Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Restoring skill to the Pokemon TCG

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I feel like if they changed the opening coin flip to an opening RPS match, the situation about the person going first having a huge advantage would be less of a problem. RPS is a game of skill that doesn't take long at all to play.

That's probably not going to happen though
 
GodBlessAmerica said:
I feel like if they changed the opening coin flip to an opening RPS match, the situation about the person going first having a huge advantage would be less of a problem. RPS is a game of skill that doesn't take long at all to play.

That's probably not going to happen though
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What's RPS? I've never heard of it but would be interested in hearing how you think it would help the first turn advantage.
 
ajwalker said:
What's RPS? I've never heard of it but would be interested in hearing how you think it would help the first turn advantage.
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Rock Paper Scizzors. There is a whole strategy behind it, but it only takes a few seconds to decide the winner. The winner of the RPS game chooses who goes first.
 
RPS is NOT a game of skill, it is a fallacy to believe it is. Game Theory has made it VERY clear the most effective way to win an RPS type game is to randomize your decisions so that your opponent must randomize their decisions in order to maintain a 50/50 chance of winning. It essentially is the SAME as rolling a dice of flipping a fair coin. Any other claim arguing that RPS takes skill is misleading and false.

Also as for adding time to the best of three top cut matches seems to be most efficient, although personally I feel that best of five would be the optimal solution. Eliminating Swiss and implimenting best of three in it's place seems as though it would increase the luck factor involved in the randomess of pairings, so addressing luck should probably left until after top cuts.
 
Ness said:
I think if you were at Nats & Worlds this year you would feel different. The finals of Nationals & Worlds weren't even Pokémon. If you were at Worlds this year, you would have got to watch a huge jumbo screen projecting the finals of all age divisions. In the Masters, hundreds of spectators - fans, friends, players, media - all watched for the epic culmination of the season. This would be it. The match was tied. It was time for Game 3. Who would be the master strategist? Who would outplay the other? It was time to find out who was the best. David & Ross shuffled their decks to prepare for the biggest game of the year. Players fidgeted in their seats with anticipation.

Oh, and then 60 minutes was up so they flipped a coin and Ross lost.
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Yes, that was a terrible way to end the match. But, like another poster said, maybe it's not how many games are played but making sure they all do, in fact, play out. 30 minutes for the first 2 games and, if there is a tie, the final game tie breaker is 30 or 45 minutes.

I think something like that would be better than flipping a coin at the end of 60 minutes and declaring a winner when it's tied 1-1. And it takes into account the human fatigue factor (both players and judges) so the match isn't going that much longer.

You wouldn't even have to implement the 30 minute final game rule at every tournament, just at the big 4 of Regionals, Cities, Nationals and Worlds. All the others could keep the rule we have currently since they are considered the "lesser" of importance.

And, out of curiosity, why are only 2 judges judging anyway? Why not have 3 pair of judges for the potential 3 games? It would be a fresh pair of eyes on each match. Why make 2 people sit there the entire time when it would be easy to rotate them? You could even do it with just 4 judges: 2 on the first game, they switch with another two, take a break and be ready if there is a game 3. Seems pretty easy to me :rolleyes:

---------- Post added 10/31/2011 at 09:01 PM ----------
GodBlessAmerica said:
Rock Paper Scizzors. There is a whole strategy behind it, but it only takes a few seconds to decide the winner. The winner of the RPS game chooses who goes first.
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Thanks, now that I know what it is :redface: I don't see how that would be better than rolling a dice or flipping a coin.

(I thought it was some new game I had never heard of before.:tongue:)

---------- Post added 10/31/2011 at 09:10 PM ----------
misnos said:
Also as for adding time to the best of three top cut matches seems to be most efficient, although personally I feel that best of five would be the optimal solution. Eliminating Swiss and implimenting best of three in it's place seems as though it would increase the luck factor involved in the randomess of pairings, so addressing luck should probably left until after top cuts.
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Yup. :thumb:

Swiss is good starting out for any tournament, I think it test the strength of your deck since you never what you will be facing when you sit down across from your opponent. Unless you go around asking people what they are playing like I've seen some people doing at tourneys.

But, once you hit top cut, the game should slow down with a best of three for the finals with a set time limit for each game, not the "play 3 games in 60 minutes" craziness we have now.
 
ajwalker said:
But, once you hit top cut, the game should slow down with a best of three for the finals with a set time limit for each game, not the "play 3 games in 60 minutes" craziness we have now.
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Now THIS is an idea I like.

Three games with a time limit for each individual game (say 45 mins) is worth thinking about for the big events.
 
^ I can agree with that. There is nothing more frustrating then your opponent asking how much time is left in the match. A hour is fine but when you only get 30 minutes the rounds before, how do they expect you to finish 3 games in a hour. Some Pokemon need more time to play out then others.
 
baby mario said:
Now THIS is an idea I like.

Three games with a time limit for each individual game (say 45 mins) is worth thinking about for the big events.
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You have the right idea (we need more time), but this is a bad way to do it. Allow me to explain why.

First of all, 45 mins for 3 games is a maximum playing time of 2 hours and 15 minutes and that's not even including the +3 turns of each game. While each game does not necessarily use all 45 minutes, the potential for a time limit even longer than 2 hours is there, especially with the +3. Since there is no point in strategically saving time, players have no incentive to ever concede, so matches will indeed go longer.

But secondly, you're taking skill out of the game. If a game simply ends immediately, all that time is lost; you can never concede early to save time and allow for one real long, drawn-out game. Conserving your time and knowing when to concede are valuable strategies in Pokemon TCG match play.

For example, let's say I'm playing The Truth (Vileplume/Reuniclus/Donphan/Zekrom) in the standard Best of 3, 60/75 minute format. I've won Game 1, and halfway into Game 2, all of my Oddish have been knocked out and I have no way to get a Vileplume into play. Now, I could play the game out, but then by the time I get to Game 3, I'm not going to have enough time to set up and I am simply going to lose. A better idea is to concede this game so I do not waste all the time and that gives me an opportunity to win Game 3.

The issue with your idea is that in order to give anything near a legitimate amount of time for each individual game, the potential total amount of time becomes too high. If we are going to have 2 hours for match play it is going to be a flat 2 hours where the players have control over how that time is used.

Make sense?
 
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While I agree regarding the 2+ hours, the skill that is being removed shouldn't be there in the first place and would be replaced by the skill it takes to make a comeback. Playing under time is a skill, but has nothing to do with the actual battle and is rather an outside element we don't need.
 
Further everyone seems to be disregarding the judges in this scenario. Keeping track of time for individual matches should not be the responsibility of the judge, because in many cases the judge may be keeping track of multiple top matches, and doing so would only serve to distract, and hinder the judge from making proper calls. I understand that some people have issues with top cut, but please keep in mind that players aren't the only thing to keep in mind, and TOs and Judges should be considered in these ideas as well.
 
^OMG, you again. Porygon is now officially my least favorite Pokemon.

I was talking with Sucevich, and he suggested making the finals (Or Top 4) Best of 5, but keeping the previous Top Cut Rounds Best of 3. I feel like this defeats the purpose, though. Why should someone be more susceptible to being knocked out by bad luck in Top 32 than the Finals? If you are playing for a chance to win the Championship, shouldn't the same amount of skill be required to advance in each round? Why play 5 games to determine the winner in the finals when a player who could have advanced had he been given a Best of 5 opportunity was instead eliminated in Best of 3?
 
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Ness said:
^OMG, you again. Porygon is now officially my least favorite Pokemon.

I was talking with Sucevich, and he suggested making the finals (Or Top 4) Best of 5, but keeping the previous Top Cut Rounds Best of 3. I feel like this defeats the purpose, though. Why should someone be more susceptible to being knocked out by bad luck in Top 32 than the Finals? If you are playing for a chance to win the Championship, shouldn't the same amount of skill be required to advance in each round? Why play 5 games to determine the winner in the finals when a player who could have advanced had he been given a Best of 5 opportunity was instead eliminated in Best of 3?
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same could be said about not playing 2/3 in swiss.

Edit: I'll be honest I only just now jumped to this thread and read this post and decided to respond.
 
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autoaim said:
same could be said about not playing 2/3 in swiss
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I think swiss would be different because it isn't single-elimination. Though you're right, depending on the cut size, it is possible someone could need less bad luck to miss the Top Cut than they would be to be knocked out of the tournament in the cut, which would seem like a poor structure.

For example, if Nationals (1000+ players) only cut to Top 8, playing Best of 5 in the top cut would be silly. The reason I say this is because you would need so much luck to make Top 8 (you'd probably have to go 8-1 or so, which even for the best players is going to require getting lucky), that it seems silly to make those additional games more skill-based. Why require more skill to advance in the Top Cut when you made luck such a huge factor in getting there?

vaporeon said:
Everyone should have the same chance of winning. I say make all game best of 3 with 1 hour time limits.
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This solves no problems (60 mins if too time-pressed for a legit Best of 3) while simultaneously extending U.S. Nats 5 hours.
 
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Ness said:
I think swiss would be different because it isn't single-elimination. Though you're right, depending on the cut size, it is possible someone could need less bad luck to miss the Top Cut than they would be to be knocked out of the tournament in the cut, which would seem like a poor structure.

For example, if Nationals (1000+ players) only cut to Top 8, playing Best of 5 in the top cut would be silly. The reason I say this is because you would need so much luck to make Top 8 (you'd probably have to go 8-1 or so, which even for the best players is going to require getting lucky), that it seems silly to make those additional games more skill-based. Why require more skill to advance in the Top Cut when you made luck such a huge factor in getting there?



This solves no problems (60 mins if too time-pressed for a legit Best of 3) while simultaneously extending U.S. Nats 5 hours.
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You do what you have to. everyone deserves the same chances at top cut. If the tournament is longer, so be it. The games makes too much money for this to not be a standard practice.
 
vaporeon, I seriously hope that you're not contemplating that 60/3 structure for Cities and lower level tournaments. Cuz that would mean the end of Organized Play in certain areas.
 
The game should slow down a bit and give more time for rounds. the game does not favor the slow deck or player right now.
 
You should not be playing slow, plain and simple. Jason i do see that as a problem. I completely believe that there is something we are missing that could fix everything. I have no idea what it is or even what it could possibly be but i believe we are on the right track to making tournaments a happy and good place for everyone. Top cut matches should be sorted out, at Worlds they (i feel) did a horrible job on the number to cut at. I have been playing for quite a while, since jungle and I think they have made the time limit the way we have it now the worst so far.
 
I'm not saying play the clock. Some decks need time to play out. Not all decks are autopilot. Some players also need time playing decks that are not easy to play.
 
this is where testing comes into play. though you dont run into every situation in testing you have surely figured out what to do in a timely manner.
 
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