Hi everyone, it’s time for another X-time. The next tournament shall be a draft style tournament. The draft rules are explained in details further down in this opening post.
Welcome to our [XCAF24] tournament! Now taking signups!
This is a Swiss tournament, with one match per week, plus a grace period if your match overruns.
I’m planning to post the first round on 18th of November somewhen around 19:00 UTC.
As per tradition, this will be an experimental tournament, but the previously agreed upon rule changes will behold.
| Nerfs | |
|---|---|
| Vandy | Remove resist 1 at midband |
Midband changes to “①,  , Discard a card → Fetch any non-ultimate Demonology spell from your codex, reveal it, then put it in your hand.” |
|
| Garth | Reduce midband stats to 2/3 |
| Deteriorate | Increase cost to 1; cannot target illusions |
| Lich’s Bargain | Base damage increased from 4 to 5 |
| Flagstone Garrison | Ability changes to “Your units can no longer have haste. Whenever you play a unit, draw a card” |
| Pirate Gunship | Remove obliterate 2 |
| Dark Pact | Increase cost to 1 |
| Bird’s Nest | Change Upkeep to “Resummon one lost bird (max: 2)” |
| Battle Suits | Change to apply to “Purple Soldiers and Mystics” |
| Might of Leaf and Claw | → If there are at least 5 growth runes on this, your heroes and units get +3/+3 until your next upkeep |
| Buffs | |
|---|---|
| Troq | Midband at 3, maxband at 7 |
| Modify midband ability to “Attacks: deal 1 damage to one of that opponent’s buildings” | |
| Modify maxband ability to Overpower | |
| The Boot | Modify text to “Discard a card, then destroy a tech 0, I or II unit” modify type from “Spell - Debuff” to “Spell” |
| Intimidate | Modify text to “Give a unit or hero -4/-1 until your next turn.” |
| General’s Hammer | Cost reduced to 2 |
General rules
- 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 round / “tournament week” that has elapsed. Please submit your entry to the tourney, via PM to me or reply in this thread, in order to sign up!
- New pairings will be posted roughly every Monday. Matches that are not progressing may be given an adjudicated result. The “tournament week” is considered to be from one round of pairings posted to the next (so possibly more or less than an actual calendar week, depending on how prompt I am with the Monday postings / others are at finishing games).
- Matches are 1 game.
- The first player is responsible for creating the match thread.
- Tag @zango 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 out at any time.
- There is no “top cut”: the last player standing wins the event. Thanks to the “four/five strikes” rule, the field should narrow towards the end, and culminate in some exciting final few matches.
- The default is to play all matches as play-by-post within the forum. 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.
- 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 (e.g., forgetting that a Building Inspector is in play, or that the Shrine of Forbidden Knowledge only makes Demons unstoppable by units), or the rules/FAQ as noted in the rulebook and/or the Rulings thread.
- Please note the forum-suggested post generation spreadsheet , or one of the other format suggestions (like this or this) such that it includes hand, tech and worker decisions, either in a details + spoiler combo,
like this,
Here’s my hidden stuff!
- or in a linked source that a judge (preferrably not involved in the game) can get to. This helps with judgements, adjudication, as well as spectators.
- As with all PbF games, the honour system is in place: don’t peek at your opponent’s spoilers, just as you wouldn’t grab cards out of your opponent’s hand / deck / discard / worker pile and look at them in a real-life tournament!
Other details
Details for Swiss pairings
The idea behind swiss pairing is that each round players should play against each other that have a similar number of losses. The actual paring will be done within the tracker spreadsheet linked below that will include the algorithm for an automatic pairing creation as described here
The basic idea behind the algorithm is: compute for all possible pairings the so called penalty score and choose one of the pairings that has a minimal penalty score. For computing the penalty all unfavorable events within a pairing are identified and taken into account (for example a player with 0 losses plays against a player with 2 losses, or the pairings include a direct rematch). The more unfavorable events are within the respective pairings, the higher the penalty score will be. See the link above for a description of all unfavorable events.
I reserve the option to hand-craft pairings and/or the bye if necessary, in case the algorithm does not provide favorable pairing. This manual manipulation will not result in someone getting a second bye, unless all players have had a bye.
Details for unfinished match adjudication
Players that have not completed their previous matches will be handled as follows:
I will assign a rational number for their game, typically it will be 0.5 : 0.5. The algorithm then takes care of the rest. After the match is completed, the correct result will be used for the further rounds.
- Matches where Player 1 has posted their 5th turn within a week will not be adjudicated until 3 days after (10 days after pairings, Thursday by default).
- Matches where Player 1 has posted their 10th turn 11 days after pairings (Friday by default) will not be adjudicated until two weeks after pairings (Monday by default).
- Matches subject to adjudication may have a win declared, by opinion of the judges, for
a) the player that is “going to win” (having clear hand / tech spoilers is helpful for determining this);
b) the player that is less responsible for delaying the game;
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. - Generally, I will be pretty generous about allowing for extra time, provided I’m given notice of absence. If you ‘re ghosting the tourney with no notice, however, don’t be surprised if you’re given forfeit losses!
Details for correcting game errors
In the event of a game error, one of three fixes will be implemented:
- 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.
- 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. An actually executed theft (or failure to steal after taking the appropriate action) forecloses this remedy.
- 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 (e.g. 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.
- If neither of the above apply, or if I think 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).
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.
In the case of repeated errors, or errors where the game state cannot be recovered, a game loss may be given if the error was substantial.
Special Rules for Drafting Format
- Player going second will select 1 spec & their starter deck as the opening post in the thread. The starter color need not match the selected spec color.
- Players will then alternate picking 2 specs + starter, then 2 specs, then 1, to make for a 3-spec deck per player, with already selected specs and starters eliminated from the available pool of selections
- Once both players have selected all three specs and starter, Player one will take his/her first turn.
Example: @Titania P1 vs @FrozenStorm P2
- FrozenStorm posts forum topic and selects Black Starter + Anarchy as their starter + first spec (you do NOT need to select a starter that matches your first spec)
- Titania then posts a reply, selecting Red Starter, Blood, and Necromancy (being unable to select Black starter or Anarchy)
- FrozenStorm then replies with his final two specs, Demonology and Finesse (again, Blood and Necromancy are not an option)
- Titania replies to select Fire as her final Spec, as well as her first turn (now that the matchup is set at [Blood/Fire]/Necromancy vs [Demonology]/Anarchy/Finesse)
Please do note that the multicolor penalty for the first bulding applies only if the three heroes are a multicolor bunch. On the off chance that you draft for example three red heroes plus green starter, your codex is considered to be mono colored and hence there is no multicolor penalty for the first building!
If you have clarifying questions about the Draft format, please do not hesitate to ask them before the tournament starts!
List of players participating:
Authorised judges (please veto in case you don’t want to judge)
The penalty algorithm spreadsheet for this tournament will be linked here (tbd)