Swiss vs. Bracket, and the Chess Clock

[Imzakhor]

With the NCAAs going strong now, and every office having multiple bracket pools, I am brought back to thinking about something I often wish for: single elimination magic tournaments. In fact, I would much prefer that format to the Swiss, and I will tell you why.

After a first round loss in Swiss, I am generally left with little hope of recovery, and yet I would soldier on until I am mathematically eliminated from Top 8. In bracket-form, as soon as you lose, you know you can find something else to do, like play the other half of first round losers, or watch the other players go at it. A side benefit would be the freedom to analyze people as they play, without the shady feeling that you might be cheating as you look at a fellow competitor's innards.

Tournaments would go MUCH more quickly. As soon as you finish a match, you simply have to wait for your next round's opponent to be available, and then you can be seated for the match. A chess-style clock could be employed to also help conserve time by enforcing penalties for slow play. Very few player-hours would be wasted, while waiting for time, or for matchup postings. Nothing I hate worse than waiting 10 hours to get in 7 rounds of Swiss at GenCon!

Note: I do not think that you should post an actual bracket, where winners feed into playing each other. After winning a match, you should RANDOMLY go into the next round, so you don't know who your opponent will be until someone is randomed your opponent's seat.

No IDs, or even draws of any kind. Every match would be played to its logical conclusion. Slow play would get penalized, into the extreme of actually losing matches, but there would be a definite winner and loser in every matchup.

A side benefit: I think a real problem for getting sponsors to back tournament play offsite of their establishment is the swiss-system. After the first round of a bracket system, HALF of the competitors would be available to trade, shop, and browse onsite vendors, whereas in Swiss, all must remain focused on the task at hand.

In Sum: Brackets. Chess-clock.

[Moxlotus]

I don't think too many people would be keen on paying $20-$25 and HALF of them get to play only 1 round.  Keep in mind that many players drive 2-3 hours to play in a tournament.  I know I would never go to a tournament like that.  In fact, I doubt anyone would go to a single elimination tournament for Vintage.

Would you drive 2.5 hours, pay $25, and possibly play Vintage for 5 minutes if you got paired against Belcher or something?  Wow, what a great day.

[Seraphim3577]

I definitely agree with moxlotus on this one.  If the average tournament is 5 rounds of swiss, you will know if you are mathematically eliminated after the 2nd - 3rd round.  You now still have plenty of time to trade and do whatever, but at least you spent 2-3 hours playing instead of 1 round. 

I also think that the driving aspect is HUGE.  Having to drive multiple hours for a tourney and losing in the first round would be devestating.  I could understand a double elimination tournament a lot better than a single elim.  Further, not publishing brackets doesn't really matter once you have reached the 3rd round.  By that time, you should have had time to scout 4 decks which would be half if not nearly all that is left of the tournament.  Therefore, scouting becomes exponentially more important.

Just my 2 cents.

[GrandpaBelcher]

A side benefit: I think a real problem for getting sponsors to back tournament play offsite of their establishment is the swiss-system. After the first round of a bracket system, HALF of the competitors would be available to trade, shop, and browse onsite vendors, whereas in Swiss, all must remain focused on the task at hand.

Or they'd be free to leave.  Most stores (which is where most Magic tournaments happen) have vending machines or retail candy, snacks, pop, etc. because once they get you into the store you'll keep buying stuff as long as you're in there.  Having players paying $20 and then periodic installments of $1.00 to munch on pretzels or whatever throughout the day is much better for a tournament organizer than having them pay $20 and leave after the first one or two rounds when they get knocked out.  Also, trading does nothing for a store, even if you're trading with the store owner.  Money is almost always better than cards for the store, so they want to sell stuff.

Personally, everything Moxlotus and Seraphim said is right on.  I pay money to play Magic, multiple games.  Twenny bucks is a great value when you consider it gets you six or more hours of card flipping.  When it gets you one round, it's quite assy.  I'd rather go 0-4-1 and play Magic than go 2-1 and go home.

Plus, there are lots of logistical problems that were hinted at.  Players generally share rides when they make these 2-3 hour drives.  And not all of them will make it to the finals, which means that there can be carloads of people waiting around with nothing to do while they wait for the one lucky SOB they rode with to either lose in a blaze of glory or triumphantly pick up the Mox so they can leave.  I'm all for supporting my friends and this spectator sport of Magic, but I don't want to block out an entire Sunday to hang out in a card store where I've just spent $20 for two or three games of Magic just to see if they topdeck that gamewinning card.  

[kkoie]

I think having a chess clock in magic would be very interesting, though quite difficult to implement.  You'd have to hit the clock each and every time you passed priority.  That and of all the formats, it seems that Vintage is one of the few where you really don't need to worry too much about a match going to time.  I would think that having a chess clock would be unnessessary.  Now implementing it in a format thats less mind-taxing, like say standard, would be amusing, but thats a differn't forum.

[Imzakhor]

Part of my point was that you could *still* play magic, you just wouldn't be in the tourney. Getting in a big room with a bunch of magic players is always a good thing for Vintage... Do Vintage players generally require Magic to be played in a tournament environment to be satisfying?

Sticking around for your buddies to maybe win the whole thing is OK, too... I hope my buddies do well. With Swiss, you are all guaranteed to be forced to stick around until the bitter end. With brackets... There is the chance you don't have to be.

Or you can just stick around anyway, and play MAGIC.

Ah, one more note: maybe you would not have to hit the clock at every priority passing, just turn passing? Lagging on priority on someone else's turn is punishable now, without a clock... With a clock it would be much more blatant.

@Lochinvar81: would you be more willing to stick around for friends who are 2-0, while you are 0-2-drop? I don't see how the proposal has changed this outcome, except, in all probability, for the better, especially since you will have a LOT of other fellow players to play/trade casually with, than in a swiss environ.

@kkoie: at GenCon, I started my first two matches 0-0-2. Ties happen... A lot. TONS of matches go to time, especially with heavy control. I have a suspicion that control decks are falling out of favor, due to unnecessary draws being forced on time. That's a cryin' shame.

[Moxlotus]

Sticking around for your buddies to maybe win the whole thing is OK, too... I hope my buddies do well. With Swiss, you are all guaranteed to be forced to stick around until the bitter end. With brackets... There is the chance you don't have to be.

Well, you can drop in swiss too.

Do Vintage players generally require Magic to be played in a tournament environment to be satisfying?
 

Honestly, yes.  If I wanted to just play Magic I wouldn't drive 2.5-3 hours and pay money to do it.  I came to play in a tournament.

Plus, would you want your tournament completely ended by someone getting a turn 1 kill on you, then you mull to 5 in game 2?  Way to blow 25 bucks.  With swiss, you can lose a match and still be in it.

[GrandpaBelcher]

@Lochinvar81: would you be more willing to stick around for friends who are 2-0, while you are 0-2-drop? I don't see how the proposal has changed this outcome, except, in all probability, for the better, especially since you will have a LOT of other fellow players to play/trade casually with, than in a swiss environ.

Oh, I'd stick around regardless.  I'd pretty much have to if we rode together and I either need to drive or be driven home.  I'm just saying I'd be a lot more happy about it if I was still playing Magic in the tournament, feeling like I got my money's worth.  But how would there be any more other fellow players to play against with single-elim over swiss?  In swiss, if I stay in the tournament even after going 0-2, 0-3, whatever, I still get to play Magic (unless I get the bye, which is also the pits).

Single elimination does mean shorter tournaments (and that is a benefit), but that means the winning players get less Magic for their money too.  It sounds like a pretty raw deal all around.

Also, I think the chess clock thing was brought up once on SCG, where it was determined unreasonably expensive for players and stores alike.

[Jank Golem]

Also, I think the chess clock thing was brought up once on SCG, where it was determined unreasonably expensive for players and stores alike.

I don't think the price of chess clocks is a barrier when it comes to Vintage when people are spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on their decks. At most chess tournaments people have no trouble having a clock for each game. The bigger problem with clocks is when it comes down to actually playing a game. In chess clocks are not much of a problem because the pace is much slower and the clock is only hit maybe 80 times total during a game over the course of many hours. In magic however priority is passed many many times during a game and it can become tedious and time consuming to hit the clock every time. This time spent hitting the clock takes more time away from actually playing, which is never a good thing.

[wethepeople]

If I were to take four hours round-trip to make it to the tournament, and then spend twenty-five dollars to enter, not including the money I had spent to put together my deck, and then get to play less than thirty minutes, I am sure that I would be overall disappointed. That is what I would consider a real-life tempo-loss.

[Godder]

I like the Swiss concept because people get to keep playing, but using Philly rules of dropping people who are X-2 or X-3 is not unreasonable if time is likely to be an issue. That said, forcing people to drop can give the impression that a TO is trying to make more money, because the dropped players are more likely to draft or whatever, so it's definitely something that needs to be made known as part of advertising the event.

Also, why do we have to have a KO phase? Why is it 8 players exactly? Why do we have to complete the Swiss prior to the KO phase? The last round or two normally involves draws anyway, so why not end the Swiss phase earlier?

If clocks are to be used, their cost shouldn't be an issue - you can get reasonable chess clocks for well under US$50. I'd also suggest only using them at and above the Competitive level of Rules Enforcement (PTQs and above) because they don't need to be part of FNM and/or pre-releases.

In other issues, the Bronstein Timer exists, so passing priority back and forth doesn't need to cost time, and players manage to imply passes of priority now - why should a chess clock suddenly make things different?

A recent column on MTG.com mentioned that players don't like change, and quite frankly, I think that's the real reason for sticking with the status quo - it's not that bad, even if it could be better, so it's really not worth annoying players over these things.

[andrewpate]

Chess clocks have been discussed at length, both in the SCG thread Lochinvar mentioned and on this site, most notably in the infamous Slow Play Thread.  The general consensus is that:  untap, upkeep with no effects (clack, clack), draw step with no effects (clack, clack, draw, clack, clack), first mainphase:  play Ball Lightning (clack, clack), go to combat phase (clack, clack), beginning of combat step (clack, clack), declare attackers, declare Ball Lightning as an attacker (clack, clack).... is it starting to get boring yet?  How about after 8 rounds of Swiss?  Who actually wants this kind of gameplay?

Godder is correct that shortcuts work, but suppose you have an effect in your opponent's upkeep?  "Please hit the clock over to me so I can think about whether or not to target you with Funeral Charm before you draw."  Or should I just reach over and hit the opponent's side of the clock myself?  On MODO, this works, because it switches the clock back and forth many times via an automatic sequence of priority changes, many of which can be skipped.  This is the key difference allowing clocks online.

[meadbert]

How would the clock rules work?  I mean even if you give a time limit for little decisions you could slow play by taking the max for each decision.  If you have some sort of maximum amount of time you can spend compared to your opponent, then what happens if Stax locks out its opponent.  Now it must play turbospeed in order to win with Welder beats without being Disqualified.

There are other weird cases.  I mean what if you have the combo with Turboland and it is a matter of drawing 40 cards and activating Barbarian Ring 10 times.  In a real game your opponent concedes once he sees you have the infinite draw/infinite life engine, but if you only have a certain amount of time then actually comboing out in under a minute or two could be fairly challenging.

In theory, I would like a way to prevent slow playing.  In practice I am not sure how it would work.

[Methuselahn]

I don't think too many people would be keen on paying $20-$25 and HALF of them get to play only 1 round.  Keep in mind that many players drive 2-3 hours to play in a tournament.  I know I would never go to a tournament like that.  In fact, I doubt anyone would go to a single elimination tournament for Vintage.

Would you drive 2.5 hours, pay $25, and possibly play Vintage for 5 minutes if you got paired against Belcher or something?  Wow, what a great day.

Losing money.  I take the same inherent risk when I go to the casino, except with more money and less travel time.  Playing or arguing for reasons of profit makes no sense to me.  This is a game.  Go to work if you want gauranteed money.

Additionally, would you not attend lower entry fee tournaments if they were close, no matter the entry/prize?  Perhaps you have a prize payout/time investment threshold that requires a Power9 piece as a prize, I'm not sure.

A larger breakdown of prize structure is much more conducive to non-top8 Swiss tournaments.  Don't most tournaments split anyway??  Vintage players are spoiled.  I often feel that TO's feel pressured to host a piece of power in order to attract enough entries.  Not having that pressure could certaintly decrease entry fees, and ultimately increase frequency of tournaments.  No?

I would love to see straight-Swiss, no top8 tournaments.  Imagine the amount of collusion you could eliminate.  I'd much rather see myself lose in round 1 and drop than to come in 9th in standings after a full day of playing only because of collusion.  At least I don't waste the entire day this way.

Swiss tournaments are a fine idea.  Diversity is good.  The risk comes down to the TO, ultimately.  No one says you have to show up anyway.


Chess clocks are not a practical idea for Magic.

Edit: for some clarity.

[Godder]

If someone is sitting there during your upkeep looking like he's going to do something, tap the clock. A Bronstein Timer means that neither of you will actually lose time, so it's not really a problem. If you need to win with Welder beats, the Bronstein Timer will mean that you don't lose time to the opponent trying to drag it out. A loop would still be a loop.

[Jank Golem]

How would the clock rules work?  I mean even if you give a time limit for little decisions you could slow play by taking the max for each decision.  If you have some sort of maximum amount of time you can spend compared to your opponent, then what happens if Stax locks out its opponent.  Now it must play turbospeed in order to win with Welder beats without being Disqualified.

There are other weird cases.  I mean what if you have the combo with Turboland and it is a matter of drawing 40 cards and activating Barbarian Ring 10 times.  In a real game your opponent concedes once he sees you have the infinite draw/infinite life engine, but if you only have a certain amount of time then actually comboing out in under a minute or two could be fairly challenging.

In theory, I would like a way to prevent slow playing.  In practice I am not sure how it would work.

This same type of things occurs when games go to time. No matter what the rules you will still run into problems. You could have a rule, similar to chess, that if an opponent has insufficient winning chances(heavily locked down against stax, opponent has infinite life etc.) then that player could not lose the game due to time and the game would end in a tie.

The "clack clack" problem still remains though. Bronstein Timers eliminate the time loss by hitting the clock, but it can cause the game to drag on to unreasonable lengths and the physical act of hitting the clock still has to occur.

[Moxlotus]

Additionally, would you not attend lower entry fee tournaments if they were close, no matter the entry/prize?  Perhaps you have a prize payout/time investment threshold that requires a Power9 piece as a prize, I'm not sure.

A larger breakdown of prize structure is much more conducive to Swiss tournaments.  Don't most tournaments split anyway??  Vintage players are spoiled.  I often feel that TO's feel pressured to host a piece of power in order to attract enough entries.  Not having that pressure could certaintly decrease entry fees, and ultimately increase frequency of tournaments.  No?
 

I don't know about you, but most of the venues here must rely on people driving 2-3 hours to have enough people to be able to hold a piece of power.  Holding anything less just isn't worth driving 3 hours for.  If they wanted a 15 person tournament, then they would be able to have a $10 entry fee--but then they risk not having even the locals taking off work to go to such a small tournament.  A few venues that I have frequented have tried this approach before.  They stopped doing that pretty quick.  They couldn't get 8 people to show up, then nobody would show up because who wants to go to a tournament that has 8 people?

Losing money.  I take the same inherent risk when I go to the casino, except with more money and less travel time.  Playing or arguing for reasons of profit makes no sense to me.  This is a game.  Go to work if you want gauranteed money.

I wasn't saying I was playing to try to make money.  That's not what I implied at all actually.  What I was saying was that I would be pissed driving 3 hours and paying $25 to be eliminated from all possible prizes in 15 minutes.  I wouldn't go to that tournament and I doubt many would.

[forests failed you]

I am in agreement with Moxlotus here:

However;  I could see running a bracket based tournament for some sort of invitational or end of the year "playoff" tournament.

If somebody organized that... Where people were invited based upon votes or merits for the year; It might be extremely fun to do a bracket playoff.

Can you even imagine how fun it would be to have a 16 or more mana invitational where every player is awesome playing single elimination???

Or, how fun it would be to make a bracket predicting who would win it, like we all do for march madness?

Hmm... In the second round who am I going to take... Do I go with the safe bet and take Vroman, or the upset??  Who would be the bracket Gonzaga??? 

Anyways, I really want a Vintage invitational to happen, and am working on trying to set one up.

[Prometheon]

Single elimination is a horrible idea, chess clocks is a great one.

In my meta (Toronto/Mississauga) there are FAR too many incredibly slow players, and I have gotten many many draws that I did not deserve.

It also eliminates the 'Necro problem.' If you're playing a combo deck briskly the entire game, and then resolve Necro, should you be forced to decide what 7 to keep in under a minute? With clocks, you could take as much time as you needed/deemed necessary, and your opponent would have no qualms because you were using up your clock.

[Apollyon]

Chess clocks have been discussed at length, both in the SCG thread Lochinvar mentioned and on this site, most notably in the infamous Slow Play Thread.  The general consensus is that:  untap, upkeep with no effects (clack, clack), draw step with no effects (clack, clack, draw, clack, clack), first mainphase:  play Ball Lightning (clack, clack), go to combat phase (clack, clack), beginning of combat step (clack, clack), declare attackers, declare Ball Lightning as an attacker (clack, clack).... is it starting to get boring yet?  How about after 8 rounds of Swiss?  Who actually wants this kind of gameplay?

It should be "untap, upkeep (clack, clack), draw (clack, clack), main..." You draw immediately upon entering the draw step.

Also, brackets would be really easy to abuse and a great target for presideboarding. If you finish stomping a favorable matchup, you can watch your next opponent if they are still playing and find out what they are playing. And "forget to desideboard".

While the same could be done with Swiss, in the early rounds, it's much harder, as you have a field of 50% of entries or 25% of entries to look for. With a carful of people just scouting, that's still ~25 people at a PTQ or ~200-300 at a GP for round 2.

The chess clock discussion has always resulted in "no chess clocks". They really only add a bunch of overhead to solve something that's not an amazingly huge issue.

Single elimination is a horrible idea, chess clocks is a great one.

In my meta (Toronto/Mississauga) there are FAR too many incredibly slow players, and I have gotten many many draws that I did not deserve.

It also eliminates the 'Necro problem.' If you're playing a combo deck briskly the entire game, and then resolve Necro, should you be forced to decide what 7 to keep in under a minute? With clocks, you could take as much time as you needed/deemed necessary, and your opponent would have no qualms because you were using up your clock.

In that case, either the judges should tell the slow players to hurry up.

The thing about the Necro problem is that while they are eating up their clock instead of your clock, you will still be sitting there for 5 or 10 minutes, going "wtf is this? Why are they so slow?"

Also, if you take much more than a minute total to figure out how to discard down to 7, you need to play the deck more.

[andrewpate]

It should be "untap, upkeep (clack, clack), draw (clack, clack), main..." You draw immediately upon entering the draw step.

True, I forgot they had changed this.  Remember that once upon a time, they were worried about printing Stifle because it could counter the card draw in the draw step.

That said, I can only recall a few tournaments where Swiss collaboration was truly problematic.  I can recall some complaints at SCGP9 #2 when a bunch of Meandeckers scooped to each other to get everyone into the top 8, and maybe a few other times, but it's pretty rare.  And honestly, I don't have nearly as big a problem with it as I have with the system of, "Oh, manascrewed 2 games in a row?  Well, I hope the drive was at least scenic."  Anybody who has ever played in a Grinder knows about this.  I see no reason to use that methodology anywhere else.

[Imzakhor]

Also, brackets would be really easy to abuse and a great target for presideboarding. If you finish stomping a favorable matchup, you can watch your next opponent if they are still playing and find out what they are playing. And "forget to desideboard".

I was very specific in my solution to this, but maybe it wasn't clear enough. Let's assume an 8 player, single elim, here are the first round pairings:

Player 1... wins
Player 2

Player 3
Player 4... wins

Player 5
Player 6... wins

Player 7... wins
Player 8

UNLIKE the NCAA tourney bracket, you would not be able to predict your next opponent, as your placement in the final 4 slots would be random.

Player 1 could play Player 4, 6 or 7, depending on the random generator.

[freakish777]

Chess clocks are not impractical based on price at all.  A cheap electronic one will cost you $30~$60.  And it's not like it's ever going to rotate.  The problem is figuring out how to ensure that it's easy to use, understand and actually benefits the game instead of hindering it.  I can only imagine that a "Clocked" would be useful at PTs until things were completely straightened out.  That said, how does this help the game?  It certainly doesn't help casual players, so it's going to affect, what less than 50% of people who play the game?  It's not going to help up your weekly Standard (I don't think it's impractical based on price, however initially it would hurt attendence if players were required to go spend an extra $50ish on something before they could even play, the game is pretty simple as is at the moment, get some cards, find an opponent, play a game).  It's only going to affect events at high REL levels.

In any event, as opposed to a chess clock (which has 1 button per player), what if instead you had a clock with 2 buttons per player?  One that stopped your clock and started your opponent's, and one that stopped your opponent's and started yours?  Essentially your opponent would play their turn with their clock running and not touch their clock (no passing priority crap).  If at any point you had an effect or spell to play during your opponent's turn, you would "grab priority" by stopping your opponent's clock and starting yours with the second button, and then when done with the effect/spell you'd "give back priority," stopping your clock and restarting their's for them (this would make things somewhat simpler, as it's unlikely at most priority passes that your opponent's going to play something).  For decks like High Tide - Reset in Legacy (or a Control Slaver deck playing EOT Brainstorm + Fetch + Thirst + Welder Activation, or something like that), once the combo player is "doing their thing," and it's evident that the other player doesn't have responses at the moment, then it'd transition to the non-turn-player's clock running, and if the turn-player has something they want to do, then they can "grab priority" to try and disrupt or some such.  Additionally, there'd have to be the turn-player stopping their clock when they've finished declaring attackers when there's potential blockers on the opponent's side.  This last part I think would be the most cumbersome.

Essentially, this would mean that the clock would be hit at end of turns, and additionally for combat tricks, blocking (this would probably be the time the clock would be hit most often other than end of turns), endstep effects, counter wars and not much else.


A few last comments:

Speed Chess is one of the more entertaining forms of the game, and clocks can get absolutely pounded in those games.   I don't think there'd be a problem with too much time being taken up because clocks have to actually be touched.  People can move their hands exceedingly fast when they want to.

On the other hand, you have the fact that at your average Chess tournament, each player recieve 1 hour for their moves, 2 hours combined (and some of this has recently been changing, with players recieving something like 45 minutes to play, but the clock doesn't start on their turn until after 5 seconds have passed, to allow players who have/should run out of time to continue playing so long as their moves are under 5 seconds), where as in Magic, both players recieve a total of 50 minutes.

There'd still be issues, because you'd need something along the lines of having both clocks running simultaneously in between games, and then... what have the player who finishes sideboarding and shuffling first go "HA, I finish first, I get to touch my clock and break time parity in the match!"?  Doesn't sound like a good idea.

Lastly, with shuffle effects, generally, players tend to do things like "Play this Foothills, crack it, play Kird Ape, I'm going to be getting Taiga, go while I shuffle (to save time)."  Now suddenly, we have people saying "Sorry, your clock is running until you finish shuffling" and actually make a lot of games take longer then they would otherwise.

[Almighty]

The bracket structure alienates people who may want to play more "casual" decks at tournaments. I know Master Tap shows up with an aggro deck circa 1998 from time to time at Myriad and often does well. I never show up with a deck that isn't updated. Hell, I've been playing Meandeck Doomsday since it's incarnation, and I scarcely win round 1. I play for the atmosphere. The single elimination structure you suggest would only give me one round of fun, compared to swiss where I can hang in there and duke it out as long as I want to.

I would have no interest in playing in a single elimination tournament. I might show up if I knew a few people that were playing, but I wouldn't play myself.

Oh, and screw the chess clock. It works in MODO because priority is automated. In real life, it would be way too much of a hassle. A format with a chess clock has no appeal to me whatsoever even as a casual format.

[Smmenen]

I honestly have no idea how you could use chess clocks for every single time you pass priority.

Priority isn't explicit in actual magic because it takes time to say "i pass priority."   Priority could be exchanged two dozen times in a single turn requiring that many hits of the clock.   That could really be ridiculous. 

[Imzakhor]

The bracket structure alienates people who may want to play more "casual" decks at tournaments. I know Master Tap shows up with an aggro deck circa 1998 from time to time at Myriad and often does well. I never show up with a deck that isn't updated. Hell, I've been playing Meandeck Doomsday since it's incarnation, and I scarcely win round 1. I play for the atmosphere. The single elimination structure you suggest would only give me one round of fun, compared to swiss where I can hang in there and duke it out as long as I want to.

If you play for the atmosphere, would you not be happy playing a bunch of people who got knocked out at the same time as you? Currently, there is nobody left to play, as everyone is still doing swiss. 0-2-drop people have few choices. With a bracket, you could still benefit from the atmosphere, while still playing a bunch of people who are in your boat.

Double-elim would also work well, guaranteeing each person TWO matches. I remember when I was 10, and in my cub scouts Pine Wood Derby. Thrillingly fun, and it was a double-elim bracket. I have played in single elim MtG tourneys as well (sanctioned t1, even). Have most people with an opinion on this, NEVER been involved in a single elim tournament?

The NCAAs, indeed EVERY sport playoff format with a 1-and-done mentality, generates excitement. A tournament is not meant for casual play enjoyment. Isn't that self-evident?

The chess-clock and brackets are overkill; they both get at the task of speeding up games. I think the bracket would improve the format sufficiently, with no need of a chess-clock.

[Aardshark]

I'm not personally in favor of chess clocks because I'm a slow combo player who uses more than my fair share of time (i.e., I cause the problem clocks are needed to solve), but freekish777's idea makes sense.

No need for a special clock, simply a convention whereby any time a player would say "in response" or "during your upkeep", or "end of turn", they click their opponent's clock.  For example:

Active Player: (goes through beginning of turn and mainphases on his/her own time without opponent requesting priority, and announces end of turn)
Inactive Player: "wait. [click opponent's clock] End of your second mainphase, cast brainstrom" (resolve brainstorm) [clicks own clock]
Active player: "ok, end my turn again" [click]
(Turn has passed absent further effects by Inactive Player, and inactive player untaps and begins turn)

If players *wanted* to, they could click the clock each time they resolved a spell signifying the passing of priority--this is similar to how many players ask "ok?" after each spell and effect resolves individually, or when passing between phases:

Active player: "end my turn" [click]
Inactive Player:  (on own time) "wait. end of second mainphase cast brainstorm ok? [click]
Active Player: brainstorm ok [click]
Inactive Player: (resolve brainstorm on own time) [click]
Active Player: "ok, end my turn again" [click]
Inactive Player: (on own time) "wait. eot, sacrifice fetch land ok?" [click]
Active Player: ok [immediate click]
Inactive Player: (searches, finds land, and shuffles on own time) presents deck for cut [click]
Active Player: (quick cut and . . .) "end my turn AGAIN [click]"
Inactive Player: (on own time) "wait, eot still, cast another brainstorm [click])
(you see where this is going. . . )

Inactive Player is arguably being a bit of a dick here, or maybe he's just playing tight. Either way Active Player suffers minimal time loss as a result. 

Alternatively, Inactive Player could have glossed over intermediate clicks, and proceded directly to fetch after brainstorm while his/her time ran without clicking the clock.  In this case, Active Player could say "wait" [click Inactive Player's clock]. stifle the fetchland" (stack is empty) "and end my turn" [click].

Isn't this similar to what we do now, with a few extra clicks accompanying the words we already say? Seems workable to me.

Regarding brackets: Not in favor of less chance for tourney play.  Still exciting, even with reduced chance of victory after 1 loss.   

[Moxlotus]

Double-elim would also work well, guaranteeing each person TWO matches

Um, what benefits does that give over swiss?  Swiss essentially is double elim with the option to keep playing if you want.

A tournament is not meant for casual play enjoyment. Isn't that self-evident?

Alienating people who want to contribute to the prize pool isn't a good idea.


Does anyone think a single elim tournament would bring more people to the tournament?  I highly doubt it. It sure as hell would speed up the tournament--because you would get a massive drop in the number of players who show up.

[Imzakhor]

Double-elim would also work well, guaranteeing each person TWO matches

Um, what benefits does that give over swiss?  Swiss essentially is double elim with the option to keep playing if you want.

Um, faster brackets? You would not have to wait for the everyone trying to Top 8, with each of those matches potentially going to time, and then the 5 turn untimed. Your top 8 is self-evident: last 8 standing.

The 1-loss bracket would not even need to be on the same timer as the 0-loss bracket, thus further optimizing time. BTW, I am not even advocating a loser's bracket, though it works faster than swiss anyway. A single bracket, with random pairings generated after each round, is MUCH faster, and is what I'm advocating.

Swiss essentially is NOT double elimination. In a bracket format, you still have the option to keep playing if you want after a loss, with exactly the same people you would be playing ANYWAY in a swiss format. You just won't be slowing up the people who are still in the tournament, and thus, a faster tourney is born. That is good for everyone.

[ELD]

After a first round loss in Swiss, I am generally left with little hope of recovery, and yet I would soldier on until I am mathematically eliminated from Top 8.

Sounds like you need to toughen up mentally.  I know I've won at least 3 pieces of power after having a first round loss.  I've never been eliminated from a tournament because of math.  I have been eliminated because I received a second loss.  I've never been to an event where X-1-0 didn't make top 8.  I can't see a reason to go to Single Elimination before the Top 8.  The swiss rounds are useful because they allow pairing according to similar skill also.  I think the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." sums it up.