Just want to confirm that I am getting this right. People care about collusion more in spectator-friendly games? So in a card game like MtG people care less about whether the results of matches are “artificial”, because they aren’t being deprived of a spectacle. But if that was the case, why would offering incentives be disallowed? It just seems weird to me that someone would be OK with an intentional draw knocking him out of top 8, as long as no explicit incentives were offered. The end-result is the same right? People are in or out of top 8 without having to play a real game.
I’ve mentioned this already, but it seems to me that the MtG rules seem to have defined “collusion” as basically “bribery”. That is, you can conspire as much as you want as long as no one is given an explicit offer to set the result one way or another. This seems a bit wonky to me, because at this point you might as well just use the term “bribery” instead of “collusion”. On the other hand FGC’s rules seem to cover actual factual collusion, but it also includes “intentional under-performance”, which does not actually require a conspiracy between two players. Rather than the integrity of the tournament as a test of skill for participants, the main issue seems to be the integrity of the stream as an entertainment platform for viewers.
I’ve been on both sides of the fence. Don’t really care one way or the other. I just wish there wasn’t this whole sub-game playing out in the last round where all the people in contention try to bribe each other in full view of the judging staff, who also know what’s up, and are basically there to police competitors’ ability to come up with magic words that get their intentions across while still technically staying within the rules.
I honestly can’t think of a more blatant slap in the face to the spirit of honest competition, given that the entire community seems to be complicit in it and more interested in preserving their self-image as “true competitors” while doing everything they can to avoid doing so. I’m not ashamed to say that I colluded* with my last round opponent in a sanctioned tournament a couple of weeks ago, who conspired with me to set our match result as a “draw” despite no games actually being played. This put both of us in top 8, cutting out some other dude who actually played and won in the last round. We did it because the rules said we could, and it was the highest EV move.
Only in the spirit of the term. The letter of the rules say that no collusion took place.
The thing about M:TG is that when Intentional Draws became a thing, it was a huge deal. After so many years though, they’ve become a part of tournament magic. Wizards of the Coast (company which owns the game) has done things to give players more incentive to play such as placement deciding who gets to go first during the finals.
At weekly tournaments, chopping the finals isn’t that big of a deal. At majors though, the tournaments want to have a nice clear winner. So at the very least play it out properly then do whatever with the prize money. This is more of a cultural thing with the FGC than anything else.
I’m not actually disputing the cultural differences. The main point of the thread was to confirm that those differences exist (success) and maybe see if either community could benefit from taking some information from the other.
For example, maybe FGC tournaments could just allow players to drop whenever they please without consequence. We won’t always get a “real” finals but we avoid getting a “joke” finals. Maybe MtG could benefit from adopting a “no draws” policy. A win is a win. Failure to win (including a draw) is a loss. This would significantly cut back on intentional draws, if not eliminating them completely.
Not saying the above ideas are good. They’re just examples.
For me, personally, I’ve decided that I don’t have a problem with either system per se. I just don’t like that they use misleading terms. Collusion implies conspiracy to subvert the game in order to get a predetermined outcome. If you’re going to allow all forms of conspiracy except that which involved incentives, just call it bribery. Likewise, if you’re going to lump all forms “intentional under-performance”, including that which does not involve conspiracy between multiple players, just call it intentional under-performance or failure to perform.
Yeah, collusion is banned in the FGC, so that seems like an inappropriate word to use.
The people running the FGC and MtG have different motivations. MtG peoples have Top 8s in place because people want a Best Deck! of the day. The FGC has a Top 8 because figuring out who is best that day is the entire point of the tournament. Given that figuring out who is the best is the entire point of the tournament for most of the people there that day, increasing the acceptability of concessions seems utterly counterproductive to everything most FGC members would care about.
I was judging feature matches for the final round of GP Vancouver, and watched I think 5-6 of those matches ID (from four chosen by the coverage team). Then we go into Top 8 where people may or may not ID. The people running the tournament geeeeenerally get to be OK with this because they are being paid money to run your tournament for you and that’s the reward they get and the results and gameplay are important but not critical to why they are there running the tournament. The people running most FGC tournaments generally are losing money to run your tournament for you and the reward they get is watching awesome game play and results and the gameplay are pretty critical to why they are there running the tournament.
If you want to run the “hey everybody let’s all ID once we’re mathematically guaranteed entry fee + $5” FGC tournament, go ahead and do that. Just don’t pretend that anything in the world is stopping you from being dumb like that, because there is nothing stopping you from doing this. Until you go off and do this on a regular basis, I find your argument to be pretty ridiculous. After you run a couple tournaments, you’ll note that it’s generally pretty stupid and disappointing to the community at your tournament when XXX won’t play YYY because they’re totes buds. That’s generally not a competitive tournament for them then. If you can’t play your friend in a competitive game, you may not be the right type of person to be playing a competitive game.
Eliminating draws in MtG makes for some super shitty conversations at end of round where judges would have to be present.
As you’re probably aware, bribery is generally banned in MtG. Plus or minus betting on matches is a bannable offense in MtG, whereas it’s allowed in the FGC. So you also get to get into people fixing matches to take money from sucker spectators. The people running the FGC do not have the structure in place to handle all the nonsense that WoTC/etc get to sort out and deal with.
edit: And I should also be clear that most of the people at Grand Prix Vancouver had no idea who won. The tournament experience of MtG and fighting games are continents apart.
I used to do the opposite regularly. I held MtG tournaments where draws got zero points. No intentional draws that I can remember, because it was always a better idea to play. CounterTop players didn’t like it, but I have been told that having less CounterTop players was a “feature” of the format and not a “bug”.
EDIT: The above tournaments were unsanctioned.
As for FGC tournaments, I don’t have any desire to run them. The logistics of getting setups is too much hassle. I prefer to just discuss the theory on the internet.
I don’t see how this is any less disappointing than XXX won’t play YYY because if they intentionally draw they are both in top 8.
I have a more complex issue where I will always take the highest EV option (ie. intentional draw) but I am completely unable to convince myself that this is anything other than legal collusion. That’s just what it is. I don’t feel bad about doing it, but I feel averse to pretending that the tournament results are a legitimate reflection of relative performance on the day.
Draws are fine. Just don’t give points for them. Problem solved, maybe (if it is a problem, which I am willing to be convinced that maybe it’s not).
If they were the same, there would be no point to a thread discussing what they might be able to learn from each other.
Very interesting. Hopefully this works out for the PT, but it does give the impression that WotC “favors” the pro players. I mean, it makes sense of course. The PT is a marketing vehicle for MtG and watching the best players not play each other is a drag. But I can imagine some might take this as a message that “only pros deserve legitimate tournament results”.
All in all, I am happy that they are trying something. Thanks for the info.
