GRAND PRIX: CHICAGO!!! - Live Coverage

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Originally Posted by PTPaul

As far as byes go, people who have earned a high rating by playing well over a period of time, who have worked hard to be successful at the PT or earned the appropriate amount of points, or won a GP Trial should be able to have the appripriate amount of byes and a small advantage over someone who hasn't invested the same amount of time into the event.

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Then why not apply this to the Pro Tour? People that have more pro points, and have been on the circuit longer should start out with byes at each PT. Likewise, anyone who's previously won a national or world championship can start out with byes at that event for their loyal patronage.

How well do you think that would go down? Just face it; the only reason people accept byes are because they're the status quo. There's no good reason for them. The reward of playing Magic often is that hopefully you get better at it.

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I did a rough count and I found roughly 30 names that I recognized as having byes that made day 2, I could be off by quite a bit since the player list is no longer available and that often includes the number of byes each player has.

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This is meaningless.

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Byes are an integral part to help motivate people to travel great distances to events like this. I had 1 bye and went 4-0, 0-4, with a final record of 5-4 missing day 2 by 2 wins. Needless to say beating Heezy in round 4 was a blast but not as much fun as making day two like he did. lol

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They're also an integral part of discouraging people who don't have them from showing up. Considering that Grand Prix are supposed to be the link between more casual players and Pro level playing, giving a handicap to the people who are already supposed to be the best at the game seems not a little bit idiotic.

Then they're even bigger tie-breakers; I was supposed to have 1 bye at GP Columbus which I didn't receive due to clerical error. I then ended up 69th, losing out on renewing my pro points due to tiebreakers because some other guys had lost as often as I had but won three less rounds (!!!) and therefore had better tiebreakers.

What the fuck, Wizards.

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Originally Posted by goobafish

FYI:
Got an email from Brian David Marshall this morning which said that he is messaging all top 16 players that he doesn't know/who are Legacy or Vintage players (as opposed to pros). The e-mail came with a set of questions about the format and our plans for the Pro Tour, as well as our opinions on the metagame and health of the format.

He said that some of these will be included in his article The Week That Was for this week. So we can look forward to a Legacy article on wizards.com this week!

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Ask him about unbanning Shahrazad.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

Then why not apply this to the Pro Tour? People that have more pro points, and have been on the circuit longer should start out with byes at each PT. Likewise, anyone who's previously won a national or world championship can start out with byes at that event for their loyal patronage.

How well do you think that would go down? Just face it; the only reason people accept byes are because they're the status quo. There's no good reason for them. The reward of playing Magic often is that hopefully you get better at it.

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People can win airfare to PTs and they also don't cost anything to enter.

if people honestly go to a GP and feel disadvantaged because they have a bye, then I have nothing to say, the same goes for not going all together because of no byes. It doesn't affect anyone but the person who gets the bye. 7-2 makes day 2, regardless of anything. People with byes used to have an edge in tiebreakers for day 2, but this is irrelavent now. The only time it comes back is in cut top top 8, or whatever, but tiebreakers suck, there's no way around it regardless.

The big thing is it gives perks to people who travel long distances, which is a HUGE deal to some people, whether you know anyone it affects or not. I have personal friends that travel around the country to play in GP's, and I'm sure they wouldn't go if byes didn't exist.

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Originally Posted by Jujuhawk

I have personal friends that travel around the country to play in GP's,

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yeah, thanks, you've said that like over 9000 times in this thread alone.

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Originally Posted by Jujuhawk

and I'm sure they wouldn't go if byes didn't exist.

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yeah, it must suck to have to play as many rounds as the other 95% of the people there have to do.

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Originally Posted by Jujuhawk

I have nothing to say

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I've never understood why some people try to make a virtue out of their lack of a counterargument.

Question: What do you think of the idea of giving everyone a three-round bye, since it doesn't affect making day 2?

Also, the barn routine is old. You know who brags about how much time they spend training and playing with pro players? People that are too incompetent to become pros. Anyone else who spent that much time at it and cared would find a way to attain accomplishments of their own.

If I was going to be completely fucking hardcore about this game, do whatever it takes to make the PT circuit, and bust my ass on this nerdly pastime, byes seems like a perfectly fine form of compensation from Hasbro/WOTC. "Thank you for cashing in a lot of your life for this game, have some byes." Seems fair to me.

Of course 3-byes increases your changes for making Day 2. I can't think of an argument to counter this, nor do I think there's anything wrong with it either. Correlation between PT level/rating, byes, tournament attendance of professional players and generating "stars" for marketing and recruitment purposes doesn't seem unlikely.

Succinctly, what is the argument of awarding byes on the basis of rating?

If you're going to argue that biasing the GP results in favor of pros (or simply those with high ratings, I don't particularly care which) is a short term incentive from Wizards to get people invested in the game, I can't particularly counter that. I simply think it drags down the gamesmanship and legitimacy of the event itself. Give them more free cards or t-shirts if you want to reward people for power leveling, the event itself should reward skill only.

The 'bye question' is more one of form than substance. It's reasonable to give some advantages to encourage good players from all over the world to come; however, it just feels wrong to have an 'open' tournament where some players participate with drastically improved tiebreakers. You can kind of see the extra three rounds of play as a sort of "mini-PTQ" that pros get to skip, like for the Pro Tour - but on the Pro Tour, once you do qualify, the rules are the same for everyone.


How about just erasing scores between Day 1 and Day 2? Since making Day 2 does not rely on tiebreakers (at least if you're X-2 or better), we enable someone who went 7-2 over nine rounds to make a run for the Top 8 on equal footing with people with byes.


Also, while it does not fix our issue in the same measure, here's another change I think should actually apply to *any* tournament: stop assigning byes a 100% Opponent Match Win score. After you've played one actual game round, your tiebreakers are determined only by the actual, physical opponents you have played, rather than being artificially inflated. Is there any serious argument to be made against this one?

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

I simply think it drags down the gamesmanship and legitimacy of the event itself.

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Yeah, I see your point and don't disagree.

The practice of awarding byes on the basis of rating or "level" or whatever naturally populates the top standings with a certain class of player (the hardcore). As I said, I think it's fair compensation for investment in the game but the idea was likely cooked up their marketing and branding team. While it creates a sort of "entitlement" system, there's a bigger picture logic and agenda at play here, one that has less to do with the integrity of tournament, and more to do with certain exec.'s perceptions on what can help keep the game healthy and profitable.

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Originally Posted by Nihil

How about just erasing scores between Day 1 and Day 2? ...

Also, while it does not fix our issue in the same measure, here's another change I think should actually apply to *any* tournament: stop assigning byes a 100% Opponent Match Win score. ...

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Both of these ideas seem extremely awesome. I'd love to see them debated by people that really understand the issues in WOTC Organized Play.

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Originally Posted by Bardo

If I was going to be completely fucking hardcore about this game, do whatever it takes to make the PT circuit, and bust my ass on this nerdly pastime, byes seems like a perfectly fine form of compensation from Hasbro/WOTC. "Thank you for cashing in a lot of your life for this game, have some byes." Seems fair to me.

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I think the argument is that the people who invest a lot of time into the game dont NEED the byes, as they should be better than the average player, having invested a lot time into the game. It also creates a barrier for entry, as it becomes more difficult to do well without byes.

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Originally Posted by Nihil Credo

Also, while it does not fix our issue in the same measure, here's another change I think should actually apply to *any* tournament: stop assigning byes a 100% Opponent Match Win score. After you've played one actual game round, your tiebreakers are determined only by the actual, physical opponents you have played, rather than being artificially inflated. Is there any serious argument to be made against this one?

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I believe that byes don't count to tiebreaks at all. It's not that byes give you 100% OMW, it's that you don't have to play shitty opponents who are going to go 0-3 drop. Your first matches are against opponents who also started out 3-0 instead of 0-1.

Erasing records between Day 1 and Day 2 eliminates awesome storytelling potential. Look at the reward Probasco got for going 9-0 day one; he had a better chance at making it to the top 8. Those sorts of stories are what motivates players.

I have a question about GPs in general. How many people normally show up to a limited gp or a gp in general? I know GP:C was the biggest US GP but what's an average number if anyone knows.

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Originally Posted by rockout

I have a question about GPs in general. How many people normally show up to a limited gp or a gp in general? I know GP:C was the biggest US GP but what's an average number if anyone knows.

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I had the same question and checked the last 6-10 North American GPs. Seems like most were between 600 and 850 or so players. At 1228, GP Chicago had the most players -- it's awesome it was Legacy.

Coo ty bardo

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

I've never understood why some people try to make a virtue out of their lack of a counterargument.

Question: What do you think of the idea of giving everyone a three-round bye, since it doesn't affect making day 2?

Also, the barn routine is old. You know who brags about how much time they spend training and playing with pro players? People that are too incompetent to become pros. Anyone else who spent that much time at it and cared would find a way to attain accomplishments of their own.

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Giving everyone a 3 round bye destroys the point. Like I said, I'm pretty sure the main reason is that it attracts people to travel long distances because they are awarded with these byes. Byes make GP's worth it for a lot of people, and they're rewarding players that pretty much devote their life to the game.

I'm not barning, I'm using examples. I'm not saying I spend time with pro's or have the latest inside tech because of my friends, I'm using them as an example of the interest of traveling to GP's, since the interest isn't a personal one. I'm saying there are people out there (some I happen to be friends with, so that means I know what I'm talking about, not just pulling shit out of my ass.) are attracted to GP's because of byes, and would not travel so much if they didn't exist.

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Originally Posted by Seriously

yeah, thanks, you've said that like over 9000 times in this thread alone.



yeah, it must suck to have to play as many rounds as the other 95% of the people there have to do.

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Like I said, get better. Byes reward players who take the time to play in a ton of events and get high ratings/ pro level, and you're not really deserving of a reward if you don't take the time to contribute to events and stuff.

But then again, you're the one that was sad that a pro won this tournament, so everything you say is pretty much going in one ear and out the other.

Basically my argument is based around people going to GP's that are a long distance away, so if you don't want to hear it, don't comment about it :\.

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Originally Posted by Nihil
How about just erasing scores between Day 1 and Day 2? ...

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I'd be kind of annoyed to make day 2 and then lose out to tiebreakers for the top 8 to someone that came into day 2 with a worse record.

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Originally Posted by dahcmai

I'd be kind of annoyed to make day 2 and then lose out to tiebreakers for the top 8 to someone that came into day 2 with a worse record.

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Like, you mean, coming in 7-2 and losing out to someone who came in at 2 in the afternoon and went 4-2?

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Originally Posted by Jujuhawk

Giving everyone a 3 round bye destroys the point.

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No shit, there I was.

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Originally Posted by dahcmai

I'd be kind of annoyed to make day 2 and then lose out to tiebreakers for the top 8 to someone that came into day 2 with a worse record.

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I don't doubt that, but look at it this way: which is more annoying, missing Top 8 to someone who performed better than you today and worse yesterday, or to someone who performed the same or better than you today and had byes yesterday? I think the former would be a lesser evil.

Seems like this whole discussion comes down to if you have byes its baller, but if you dont have them you hate them. You know every one who is against it would be loving it if they actually had the 3 byes in chi. :wink: