TOCVII

[Smmenen]

Ok, here is the deal: the last tournament of champions is over, thank god.

The next one is going to be good.  I want everyone - Azhrei, D'Avanzo, Oscar, Carl, and everyone else - YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY.  

I have criticized the attitude of type one players - being too lethargic not enough caring about this format.  Time to get it in gear - time to show some solidarity.  We should discuss some sort of plan for this.

Who is going to organize this? How do you guys want to go about doing this.  If we don't get everyone involved, there is no reason to do it.


Steve

[Razor]

Ok, let's collectively brainstorm.  My two cents:

I am hoping someone like Redman will volunteer to run the event.  Jeek did some cool pairings-flowcharts up for the last one.  Any volunteers or nominations?

Anyways, it would help us to keep our interest if each round were only a week long this time.  [ie. Chronically-online nerds need only apply.]  It seemed like half the field dropped by the second month, mainly out of boredom related to 10 day+ rounds which were agreed on up front, mind you.

Heck, we could even charge a registration fee and offer prizes.  Of course, people would play fewer "pet decks" than usual in the ToC.

[SiCK_Boy]

I don't intend to play, but if you want, I can take care of the pairings and results using DCI reporter.

I think a 4 or 5 days delay per round seems more than enough. If you can't manage to log on during this laps of time, you're probably not interested enough anyway.

[Redman]

It was a lot of fun to run one of these (I suppose I can add that to my oh so long magic resume) but sad to say, I can't realisiticly find the time to run another. Even as the end of the last one came around I was running into trouble as the school year was coming into full swing. I do however have some comments for the brave soul who would be the next TO.

There are some problems that you are going to need to address properly before you'll be able to really succeed where the other ToC's have failed.

1) Most importantly, people have to really be interested. This was easier back on BD when it was a grudge match in a  friendly sort of way, and the field was about a 1/3 of the size its been recently. I was bad about this, but tournament reports should be written to get peopel involved, even those people who aren't in the tourney. One of my favorite parts of ToC's used to be the predictions of the fate of decks that would come from some players. We need more of that sort of thing.

2) Something needs to be done about the problem of time zones. There are plenty of people who are intrested but just can't coordinate a time with someone 12 hours away. That's why you probably won't see Oscar playing any time soon. Unless of course you figure out some way around this problem. (Some sort of location dependent qualifier has been suggested)

3) There are many problems with Apprentice. Mainly we've been going on the honor system so far, but there are sever cards that can't be played that really dampen the ability of the ToC to be the metagame showcase it was intended to be.

4) Make sure that you get rounds done quickly enough so that people remember that a tournament is still going on. Also, people tend to lose intrest after 2 months or so. Of course, keep in mind that sometimes you just can't make two schedules line up in 4 days. Try to find some way to allow for this. Maybe Swiss isn't the best format to run this as?

5) I don't beleive that secret decklists are the way to go, because of the way that I think the ToC should be. Showing your sideboard beforehand is a little weird when peopel are as cometitive as they are these days, but I ran it the way I saw fit, who ever decides to take this one on can do it the way they want to.


If you can find some way to address any or all of these issues, you can probably count me and my Dark Turbo Goat in, depending on how my papers are coming along.

[waywreth]

It's difficult to get a game in 4 days played if you work full-time and go to school like some of us do.  While I'd be interested in playing, I think a week per round seems fair.

Oh, and who ended up winning the last one?

[Abra_Volta]

Nargot won ToC6.

I'd say I would offer to run it, but I have no experience being an online TO.

But here are some suggestions I think could make it better/easier to run.

1) 7 day round limit, 1 week worth seems like a fair amount of time and includes the weekend.

2) Every participant should submit a decklist, then the decks would be posted. But I think they should posted without reference to who is playing them. Of course, this would make "pet" decks stand out a bit but I think it would help with that bit of tournament flavor where you don't exactly know what your opponent is playing.

3) Finding a way to play properly. Lately I have been supporting MTGPlay just because it is hundreds better than Apprentice. It does morphing, it does wishing, you SEE the cards, etc... Unfortunately, it also requires MTG:IE which is a bit tough to find.

Anyhow, I know I would love to play in the next one and get my butt kicked.

[Grand Inquisitor]

i am very interested in playing, but its my first time, so i'm not about to TO.  also, what are 'sever' cards in apprentice?  and why doesn't apprentice do morphling?  and what is the site for MTGPlay, is it free?

and will someone please tell me who

 
 
and
 
are?

[j_orlove]

Quote Heck, we could even charge a registration fee and offer prizes.  Of course, people would play fewer "pet decks" than usual in the ToC.

And, unfortunately, we might also get a few cheaters.  

One proposed solution to the wishes was to have your SB in your deck, and take it out (face down) at the beginning of the match. Then, you just flip up the card you would get with the wish. Of course, this could lead to problems if people don't de-sideboard properly.

Another option would be to just make decks and SBs public (with names) so that you know what cards they can wish for beforehand, and they can just create them in-game.

Or you could have players with wishes disclose all the "fetchable" cards in their SB, and keep the rest hidden (but that would be strange, and a little unfair to people with wishes).

A week seems like a good amount of time--especially for people whose class schedule may be very heavy on certain days, but lighter on others.

Quote also, what are 'sever' cards in apprentice?  and why doesn't apprentice do morphling?

I think he meant to say "several." And it doesn't do "morphing" the new onslaught mechanic (not superman).

  is Mark Rosewater--an important card designer
   is a ninja--a type of cool japanese assassin
  is a noble panther--ask in community for an explanation of the joke.

[Abra_Volta]

<Insert explanation for the above questions>

Someone beat me to it.

[Phyrexius]

I'm interested in playing .. altough I'll probably come in dead last =P

[grey area]

As far as wishes go, could you start the game with all 75 cards in your deck? Then you could put your sideboard cards in the removed from game pile, shuffle up your library, and draw your seven cards. I may not be familiar enough with apprentice to know if this introduces cheating opportunities. This way your opponent could look at your removed from game pile and confirm your sideboard. When you wish you would just put the wish in the removed from game pile and put the other card in your hand.

[j_orlove]

Quote As far as wishes go, could you start the game with all 75 cards in your deck? Then you could put your sideboard cards in the removed from game pile, shuffle up your library, and draw your seven cards. I may not be familiar enough with apprentice to know if this introduces cheating opportunities. This way your opponent could look at your removed from game pile and confirm your sideboard. When you wish you would just put the wish in the removed from game pile and put the other card in your hand.

The problem with this is that your opponent gets to know how you SBed in games 2 and 3, which could hurt a number of decks ("trinity" keeper, academy, anything else with any kind of transformational SB).

[Dante]

Quote (j_orlove @ Nov. 21 2002,15:14)The problem with this is that your opponent gets to know how you SBed in games 2 and 3, which could hurt a number of decks ("trinity" keeper, academy, anything else with any kind of transformational SB).

To be fair...anyone on this site who sees green and no red in a Keeper and doesn't expect the KrOath combo deserves to lose.

Dante

[Dante]

Quote (j_orlove @ Nov. 21 2002,09:29) is a noble panther--ask in community for an explanation of the joke.

Don't confuse the newbies....

  is NOT a joke.  Fear    tech.

Dante

[mezzir]

hey...i know for a fact he's not a n00b
but what in hell does that have to do with ph34ring the   ?
i have nightmares about that thing!

[Often Lost]

All hail Nargo, (snip) God

[Grand Inquisitor]

mezzir is right, i'm not about to go look up keeper on the spoiler list.  i have been around for a bit, just not in the right circles.  i have heard about how noble panther kicks the crap out of morphling, i just don't know why its funny.  i'm also familiar with MaRo, incidentally, I don't know the ninja, or how this bad-larry has anything to do with magic.

don't look at me like i'm frickin' frankenstein.  i'm hip.  tooka tooka tooka...

[Siral]

I think that reveal decklist to all is the better thing to allow the use of wishes.

Since the wishes are became so important card i dont think that let your opponent know what you have in sideboard make a huge difference when you also know what he plays in his side.

[j_orlove]

Here's a question:

Suppose we just make all the decks/sideboards public. Then, an unscrupulous Keeper player with 1 stp SBed sides it in game 2, then wishes for it in the same game. How would his opponent know?
It would be almost impossible to detect something like this, since the opponent would only know what his SB looked like at the beginning of the duel, not what he changed for the second/third game.

[BurningIce]

Grand Inquisitor:   is all about Real Ultimate Power.  As for Noble Panther, well, if you don't ph34r it, you're ph34rless and a better man than I.\n\n

[Dragonfire425]

Back to the thing about wishes. the main problem is that in apprentice, there is totally trustworthy method to use them, without having to show off your sideboard. Because of this, online leagues such as e-league, ban the cards from tournaments.

Morph on the other hand, can be easily used, by putting the card facedown by holding shift. The only problem with this is, some people, know how to find out what the morph card is without flipping it over. (i'm not gonna say it here, because I don't know who knows and doesn't know how to do it.)

So until Magic Workstation gets finished (yeah right   ), or the rumored sideboarding add-on gets finished, you can just ban the wishes.

[Matt The Great]

But banning the Wishes effectively gives you a totally different format from what type one, so any results don't mean squat.

Also, don't you think that it's better to tell EVERYONE about the morph cheat than to let only those who know about it have that advantage over others?

When starcity posted a link to a Backwash site, Ferret wrote this rebuttal, and the same kind of sentiments apply here. I completely agree and as such I'm going to say it now: you can see what facedown cards are. To do this, open the "legal set list" window. Then, when someone plays a card facedown the window will be erased and have only the identity of the facedown card. This sends no message to the opponent to let him know what you're doing.

[MolotDET]

Well I am interested in playing in the next TOC.

     I know that cheating on apprentice goes, couldn't you just tell everyone how to know when their opponent is cheating?  Not that it would be provable but at least if you catch your opponent that you can restart the game.  Well that's an idea anyway.

[j_orlove]

Quote    I know that cheating on apprentice goes, couldn't you just tell everyone how to know when their opponent is cheating?  Not that it would be provable but at least if you catch your opponent that you can restart the game.  Well that's an idea anyway.

The problem with backwash is that, unless your opponent makes a mistake, it's completely undetectable.  
Of course, only  s use backwash.

The wish cheats can also be very hard to spot, depending on how we set it up.

The morph (and, more importantly, Illusionary Mask) cheat is also undetectable.

[Grand Inquisitor]

is there any time-table on when this thing would be starting?

also,  what does "ph34r" refer to?

[taion]

We do lose some layers of strategy if decklists/SBs are made public, but we can get around the problem of unscrupulous sideboarding if we simply have public decklists AND 75-card decks, with the SB put in a separate pile. This pile would be face-up for Game 1, then turned face-down for subsequent games.

The relative advantage gained from using the Morph cheat is somewhat lower, but still present, and this renders transformational sideboards rather less useful (but that's a consequence of having public lists, as opposed to one specific to this plan), but I suppose we need to have some degree of trust; the other guy could just be using Backwash or something.

[Sylvester]

We used o have all the decklists including SBs public as soon as they were psoted. Heck, we discussed the decks as we were building them for the ToC. What'S wrong with that? Just disclose everything - you get nice match up analysis, people know when you oughta to have won and yet did not due to your being st00pid, etc

[The Dude]

dude here

i'd be interested in playing the next ToC.

also ph34r means fear

[Razor]

Ok, will one of us puh-leez volunteer to run it already?

Whoever does, just ask for decklist submissions and get this thing moving.

//end rant

[Smmenen]

If we wait until his thesis is finished (two weeks?), I bet we can get CF to do it.  

Steve