MTG Tournament, Interest Check

[Dervon]

What it says on the tin, ladies and gents.

You know how to play Magic: The Gathering? Ever played it before? Heck, want to learn?

If so, how about we run a little tournament?

A simple enough program called "LackeyCCG" is all you need. It is 100% free, and pretty darn easy to get to run. If you have trouble setting things up, I'll happily help you through the process of getting the MTG plugin to work. (Also, as a bonus, Lackey can run a MASSIVE amount of TCGs. Pokemon included.)

...

Actual rules will be posted if enough people show interest, though I'd like to tentatively suggest a Kamigawa-block tourney to get things started while keeping things simple.

...

People I already know (to a certain degree) that would be interested:

-Myself
-Barbarian
-SLAMU
-Kirai
-Lthayer3
-Random_fan
-Magnificatek
-Vael
-spudman
-Greybane

[Kirai]

eh sign me up. All you experienced players will destroy me but whatever^^

[Dervon]

eh sign me up. All you experienced players will destroy me but whatever^^

Hey, if you want I can help you practice and teach you some tricks. I'm not by any stretch of imagination a great player, but I do consider myself "good".

Offer applies to anyone else too, really.

[Lthayer3]

Sure, sign me up, I guess. I haven't played since Lorwyn block, though, so I'll probably be a bit rusty.

Would we be drafting, or building decks with certain rules/restrictions?

Blerg. I'll have to look at Kamigawa again. All I remember from it is running a blue/black ninja deck.

...

Ohhhh. This is the set with the bazillions of spirits and arcane and such. Mmmk.

And those darn pesky dragons. Grrrr. Kokusho, I'm looking at you <_<

[Dervon]

Building decks. Lets people think up a cool strategy/combo/flavor and go for whatever deck best embodies this.

As for restrictions, none beyond the basic rules. As far as I can recall Kamigawa didn't have inter-block bans on any cards. The Jitte is arguably a broken card, but since it is only banned in special formats I see no reason to do so inter-block.

[serbii]

I've never played, so probably not.
I guess it it looks fun I might join in future tournaments, but for now, No.

[Dervon]

Irregardless, if you want to practice/learn advanced tricks/etc... Don't hesitate to ask. Lackey makes the whole process so easy it is almost laughable.

...

Further rules note: You guys want to run side-boards or just straight-up decks no frills? Was think a "best two out of three"-type arrangement for each pairing, so sideboards could come into play in matches 2 and (possibly, should they occur) 3.

[Random_fan]

Sign me up. I might not be advanced but I do know a couple of things.

[Lthayer3]

Hmm, depends. If we play 2 out of 3, running sideboards would make sense. Though if we have more than a couple newer people, it might add needless complexity. Making a 60 card deck from a whole set can already be daunting enough.

I also encourage anyone who even thinks they might want to play to join in. If there is enough interest, we could play 2 headed dragon games or something with beginner friendly decks and have people that know the game teamed up with newer players.

Regardless, Magic is one game where just diving right in teaches the best (provided you have friendly & helpful opponents). The couple times where people ask me to just explain the rules before a game, they end up with a dazed funny sort of look on their face.

(Can this program support 2 headed dragon? I see it says up to 10 players, but I haven't really looked at its formats yet...)

[SLAMU]

As Derv said, I'm interested. Don't know if I'll be able to get anything put together in time for any particular tourney, since I'm between computers right now (I've been something of a cyber nomad, not staying with any one computer for more than a few days. Hopefully I can get something put together, but for now internet access is the limit.

Eh, don't have any real prefference on blocks, consider myself very much a casual player of the game (though prone to fits of humility egomania during the game)

[Tempest Kitsune]

Pass. Never got that into MTG, was more a fan of Yu-gi-oH.

[Lthayer3]

Downloading all the images for the cards is taking forever lol

LackyCCG does look to be a very nice program, though :)

[Dervon]

Fun-fact: Lackey isn't even actually downloading the cards, just the text-related info. Card images download only on mouse-over to prevent a LOL-XBOX-HEUG download.

...

Two-headed Giant is a definite possibility, though much more likely for later, simply due to lack of players.

...

OK, I suppose we could dump the side-board thing, then. For simplicity's sake.

...

I am always up for a match, either advanced or to teach. Skype info is "bladephf", for voice-comms.

[Magnificate]

I'm interested. I stopped playing MtG during Mirrodin, but it might be nice try it again.

[Dervon]

YOSH! 7 players already, this is shaping-up quite nicely!

[Vael]

YOOOOOOOOOSH!!!

I shall show you all my most youthful amatuer flames and skills with M:tG!!!

[spudman]

I havn't played MTG in years...but count me as interested.

[Dervon]

Wow, up to 9 players? This is gonna' be interesting!

Everyone finding Lackey easy to set-up? No issues?

...

Refresher on Kamigawa here: http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Kamigawa_block

The sub-sections on the three sets (Champions, Betrayers, Saviors) can give you some basic deck-building ideas in the form of the preconstructed decks. You should note, however, that these decks can be tweaked extensively, and most do contain the odd card or two that are pretty much worthless.

...

DECISION TIME, GENTS!

We have to decide on what tournament structure we'll be using. There are two possible choices in my mind:

Bracket Tournament

Standard bracket affair. We use some randomization method to determine parings, then battle to the top. Best two out of three for each match.

Pros:
-Faster, with less games overall.

Cons:
-Not beginner-friendly. Random chance could see decks paired unevenly, with players of different meta-levels battling from the first match.

Round Robin (Points Variant)

Everyone fights everyone. Thus, each player has "x" matches to play, where "x" is "(number of players) -1". Three bouts per match. Victory in each individual bout is worth 2 points (hence a 2-1 match, for example, is worth 4 points for the first player and 2 for the second).

Pros:
-Beginner Friendly. Very much so. Since everyone faces everyone at some point, bad pairing matter less.

Cons:

-Loooooooong! It will take quite a bit to get through all the matches.

...

Of course, if you know of a different variant or two, don't hesitate to put them up for consideration!

[Vael]

I wanna go with the round-robin method, it looks like massive fun ^^

I have me a few questions, but I'll look through the tutorial (while I finish the MASSIVE dl on images...)

Kamigawa only, right?

[Dervon]

Right, Kamagawa block only.

Round-robin fan myself, if only because of the fairness and HEUG amount of battles to be fought.

[Greybane]

I'm in for the round robin.

[Lthayer3]

Round robin should be fun :) That way, it also allows people to take their matches whenever they can schedule the same time as their opponents, so everyone isn't waiting for some particular match to happen so the tournament can proceed.

*runs back to Lackey to start building decks*

[Vael]

...frak, this is what I get for stopping after Onslaught. This Kamigawa set seems pretty...odd, but should be a good experience.

*sigh* getting the missing images is takin' a while though :P

[Dervon]

As an added rule, should you guys be willing, I'll speak with a neutral third-party on the forums to collect deck-lists prior to the tournament kicking off. Once it starts, since there are no more opportunities to tweak you deck, it will provide an interesting look at what the (as of right now) ten of us are running.

...

I have no idea why you guys are grabbing ALL the pictures. I selected the option that tells Lackey to download ONLY upon mouse-over. Since I probably wont care about upwards of 70% of all cards, well... You know.

:P

[Magnificate]

I would prefer Brackets.