The Tournament of Forced Variety

[ollie]

This is a thought experiment proposing a dubious solution to a problem that does not exist. You have been warned.

There seems to be a conversation that never quite goes away about the lack of variety at tournaments. Below is a tournament structure that addresses this, but first I want to draw a distinction between two, uh, varieties of "variety". First there is across-tournament variety gauged by which units/builds get used over the years at the different events. Second there is within-tournament variety gauged by how diverse the armies are at a particular event.

A common approach to "increase variety" is to propose army restrictions. This, by definition, only addresses across-tournament variety. If you put a restriction like a cap on the number of common squads or no units above a B in the power-rankings then you narrow the metagame for your event considerably and this leads to more samey armies. This might be what you want to achieve but I think this is the less important type of variety---one of the things that makes Heroscape so much fun is the nicely balanced armies of completely different styles. The type of variety I want to increase is the within-tournament variety; I want to test my army and skill against a whole range of different challenges.

I mentioned earlier that the problem does not exist. By this I mean that the within-tournament variety is already huge, at least in the north-east. I ran some numbers a while back that confirmed this and my subjective impression of the GenCon armies is that they're pretty varied too. So I don't think it's a problem but evidently many do.

Anyway, enough preamble, here's the format.

The Tournament of Forced Variety

The bulk is just standard tournament rules for wherever you are. Just to give us something concrete, let's say 500pts, 24 hexes, 32 players, five round Swiss, random glyphs, quadratic fractional scoring, 55min games.

Prior to the event, each player is assigned a build-restriction category to which their army must conform. Here are some suggested categories:

• Single general,
• Single planet,
• At most 2 of any common squad,
• All hero,
• At least 4 of a common squad,
• At least 4 different generals represented,
• All units must have range 1,
• All units must have range >1,
• Use at least one Marvel hero,
• Single personality (tricky, disciplined, etc.)
• At least one unit of each size,
• At least 2 unique squads,

and so on. You get the idea. Maybe the general category could be parceled out so that six players were each given a specific general.

The tricky part is to make the categories fair---any tournament which starts with the players not on a level playing field is intrinsically a little unfair, but I think that as long as each category contains at least one army that Jexik would describe as Tier 2 then that is not a major concern.

So, what do you think? Would you like to go to such an event? If you believe that tournaments do lack variety is this a possible route that might help? Are the categories fair? What other categories can you think of?

[White Noise]

One problem I forsee is some players getting a category they can't meet the requirements of (i.e. 1 Marvel unit but they don't have any Marvel).

[ollie]

Originally Posted by White Noise

One problem I forsee is some players getting a category they can't meet the requirements of (i.e. 1 Marvel unit but they don't have any Marvel).

It'd be easy enough to include a clause that let you switch categories or, perhaps better, let everyone nominate three categories in advance that they definitely don't want, for whatever reason.

Given the willingness of people to lend units to others I don't think it'd be much of an issue in any case.

[Schulzy]

Many of the limits you suggested won't promote variety at all: single personality armies will yeild valient armies all over the place. Making people take unique squads will probably produce samurai armies. The fact that there are two or three very competitive options will only result in a tournament with two or three armies dominating the scene.

Now, having a figure of each size or having figures from at least 4 different generals could promote variety...but Q9, Railen, Rats armies meet qualifications for both of those. I think in order to produce some real variety, you're going to have to ban units of a certain power level, or use the random draft deck.

[ollie]

Originally Posted by Schulzy

Many of the limits you suggested won't promote variety at all: single personality armies will yeild valient armies all over the place. Making people take unique squads will probably produce samurai armies. The fact that there are two or three very competitive options will only result in a tournament with two or three armies dominating the scene.

The idea is that all of the categories get used in one event. I agree that having a single-personality tournament reduces variety, but only one player, maybe two (ideally there'd be more categories than players, but that might not work), gets the single-personality limitation.

Assuming that everyone is itching to play a bunch of valiant 4th Mass, I reckon only about half of the categories I listed allow it, and many of them force some variation within the remainder of the points.

Originally Posted by Schulzy

Now, having a figure of each size or having figures from at least 4 different generals could promote variety...but Q9, Railen, Rats armies meet qualifications for both of those. I think in order to produce some real variety, you're going to have to ban units of a certain power level, or use the random draft deck.

Originally Posted by ollie

A common approach to "increase variety" is to propose army restrictions. This, by definition, only addresses across-tournament variety...The type of variety I want to increase is the within-tournament variety

[Pickledpie]

One thing I have always really wanted to see a tourney all with armies drafted by the Suprisingly Tart Heroscape Draft Wizard.

You could email a list of your collection to the TD, and then they enter it into the Wizard and boom! instant armies. Some of those synergy only armies can be kinda good.

Another thing could be to distribute pre-made armies from the TD, except ones the TD made to fit the tourney how they wanted.

[ollie]

Originally Posted by Pickledpie

One thing I have always really wanted to see a tourney all with armies drafted by the Suprisingly Tart Heroscape Draft Wizard.

You could email a list of your collection to the TD, and then they enter it into the Wizard and boom! instant armies. Some of those synergy only armies can be kinda good.

Another thing could be to distribute pre-made armies from the TD, except ones the TD made to fit the tourney how they wanted.

Onacara suggested something like your last suggestion recently. What I don't like about it (and the Draft Wizard) is that it takes out the army-building aspect of the build-up to a tournament, and I really like that piece. I agree that it would also solve the "problem" but for me the cost is too high to be worth it.

Dok's recent auction experiment is a good model that solves the "problem" while letting you have control over your own build.

[Jexik]

Originally Posted by ollie

This is a thought experiment proposing a dubious solution to a problem that does not exist. You have been warned.

I read it, but agree most with the opening statement.

It's a non-problem to me, like complaining that grass is usually green... if I lived in an area with 20 different colors of grass.

I definitely agree with the initial statement that imposing stiffer restrictions results in more "samey" armies. There were 5-7 people playing the exact same army at General Wars this summer at GenCon.

And yet, it's the main event where I've seen people play Dünd once, and the Shades of Bleakewoode twice.

[flameslayer93]

How about saying that you must change armies each game? It would truly force diversion. Example(fitting in your categories) is that Player A draws the following: Single General,Common Squadx2 is most(2), One Marvel, All heroes. As they use the cards in each game, they don't get to use it again.

Each game they choose a card and pick an army. So Player A starts with Common Squadx2.

They follow those rules. Advance. Yadda yadda yadda.

Next game they go with One Marvel.

3rd game would be Commonx2

4th is single General.

Last card would be Only hereos.

[ollie]

Originally Posted by flameslayer93

How about saying that you must change armies each game? It would truly force diversion. Example(fitting in your categories) is that Player A draws the following: Single General,Common Squadx2 is most(2), One Marvel, All heroes. As they use the cards in each game, they don't get to use it again.

Each game they choose a card and pick an army. So Player A starts with Common Squadx2.

They follow those rules. Advance. Yadda yadda yadda.

Next game they go with One Marvel.

3rd game would be Commonx2

4th is single General.

Last card would be Only hereos.

That's a lot of strain to put on someone's collection, especially when there are groups all building from the same pool.

We've had tournaments where you bring two armies in the northeast and they've gone well. The restrictions have been light.

Like Jexik says, the best thing is not to impose restrictions and watch the units come in. I've seen Hatamoto and DW7K at the same event and it was as vanilla as possible. I've also been to an event where there were more Taelords than Q9s. I guess this thread is more about my frustration with people who say the equivalent of "let's increase variety by reducing the types of build that are permitted" and hoping to get them to think a little more about what they want to achieve.

[flameslayer93]

You could always borrow figures, but yeah I get your point. Just giving a suggestion.

[Schulzy]

[QUOTE=ollie;1174453]

The idea is that all of the categories get used in one event.

[quote=ollie]

Ah, understood. Are you suggesting that each player draw a card, and build an army with that restriction?