Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Strong agree. I think there needs to be some mechanism in place to prevent some weird game from taking 2 hours and slowing down the tournament but at the very least I think top cut games should be an hour.

I am all in favor of quickening games and making all matches a best of 3, however, why would we make the last matches any different than the first matches in time constraints and conditions to win? I guess I am curious if it is done in other games and how it works there. I was under the impression that the game times and win conditions are constant in other competitive CCGs. True or False?

Best of 3 matches were discussed as a possible option for all of Top Cut, though that would require making T1 2P a two day event. (Swiss on Day 1 and Top Cut on Day 2).

I was not in favor of it this year because it could have caused potential awkwardness for players planning to do TEAMS (3 of the Top Cut players ended up doing TEAMS), but for future years, I would probably be in favor of moving TEAMS to Thursday and having a 2 day T1 2P on Fri/Sat.

I would absolutely love to see T1 become a 2 day event with Bo3 Top Cut even if it means I have to miss sealed on Saturday.

I am all in favor of quickening games and making all matches a best of 3, however, why would we make the last matches any different than the first matches in time constraints and conditions to win? I guess I am curious if it is done in other games and how it works there. I was under the impression that the game times and win conditions are constant in other competitive CCGs. True or False?

I've only played in LotR and MTG tournaments (outside of Redemption's of course). They both work the same way in regards to time: "normal" rounds have a given time (depending on the event and the format), once that time has expired after the current player finishes their turn, there are five more turns (p1,p2,p1,p2,p1). If after five more turns there is not a winner, the game ends in a draw. This works for all rounds that get to a top 8 cut. From the top cut, they usually give the players a little more time (so 50m up from 45m as an example), but the final match is played with no time limit and first player to win 2 matches. This is done in case one player has an amazingly bad or good draw - essentially, the winner should know they won because of their skill and deck design, and not because they didnt draw lost souls or their opponent only drew heroes for five turns, etc etc etc.

(NOTE: i am not suggesting that Redemption needs to adopt the "five turn policy" after time is called. The OP is just dealing with the championship game)