Opinions of the Championship Points System

[Prof Clay]

The top players are still consistently making top cut and raking in the Championship points...even in this difficult format we have.

Everyone wants to get to Worlds without really earning it.


Remember....the past couple times we have been to Hawaii there have been fewer invites given due to rankings.

If you think its not fair that the players in the areas with week long marathons are getting it easy...try again....large turnouts and strong fields make for extremely difficult tournaments.

The Champ Point system will work and will reward those who play the game the most in the toughest areas...how can this possibly be unfair...

 

[NoPoke]

......

The Champ Point system will work and will reward those who play the game the most in the toughest areas...how can this possibly be unfair...

It can't be unfair IF that is what actually happens. This is a transition year and I doubt that the desirable outcome quoted can be completely realised this year. From a purely UK perspective the new system puts all UK players at a disadvantage when compared to those on the mainland of Europe. Those UK players that are doing well have spent lots of time abroad where there are lots of tournaments close to each other. As much as I hope this can be addressed next year I can't see how it is possible given the restrictions inherent in having a system that has no aspect of play-at-risk and rewards the winner of a big tournament identically to the winner of a small tournament. ELO had faults but not those two.

You might think I'd be in favour of having winner points a function of attendance but I'm not. The fixed points for a win approach serves a very desirable marketing goal of increasing attendance at the smaller events.

 

[Glumanda]

If the CP-system works or not, will be seen very clearly at the end of the season. As players tend to play out their tournaments now, we can say that the ELO-rating will have a higher credibility than in past years. The CP-system will be a good alternative to ELO, if the correlation between both of them is sufficiently high.

I was looking into the ratings last week and while it seemed to me that this correlation seems to be quite high in North America, this is not the case in Europe. There were Masters players in Europe in the Top 50 with 10+ CP with a rating of below 1600... Yeah, I guess they won some 10-player-Regionals.

Unfortunately, we will have to wait until the end of the season to analyze how this system can be tweaked. Nevertheless, I think it is utterly unfair that when a Regionals has more than 50 players in one age group, the winner gets the same number of points than when there are only 10 or 20 players in that age group (talking about Europe here).

Why are points systems like these working in Formula 1 or Winter Sports you ask? Because the attendance is pretty much even in the different events. As soon as you have big attendance differences, a points system which does not increase the point for the top place based on attendance has the chance to fail to show you what you would like to see.

 

[bulbasnore]

Really, I think there are two points to this new system - its not just focused on the individual player, but the system: 1) to reward good players if they play a lot and 2) to get more people into the organized play events. As Prof Dav said, its not gonna be perfect this first year. However, I don't think one can say its failing overall on point #1 & you could argue its succeeding on point #2.

I like it, but there is one awful thing about it: Bubbling. Picture being at a City Championship with a Top 4. You take 5th on resistance. The player above you gets a minimum of 4 Championship Points, and you get 0. This can be pretty lame. Overall, we have to accept no system is perfect, and this was definitely an improvement to the old system, imo.

The fix to this, of course, is for players to be aware of that issue, bring their friends, and break into the top 32 kicker. I believe kicker is intended to be a motivation as well as a reward for larger events.

Slightly different point, if someone dominates a small area, well they gain more than than under ELO. If that area doesn't have the player base, it shouldn't have enough events for the dominator to hit the best finish cap.

rather than Dropping, which would have gotten me zero CPs and which would have been necessary under ELO, I just straight out left. Before deck checks. Before anything.

Anybody else see the potential problem with that?

At least the Penalty Guidelines do.

Examples of Procedural Error: Severe include:

• Failure to report that you are dropping from an event before leaving the venue. (This penalty should still be issued, regardless of whether the player is there to receive it or not.)

Recommended Starting Penalty: Tier 1: Game Loss
Tier 2: Game Loss

I think it worked best when Worlds invites where given out thougout the year. We had the top finsihers at States, Regionals, Gym Challenges and Nationals get invites. We had ranking points, but nothing was on the kine for them. If you did well at a Large tourney you got into worlds and it did not matter how you did the rest of the season.

Hated that. One player could win the event and disappear til worlds.

You might think I'd be in favour of having winner points a function of attendance but I'm not. The fixed points for a win approach serves a very desirable marketing goal of increasing attendance at the smaller events.

And to travel to play in more events, no? And yet, the kicker rewards players who attend (or create ) larger events.

In California most people dislike it. It gives a huge advantage to players in non-competitive areas.

Nice to see you at the L.A. Marathon! I've heard from parents who don't like constant barrage of events, and the need to travel to get points, but I hadn't heard this one.

 

[gallade]

Ungrateful a good thing? If it inspires change for the better. This isn't people being okay with something for a while, then wanting change. Indeed, I don't believe I ever said it was. This is people hating every change that happens, and won't be happy till its done however each individual wants it done. Kind of. People didn't like ELO for reasons I shouldn't have to go over. The idea of this points system came up, and a lot of people supported it, and some people were against it. When pokemon did it's change to CP, it was exciting, but the rewards for events were screwed up, a lot. So a lot of people that were in support of it, but don't like what they did with it PLUS the people that didn't like it in the first place are voicing how much they don't like itUngrateful is never a good thing. Apparently, Pokemon players can't be pleased.Of course they can't. When you put 2000+ people into one system, there will never be unanimous support, and thinking there will be is naive, and just plain dumb. Which means eventually, the higher-ups with give up.Hahahaha, what? Of course, I don't see something like that happening for a good amount of time, but it will happen if people b*tch about every little change. Uh oh, someones a wee bit angry Complain and try to change the real problems, not the things that P!P rewards people for playing their game.What is a "real problem" other than how organized play fundamentally works? It's not like they HAVE to do any of this. They could base the cards only to collectors, and I promise there would still be a market for them.Collectors don't buy packs and hope they pull something. They buy it off a person or a business. You don't go to pokemon.com and order a complete set of neo genesis and buy the 2007 first place worlds card. If they lost the interest of everyone in P!P (around 2000 IIRC) and none of them bothered to buy anymore packs, it would have a HUGE impact for two reasons:
1. They wouldn't buy packs (herp)
2. They would sell their collections to those collectors who are going to buy packs for some reasons

Anger + Naivety = A terrible argument.

 

[bullados]

Kim, that's hardly a penalty when one has already left the building...

 

[MyName]

I've got a couple of questions regarding Championship Points.

1) There has been talk of the ranking requirement being higher (like maybe top 30 for North America instead of top 40 and so on) because Worlds this year is in Hawaii. I heard ranking cut off point has been truncated before back in Worlds 2010 at Hawaii. Would anyone care to confirm if this is truly the case?

2) Championship points given out at Worlds imply that CP will be carried on to the next season? Does anyone have confirmed information on this? And how will things go with this? Would all CP be carried over, CP earned during Worlds only, a fraction of your CP earned this season to be carried onto the next... etc?

Thanks!

 

[losjackal]

This is my first post on the subject, and I'm going to address a number of points, so if and when you quote me feel free to pick any one topic.

2) Championship points given out at Worlds imply that CP will be carried on to the next season? Does anyone have confirmed information on this? And how will things go with this? Would all CP be carried over, CP earned during Worlds only, a fraction of your CP earned this season to be carried onto the next... etc?

I believe this is only to determine who is the "best" player for the entire season. I can't think of a logical reason why they would carry over to the next year.

I like it, but there is one awful thing about it: Bubbling. Picture being at a City Championship with a Top 4. You take 5th on resistance. The player above you gets a minimum of 4 Championship Points, and you get 0. This can be pretty lame. Overall, we have to accept no system is perfect, and this was definitely an improvement to the old system, imo.

The fix to this, of course, is for players to be aware of that issue, bring their friends, and break into the top 32 kicker. I believe kicker is intended to be a motivation as well as a reward for larger events.

There is a big gap between 32 players and 64 players, where "bring your friends" isn't a great fix. Out of 233 completed events, only 14 tournaments broke the 64 threshold. Most of the marathon tournaments fell short. But there were 93 more tournaments above 32...those still have a bubble problem of 3 points vs. 0 points, purely based on resistance.

I can sympathize with the remaining 123 tournaments where Masters had fewer than 32, meaning only a Top 4. In Juniors yesterday, Xander bubbled 5th place with a 4-1 record. This Des Plaines, IL tournament had 21 Juniors (3rd highest attendance). His loss was to a good competitor who did finish Top 4. The problem is that his initial victories where against newbies who hurt his resistance. As a player, Xander couldn't do anything better besides go undefeated. Yet he still missed out on top cut and Championship Points. (I'm illustrating this as a crystal example of what Ness describes.)


Personally, I think part of the real fix should be that opponents with the same X-1 (or X-2) record as the last place Top Cut finisher should receive the same number of points. That means resistance only determines who proceeds on to try to win even more points and prizes. (Yes, the kicker above 64 is trying to do this, but it's falling short. The focus needs to be on adequately rewarding the people on the bubble, not the players at the tail end.)


Interestingly, I've discovered one small side effect of bubbling: it increases your Rating by not giving you an additional loss (if you don't take first place). I imagine that's not much consolation given many good Masters rank between 41 and 100 right now. Looking at the current standings, 100th place has 18 Champ Points, which means an impressive blend of Battle Roads, Regionals, and Cities finishes so far.


Looking at the bigger picture, there are A LOT of people who would like to earn an invitation to play at Worlds. Presumably there can be only 40 Masters in North America. How do you determine who is worthy? Last year it was Premier Rating, which wasn't necessarily a good measure for numerous reasons. This year it's Championship Points, which seems to be a better yardstick in theory to determine who is the "best". The game just needs some time to better implement the awarding of points.

 

[Magnechu]

Jason brings up a good point in bubbling. I'd like to also point out something in a similar vein: with Championship Points and ELO rating mattering much less than before, there is no reason that any tournament should have a cap on the size of the top cut. There have been multiple Cities throughout the country (and almost every single on I've attended) having 70+ Masters...with a Top 8 cut, because that is the maximum for Cities. You need to go 6-1 in these tournaments to guarantee making cut. Kicker points matter much less when you don't even get to play in top cut when with that many people, Top 16 should be playing for their chance to win.

 

[NoPoke]

A little speculation and a lot of personal opinion follow....

- The kicker points are primarily there to address the bubble issue.

- Increasing the top cut is the wrong fix for bubbling. Wrong because venue time is finite.

- Many of the troubles with rating (ELO) and Championship points (CPs) come from there not being enough swiss rounds. Swiss+1 makes a huge reduction to the amount of reliance upon resistance. Swiss+1 takes less time than an extra top cut round so is more efficient at producing 'legitimate' tournament outcomes

- All the X-2s should make the cut at bigger events.

- Venue time constraints can only ever be fully addressed by the reintroduction of draws to the swiss rounds. [Sudden Death is the devil's game!]

- Concessions are not inherently bad. Likewise Intentional Draws.

- Pure reward systems like CP have more ways of being exploited than play-at-risk systems like ELO

- Pure reward systems like CP encourage travel more than play at risk systems.

- With CP if you don't live in an area with lots of events you are going to have to spend a lot of time and money travelling to areas that do have lots of events.

 

[Tylertyphlosion]

I have bubbled at 9-12th about 5 times this cities season. It really sucks.


And my speculation on the worlds CP points:
They award these points for a Jump start on the next season, but no longer give out the guaranteed invite.

 

[Miamisportsfan45]

Not sure about anyone else, but lately I've been people intentionally throwing games to friends because they can care less about there ratings and they help their friends benefit by making top cut when they knew the scenario was unlikely for them to make it.

 

[espeon200]

Not sure about anyone else, but lately I've been people intentionally throwing games to friends because they can care less about there ratings and they help their friends benefit by making top cut when they knew the scenario was unlikely for them to make it.

This is nothing new. Back before the rating system changed, teams would discuss how to best improve their ratings by conceding to other team members. If there's a system, people will try to abuse it.

 

[BiffMasta]

Assuming championship points are distributed as a means of qualifying players for worlds, Why are they even given out to top 8 at US nationals when these players automatically get an invite for top 8ing? Seems to defeat the purpose..

Why not just start at 9th place then?

 

[JandPDS]

Assuming championship points are distributed as a means of qualifying players for worlds, Why are they even given out to top 8 at US nationals when these players automatically get an invite for top 8ing? Seems to defeat the purpose..

Why not just start at 9th place then?

Because there are no passdowns for ranking invites. If they did not give points to the top 8 then more people would qualify worlds then planned.

 

[Cyrus]

All in all, the Championship Point system is a great concept, and is the direction that this game needs to keep moving towards for the sake of both growth and legitimacy. More incentive to play means better attendance, which means better marketing; greater legitimacy means a more commendable game, a more enjoyable environment, and - ultimately - better marketing.

That said, it's obviously going through some growing pains in its first year. Although I believe that the present point structure will remain untouched until at least 2013-2014 (one decade anniversary of Nintendo OP), here are just a couple interesting anomalies out of the first Championship Point season...

1) Tenth at US Nationals (a 1,000+ person tournament) being worth only as much as the combined value a one City Championship + one Battle Road; in other words, eight points. Think about that for a second: the present structure thinks that top sixteen in the biggest event on the planet is worth only as many points as a couple small tournament wins.

2) A player who goes 9-0 in swiss at a highly competitive Regional and loses in the top 32 gets the same amount of points as a person who goes 4-3 whiff in an 80 person State Championship.

Although it's tough to begin measuring how many tournament wins a non-winning accomplishment is worth (example 1), you can't possibly say that the two players in example 2 deserved the same amount of Championship Points. Whether or not Regionals deserve more points than States (they do), you know there's something wrong when someone who excels in an event gets as much credit in the race for a Worlds invite as someone who's just riding on the coattails of the kicker system.


Hopefully with the change to there being three regionals as opposed to two, they'll become more valuable for Championship Points than States. However, I'm not holding my breath.


(P.S. This isn't sour grapes - the two players referenced in example 2 were actually me.)

 

[peadawg14]

One issue that comes to mind is w/ the top-4 cap on Fall Battle Roads. There were 50-60 people at each of mine last year.

(there were only about 20 at each of the Spring ones so it was just fine)

 

[Shino Bug Master]

One issue that comes to mind is w/ the top-4 cap on Fall Battle Roads. There were 50-60 people at each of mine last year.

(there were only about 20 at each of the Spring ones so it was just fine)

This is the biggest point of complaint for me. The CP system makes BR's far more competitve than pre CP. Even if the top 8 don't all get CP, i think a top 8 cut will benefit the larger tournament. If attendance isn't high enough for a top 8, no harm no foul, but there are sevral events i've judged/played it that we had enough for top 8, and cities we had enough for top 16 honestly.

The only negative i see is the added time, and i do recognize that could play a role. But i think that at elast the potential for top 8 is greater than that negative.

 

[Envoyofduels]

"Championship points bring out the worse in people" -My brother

 

[ShadowGuard]

So, after one year, I see the following pros and cons:

+
CPs don't punish you for playing.
You can attend tournaments without the risk of losing points cause you have bad luck. This is really imporant in a format as we have it now.

+
CPs reward those who do well all over the season, not those who do well in the second part of the season.
With the ELO system, it didn't really matter how you did at BRs and CCs. With CP it does. I got a top ELO rating after CCs, but a lot of bad luck in the second part of the season, ending up with a rating that wouldn't be enough for an invite if there weren't CP. On the other side, players who didn't even play City Championships would get an invite which doesn't seem right to me.

-
CPs reward non-competitive areas.
I got more CP for going 3-2 at a small Regionals than for finishing 7-1 at Prague Cup. This issue has already been discussed and definitely has to be changed. Bullados' brought up a nice solution, I really hope something like this will be implemented next season.

-
CPs make bubbling out by tiebreakers even worse.
Another serious problem that comes with the new system. With ELO, you got at least some rating if you went 4-1 and didn't make the cut at a City Championship - with CP you get nothing at all, while a person with a little more of that semi-random tiebreaker gets at least 4 CP. However, it is possible to fix this, for example by expending the CP range to everyone who won 75 % or more of the rounds.