NorCal New Year-New Army Tourney.

[cmgames]

I can field Sidebar Army B.

~Z

[1moreheroscaper]

Originally Posted by S1R_ART0R1US

As interesting as that sounds, I think that may be overcomplicating things. Plus, whats to stop somebody from sidebarring nearly identical armies and just swapping Isamu+Otonashi for Marcu/Just Isamu/just Otonashi?

One comment and one question.

Comment:
I agree with Sit Artorius that is may make things more complicated with requiring specific compositions for the A-D side bar armies. I would think it would be best for each player to bring 2 armies (that they draft) and require that they cannot have any army cards duplicate between their 1st and 2nd army. I understand and appreciate you coming up with four preselected armies for players who may not have a lot of experience with drafting armies, but I think it would easier to make one less list of mandatory supplies to bring.

Question:
I think I already know the response to this, but here it goes: can our armies included any Marvel--especially since Gencon 2008 featured a Mixed Classic/Marvel Tourney?

[S1R_ART0R1US]

Originally Posted by RoninValentina

Are you referring to my last post, or cmgames' last post, S1R?

I was referring to yours, but I'm afraid I misunderstood your intent. I thought you meant for each player to bring four armies. That may very well work, but I don't have the collection to support that.

[RoninValentina]

Just to clarify, everyone only needs to bring one army to the tournament- the one they start with. Unless you also volunteer to help provide one of the four armies listed above. If there are sixteen players, there will be sixteen armies in play, plus the four armies "in standby" at the sidebar. After the first match, there is now a structure to potentially cycle the four extra armies into the tourney mix, and have four armies of the original sixteen to be cycled out, or any combination thereof.

The end result of this sidebar is a means to futher cycle armies, as is the goal of the New Army format, and to alleviate concerns of people being stuck with armies they don't like. A small selection of extra pre-made armies on hand lends some extra flexibility without dealing with complicated draft solutions. There's no unit swapping, and no time spent rebuilding armies. Just the question, "Do I want my opponent's last army, or take my chances with one of the four in standby?" The random nature of trading with the sidebar ensures some risk and should keep players evened out on most favorable army distribution.

Does that help?

Edit: Oh, and yeah, MMA games can be fun, but with games under 600 points, my experience is Marvel tends to break more than make games. Sorry 1more.

[1moreheroscaper]

Okay, I understand. How will it be determined on which winning player gets first choice of the side-bar armies?

[RoninValentina]

The armies in the sidebar will keep getting cycled based upon how much its traded with. Each time a player takes an army from the sidebar, the army they had takes the now empty spot on the sidebar. So there will always be four armies available in the sidebar- the armies I posted will just be the initial four that start in standby.

Say you and I play against each other in the first match 1more. You win, and you don't want to play my army. So you choose instead to trade with the sidebar- you roll a d4 and get a 3. You take Army C from the sideboard and place your army (Call it Army 6.) on the sidebar. As the losing player in our match, I could choose to take your army automatically, and place mine in the sidebar instead. But I didn't like your army either, so I also choose to trade with the sidebar. I roll and get a 1. I now take Army A and replace it with my army. (Army 1) The next player who wants to trade with the sidebar has Army 1, Army B, Army 6, and Army D as options to roll for. This process continues until all players have determined their army for the next match, and then new matches for the next round are assigned.

As for determining which players get to first chance to trade with the sidebar? With it random selection out of four options, I don't see it mattering which players trade first, as long as they trade in match-pairs. By match pair the two opponents of a match in the concluding round, with winner trading before the loser. But whether the match pair at table two trades before or after table five, or the undefeated trade before those with no wins? I don't see that mattering. If someone can argue why it does, I''ll listen though.

[cmgames]

Originally Posted by RoninValentina

But whether the match pair at table two trades before or after table five, or the undefeated trade before those with no wins? I don't see that mattering. If someone can argue why it does, I''ll listen though.

Well, I think this might not be too much of an issue. The first come nature of the sidebar will be mostly a matter of which folks finish their bouts first. It only becomes an issue for those bouts ended because the clock ran out on them.

Perhaps sidebar priority for those could be based on the final point differential - largest differential first. My thinking on this is that, in general, a large point differential will indicate that the losing army is more "sucky" than the losing armies in close bouts and are more likely to want to (and need to) swap out with a "better" sideboard army.

Any thoughts?

~Z

[RoninValentina]

But dictating trade priority doesn't account for matches that went lopsided not because players "need help" but rather due to blanking dice rolls or good armies in bad match-ups- i.e. 4th Mass vs Q9-Laglor-Krav. That's really a non-issue however.

How I see your suggesting impacting the tournament though would be as follows. Let's rank players in three tiers (poor, average, good) and make the rough assumption that the armies people bring are of the same tier levels. (Again, poor, average good) If all the of the lower ranked players got first shot at the sidebar, the rough effect would be to disseminate the initial sidebar armies (Average/good) among some of poor tier players, but also to keep some of the poor tier armies in the lower tier. As you move into average tier, those players get to choose from a mix of poor and average armies. Average players get a mix of poor or average armies, and leave in the sidebar mostly average armies. The good tier of players then would mix up some of the good armies in their tier with the average armies the sidebar offered.

The general effect would cycle quality of armies in a single direction, which is great. But in the poor and good tiers, there's opportunity for army matches between good and poor armies, which is risky. At this point I have to wonder about the effect of leaving trade priority first come first serve, but I also think I'm thinking WAY TOO MUCH about this already. For now I'm gonna leave it unscheduled, but someone feel free to tell me that's a good or bad idea.

[Satyr]

First come first served is great for matches that finish early, but I think we need to have a system for dealing with multiple people at one time going to the sideboard (e.g. after time is called). The sideboard will continually change and could improve / degrade over time. By looking at the armies going into the sideboard one could opt to go later (or earlier) hoping to improve their odds of getting a better army. If I am forced to go later, every army in the sideboard could be worse than my opponent's army.

I don't care if it is a d20 roll, but I think an order needs to be established (I'm just wired like that).

Possible multiple player sideboard resolution (random):

1) Time is called (or multiple people at side board at once)
2) Each victor rolls a d20
3) Highest rolling victor chooses to select opponents army or randomly selects a sideboard army

3a) The victor rolls a d4 to resolve the sideboard (if chooses side board)
3b) The defeated rolls a d4 to resolve the sideboard (if chooses side board)

6) continue with next highest victor.

It's simple and should be quick to implement.

[Alastair MacDirk]

How does adding random armies fix anything? We may as use the The Surprisingly Tart HeroScape Draft Wizard to pick our armies.

If the point of the exercise is "Can you win with a random army?" Then the answer most likely is .... sometimes, depending on what random army I got and what random army my opponent got. But will we know who the best player is?


With the sideboard in play. Let's assume the 8 best armies win and the 8 worst armies lose in the first round. Say 4 winners go sideboard. Now 4 of the best 8 armies are in the sideboard for use in round 3. Of course everyone will want to go sideboard then because the option will be using the 8 worst armies from round 2.

The sideboard is a monkeywrench not a fix.


Dang, I promised myself I would stop complaining too. But I am Norcal's resident gloomcookie after all. Just doing my job.

[cmgames]

Hey RV,

Do you have final word from Heretic or Malechi? I see they are still marked as questionable on the initial post.

~Z

[cmgames]

Originally Posted by RoninValentina

If a winning player chooses to trade with the sidebar, the losing player in the same match may either take the winning player's army automatically, or may also trade with the sidebar in the same fashion.(Winner trades first.) If a winning player chooses to keep his army, then a losing player may also initiate a trade with the sidebar. After each trade, the unselected army is added to the sidebar and made available for further trades.

The quote is pulled from the first post of the thread.

How can the loser take the winning player's army "automatically" if it just got traded into the sidebar?

~Z