagine that I should be able to get it when we all play in 2012, but I'm not sure.

Second up, I only started calculating the events in September of 2011, leaving us just four months worth of events that were calculated.  Not having August hurt me too, as the top eight that I had at Grudge Match III would have pushed me up around 200 points.  

Don't you think that may be a problem though?  If Vintage Champs can't be integrated into the rankings, then either the ranking criteria should change to accomodate it, or an exception should be made.  That's my opinion tho.

[Prospero]

Without sidetracking this thread, I think there is another problem: IIRC the Vintage Championship was not factored into the Vintage Rankings for 2011, which greatly affected my standing -- since I Top8ed both the Vintage Champs and the Waterbury, and play in very few tournaments per year relative to players like Paul M who live in an area with regular touranments.

Was that because you didn't have the final standings or something?  Could that have been corrected, and can that be corrected for 2012?

There were two problems with GenCon: 

First up, I didn't have the full final standings, with drops.  I don't know what the response from the staff is going to be if I ask for that - I'd imagine that I should be able to get it when we all play in 2012, but I'm not sure.

Second up, I only started calculating the events in September of 2011, leaving us just four months worth of events that were calculated.  Not having August hurt me too, as the top eight that I had at Grudge Match III would have pushed me up around 200 points. 

Don't you think that may be a problem though?  If Vintage Champs can't be integrated into the rankings, then either the ranking criteria should change to accomodate it, or an exception should be made.  That's my opinion tho.

It's definitely a problem. 

Were the standings/pairings for Vintage Champs available online?  I vaguely remember someone saying that they were following me throughout the day.  If they're available online then I can calculate the final standings, without drops, at the end of the Swiss (and then just add whatever points need to be added after the top eight has finished.)

[AmbivalentDuck]

Cockatrice tournaments shouldn't count because they aren't played under DCI floor rules, and don't have DCI judges.

They could be.  Nothing prevents us from having a judge who watches each game.

Also, MTGO Vintage requires a needless investment in RENTING virtual cardboard.

If we're prejudiced in favor of brick and mortar stores, it's done on purpose, openly, and without reservation.  Sorry.

I think the future of Vintage hinges on retention as much as recruitment.  As people follow their careers, entropy will kick in and disperse even the best scenes.  By contrast, we all come to TMD and every one of us can play on Cockatrice.  I play online against Europeans regularly.

While Vintage's past was played with expensive cardboard at B&M shops, I think the future is free (as in beer and speech) and online.

@duck, there is no reason why you can't have standings for your own events over the course of the year. In fact I'd say those would be more valuable  to the large group of people who don't live anywhere near an IRL vintage metagame.

That would foreshadow things like seeds in the future.  Once the details are better hammered out, especially if it starts looking more like a league, I'd consider rankings.  At present, I want to keep things casual to minimize the douche-factor.

[Prospero]

Retention and recruitment are necessary to keep the format alive.  I'd love to have higher retention rates than I do, but I still need to get new blood to replace the players who aren't coming back.  I can think of a half dozen guys off the top of my head who were dedicated players and have since sold out entirely.

Scenes shift and change.  There are a fair number of players who went to the first N.Y.S.E. who have left the game.  Many of the others are far less likely to show up to an event than they were two years ago. 

People still ilke playing for a prize.  On Saturday I'm going to be playing in a Vintage tournament for the first time since September because I'd like to win a Mox Sapphire.  Online tournaments may be the future, but until all the kinks are worked out it's tough to embrace everything that they do/mean.

I generally don't enjoy playing online.  I'd rather read a book, watch a movie, write or spend time with friends than play Magic online.  For me, Magic was meant to be played in person.  I have never played a single game on MODO, and while I do test online, it's nowhere near as much as many people.  Live testing gets my mind flowing, whereas online testing doesn't. 

Online playtesting can be a valuable tool, but it won't ever be more than that for me.  If playing online was the only thing that was available to me then I'd immediately part with my collection.  I'd need more than one tournament a year (GenCon) to justify having around $25,000 tied up in cardboard.  At the very least, I'm sure there are some blue pilots out there who would sleep better at night because of that.   

[AmbivalentDuck]

I agree with almost all of that.  The stuff I don't agree with is personal preference.  I'd prefer not to have such a ridiculous amount of money tied up in cardboard, myself.