Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Headhunting?

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RyuAmph

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So I did not have the opportunity to go to US Nationals this year. My league owner, however, did and told me that during the LCQ (which he did not play in) people were being offered rewards by players with a worlds invite to knock off certain players to limit the pool of people who could play at worlds.

Isn't this supposed to be a family friendly game? I mean I don't get out of the few leagues within a half hour of me so I guess I don't see a lot of what Pokemon is but...its just sickening that people would go to such lengths to try and eliminate competition. Is this the first time something like this has happened?
 
A "family friendly game" is the last thing high quality players care about in this game for the most part. Sad but true. Competition brings out the worst in people. I'm not really surprised at all.
 
"IF" this did happen, and it would be a HUGE "if", it could not have been more than a handful of players. It wouldn't surprise me. And it's not like the game works that way. You could offer me a booster box if I beat someone, but that doesn't mean I will be able to beat them. Sounds fishy to me.

I did choose not to play Sunday because I didn't want to play "Grinch" and ruin someone else's chances for an invite.
 
Actually, nobody had a Worlds invite: Not the players in charge of the headhunting, nor the people being incentivized.

The "headhunting" phrase was tongue-in-cheek, because the whole idea was to combat scooping. That didn't happen, though, so it became a moot point.
 
Ummm, sorry maybe I'm slow but why would this matter much? It's not like its a free-for-all and you find players to beat, this is a tournament setting. Headhunting is kind of pointless when you might not even have a chance to play the target. And if you do, what's the point of headhunting? You're essentially "paying" someone to play and win...which is what they came there to do anyways. Seriously, this idea is not a very bright one
 
Basically, headhunting irritates me because it's plainly against the rules.

"Match outcomes determined by random means or by means of bribery harm the Spirit of the Game and
are not tolerated by POP."

I'm assuming here (and I might not be clear on the terms here) that the rewards were being offered to players so that those on the receiving end will willingly lose... if that's the case, then that's ridiculous. I might just be confused on the specifics here, can someone elaborate if I am?
 
If that's what they mean, then that makes MORE sense, but that's not headhunting, that's just bribery. Headhunting is, in more extreme terms, assassinating specific targets. But, like I said, in a tournament setting, you're assigned opponents so you can't really go after who you want to play.

Giving the "assassin" money or whatever to beat a specific person is rather...dumb...especially since it doesn't control the outcome. What if your assassin gets a bad hand all game? Rewards won't help. Honestly, if this is really going on, then whatever. Let dumb people feel like they're getting an advantage when in reality...THEY NOT HAHAHAHAHAHA.
 
The spirit of headhunting is wrong, but it doesn't seem terribly effective. If a player plans to scoop for their own reasons, and you bribe them to try to win, that's still wrong :/
 
RyuAmph said:
So I did not have the opportunity to go to US Nationals this year. My league owner, however, did and told me that during the LCQ (which he did not play in) people were being offered rewards by players with a worlds invite to knock off certain players to limit the pool of people who could play at worlds.
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...and thanks for proving why this should just be the TCG News & Discussion forum; gossip and the rumors they start can be pretty vicious and damaging. Your league owner should be reporting this (for what it is worth) to TPCi... and if it should be mentioned here, again it should be by that person with first hand knowledge.

I am not trying to be "mean" to you, but prevent you from making a big deal out of a potential non-issue. I don't know you, and frankly this sounds like an attempt at getting attention at the expense of others/community integrity.

1) Pokémon isn't conducive to headhunting; about the only way this affects things is if someone entered the tournament and planned on scooping past a certain point to avoid "grinching" others... and based on what TPCi representatives told us on the board, they wanted players to play-to-win so that it wasn't too easy of an event (ergo this was probably not a good tournament to be scooping in anyway).

2) People make foolish jokes and similar statements all the time, and we need to be careful when we are at multi-day event and some (most?) people are running short on sleep that we don't take every comment seriously. "Give someone a box" isn't an expression, but it still might have been a joke comment, akin to "I'll give you a million dollars if...".

TL;DR: Too many unknowns here, plus if we take things at face value we have second-hand information that people are literally only guilty of breaking a rule... not for gain, but just because, like seeing if you can "steal" your own car (barring making an insurance claim against it or the like).
 
pnoodle5 said:
Basically, headhunting irritates me because it's plainly against the rules.

"Match outcomes determined by random means or by means of bribery harm the Spirit of the Game and
are not tolerated by POP."

I'm assuming here (and I might not be clear on the terms here) that the rewards were being offered to players so that those on the receiving end will willingly lose... if that's the case, then that's ridiculous. I might just be confused on the specifics here, can someone elaborate if I am?
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You're just confused.

People were being offered prizes for beating specific players, not for losing. This is certainly not against the rules.
 
In order to participate a player needs to have less than 400CP.

If I understand well, players might have been "paid" to participate and eventually beat players seeking an invite.

What's the problem ? I am not shocked. If a player loses in a LCQ tournament then he fails to meet the minimum criteria to deserve an invite. I would eventually be surprised that it would be effective... 250 players, not sure that it has a big impact.

However I think that it's a problem that some players only needed to play one game in order to achieve the invite. I heard about a player having 3 opponents that scooped to him before even the round started, so they where not in the tournament to win but to help certain players. I think it's bad.
 
I'm not trying to cause any trouble. I just think it is not in the Spirit of the Game to pay players to scoop or beat certain people just to prevent them from being competition.
 
The players involved in Operation Headhunt were not paid to scoop, nor were they playing to reduce competition. Just the opposite: They were playing to strengthen the field, and increase the odds that players would have to work for their invites.
 
Cyrus said:
The players involved in Operation Headhunt were not paid to scoop, nor were they playing to reduce competition. Just the opposite: They were playing to strengthen the field, and increase the odds that players would have to work for their invites.
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This is true. I watched it being put together.

The idea was that players with fewer than 200 CP should be encouraged, by means of external incentives, to compete and make the event more competitive and similar to a real event where wild cards often create upsets.

This is not in a bad spirit at all.
 
Envoyofduels said:
Yes, exactly................
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This is supposed to be the Pokémon Nationals, not the Clue Nationals :cool:


I don't really have an issue with this (at least, not from a legality standpoint). If somebody wants to reward somebody else for legally winning a game, I find it difficult to argue it. If they were being paid off to lose, we would have a completely different thing entirely. But being rewarded for properly winning a game in a tournament you had every right to participate in?

Kind of mean-spirited, sure. But so long as it was only people being rewarded for winning I disagree that any rules were broken.
 
No Xs and Ys, homeofmew: There were prizes offered to anyone who could make the final four of the Sunday tournament who had less than 200 points.
 
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