Swiss pairings invite collusion on the margin, if someone out of contention is paired up
Double (or Triple) Elimination brackets have a multi-round delay at the end for the undefeated person while they wait for the losers bracket to finish. As well as smaller delays in the later rounds while the recent winners wait for the losers bracket to catch up.
2a. Traditional Double Elimination also makes wins in the winners bracket “worth more” - the two finalists in even a 16 person bracket will have records of 4-0 and somewhere between 4-1 and 5-1 depending on when the other player lost, and the spread gets worse as the tournament size increases.
@witspur You are free to start your Match against Dreamfire anytime. You need not wait for EricF and Dreamfire to finish their round 1 game. Dreamfire can choose to wait to respond, though.
@FrozenStorm I think fencers are more than strong but Finesse is not quite OP. Real close to OP would be Rook + Birds because teching Birds Nest almost always guarantees opponent to spend more resourses to deal with them. Hence, the three Strengths in final top 3. I’m still pretty much a newb, so I’m writting this hoping someone would let me know how to effectively deal with the birds. Actuall, it’s not just the birds but the combination of Rook’s extra 1HP and the fact that he has the Birds Nest provide huge value for low cost without needing much setup or risks in early or late game.
IIRC I only played Birds’ Nest once in the 8 matches I had this tournament, though I did tech it pretty often, and just the threat of it probably influenced some of my opponents. I also don’t think it was a cornerstone card for Marto or EricF, who leaned first and foremost on Fencers and Spartners.
I agree Birds’ Nest is a very strong spell, but IMO it’s not half as bad as Dark Pact. I think I teched DP every single match in CAMS18, often twice, and played it multiple times per match. And I think the same holds for the tournaments @FrozenStorm won playing [Demon/Necro]/Finesse.
Birds serve to punish decks who are trying to drag the game out. Against decks that can apply pressure early decks, the lack of blockers on the ground really hurts. Strength in the top 3 for one tournament should not be the grounds for a nerf, it can be many things, such as Strength just does well against the decks other people brought. If you want advice on beating certain strats (like Birds nests) it also really help to say what decks you are playing, and the advice for red for example does not work at all for purple.
@bansa my comment was partially tongue-in-cheek, indeed I think Grave + Rook is pretty strong and Finesse’s early tempo just complements it nicely (Two-Step is great for Birds and Rambasa, Discord is great support, Safe Attacking and Sensei’s Advice is great for Fencers, etc.)
It is interesting, though, how far Finesse has come. Two years ago it was rarely seen in the meta, now it seems to be pretty common to splash it into a mono-color for early tempo and have that be a pretty solid improvement on the mono alone. I don’t think it’s OP strictly speaking, but it does serve really well backing up early tempo-focused strategies, and Tech 2 Finesse was grossly underrated in early tournaments (Grounded Guide is pretty nasty combined with any kind of card draw to swarm Fencers, which Vandy and Grave both provide nicely)
Bird’s Nest is probably a top 5/10 spell in terms of % games played in its spec and that’s b/c its a strong card. @Dreamfire is 100% correct that DP is in a tier of it’s own though; you’d be hard pressed to find a Demonology game where Dark Pact isn’t used. The tempo you get early on in the game with extra cards is absurd and the base damage cost has proven out to be almost entirely irrelevant.