I guess I just want to highlight that with each round being a two match series, if we do require that both games are played out, then it’s possible that a meeting of two 4 loss competitors results in both players being eliminated.
Is this a desirable feature? It might well be, just strikes me as something not in the standard format, so we should explicitly discuss it.
Only real options would seem to be:
Don’t play out the second game, first game winner stays alive
Do play out the second game, both players can be eliminated
Do play out the second game, both players being eliminated results in a replay of the round
Note: my thinking here is that this would be a special case if both players could be eliminated, not a general rule for all other cases
3 is probably the fairest way to do it while only eliminating 1 player (for a comp it’s akin to demanding a certain margin of victory in tennis), but given the length of each game it could make things really drag out, likely making it impractical. 1 and 2 are expedient, but have different fairness intuitions for me:
1 feels unfair to whoever was randomised the worse P1/P2, assuming both decks skew strongly to the same preference of player order. If the players have an equal chance of winning then this would be very fair but a true 50-50 is probably unlikely in practice with this ruleset. However, we do run this logic already in our tournaments, if two 2 loss players meet the turn order randomisation is usually quite decisive.
Compared to our standard rules, 2 feels slightly unfair to the first game winner as usually that would be enough to safely progress, but it does feel very fair and fun for the now eliminated player to get to play their (presumably) more advantaged matchup and try to eliminate their competitor on the way out.
Thoughts? I think to balance time requirements, consistency, and fairness it almost has to be option 2 but I could see the arguments for 1 over it
I’d imagine people wouldn’t do it on here, but playing out the second game under option 2 would potentially have some perverse incentives for the player who’s already out. They have no reason to play seriously.
thank you very much @charnel_mouse & @thehug0naut for your input on the (un)fair elimination issue. The two of you summarized my thought process that lead to my suggestion perfectly
I think if first-game-loser doesn’t want to play out game number two, that’s fine. But the aspect that the first-game-winner does not get a half bye and that his/her opponent get’s the chance for revenge seemed like a good idea to me wrt to the expected imbalance of P1/P2.
But I really don’t have a strong opinion here. I’m sure I can live with pretty much any solution to the issue.
We have another 4 weeks (more or less) to decide this issue.
Anybody else with an opinion?
So it looks like @flagrantangles and @thehug0naut can continue their infinite casual round in a tournament setting and that it’s my honor to try and find a solution against the most oppressive turn 1 first.
edit: also please remember to mention the rule changes for the sake of spectators.
Hmmm, I guess simultaneous play would be the way to avoid not playing as hard as possible, but I think its not good for the players keeping focused (certainly not for me anyway).
@flagrantangles I’d prefer to play our part 1 first, so if you want you can leave up your part 2 post as is or edit it to a placeholder for now. I’ve not actually looked at it properly so when the time comes please feel free to retake that turn if you change your mind about it after our first game.
So @Bryce_The_Rice is on elimination and @rathyAro might get there during this round. @Bryce_The_Rice : In case you do lose the first game of this round you are entitled for a rematch, even though you already are eliminated.
Are they summarized somewhere? I want to make sure I get the right ones.
vs 
P2 FrozenStorm [Anarchy]/Growth/Strength