Constructed League Season Three - Results

[Thomas David Baker]

Season ends 6th November

Missed Somehow
Jason Howlett	2 - 1	Paul Young
Monday 2nd November
Warren Vonk	2 - 0	Kieran Symington
Warren Vonk	2 - 0	Steve Bernstein
Friday 30th October
Warren Vonk	2 - 1	Paul Young
Friday 23rd October
Roque Martire	2 - 1	Dan Barrett
Roque Martire	2 - 1	Warren Vonk
James Mills	2 - 1	Jason Howlett
Rob Stanjer	2 - 1	Dan Barrett
Tuesday 20th October
Jason Howlett	2 - 0	Simon O'Keefe
Rob Stanjer	2 - 1	Simon O'Keefe
Monday 19th October
Roque Martire	2 - 1	Charlie Grover
Charlie Grover	2 - 1	Jason Howlett
Warren Vonk	2 - 1	Charlie Grover
Charlie Grover	2 - 0	Kieran Symington
Glenn Goldsworthy	2 - 0	Charlie Grover
Glenn Goldsworthy	2 - 1	Steve Bernstein
Warren Vonk	2 - 0	Glenn Goldsworthy
Warren Vonk	2 - 0	Jason Howlett
Saturday 17th October
Glenn Goldsworthy	2 - 1	Rob Stanjer
Gary Lynch	2 - 0	Simon O'Keefe
Jason Howlett	2 - 0	Gary Lynch
Friday 16th October
Warren Vonk	2 - 0	Dan Barrett
Warren Vonk	2 - 1	Gary Lynch
Tuesday 13th October
Glenn Goldsworthy	2 - 1	Jason Howlett
Glenn Goldsworthy	2 - 1	Paul Young
Roque Martire	2 - 1	Simon O'Keefe
Paul Young	2 - 1	Roque Martire
Monday 12th October
Steve Bernstein	2 - 1	Jason Howlett
Kieran Symington	2 - 0	Steve Bernstein
Roque Martire	2 - 1	Steve Bernstein
Rob Stanjer	2 - 1	Jason Howlett
Jason Howlett	2 - 0	Kieran Symington
Saturday 10th October
James Mills	2 - 1	Steve Bernstein
Friday 9th October
Roque Martire	2 - 1	Jason Howlett
James Mills	2 - 0	Dan Barrett
James Mills	2 - 1	Warren Vonk
Tuesday 6th October
James Mills	2 - 1	Glenn Goldsworthy
Roque Martire	2 - 1	James Mills
Roque Martire	2 - 1	Kieran Symington
Simon O'Keefe	2 - 1	Glenn Goldsworthy
Simon O'Keefe	2 - 1	Kieran Symington
Monday 5th October
Glenn Goldsworthy	2 - 1	Roque Martire
Sunday 4th October
Dan Barrett	2 - 0	Gary Lynch
Rob Stanjer	2 - 0	Kieran Symington
Gary Lynch	2 - 0	Kieran Symington
James Mills	2 - 1	Kieran Symington
James Mills	2 - 0	Rob Stanjer
Gary Lynch	2 - 1	Rob Stanjer
James Mills	2 - 0	Gary Lynch
Friday 2nd October
Roque Martire	2 - 0	Rob Stanjer

[wv]

Opponents who don't want to actually play because they are no longer in the running or can't be bothered need to by default concede if asked to play, or it is unfair to those who actually are trying to max out on wins - such was the case with my concessions.

For example, people are keen to play at the beginning of the league, but then once they are no longer in contention, they don't want to play anymore. Why should others who are doing well then lose out on potential wins?

Rob doesn't want to play. I can't force him to. I don't think I should therefore retract his concession.

And yes, if in the next league I a cannot win for sure, and therefore I don't actually want to bother playing, I will concede to people who ask to play me. I personally don't see anything wrong with this as it is the nature of anything competitive where prizes are involved.

Do you really think Kibler 'didn't know' that the angel wasn't a 'may'?

My suggestion to the Roq-dog would be to buy some tissues. ;)

Thomas David Baker said:

Yes, it's technically impossible to legislate against concessions because both parties can just claim they did play. And I can understand the temptation to get the maximum wins.
But I'd ask you in the interests of fairness to retract any results you have through concession and instead try and play out the matches. As well as being harsh on those who have legitimately won all their wins it sets a bad precedent. In future leagues will you be conceding to folks who conceded to you in this one if they are in with a chance of winning? Taken to an extreme we might as well just get together at the beginning of the league and decide who we want to win it. Even if that is a bit of a silly version of events the idea that the last stretch of any given league will be decided by who can run around and gather a few concessions is a bit depressing. How about we scratch your game with Rob and you try and play him tonight or Friday? (If anyone has any ideas about how we can actually legislate this in the rules of the league let me know - I don't have much in the way of good ideas.)

[Thomas David Baker]

If they won't play that does put you in a difficult position, I agree.

If it's a choice between an auto-win and an auto-loss I think anyone would rather have the auto-win :)

For me the question is, how do we structure tournaments in future so that the winner is the person with the most wins and this does not arise? The incentive of 10% of a WPN card (!) is clearly not enough to get people to play out their games.

A few ideas occur to me: (i) a knockout competition instead of a league; (ii) some combination of league and knockout with post-league "play offs" that would keep more people in contention for longer ("if I sneak in 4th I can still win the whole thing in the play offs"); (iii) prizes that go further down than 3rd; (iv) divisions where players who don't achieve a minimum number of wins in a league are relegated to a lower league for the next season.

[wv]

What about:

> Split players into 'flights' of three players.
> Flights play round-robin

> Winners of the initial flights join a Winners flight which then plays round-robin
> 1st, 2nd, 3rd of this Winners flight get prizes

> All players who didn't make it to Winners flight join a Losers flight (lol) then play round-robin
> 1st, 2nd, 3rd of Losers flight get a (reduced) prizes

Total prize payout would therefore look like:

>15 players (for example), 1 booster to enter

> 5 initial flights of 3 players each

> Winners flight of 5 players

> Losers flight of 10 players

Prize payout:

Winners flight:
First - 4 boosters (includes mad props and street cred)
Second - 3 boosters
Third - 2 boosters

Losers flight:
First - 3 booster
Second - 2 booster
Third - 1 booster

Might be too complicated to actually organise, considering it's pretty hard to get people playing anyway after a few weeks.

I think one of the big turn-offs for this league round was that we couldn't change our decks. Thus, people who made 'shit' decks in the beginning, soon realised they were shit, and therefore no longer wanted to play.

Perhaps if we had a rule in place that read - A player may make up to 16 changes to his deck throughout the league - or something similar, more people would play.


Thomas David Baker said:

If they won't play that does put you in a difficult position, I agree.
If it's a choice between an auto-win and an auto-loss I think anyone would rather have the auto-win :) For me the question is, how do we structure tournaments in future so that the winner is the person with the most wins and this does not arise? The incentive of 10% of a WPN card (!) is clearly not enough to get people to play out their games. A few ideas occur to me: (i) a knockout competition instead of a league; (ii) some combination of league and knockout with post-league "play offs" that would keep more people in contention for longer ("if I sneak in 4th I can still win the whole thing in the play offs"); (iii) prizes that go further down than 3rd; (iv) divisions where players who don't achieve a minimum number of wins in a league are relegated to a lower league for the next season.

[Dan Barrett]

With no prizes on the line, there are none of these problems...

I think an ornate certificate and a presentation ceremony > a few boosters :D



As an addendum to the league, if we're going to all build our own decks at the start of a format, we should make some effort to analyse why they did well/badly at the end so we can all learn from the experience. For instance, my record sucks, and after playing some league matches i know what my mistakes were - these might be "obv" to Rob, for instance, but my mistakes might benefit others, and i am sure hearing why other peoples decks sucked/were awesome would help me as a deck-builder also.

[wv]

Is this for real? Are you actually bummed?

Roque Martire said:

Whatever Warren, I thought you had convictions. Obviously not.

[wv]

I won't be playing my final match.

So play yours (or get a concession) and then you win.

I never meant for this to get 'ugly'. I'm not that bothered about prizes. I just wanted to win, as is my nature.

<3

Roque Martire said:

Just surprised how people can change when prizes are on the line, I guess you can't force people to play out their matches, but isn't the point of this league to actually play magic? I agree that not being able to change your deck makes people not want to play, maybe this should be changed.

You got some concessions + I didn't = Jealous Roque. NEVERMINDDDDDDDD

[Tom Reeve]

Maybe results against people who don't reach a certain minimum threshold of matches played (say, against a third of active players) should be discounted in the final standings?

[Dan Barrett]

I was gonna say, looking forward to auto-concessions from gary and co in future for all the cards i lend out

:P

[stevie_b]

On the subject of passing round the Kleenex I ended having to split the first league when mills' green black elf list popped up with bloodbraids in it when he lost to Paul on the last day!

Going forward i like the league/knckout idea - easier to hunt down 2/3 people at a time - should previous champs be seeded? :-)

also if u r level on points in the end why not have some drama and have a playoff match to bring the crowds in.

[wv]

Oh please. You'd take every concession you could get.

Off that high horse please Mr. Martire.

Roque Martire said:

Wouldn't it be better to win by ACTUALLY winning though? It proves much more than just getting a concession.

[Tiff Leek]

Conceding games that have not even been half played seems like terribly bad form and not in the spirit of the thing at all.

[Thomas David Baker]

I was thinking about this last night and I have realized a few things:

1. If we allow concessions and Mills gets the three people he hasn't played to concede to him, and Roque gets Gary to concede to him then Warren will come third, Roque will come second and Mills will win overall. Which basically makes the last week of the competition about who can arrange concessions and nothing else. That's not good enough.

2. The reasoning behind "games played" counting more than "goal difference" or anything similar is to encourage more games to be played. If you are getting points in the "Played" column when you haven't played a game something is malfunctioning there (leaving aside getting points in the "Points" column!)

3. We didn't allow concessions in either of the first two seasons. We just applied moral pressure to those that "couldn't be bothered" to play until they did play. (There were warning signs here ... I should have picked up on them.)

Given all these reasons I can't allow results that I know to be straight up concessions to stand. So far that's only Warren v Rob although I get the impression there were others?

If Warren needs extra time to actually meet up with and play people to get his fair crack of the whip then we can extend the season. People refusing to play him will be censured by their peers and may face punitive measures in future seasons.

We will definitely devise different rules for the next season to prevent this issue from arising again but that doesn't mean we don't want to finish this season in the closest thing to fairness we can manage.

I'm sorry I didn't think about this clearly when it first arose and give a firm anti-concession judgment at the time. Warren - I hope you understand what I'm getting at here. Name and shame those who refuse to play you, and let us know if you want more time to complete matches.