[Tournament] 19XX Codex Asynchronous Fall Swiss (XCAFS18)

The Codex Asynchronous Fall Swiss tournament for 2018 is now taking signups!

We will be adding the ban list to this tournament.

  1. Strength + Growth cannot be paired
  2. Peace cannot be paired with purple starter
  3. Demon + Necro cannot be paired (yes, this means mono-black is blocked)

This will be a swiss tournament, one match per week, with a grace period if your match doesn’t finish on time. First match will be paired on the first day of Fall: Friday September 21.

Nit picky details of how pairings will work

Each round, pairings will be assigned as follows:

  1. If a match between two players who each have two losses is not completed when the next round is paired, a proxy of “the winner of x vs y” will be paired for the next round in lieu of either participant.
  2. When the delayed match completes, the proxy will be replaced by the actual winner. This proxy is considered to have the combined opponent and bye history of both players, for purposes of making pairings.
  3. Deliberately delaying a match in an attempt to affect your pairing for the next round is considered Cheating, and is punishable by being disqualified from the tournament. Yes, this is technically “not enforceable” but it’s still illegal. Don’t do it.

If the number of players is odd, a bye (which counts as a win) will be assigned to the player who:

  1. Has had the fewest byes in the tournament (normally zero)
  2. Has played against all other players, or so many of the other players that a bye is needed to avoid a re-match elsewhere in the tournament (probably won’t happen)
  3. Has the most losses
  4. Has played against the fewest remaining players (this helps minimize re-matches, while also keeping more players in the tournament longer)
  5. Was picked randomly from among players tied for criteria #4

Each player will be paired with another player who

  1. They have been paired against the fewest times (normally zero)
  2. Has the same number of losses
  3. An unfinished match is not counted as a loss for players with fewer than two losses
    Is randomly selected

I reserve the option to hand-craft pairings and/or the bye if necessary to minimize the number of re-matches. This manual manipulation will not result in someone getting a second bye unless all players have had a bye.

General Rules / How Things Work:

  • The player who goes first in each round will be pre-determined
  • If one player has gone first fewer times in the tournament (not counting BYEs), that player goes first, otherwise, the first player is decided randomly.
  • The first player is responsible for creating the game thread.
  • Tag @zhavier when a winner has been determined.
  • CAS tournaments use a “three strikes” rule - any player who has three losses will be automatically dropped from the tournament. Players may also drop at any time.
  • There is no “cut” - the last player standing wins the event. Thanks to the “three strikes” rule, the field should narrow towards the end, and culminate in an exciting final few matches.
  • Matches are 1 game.
  • The default will be to play all matches as play-by-post within the forum, but a match may be played in an alternate format (in person, on an alternate platform, via snail-mail, whatever) by mutual agreement, until the field is reduced to four or fewer players.
  • Each player will select one deck (three specs plus applicable starter) to be run for the entire tournament
  • I am accepting volunteers to help Judge the event. You could be an authorized judge! @FrozenStorm has been authorized.
  • If any rulings are necessary, any single Judge who is not participating in that match may make a ruling.
  • Rulings are subject to appeal only if the judge making the ruling is wrong about the facts of the game (eg, forgetting that a Building Inspector is in play, or the Shrine of Forbidden Lore only makes Demons unstoppable by units) or the rules/FAQ as noted at rules — Sirlin.Net — Game Design and/or the Rulings thread.
  • Please note this suggested format, and include hand, tech and worker decisions either in a spoiler, or in a linked source that I can get to. For games involving me, you can send a private link to a different judge

Matches posted every Friday. Matches that are not progressing may be given an adjudicated result.

Details of unfinished match adjudication
  1. Matches where Player 1 has posted their 5th turn by Wednesday will not be adjudicated until the following Monday
  2. Matches where Player 1 has posted their 10th turn on that Monday (11 days after pairings) will not be adjudicated until Thursday.
  3. Matches subject to adjudication may have a Win declared for the player who is, in the judgement of the Judges,
    a. “going to win” (having clear hand/tech spoilers is helpful for determining this)
    b. Less responsible for the delay of game, OR
    c. For no-one, if prior arrangements were made, or the match result isn’t critical for making the next round of pairings, or if a “catch up” week is coming up.
Nit-picky details about correcting game errors

In the event of a game error, one of three fixes will be implemented:

  1. If a unit, hero, or building took the wrong amount of damage, and changing it to the correct amount does not cause anything to leave play or not leave play, then the damage will be corrected.
    a. If not enough gold was spent, and the excess was floated, the gold total will be corrected. If too much gold was spent, the excess will be refunded. The possibility of theft (red starter, Anarchy, or Law) does not impact this, as both players are responsible for maintaining the game state.
    b. An actually executed theft (or failure to steal after taking the appropriate action) forecloses this remedy.
  2. The game will be backed up to the turn of the error. In this case, having the decisions / game state noted is important for re-constructing things. Any random events that are undone (eg, drawing cards) must be re-randomized, regardless of the size or type of error. Normally the entire turn containing the error will be backed up and re-done, but if knowledge has been gained, or cards drawn, and the error occurred after the new information was gained, the Judge must only back up to the point where new information was revealed.
  3. If neither of the above apply, or if I feel a backup cannot be performed, the game will be left as-is. (For example, an error occurs on Turn 2, and it is now Turn 4, both players have made decisions, reshuffled, etc. based on the incorrect game state).
  4. Regardless of remedy, players should feel free to use any information disclosed by their opponent’s error in making gameplay choices. For example, an opponent’s tech choice revealed via a card illegally played and then returned to hand.
  5. In the case of repeated errors, or errors where the gamestate cannot be recovered, a game loss may be given if the error was substantial.

I will endeavor to post new pairings every Friday, but the “tournament week” is considered to be from one pairings post to the next.

Late signups will be accepted without penalty until the second set of pairings are made. Signups after that may occur, but will be given one loss for each full tournament week that has elapsed.

You may change your submitted deck up through September 21.

Please take note of the BAN list above when submitting your codex choice.

Codex choices may be submitted by Private message.

List of players:

  1. zhavier [Blood]/Feral/Growth
  2. Cstick [Necro]/Present/Law
  3. Dreamfire [Discipline]/Feral/Necro
  4. Frozenstorm [Necro]/Blood/Fire
  5. Bomber678 [Necro]/Truth/Blood
  6. charnel_mouse [Finesse]/Balance/Growth
  7. thehug0naut [Feral/Growth]/Present
  8. deluks917 MonoRed
  9. Marto [Necro]/Present/Balance
  10. codexnewb [Finesse]/Necro/Growth
  11. Nekoatl [Finesse]/Peace/Truth
  12. witspur [Demon]/Discipline/Finesse
  13. CarpeGuitarrem MonoRed
  14. EricF [Feral/Growth]/Finesse
6 Likes

I’ll play in this.

2 Likes

I’m in. Still thinking about my codex, though.

@zhavier put me down as [Discipline]/Feral/Necro.

1 Like

I am IN :slight_smile: Put me on Necro/Blood/Fire for now, but I’m going to think about trying out a non-black starter :wink:

1 Like

Ok yes I will play in this format.
I’m not sure which stupid deck to pull out though…

1 Like

Can you explain your reasoning for the bans. I have not played in awhile and am interested in how the metagame has developed:

Strength + Growth cannot be paired
Peace cannot be paired with purple starter
Demon + Necro cannot be paired (yes, this means mono-black is blocked)

In partiular why is strength+growth banned.

2 Likes

[Anarchy]/Strength/Growth is considered to be one of the best decks by many, and there are a number of other combinations with Strength and Growth that are also very strong.

The bans for this tournament came about as a result of the following discussions:

4 Likes

Strength + Growth has finished Top 3 in multiple CASS series. Necro/Str/Growth, Demon/Str/Growth, Growth/Str/Necro, and most notably Anarchy/Str/Growth, have all had very strong tournament finishes.

The purpose of this proposed ban list was to shake things up and see what’s “next tier” below these clearly established “top tier” combinations that were proposed as bans (by me, as an observation) and (mildly? generally?) agreed upon / unobjected to by the community.

Growth and Strength have a ton of synergy. Birds + Buffs, Str T2 + Buffs. Add Haste (especially Zane, who is always available as a hasty attacker and can bring Surprise Attack for 2 more hasty attackers) and Might of Leaf and Claw becomes a “have upgrade removal or lose” combination. A fantastic answer to the (otherwise totally dominant) Black-heavy decks.

Purple Starter + Peace + X (most notably, Past/Peace/Anarchy and Future/Peace/Necromancy) have also had multiple strong finishes and Battle Suits + Overeager Cadets + any other cheap tech 1 Soldier/Vystari (Hooded Executioner, Knight of the Conclave, Seer, Calypso Vystari) make for unending hordes of Drill Sergeant runes. Very tough to keep up with.

Demon + Necro are just really heavy early-game pressure. Vandy + Dark Pact + Bone Collector is too much balanced attack + defense card advantage for just about any deck to deal with effectively. Vandy makes hero answers rough with her easy healing off levels and Meta as a strong maxband threat, and skeletons make easy “just enough blockers” to keep safe.

I personally feel Anarchy and Necro are the primarily overtuned specs in the game (given how strong Anarchy is, Gunship is just absurdly strong when compared to other tech 3s, it’s not even close how much better it is than every other tech 3 in practice. If it costed 10, almost double what it costs now, it would still probably be the strongest tech 3 in the game. Maybe it tied with Liberty Gryphon, but it’s got way better staying power and abilities) Demonology gets an honorable mention as “too strong in isolation”, but people really sleep on how much Vandy’s perceived strength is tied to Garth as a perfect pairing. Necro does a lot of the heavy lifting for Black-featured decks like [Demon]/Necro/Finesse. Skeletons, Bone Collectors, and “8 gold for an immediate tech 2 while it’s up and Garth is available” is crazy good. Combine that with hero counter-measures and Lich’s Bargain, Necro is crazy strong and a good splash in almost any deck, despite having below-average tech 2 and 3.

I think this ban list is going to demonstrate that, but I’m excited to see what people pick and what ends up winning it all!

6 Likes

I’m up for this, not sure about Codex choice yet.

1 Like

Time for my codex tournament debut :smiley:

Still deciding on codex for now. Got a couple of options to try out before the deadline.

3 Likes

I’m up for some Codex - I’ll play [Necro]/Blood/Anarchy

I will play. Mono Red.

Bump. For those that might not have noticed. Also missing a few deck choices.

By Mono Red I mean [Anarchy]/Blood/Fire.

I should have listed that, fixed. And it is accepted parlance to say mono{Color}, no need to spell out the specs.

1 Like

I’m still deliberating over my choice because I can’t decide if I want to enter with a deck I’ve never played before, or if I want to play a meme deck.

1 Like

Going with [Finesse]/Balance/Growth, I think.

Sorry, I don’t think I’m going to be able to play after all - have fun!

@thehug0naut @cstick @Bryce_The_Rice
Still missing deck selections.

8 signups is ok. Always looking for more though! But either way, should be a decent tournament.

[Necro]/Present/Law

1 Like