TO Reports

[psyburat]

As the current writer for Top Deck Games' tournament reports, I'm curious:  What makes a good tournament?  What is considered to be a timely turnaround for such a report?  What is the "bare bones" report that a TO should offer?  Does any of this change if the TO is a participant in the tournament?

[Samoht]

Turnout, prize/entry ratio, venue.
One week is the maximum for a timely turnaround in my opinion, but 2-3 days would be preferred.
# of players,archetype breakdown, t8 pairings/results, deck lists (broken out into lands/mana, spells, dudes minimally)
Participating in the event changes nothing.

[Nefarias]

It's just a small thing, but something that really enhances readability for me is including player names and archetypes in the Top 8 bracket, which isn't something everyone does.

Johnny (Shops) beats Billy (Oath)

rather than

Johnny beats Billy

The offending reports always have decklists afterwards which you can then cross reference, but it always involves a lot of scrolling, and then remembering (and forgetting) the names and the matchups etc., and then doing it all over again for the Top 4 and Finals.

[Greg]

It's uncommon, but I absolutely love seeing photographs from the event posted in the tournament report.

Photographs of the store and playing space, an overview of the event and participants, and/or close-up shots of game matches always help bring a past event to life.

[LotusHead]

It's uncommon, but I absolutely love seeing photographs from the event posted in the tournament report.

Photographs of the store and playing space, an overview of the event and participants, and/or close-up shots of game matches always help bring a past event to life.

Samoht nailed it.

As the "tourney reports with pics" guy, I have a link in my sig to help out anyone else who wants to do such stuff.

[shrewarmies]

The bare bones report for me would be:

Date, Number of Players, Location (location can be in the thread name)

A final standings for all participants

Decklists for the top X in final standings order*.



While it is not necessary, the better tournament reports generally include:

A preamble about who/what made it down; even a simple touch like saying it was snowing or whether attendance reached expectations etc gives the report a bit more life and makes it easier to read

A metagame breakdown, whether by pillar or arcehtype

Stuff like prizes given out

A conclusion to the report, a final thank you to the players or a shout out for your next event etc

BUT

Most importantly, and mean MOST IMPORTANTLY. Your deck lists ALL need to be formatted uniformly and have proper capitalization for card names. I understand that players can (and do) write out their deck lists in seemingly random order but it is up to you to suck it up and put it into some sort of uniform order and order all 4/8/16 deck lists accordingly. You can order them how you like (I prefer by card type, others prefer card role) but they need to be all in the same order and all properly capitalized.

*The top x being determined by the number of players. If you have 3 rounds, top 4 is enough. 4-5 rounds,  top 8. With 6+ rounds you can include the top 16.

[tribet]

A good report needs pictures. Everybody has a smartphone, but we don't see enough of them.

An awesome report would have a few videos (with shuffling between games edited out) and a few colours pies for meta breakdown, cards most played and other odd or interesting facts.

[TheProfessor]

I have to agree with what a few others have said about pictures and videos in a tournament report. Pictures are a must for me.  They help breathe some life into a tournament report. Even better would be some videos of important matches, even if they are just videos of the top 8.