Today I took one of my best friends to a Magic: the Gathering tournament in Seattle: Standard States event (more info on it here).
We were psyched to play, but in the last round, something happened that made a lot of people unhappy.
The tourney had 100+ people and played seven rounds. After those seven, they'd cut to the top eight players, who would all get big prizes and continue playing for 1st-3rd place, which would get them even bigger prizes. Pretty standard stuff. You play magic, you do well, you get prizes.
But when that final seventh round came, the top table was empty.
The players who were ranked 1st through 8th place didn't play the final round.
Each of them had won 5 rounds and lost 1. And what they all realized was that if they agreed to a draw with their opponent in the final round, they would have 5 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss. Which would still rank them ahead of everyone else in the tournament who won 5 and lost 2 rounds.
So they didn't play round 7 because if they all drew, they were guaranteed a spot in the top 8, and guaranteed the big prizes. They were locked in, no matter how well anyone else did in the last round, even the guy in 9th place--which happened to be me.
Now I ended up losing round 7, so that's fine. It happens. But my opponent that round was 5 and 2. And my friend had lost his first 2 rounds, but won the other 5. And despite this, ,they still just didn't have a shot at getting Top 8. In round 7, the only people playing were doing it for the sheer pleasure of the game. (There were small prizes for 9th-16th place, so I guess people played for those, too, but they were small small prizes. One person said they were more like consolation prizes than anything.)
The thing that bugs me is this: At a Magic: the Gathering tournament, certain players were incentivized to not play Magic: the Gathering.
It was in their best interest to skip that round and get right into the big prize pool. If I were 8th instead of 9th place I'm sure I'd have done exactly the same thing. Why risk losing the round and potentially dropping out of the Top 8? Just skip!
But that's not Magic. That's not what Magic is about. Or even what sportsmanship is about. Forgive me if this sounds radical, but people who don't play games of Magic shouldn't win Magic tournaments.
But they did. And people were kinda bummed out. They grumbled. In my round 7, my opponent and I played next to an empty Top 8 table that should have been filled with excellent Magic players. As other people sat down for round 7, they all said basically the same thing: "Well, either of us can get Top 8, but good luck, I guess..." Even the judges running the tournament started round 7 by saying, "Well, for those of you who are playing, round 7 is starting now..." I spent the whole day playing excellent matches of my favorite game against truly skilled players, but I (and a whole bunch of other players) ultimately walked away feeling bitter about how the tournament ended up
The question, then, is this: how do you incentivize those players to keep playing? Under these circumstances, what makes it worth taking the risk to play that final round?
This conundrum throws me back to 2012, when Magic switched from the ELO system to the Points system. What they realized was that the ELO system (which rated players on how well they did in tournaments) actively discouraged players from playing Magic. Once a player had a high enough rating, they would stop going to tournaments at all, because if they lost subsequent tournaments, their ELO would drop, and they wouldn't be rated high enough to qualify for the Pro Tour anymore. They switched to the Planeswalker Points system because it gave points instead of ratings--you just needed a certain number of points to qualify instead, and that meant you could play all the tournaments you wanted without risking anything.
On a much, much smaller scale, this Top 8 "let's all draw" thing is incredibly similar. In both instances, the act of playing Magic is against your better interest. Which just feels wrong.
So what's the solution here? Is this a common problem, or just a fluke of numbers? Is it just a necessarily evil in tournament structure, or is there a similar "Planeswalker Points" kind of answer? I'm not sure, myself. It's a tough question to grapple with, but I think it's a valuable one. Because this experience truly did suck for a lot of people. Even the Top 8 players couldn't have been very happy that it was in their best interest to skip the round and wait. They want it to be in their best interest to play the game. That's why they came in the first place! So is there a better way to navigate this circumstance? I'm interested to hear thoughts on this.
We were psyched to play, but in the last round, something happened that made a lot of people unhappy.
The tourney had 100+ people and played seven rounds. After those seven, they'd cut to the top eight players, who would all get big prizes and continue playing for 1st-3rd place, which would get them even bigger prizes. Pretty standard stuff. You play magic, you do well, you get prizes.
But when that final seventh round came, the top table was empty.
The players who were ranked 1st through 8th place didn't play the final round.
Each of them had won 5 rounds and lost 1. And what they all realized was that if they agreed to a draw with their opponent in the final round, they would have 5 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss. Which would still rank them ahead of everyone else in the tournament who won 5 and lost 2 rounds.
So they didn't play round 7 because if they all drew, they were guaranteed a spot in the top 8, and guaranteed the big prizes. They were locked in, no matter how well anyone else did in the last round, even the guy in 9th place--which happened to be me.
Now I ended up losing round 7, so that's fine. It happens. But my opponent that round was 5 and 2. And my friend had lost his first 2 rounds, but won the other 5. And despite this, ,they still just didn't have a shot at getting Top 8. In round 7, the only people playing were doing it for the sheer pleasure of the game. (There were small prizes for 9th-16th place, so I guess people played for those, too, but they were small small prizes. One person said they were more like consolation prizes than anything.)
The thing that bugs me is this: At a Magic: the Gathering tournament, certain players were incentivized to not play Magic: the Gathering.
It was in their best interest to skip that round and get right into the big prize pool. If I were 8th instead of 9th place I'm sure I'd have done exactly the same thing. Why risk losing the round and potentially dropping out of the Top 8? Just skip!
But that's not Magic. That's not what Magic is about. Or even what sportsmanship is about. Forgive me if this sounds radical, but people who don't play games of Magic shouldn't win Magic tournaments.
But they did. And people were kinda bummed out. They grumbled. In my round 7, my opponent and I played next to an empty Top 8 table that should have been filled with excellent Magic players. As other people sat down for round 7, they all said basically the same thing: "Well, either of us can get Top 8, but good luck, I guess..." Even the judges running the tournament started round 7 by saying, "Well, for those of you who are playing, round 7 is starting now..." I spent the whole day playing excellent matches of my favorite game against truly skilled players, but I (and a whole bunch of other players) ultimately walked away feeling bitter about how the tournament ended up
The question, then, is this: how do you incentivize those players to keep playing? Under these circumstances, what makes it worth taking the risk to play that final round?
This conundrum throws me back to 2012, when Magic switched from the ELO system to the Points system. What they realized was that the ELO system (which rated players on how well they did in tournaments) actively discouraged players from playing Magic. Once a player had a high enough rating, they would stop going to tournaments at all, because if they lost subsequent tournaments, their ELO would drop, and they wouldn't be rated high enough to qualify for the Pro Tour anymore. They switched to the Planeswalker Points system because it gave points instead of ratings--you just needed a certain number of points to qualify instead, and that meant you could play all the tournaments you wanted without risking anything.
On a much, much smaller scale, this Top 8 "let's all draw" thing is incredibly similar. In both instances, the act of playing Magic is against your better interest. Which just feels wrong.
So what's the solution here? Is this a common problem, or just a fluke of numbers? Is it just a necessarily evil in tournament structure, or is there a similar "Planeswalker Points" kind of answer? I'm not sure, myself. It's a tough question to grapple with, but I think it's a valuable one. Because this experience truly did suck for a lot of people. Even the Top 8 players couldn't have been very happy that it was in their best interest to skip the round and wait. They want it to be in their best interest to play the game. That's why they came in the first place! So is there a better way to navigate this circumstance? I'm interested to hear thoughts on this.
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