GRAND PRIX: CHICAGO!!! - Live Coverage

Interesting facts:
* All top 8 players had 3 byes. I know Andy P and Dave K won trials on Friday and TK won a trial earlier.
* The one 37 pointer Jim Davis who missed top 8 on breakers had just 1 bye.
* Ian Rogerson had no byes, went 12-3, and got 20th. LSV with the same record got 10th. The difference was $600, 4 pro points, and a PT invite vs. $400 and 2 pro points.

Now, all that said, I think byes are a fair reward for pros and/or regulars who take the effort to win a trial, but just wanted to throw those interesting facts out there. Byes are a HUGE advantage in the final rankings, and I never realized just how important GPT's were. Ian (I think he's on these boards) deserves super kudos.

It's also relevant what rounds they lost in. Did LSV and Ian lose in the same rounds? The difference from 10th to 20th might be due to losing too early in the tournament vs. not.

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Originally Posted by The Atog Lord

Brassy opted not to use his altered cards, to avoid any potential complication.

Here's my decklist:

Rich Shay
Ugr Dreadstill
12th

// Land
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Basic Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland

// Creatures
3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage

// Draw
3 Standstill
2 Ponder
2 Top
4 Brainstorm

// Control
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2 Daze
3 Counterbalance
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Stifle
1 Trickbind

My three loses were to TK , LSV, and the Progenitus deck that finished well on Day I. The sideboard was great, and no changes jump to mind for the maindeck either. Overall, I was quite happy with the deck and how it performed.

For the record, with the recent changes to how people make day II of the Grand Prix, byes matter much less. Before, having byes was almost required to make the second day, because that was decided by the 128 highest finishes. Now, with enough players, all X-2 players make day II. This means that byes do not matter with making Day II, which is a huge improvement. I can see how one may view byes as giving an advantage to more established players, but I believe that with the recent change the bye system is not unreasonable.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I had 2 byes.

Rich Shay

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What sideboard did you play? The maindeck looks really stable, altough I really am in doubt about the two ponders en just two daze.

Byes are definitely a huge advantage that I personally think are not fair. This is especially true for the people that didn’t earn them via winning a trial the day before or a GPT some time before (displayed skill in that format).

Advantages;

-Playing fewer games - Fatigue

-Playing fewer ‘rough’ decks
– Fewer potential ‘bad’ matchups
- Slight differences in deck design – virtually larger SB

-Needing a lower winning % to make day 2
– 0 byes = 77.78% (7/9)
- 1 bye = 75.00% (6/8)
- 2 byes = 71.43% (5/7)
- 3 byes = 66.67% (4/6)

-Better ranking on day two – Better chance at making T8

Taking all of those into account, I think any number of byes definitely gives the recipient an unfair advantage over the rest of the field (11.11% better chance for 3 byes vs 0!). I would love to see how all the ‘pros’ would do in a large event like this one without any byes. Some of you say, “then the pros’ wouldn’t attend.” Well, how many pros actually attended this event? If people would have known that the pros’ wouldn’t be in attendance, would even more people have shown up?

If it all comes down to $(as it commonly does), then final attendance is what matters most to Wizards. So, next time there is a large event like this, try not having byes based on ranking and see how that effects attendance. Wizards could do what Vintage has tried in the past to some success; reward anyone that isn’t a pro that beats a ‘pro’ with a T-shirt displaying what they achieved. I personally loved this idea. The pros may not like this idea, but by being so much ‘better’ at this game than the rest of us means they should win those matches and not have to worry about it.

On a separate topic, I personally think Probasco’s list was the best list in the event and Nassif definitely needed some luck to beat it.

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Originally Posted by moxpearl

Interesting facts:
* All top 8 players had 3 byes. I know Andy P and Dave K won trials on Friday and TK won a trial earlier.
* The one 37 pointer Jim Davis who missed top 8 on breakers had just 1 bye.
* Ian Rogerson had no byes, went 12-3, and got 20th. LSV with the same record got 10th. The difference was $600, 4 pro points, and a PT invite vs. $400 and 2 pro points.

Now, all that said, I think byes are a fair reward for pros and/or regulars who take the effort to win a trial, but just wanted to throw those interesting facts out there. Byes are a HUGE advantage in the final rankings, and I never realized just how important GPT's were. Ian (I think he's on these boards) deserves super kudos.

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Well thank you very much Mox, I was thrilled in the first place to just make it to day 2 but making top 32 with no byes I was told was amazing. I really only play legacy and most of the time just at my small store so I was completely unfamiliar with the large tourny scene.

@juventus - My day 2 loses were early which really hurt my tie breakers since most of my opponents that I beat scrubbed out early. And in day two I lost my first match and won my next 4 which also didn't help my tie breakers at all.

Back to the issue of byes ultimately I think people's response to them is based on if you have them or not (which as already been said). I personally think that they are fine. Byes help the pros go far in GPs and if you look at all of the investment that goes into the pros from WOTC (granted it is less than it used to be) you will understand why they want the pros to do well. Like it or not WOTC is still a company that wants to make money and they see the pros as a way to make money. People follow the pros and their progress then people want to become a pro and to do that they have to play many different formats and spend a good deal of money thus WOTC makes some change off of the pros (no clue how much but if they didn't make a profit they would cut them off).

I think we might have gotten off on a tangent.

Back to the subject I think that the GP was fucking amazing and I only had two opponents that were not so nice the rest of them were some of the nicest people I have ever played against. Go legacy for being the gentlemen format(I have had some bad experiences in other formats). I hope everyone else who went had as good a time as myself.

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Originally Posted by Sage

If it all comes down to $(as it commonly does), then final attendance is what matters most to Wizards. So, next time there is a large event like this, try not having byes based on ranking and see how that effects attendance.

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Bye's are a big money maker. It allows them to run a shit load of GPT's with the main prize costing them absolutly nothing.

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Originally Posted by quicksilver

Bye's are a big money maker. It allows them to run a shit load of GPT's with the main prize costing them absolutly nothing.

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I definitely agree. Also, as I said, running many, many GPT's and grinders (the more the better Wizards!) is a more than reasonable way to achieve byes as it is in the same format as the actual GP and is increasing attendance through the GPT's. Thus, you are earning your byes in that format and Wizards is making money. I understand that shelling out money to the pros costs more than giving them byes, but the byes are grossly unfair to the rest of us that want a chance at winning as well.

I also had a great time at this and hope that Legacy GP's start to be run more than every other year. It would also be awesome if The Source would run more Legacy tournaments throughout the year. Oh, I went 5-2-2 with 0 byes in Chicago. It was a lot of fun, but the concession stand was a little pricy.

By the way, what was Ian Rogerson playing? (Ubber Kudos man!)

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Originally Posted by TheBirdMan

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:

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I'd love for the government to give me a billion dollars. That doesn't mean I shouldn't oppose bailouts.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the number of people without byes is much larger than the number with three of them at any given GP. Yet the former have almost no chance to actually Top 8. How is that fair?

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

I'd love for the government to give me a billion dollars. That doesn't mean I shouldn't oppose bailouts.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the number of people without byes is much larger than the number with three of them at any given GP. Yet the former have almost no chance to actually Top 8. How is that fair?

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I'm pretty sure this whole argument is only valid for a legacy GP. Byes are available to EVERYONE. Absolutely every player has the ability to get 1-3 byes at any GP. You guys are all pretty much upset because the only format you play is legacy (not everyone, but most here) and you don't play constructed enough to earn byes. Who's fault is that? Byes are pretty much rewards to players who play enough to deserve them.

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Originally Posted by Jujuhawk

I'm pretty sure this whole argument is only valid for a legacy GP. Byes are available to EVERYONE. Absolutely every player has the ability to get 1-3 byes at any GP. You guys are all pretty much upset because the only format you play is legacy (not everyone, but most here) and you don't play constructed enough to earn byes. Who's fault is that? Byes are pretty much rewards to players who play enough to deserve them.

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I agree. If you don't have enough money to spend playing in tons of magic tournaments then you don't deserve to win a Grand Prix.

From a sheer marketing viewpoint, targeting the people who are already demonstrably hooked on your product, and alienating the people on the fence seems like poor strategy.

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Originally Posted by quicksilver

I agree. If you don't have enough money to spend playing in tons of magic tournaments then you don't deserve to win a Grand Prix.

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Anyone can win a grand prix. Wizards is rewarding their loyal customers. Just because you don't play enough tournaments or are good enough to earn them doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. This whole argument is ridiculous anyway. People that don't have byes whine because they're unfair, and people that have them like them.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

From a sheer marketing viewpoint, targeting the people who are already demonstrably hooked on your product, and alienating the people on the fence seems like poor strategy.

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I think it's the other way around. They're offering incentives to create and perpetuate a professional gaming class to which anyone can aspire (spending considerable $$ to get there). From a marketing perspective, seems like a fine plan.

If you're not a pro and only rarely play in sanctioned events: win a trial, get 3 byes. You can do that with a rating of 1065.

I had 1 bye and I don't think they are unfair by any means. You EARN them.

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Originally Posted by quicksilver

I agree. If you don't have enough money to spend playing in tons of magic tournaments then you don't deserve to win a Grand Prix.

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Or enough money to play and win one GPT....

which is much less than the cost to build your legacy deck.

Just to clarify my position, I don't think byes for rating should be eliminated - and definitely not GPT byes.

What I do think is that, once Round 4 starts, someone who started with three byes and someone who went 3-0 should be playing on equal footing.

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Originally Posted by Nihil Credo

Just to clarify my position, I don't think byes for rating should be eliminated - and definitely not GPT byes.

What I do think is that, once Round 4 starts, someone who started with three byes and someone who went 3-0 should be playing on equal footing.

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Tiebreaks make this impossible. The people that beat an opponent round 1 automatically start with worse tiebreaks than the people that didn't, since the guy with byes has an opponent who has a loss. It's not that byes help your tiebreaks as much as playing opponents who lose hurt yours.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the number of people without byes is much larger than the number with three of them at any given GP. Yet the former have almost no chance to actually Top 8. How is that fair?

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Who said they are making top 8 because they have byes. Maybe they are making top 8 because they are good and have 3 byes because they are good. Where as people who don't have 3 byes aren't as good.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

It's not that byes help your tiebreaks as much as playing opponents who lose hurt yours.

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Right, and that is the whole arguement. I agree that the bye system is fair as to whom they are earned by. I also think it is a fair inducement to players from a distance. What is unfair is that the only time they matter outside of simple W/L is in the money rounds. This systems guarantees that a player win the same amount of points with no byes will not cash when compared to a player with byes. It happens every time. This same incentive that is given to pro players to induce them to come to GP's by increasing their chance of making money, takes that same chance away from those without the same opportunity.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

Tiebreaks make this impossible. The people that beat an opponent round 1 automatically start with worse tiebreaks than the people that didn't, since the guy with byes has an opponent who has a loss. It's not that byes help your tiebreaks as much as playing opponents who lose hurt yours.

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I know that the problem lies in the tiebreaker system - hence the idea of resetting them at some point of the GP, most likely between Day 1 and 2.