World Championship Mode - possible changes: no deck changing for Finals

[CDavis7M]

In the early days, Worlds was even a 3 day tournament. There were qualifiers to get into the semi-finals.
Seeded players were automatically qualified for semi-finals, but not for finals.

While this system leads to the complaints mentioned here, there is some strength in tradition. If a person cannot forsake his friends and deck build through the night as was done in days of yore for the official tournaments, can they even truly call themselves MECCG World Champion? Well, yes they could by winning. But the real question is whether a tournament that does not follow the format of the official World Championship even the same tournament? I guess not. And so should it be able to call itself the "World Championship"? Eh, it's not so different I think. But that's up to others.

Is having a new different deck essential to what Finals was? If so, keep it. If not, don't. It seems many players here think it was an essential part of what made Finals, "Finals."

[Theo]

If I understood Heiner's original points, I have not seen much in the way of arguments against them. I would fully appreciate every other tournament deciding not to have finals, but I would want to believe a World Champion title has meaning closer to what Heiner suggested, not just having the luckiest pairings and, as I have expressed concern with elsewhere, being the most exploitative of less-competitive opponents.

That leaves requiring the same decks in finals. But I don't like the implication that players would then need to trade between picking their deck to qualify (maximize exploiting less-competitive opponents) with picking their deck to win against equally-competitive opponents. The Title then becomes who did the best trade-off, which is certainly a worthy skill, but should not World Champion require more-purely the second of these?

That said, I also dislike the possibility of a hypothetical gimmick deck winning in finals just because it was tailor-made against the right 2-3 opponents. I doubt very much that any of the current contenting players would opt to take that route, but I'm speaking in principle.

This leads me to suggest that my concern about requiring the same decks might be mitigated if the threshold of top-4 qualifiers were eliminated in favor of, say, another 2 or 3 more Swiss rounds, perhaps allowing players to be paired a second time. (Aside: is the difference between 4th and 5th in prelims really such a meaningful threshold for justifying a comeback allowed from 4th but not 5th?) I don't think this would help if there was a majority of players trying to exploit less-competitive opponents (the pairings would just tend to pair similar such opponents), but if those are a minority I would hope that these extra rounds (presumably against more equally-competitive opponents) would have the effect of diminishing the impact of random pairings.

---

It sounds like Chris is suggesting that to be a candidate for the World Champion title, one would need to attend two consecutive years' worth of tournaments. For purely selfish reasons, I would not want the title to require such regularity. That is what the meta-title of most-World-Champion-titles is for.

[briannocheeze]

If you don't mind the opinion of an old timer... I believe having the finals is necessary to prove the eventual champion's mettle against "all" of the top opponents. This way, favourable matchups in the semifinals can be mitigated.

That being said, I completely understand what Paric is saying about wanting to spend time with the community and the host city. Deciding on being required to run the same deck in the finals can be a solution as can pre-building final deck options. The decision is in the hands of the current generation. I just hope that variety and having fun will reign supreme.

Brian "No Cheeze" Wong

[thorondor]

Worlds is coming near, so we need a decision here soon.
Personally, i always like how Worlds was played in the past. I myself only made TOP 4 once over all these years, and back then i loved to make a few adjustments to the deck, also the guessing and mind game that comes along with this.
But Patric also has a few good points imo. Mostly its should be the best deck and the player with the best playing skills. Deck changing opens the door to where luck could play a prominent role (a mediocre deck could be victorious, simply because the other three were not prepered for it).
Most of us here agree upon having a second day is needed for a worthy World Championship. Me too.

Finally, Worlds take place in Spain this year. There players are used to played Finals with the same deck. So why not try out this new format there. Let´s see how players feel about it there.

Obviously the COE is dormant since a while (again). There should have been election before 2022, but nobody cared. The charter says "The acting Council shall remain in office until a new Council is elected." So i guess it makes sense to call upon the other COE members and start a vote.

[CDavis7M]

Obviously the COE is dormant since a while (again). There should have been election before 2022, but nobody cared. The charter says "The acting Council shall remain in office until a new Council is elected." So i guess it makes sense to call upon the other COE members and start a vote.

Where's that Nero guy? He promised great things!

On topic, it's good to try new things. But also good to let the people most likely to be affected make the choice. The finalists may not want to spend time building new decks or they may not like the fact that their deck has been scouted going into the final. If divided, simplicity is nice. Yet traditions can be strong. Sometimes no decision is a nice decision.

Maybe players that want to compete in the finals (whether they do or not) have the option of submitting an additional set of decks to use in the finals. That way they don't have to build a deck during the event, they don't have to worry about people scouting their deck, and they cannot scout others decks. But still give players a choice between their main deck and the alternative deck for the finals.

[Smaug]

Hi guys,

whatever format you will finally try out, I wish everyone good luck and a lot of fun!
Unfortunately I will be the first time for years not be able to participate .

Saludos

Heiner

[Khamul the Easterling]

I abstain.

[Muad'Dib]

Sadly i have to pass this year Worlds But still want to add my 2 cents as participant for many years. I definitely voting against changing this rule. Of course preparing 2nd deck for finals can be a problem the night before. But why not to do it at home? Almost every time i have prepared deck for finals, just in case i qualify. Of course it consumes some time but at least i have free head during tournament, just do some small tweaks the night before. Also there is another problem -> talking people. Of course we all know its stricly forbidden to talk about other people's decks. But every year, during breaks between rounds, i hear players talking about opponent's decks. Its huge advantage when i hear about somebody else cards but he wasnt lucky enough to know anything about mine. Its very imporant, especially during finals.

So yes, i agree, spending night before final rounds building decks instead of nice, friendly evening can be a nightmare. But, like i said, its very easy to spend one afternoon at home to prepare those decks at home, not at Worlds. And we have time for chitchats with friends from community.

[thorondor]

I also wont be attending Wolds this years, though i´m a lesser factor for the TOP4. Anyway, it looks like those that are opposed to chang the format are not going to Barcelona for Worlds. And since the Spanish community is used to play keeping the same deck for TOP4, i wouldnt care much about it, if all players agree upon this before the tourney starts.

Unfortunately the COE was not able to find a decision. Only 3 out of nine took part in the voting, probably a mix of not enough time and having become entish.

[Theo]

Maud'Dib's comments on scouting are striking home for me after a recent summer event. I am now of the opinion that for the World Championships, players should be allowed to change their decks freely to prevent scouting, round time limits permitting. If someone can live through the confusion of winning with a different deck each round, perhaps they more greatly deserve the title.

I do not understand how the Spanish community is ok with the deck scouting that occurs. I would anticipate that it would further shrink the landscape of win-viable decks beyond what is already necessitated the time limits and meta. I would be interested to hear more.

---

a mediocre deck could be victorious, simply because the other three were not prepered for it

How does lack of preparation signify worthiness of being the World Champion? How would a deck that needs special preparation to compete against be considered mediocre?

[thorondor]

Maud'Dib's comments on scouting are striking home for me after a recent summer event. I am now of the opinion that for the World Championships, players should be allowed to change their decks freely to prevent scouting, round time limits permitting. If someone can live through the confusion of winning with a different deck each round, perhaps they more greatly deserve the title.

I do not understand how the Spanish community is ok with the deck scouting that occurs. I would anticipate that it would further shrink the landscape of win-viable decks beyond what is already necessitated the time limits and meta. I would be interested to hear more.

---

a mediocre deck could be victorious, simply because the other three were not prepered for it

How does lack of preparation signify worthiness of being the World Champion? How would a deck that needs special preparation to compete against be considered mediocre?

If you play a deck because you expect that the others are not prepared for it, its not so much about the quality of this deck, it´s rather a gamble (a litle bit like rock-paper-scissors). Thats was my thinking.

But you are right, that Pawel has a good point. The only solution woud be, that scouting would be free and getting the most knowledge about the decks of the others (or hiding it whenever possible) becomes part of the game.

If someone can live through the confusion of winning with a different deck each round, perhaps they more greatly deserve the title.

No doubt about that.

[Manuel]

I believe scouting is not so powerful when you don't have the chance to change your deck. This is the same method all other card games I've played use. Same deck for the whole tournament. @Thorondor remember Game of Thrones?

Back in 2020 when I was compiling the decklists published around the internet to create the "decks" section of our website www.meccg.es, I noticed many of the winning tournament decks had many card choices based only on who else was playing the finals. Like, "I know Heiner is going to play Fallen Wizard so I'll pack these 3 Ire of the East and 3 Blind to the West straight into the deck" And there were also some "top 4" decks that ended 4th in the top that were pretty bad decks, because of that "gamble" you mention going wrong. It would have been much more useful to have published those decks that made those players get into the top 4 in the first place.

All being said, I'm happy that this thing is being taken into consideration, and whatever the CoE decides I'll be happy to follow. The Council of Rivendel will keep doing one-deck tournaments, though, as it's a format that's also a better fit for modern times constraints, and it's proven to be sucessful in the last big tournament we held.

Now what we need is an active CoE taking decissions, maybe?

[Mordakai]

Hello gentlemen:

My opinion on this issue goes pretty close to Manuel's. If you make the finals with the same decks, it will be a real test of the consistency of the deck, probably repeating a game or two with the same opponents as in the semis. Of course the deck will be pretty known by your opponents at that time, and you will have also knowledge of theirs.

This iniciative of the Council of Rivendel pretend to filter the decks by consistency, not by who plays the finals, so the newcomers of the game have a better understanding of the game mechanics. It's difficult to understand why a deck with many ant-FW cards directly in the deck can lead to the top, when the reality is that some player made that simply because he nows the preferences of the final 4 playes that year. Of course it "kills" some interesting part of the finals, which is the "personal" aspect of the game, but we made it in favor of a better inderstanding of the game and deck by everyone, not only for the people who personally know the usual finals players.

Other reason to keep semis decks in the finals is avoid the need to carry aditional decks (or big card pool) to construct another deck in-site. Take next Worlds for example. I'll go from Madrid, it's pretty difficult for me to take my pool of cards with me just in case i make it to the finals. It's easier just bringing with me my semis deck and just hope for the best.

An intermediate solution would be allow changes only in the sideboard. Maybe it has been adressed early in the conversation. It's not so hard to take just 30-50 additional cards with you to tune your sideboard, and keeps somehow the "know your opponent" element, but probably specialized decks (Balrog and FW) would have more trouble than Wraith/Wizard decks, with not so many specialized hazards to counter them.

As Manuel said, the CoR will keep the "no-changing-deck-for-finals" policy in online tournaments (Imladris Cup incoming, something like the Spanish + South America nationals together, due tu start at the bottom of september), to adhere to this intention and also to ease the final 4 the way (it's difficult enough to have time to play online, so at least we reduce the time investment in deckbuilding).

Finally, don't be hasty, but don't become treeish either, CoE. Thanks for your work!!

[Thorsten the Traveller]

Hrum, hoom, I was doing some gardening (and had already given my opinion).

I wouldn't change it, mindgames are part of the competition.

Also, if you play a 5 round semi's and you make it to the finals, chances are you have already faced 1 or 2 of the other finalists. Redoing that match with the same decks the next day....but hey, whatever floats your boats!

[thorondor]

after talking with the organizer Marc Roca, it was decided, that this year Wolrds willbe played traditionally, which means, it will be possible to change decks for TOP4.