Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Post-Nationals reflection on improvements for next year

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ryanvergel

ryanvergel

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First off, I'd like to thank all of the staff and judges at this year's US national championships.

3 day event is amazing. All of my opponents were relatively knowledgeable of the game (the PP requirement almost guaranteed this, which was nice), and all of the judges I interacted with were also knowledgeable.

It's great to see so many of the nation's best judges together judging. All of the hard work from the brass and the staff is also greatly appreciated. Things get better every single year.


Speaking of things changing and getting better every year--

Next year we will almost certainly crack 1028 players in the masters division. We were only 23 shy away this year. This got me to thinking...

is P!P ready for a 10 round swiss with top 128 from each division? Would it have been ready this year? (we were 97.7% there already)

I know the players will want all 10 rounds. It was pretty unfortunate that the vast majority of 6-3s didn't make cut this year (I was one of them, as was almost my entire party/roommate situation (1 finished 5-4, and the other 5 of us were 6-3, and none of us made the cut). I hope to see 10 rounds next year so that 7-3s make it into a top128.

Top 128 from each flight, or perhaps 4 flights and top 64 from each of those. No matter what, I hope P!P is ready for that extra round of both swiss AND top cuts.

The only spot where I saw an improvement in timing to be made was on day 2 after the 4th (last) round of swiss. Players who were 6-3 or better had to wait around to see if they had made the cut. The problem was, this was also 'lunch break'. If you were one of the hundred or so players trying to see if you made the cut, you either skipped lunch (screwing yourself in the long run if you DO make it in), or just go to get a quick lunch and return early and see if you made it. If you didn't, you kind of made a bad choice for lunch (instead of going out for a real meal you hit the food court and grabbed a quick bite).

The posted time to be back was at 2pm, but the matches really ended at around 1:15 or so. That leaves 30-45 minutes. The time to be back should have been POSTED to be back at 2:30 or so. It's not reasonable to leave less than an hour for a lunch break when the people who NEED the food are the ones who also have to WAIT to see if they make the cut or not.


Besides these two concerns, the event was ran smoothly and great. I hope P!P is ready for next year when we break 1028 masters, and I hope the event is even more smoothly ran. It's amazing that year after year things just get better and better, and I can't wait until next year to be a part of it all again.

TL;DR
-P!P needs to make sure to be ready for 1028 masters next year
-Lunch break on day 2 could have been implemented better
 
Ryan, I agree with you about the lunch break however they did extend it by a half hour. Unfortunately it was announced 1:30 so by then quite a few players had left to quickly grab some food.
 
I waited around to see if I cut and didn't hear it. Neither did AJ or omar or ector or any of us who were 6-3 and waiting to see if we made cut.

We only found out about the extension because Kobayashi was walking with us and he said he asked a judge and the judge told him it was 2:30. He didn't get the information by announcement either.

Like I said, either have it POSTED to be 2:30, do some IMMEDIATELY intercom announcements, or just plan it a little better ahead of time.
 
Ryan, I agree with what you brought up. Nationals was run really well this year, and there's only a few very important points to be ready for for next year, which you brought out. I'm anticipating a nationals with 2 top 128s to give everyone a better experience over all.

That being said, I also think we need 75 minute top cut rounds. I noticed 7/8 games in top 16 went to time, and I'm sure we would have had different winners in some of those games had we been able to have a few more minutes for each game. I just don't like to think that some players went home because they couldn't win a game 3 they normally would have won because they didn't have 15 more minutes. I spoke to some of the staff about this, and they seemed to consider it, so let's hope :) . Anyways, that's just my 2 cents, and once again I'd like to say a huge thank you and amazing job to everyone who ran the event this year.
 
I'm one of those crazies that thinks that there shouldn't even be divisions for Nationals. For 512 players, the tourney operations guidelines says 9 rounds, T64. The assumption is that 513-1027 would be 10 rounds T64 based on the guidelines. 1028 would be 10 rounds T128, and 1029-2055 would be 11 rounds T128. I like lots of Swiss rounds from an organizational standpoint. It cuts down on time for the overall event, while still satisfying the players. And I REALLY like seeing those T128 after 11 rounds of Swiss...
 
All I have to say is 75 minutes for top cut instead of 60. At least make it for T16 until the end. If they had implemented 75 minute cuts going into day three instead of 60 minutes that would have only added an extra hour. And I know some of you are going to come out against me saying that they needed the event to finish by a certain time but if I recall correctly the T16 matches didn't start until about 8:20. And then we also had what seemed to be a bunch of downtime in between the matches. If we had begun the matches promptly at 8:00 am like they intended to but however make each match 75 minutes instead then that would have given them two hours left for the +3 of each match, possible time extensions, and even the hour lunch break before they began the T2.
 
On Friday, they were done before 6:00pm to start things up with the professor cup and on Saturday they were done before 6pm as well. This is success from my point-of-view. They started packing up on Monday at a reasonable hour.-I can't possibly see them having a problem finding time to accommodate the Masters with an additional swiss round.

As to whether or not they'll be happy with how top cuts are conducted (how many matches do you have to win to get in, what percentage of players are allowed in, etc.) this is a battle that will never be over because there is not WIN-WIN situation that pleases everybody.
 
ninetales1234 said:
I can't possibly see them having a problem finding time to accommodate the Masters with an additional swiss round.
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I'm sure they thought about the possibility of having more than 1024 masters in attendance. We were done with Round 5 at about 4:55 on Friday (Day 1), only having played 5 rounds. I think it's entirely possible that an additional round could have been fit in to the Friday schedule, while still accommodating the Professor Cup.

An additional option would be to start the Professor Cup later at 7pm instead of 6.
 
God bless our little judges who come and staff the prof cup, and on that note heck no let's not start at 7 for the cup. The thing is even starting at 6 it was almost 10 before we finished 4 rounds. Doesn't bother me since I regularly burn the midnight hours, but for the little guys it could possibly be rough.

My complaint is why wait for the end of Day 1 to get shirts and such if the part of a Play Point requirement was to curb people being able to grab shirts and go? I like that the VGC area was open all day on Day 1 and that gave an end of day place to pass shirts out. The downside here was that when all rounds ended there was a huge amount of people in that line. Staggering the times you could pick up shirts could really help with that. I had at least one friend who was stuck in line twenty minutes or more.

Call me crazy, but will there ever be more than two people handling league play prizes? I mean it's obvious it's popular with the ever long line, but two people running the system? Sheesh. I'm sure it's due to the fact that there is something on the computer they update with Win/Loss, but really? I mean are they keeping track of number X plays number Y and if they play Y Z A and B only is that what they're looking for? It just seems a lot more trouble than it's worth compared to extra line options.
 
Lunch break was where it was in order to give Eric time to weave the two Masters TOM files together heading into the top cut. There really isn't much that can be done about it, other than change the point at which the weaving is done, but that's an entirely different argument altogether.


As for the >1024, you assume they would do two divisions of 512+. We can't rule out it becoming 4 divisions of 256+. It's not they're limited to two flights if they so desire.
 
sdrawkcab said:
The more flights, the more higher chance there is of a particular pod being "stacked"
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Though strictly correct the numbers would still be large enough with four pods that the pods would still be comparable. You need small pods : 10s of players rather than 100s to get the negative effect you indicate.

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I don't know if this is the case but I thought that the flights at US Nationals were introduced so that the blue and red flights could run as independent tournaments. The split meaning that a hiccup in one flight would not affect the other.
 
I thought it ran very well. We have gone to Nat's since 2005 and am so thankful to entire staff and judges.

Regarding format, one change that I think should be done is elimination of the byes all together. The byes are something that is antithetical to a open tournament.

I just think that a player who goes 4-3 should not be given a spot in top cut in such a large event. I think people who had gone 4-3 might suggest that they could have been 6-3, then prove it. Again, nothing against anyone who won and "EARNED" their byes, I don't have a beef against them, just the system.

Now, I am not against the super charged resistence, we all know that resistence can be arbitrary at times. I don't know how the software can be altered so that states and regionals 6-3's are the first tier in and the states 6-3 are 2nd Tier, and the others are third tier, or whatever.
 
SLOW DECK said:
Now, I am not against the super charged resistence, we all know that resistence can be arbitrary at times. I don't know how the software can be altered so that states and regionals 6-3's are the first tier in and the states 6-3 are 2nd Tier, and the others are third tier, or whatever.
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http://www.thefreedictionary.com/arbitrary said:
1. Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle: stopped at the first motel we passed, an arbitrary choice.
2. Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference: The diet imposes overall calorie limits, but daily menus are arbitrary.
3. Established by a court or judge rather than by a specific law or statute: an arbitrary penalty.
4. Not limited by law; despotic: the arbitrary rule of a dictator.
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Can you please tell me how exactly a number/percentage that is derived from a formula that is computed through software on computer can be "ARBITRARY".

---------- Post added 07/06/2012 at 09:56 PM ----------
NoPoke said:
Though strictly correct the numbers would still be large enough with four pods that the pods would still be comparable. You need small pods : 10s of players rather than 100s to get the negative effect you indicate.

====

I don't know if this is the case but I thought that the flights at US Nationals were introduced so that the blue and red flights could run as independent tournaments. The split meaning that a hiccup in one flight would not affect the other.
Click to expand...

Not exactly sure what the official reason is for flighting US Nationals, but for someone who has worked the hive at nationals before, 1 benefit of flighting is the fact that each flight is ran on its own computer, match results can be entered in twice as fast because there are 2 TOM operators each on their own computer.
 
Resistence can be arbitary at times.... Maybe a better statement would have been resistence isn't always a true indicator of a strength of schedule. Resistence is a simple calculation of opponents win % for that event. Everyone has been on both sides of the resistence line. Days that I feel that I strong compeititon, I fall below the cut, days that I feel that I have so-so competition, I am above the cut.

As an guy who makes a living working with numbers, let me put it in "statistician" speak. Tournaments resistence isn't "Robust", lacks strong predictive power. (Especially in a 4-6 round events). More complicated to implement would be alternatives such as Average Season Long ELO ranking of opponents played that day. (I am NOT suggesting this season ELO ranking as a tournament tie breaker, just pointing to a better and stronger indicator of strength of schedule)

I conceed resistence calculation is the best we can do. But it is an somewhat uncontrolled variable to the player (random or dear I misuse the term arbitary again). Back to the point, to have a States or Regional Winners to gain an upper hand of out of their control resistence matchups for tie breakers seems fair.
 
SLOW DECK said:
Resistence can be arbitary at times.... Maybe a better statement would have been resistence isn't always a true indicator of a strength of schedule. Resistence is a simple calculation of opponents win % for that event. Everyone has been on both sides of the resistence line. Days that I feel that I strong compeititon, I fall below the cut, days that I feel that I have so-so competition, I am above the cut.

As an actuary who works with numbers, let me put it in "statistician" speak. Tournaments Resistence isn't Robust, lacks strong predictive power. (Especially in a 4-6 round events). More complicated to implement would be alternatives such as Average Season Long ELO ranking of opponents played that day. (I am NOT suggesting this season ELO ranking as a tournament tie breaker, just pointing to a better and stronger indicator of strength of schedule)

I conceed resistence calculation is the best we can do. But it is an somewhat uncontrolled variable to the player (random or dear I misuse the term arbitary again). Back to the point, to have a States or Regional Winners to gain an upper hand of this uncontrolled resistence match up let's them avoid this luck of the draw.
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I get what you are saying, thanks!!!
 
I wish we had the finals on camera. All 3. I get that it isn't World Championships, but these people are playing the finals of the largest Pokémon Trading Card Game Tournament of all time. They announce it at the beginning of the event. Everyone cheers. Maybe two dozen people have a half-decent view of how the finals plays out. It's disheartening. If I had made the finals, getting to play back my match for my friends or family who couldn't be there would be a really incredible aspect of the Pokémon experience.

Mystery Thing said:
Lunch break was where it was in order to give Eric time to weave the two Masters TOM files together heading into the top cut. There really isn't much that can be done about it, other than change the point at which the weaving is done, but that's an entirely different argument altogether.
Click to expand...

I think the weaving could be prearranged, it should be a simple click. I obviously don't know exactly how TOM works, but they have nearly a year to make this work quickly. Pair 1-128 vs 128-1 opposite flights. Giant bracket.
 
Even W-L record isn't that great a predictor of top cut outcome. Pokemon events have quite a few seeding upsets.

I'm not a fan of the perfect opponent byes. Great for those that have them but not a particularly good approach to introducing seeding into the swiss pairs half of the event as so few players benefit from awarded byes. Some of that will be personal bias against a winner-takes-it-all approach to games in general.

[dream] JMO but I believe that multi-day events with big cuts should be running more swiss rounds rather than the enormous cuts. I also believe that we need more than log_base_2(players) swiss rounds to make resistance and luck less of a factor in who makes the cut. [/dream]
 
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