2008 Warlocks tournament?

[BioLogIn]

If we want one, we should open registration in a two weeks or so. The question is if we really want to have one. Look:

- low activity at Ravenblack (only 56 'active' players, and only 30+ of these 50+ actually have more then one game open)
- of 35 participants of Tourney-2007 about 20 are inactive now
- no Masters are likely to participate

So, do we really need a tourney for ~16 players, most of which play each other anyway?

Please give your opinion _and_ please tell if you'll be participating yourself (think of it as of pre-registration).

[Dubber]

No need for a full blown tourney at this time -- the League effectively covers the competitive drive.

When we hit 100+ really active players again, that'll be the time to have a tourney, imnsho

[Derfel]

I would suggest having a "final" round for the League - perhaps eliminating the "special rule", and basing the first round of matchups on results of the past few months?

[ExDeath]

I think after 12 months of the league are finished, it might be a good idea to invite each month's winner to the "finals", a round-robin tournament with no special rule, or perhaps some replacement for para. That would serve adequately as a replacement to the regular tourney, and perhaps it would be even more accurate since everyone has to play everyone else.

Note: I'm not just suggesting this because I won a month, as I would likely not participate.

[BioLogIn]

Dubber
yes, I thought as much.

Slartucker
please post your opinion, since you are reading this anyway.

exdeath
The problem is that after 7 months of league the winners are:
ExDeath - retired
Spacca - retired
awall
Citanest - retired
RedHot - gone inactive
xade, xade
BioLogIn

Even if somehow next 5 months will give us 5 new unique winners (which is unlikely), 8-man tournament is not what Warlocks tournaments used to be.

[Slartucker]

I like ExDeath's idea. Some of those warlocks (maybe cita/red) might come back for it. No tourney is going to be really huge right now, and if one is huge it would only be huge due to large numbers of poor players... personally, I would try his idea and just call it a league tourney and not a general warlocks tourney. A general tourney with poor turnout will shrink, not grow, the player community.

That said, the community was even smaller when I did the 06 tourney, but I went to great lengths to contact inactives (like Yaron) and cross-promoted heavily with the then-new Refuge. The game is also less tactically fresh at this particular moment. When that shifts it will be a good moment for a renaissance.

[succat]

Yes, let's have a tournament! Winner gets to challenge a Master of his choice.. j/k

[xade]

woohoo! two lives for the xade-meister!! I would *so* be in for that!

[freesoul]

I think we should have a full open tourney. Brings some life and encourages people to become active. Does it matter what the quality of participants are? I don't know why we have to encourage elitism, but rather, we should encourage opportunities and incentives for broad improvement.

I don't think that a tourney of league winners has much meaning. I know that i personally never took the leagues as very competitive... more recreational. Plus a tourney of 6 or so would be silly in my opinion.

Also, I think that it would be a shame to skip the yearly tourney, especially, with the level of organization and communication venues available to us. Anyone who wants to put "2008 tourney winner" in their profile should be pro-tourney... especially those who are looking for "master" status. I think we'll have a good competitive turnout.

[ExDeath]

To be fair, the league isn't elitist at all, and everybody has 12 chances to win one. Allowing the league to feed into an inviational tourney isn't really elitist, that's the way things are done in almost every competitive sport.

[Slartucker]

freesoul makes some good points.

that said, tourney wins do not (at least so far) correlate well with "master" status: only Pig and Yaron have general tourney wins -- that's 2 out of 7 "masters". the reverse numbers are 2 out of 5 general tourneys won by masters. not even 50% either way!

[freesoul]

Yeah... i guess what i'm saying is that the league does not provide a true comptetive environment. Not to discredit the winners... just that an open tourney is the only way to encourage broad participation and competition. perhaps we can have a tourney in 2009 of 2008 league winners. that would be fun, and relevant.

But honestly, leagues are one fun thing. And the Tourney is a different fun thing. Plus it is competitive, and brings a lot of bragging rights. The only reasons i can see an argument against a tourney, is A: people don't want to organise... or B: people don't want others to get any additional "status".


The yearly tourney winner get's a lot of credit in my opinion. To pass up this event would be a waste of a year of warlocks. I know that there are many warlocks worthy of the title, and probably quite a few sleepers out ther who could claim it. All the more fun....


Let's start the hunt for the 2008 warlock tourney champion!

[BioLogIn]

I think Freesoul makes very valid points. I don't see any problems with running this tournament if needed, provided everyone agrees that I'll be able to play =) We can ask some of respected inactive players to generate a random seeding so I won't be able to manipulate it in my favor blah-blah.

The only trouble with the tourney is that some (including myself) are afraid that is would be unpopular and thus will make little sense. However, here trying doesn't hurt, I guess.

[freesoul]

Aug 1, 2008 2:01:29 GMT -5 freesoul said:

Yeah... i guess what i'm saying is that the league does not provide a true comptetive environment. Not to discredit the winners... just that an open tourney is the only way to encourage broad participation and competition. perhaps we can have a tourney in 2009 of 2008 league winners. that would be fun, and relevant.

But honestly, leagues are one fun thing. And the Tourney is a different fun thing. Plus it is competitive, and brings a lot of bragging rights. The only reasons i can see an argument against a tourney, is A: people don't want to organise... or B: people don't want others to get any additional "status".


The yearly tourney winner get's a lot of credit in my opinion. To pass up this event would be a waste of a year of warlocks. I know that there are many warlocks worthy of the title, and probably quite a few sleepers out ther who could claim it. All the more fun....


Let's start the hunt for the 2008 warlock tourney champion!

-disclaimer

I was pretty drunk when i wrote this.

[Derfel]

That's okay - I was drunk when I read it.