This gets to the root of the problem with the idea for me. I can be winning but my opponent can lock me out to bring down my overall SoS.

More to the point, my opponent can play a slower-pace game the first 50 minutes but end up losing and it's the winner that is being penalized. This is also about punishing people who are slower at games in general, whether you realize it or not.

I don't really think you understand what is happening in the situations being described. It's not about how fast it takes to activate characters on a tempo control squad.

It forces the opponent to position a lot more carefully than if there is back-and-forth engagement. Only a moron puts his pieces in a position to be unloaded on by the opponents' forces at the end of a round, and a tempo-control player - most of those I have fared against, anyway - can move their pieces into a new hiding position very, very quickly to wait around for the next round in the hopes that I - the non-tempo control player - will make a poor move that allows them to unload then. But when I don't the hiding game continues, right up until the final 10 minutes of the game when time is called.

So my choices are to commit suicide with my squad by positioning for a strike on the next round that I will never get to take, or force my opponent to come to me at the end of a round, which he won't do either because my pieces are perfectly placed to prevent him from seizing the end-round strike.

It's not really slow play in the sense of taking a long time to figure out which pieces to move. It's just a lot of boring inaction that neither one of us are really in a good position to overcome without handing the game to the other player.

In cases like these what usually happens is we get down to the last 15-20 minutes and then one of us is close enough to force the action in the middle of the round, but odds are time will be called before the game is over at that point.

there is much merit in this statement. Its not always the winner who has caused the game to run to time. I forsee many 2 point wins in my future and I generally try to finish.



truth too.

However, it does behoove both players to attmept to get to finish but i wonder how much the new rules will alter the strategy of players who accept that games go to time. Perhaps they will just accept that they will get 2 point wins v some opponents but work for the finish against easier prey.

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

Its definatley going to be a work in progress for a while.

There's clearly less effect if game wins is the first tiebreaker and that's not for certain clarified--just guessed at by Bill. I thought they were one and the same until he mentioned it. But in the local 4 hour tourney you're generally going for 3-0 or 4-0 for the win anyway and if there's no fear that going to time can cost you the victory to a 2-1 player I forsee less effect. Of course, there will be odd number of player situations and longer tourneys with playoffs where it's more meaningful so I don't see it this being a dealbreaker either way.

That's generally how it happens in SWCCG. Though it is a bit messier in SWM, since you can't "draw up" to lose like in SWCCG. Most will do that when time is called and have clearly lost, but like any game, there are those who won't.

It's not really us. It's always been the nature of the tournament game. We've just been much more lax about enforcing it. (I suppose one could then argue that the lax enforcement was beneficial overall. It's certainly a gray area.)

It's funny because I intended to start this in a seperate thread a while ago and never got around to it. Recently I was looking for a bit of information and WotC pointed me at the revised Magic UTR which has been seperated from the UTR for the other games. This allows them to deal with it without dealing with the "lesser" games I suppose. But the core of the two is the same. It's just that the generic UTR isn't updated. On a whim, I checked out the Slow Play section of this 2009 document vs the 2007 document we use. And the wording there didn't much surprise me as anyone whose followed the discussion in the past will recall this is what I've basically said it should be interpreted as all along...



Versus the older and admittedly more ambiuous wording...



It seems plretty clear to me why the wording was updated.

There's a big difference between the pace of a Magic game and the pace of a miniatures game like SWM. In Magic, you know you can play a land card each turn. You know you can attack with the creatures on the table, what can block, and you can eyeball the mana on the table vs. the costs of cards in your hand. You either turn the cards sideways to play new cards or to attack, or you don't. Period. There are people in Magic who will sit at 20 life the whole game and shuffle the cards in their hand as though they're mulling over a decision that doesn't exist. THAT is stalling. THAT is slow play. It's clear cut.

That is not the same thing as in SWM, where you might be on an unfamiliar map or you are not sure about LOS from specific positions. Should every move require that level of thinking? Nope, of course not. But it does affect the overall pace of the game for people who are playing strictly for points, or for people playing against someone with that mentality.

I don't know why they separated out the UTR for Magic from the "lesser games," as you put it, but I doubt it has very much to do with just wanting to separate those games out of spite. I would guess - and it is just a guess - that it has more to do with the fact that it's not practical to apply the common sense lessons about stalling in Magic to SWM. It's apples and strawberries.

If the goal is to break the mindset that this is a game where players win by being the person with the highest score after 60 minutes, then IMO that's where we should be focusing our energy rather than just dilluting the system with something that is just going to end up having a handful of nasty side-effects. Make points matter less. There's a way to do it, but no one has wanted to hear it.

It is comments like this that I find discouraging. This discussion on how to deal with slow play is three years old. If you have not presented it in 3 years I really have no idea what you are waiting on. I realize this system was not invented by you. But sometimes you really can make light of the hard work other people do. You have done this before with the Hall of Fame. You want to be the guy holding the cookie jar and handing out the cookies it seems. I just dont understand why in three years of discussing issues like slow play and the mind set why you have not mentioned that you had the answer to it the whole time. I just really dont understand...... in all of the phone calls you and I have had you have never once mentioned that you had the secret to ending slow play.

Hm. I'm sure there are a variety of reasons for the seperation, and they are mostly beside the point I think. My point was that I don't think they said "finally, we can fix the Slow Play wording because it doesn't apply to these other games." I think the only reason the wording is different is because they haven't gotten around to fixing the wording in the non-Magic UTR for two years and if/when they do update it the wording will once again be identical to what they have in the Magic UTR and identical to how I said it should be interpreted all along.

(And that says nothing to invalidate your opinion about whether it's a good idea for this game. I just believe it has always been WotC's intent for this game--that it's a popcorn skirmish game intended to be played to completion in about an hour.)

I like the reinforcement gambit idea a bunch. I also really like that sealed can now be 125. I love that. That will open up sealed immensly. Sealed is it's own cat to begin with and the ability to really make soem ncie combos comes with those extra points, it sure beats the JA situation where some kid pulled Luke in one booster and logray in the other and was under points for the match

Some local experiments, ie, doing tournaments without activation control, have so far shown that those games end MUCH quicker then normal games. I have the numbers somewhere, but something like half as many games go to time? This also really helps out the new players, as they feel less "holy crap, I have to hide everything otherwise I get bumrushed and annihilated." every round.

@ NN

It's the combination of activation control and damage. From my understanding, you could usually put 40 damage at most on an opposing character, maybe 80 if it was an extremely powerful character. Mara Jade, Jedi did unthinkable amounts of damage when I first started playing (pre-CW). Now? Now, I out activate and have the potential of putting 160 on a character with 61 points worth of pieces (Dash and Rex) from across the board, and mobile back into cover. If I win init, I can do it again. That fear causes most players to play slower due to the extreme nature of offense as compared to defense.

I think next month I may just flat out ban activation control at our LGS for a month, and see how the tournaments go. We've done it already 5-6 times, and all the feedback has been immensely positive. (Even from the hardcore Separatist players).

You know, if the first tie breaker was total number of points you scored in all your games (ideally with the max you can score in a game is the point limit, scoreing 174 points in a 150 points odes not make much sence) that would encourage you play down to the end every time, even if the game was totally one sided. In order to score as many points as you can, killy your oppoent pieces and gambit.

Actually, in Swiss or league play it works better than scoring wins/losses at all. Just get rid of gambit and put the people who've scored the most kill points over their games in the single elim. We did the very first VASSAL league that way and it was a blast. It was a 10 game league and the winner had around 900 points over the course of his 10 games. He lost some, but he always killed a lot of stuff in the process.

But the approach is too radical to be easily modified to DCI regardless of how well it might work.

Well Dean I don't know what you are referring to about the HoF, when I ever made light of it. I don't recall ever doing that. And yes I have shared my other ideas about the issue but they have been dismissed out of hand with so little thought that you can't even remember me talking about them.


As for the rest, its the pot calling the kettle black IMO. Please show me how what you are accusing me of doing is any different than what has occurred with this surprise announcmentt brought to light in this thread...

Was the organized on wizards? I think i played in that.

Here is a thought on the concession

If the player winning hasn't scored minimum 100 for 150 tourney or 150 for the 200 when the opponent concedes then winning player only gets the 2 points no matter what. If player reaches the 100 for 150 tourney or 150 for the 200 when the opponent concedes the winning players gets the full 3 points.

Once again, it should come down to when the concession occurs. If my opponent has no chance of winning after, say, half an hour, and really feels he could be doing something more constructive until the next round begins, then it should easily be a 3 point win.

Honestly, I think we're back to where we started at the beginning of this thread. I think we're going to have to rely on the judges to make the final call, and let's face it. We have a really good group of judges who will make the right decision 99.99% of the time. We all have worked hard over the last few years to ensure fair play and now that the ball is finally in our court over slow play issues I think we will be able to better facilitate our desires for a good honest and strong game.

Yup. And all that takes is allowing concessions to be 2 or 3 point wins for that particular aspect to allow repercussions for abuse.



I found the old document with the scores and indeed you did. You completed all 10 of your games for 660 points finishing in 9th overall out of 37 participants.

i don't think i entered that tournament, did I?



I've never really heard any suggestions on how to make points matter less.

The whole issue of having points (gambit) is intimately linked to override, a pretty core special ability that has existed as long as the game. Its an ability that allows for complete non-engagement and is the ability that is most likely to result in a 10 round lack of action tiebreaker.
Because of the strength of this ability a points system has to be put in place to force engagement.
Center points perhaps is a simplified system to work with but its either that or altering the scoring areas which would require a long hard look at maps and what you are aiming to achieve with the alternative areas.

Another way to make points count for less is to remove the power of override by giving it limits but people always will turtle in order to fight on their own terms.
Its a frustrating fact of a strategic games that people will often not engage if there is no reason to do it especially if it reduces their chances of winning.
in magic if you do nothing you get wasted, your forced to act because you will lose rapidly.
Not so with SWM, if you sit in a corner your probably the safest you will be the whole game. People need a reason to get out of the room.
Gambit gives them that reason at least to put a figure there.
It will be much better when that the figure must cost something. If it costs about 5 or more then thats even more significant.

So rather than saying no-one wants to listen, why air your idea because i've thought about this issue a lot, and i don't see any alternatives to what we have now and what Dean is implementing.