Cactus Game Design Message Boards

This will be the next ROOT tournament of the year. It will run for five weeks starting from next Tuesday, Oct. 1, and ending Nov. 5th. This slightly shorter tournament will accomodate the next tournament (Nov/Dec) to be able to give an extra week for Thanksgiving and end before Christmas, and is also as a result of the fact that with the recent sizes of the ROOT tournaments, 6 rounds is generally 1 too many. I will redo the schedule to include an extra week if more than 16 participants sign up.

I'd also like to reintroduce the idea of rule modifications, if people would like to do those. I will come up with two options, with a third option being no change, and a fourth option being an idea of your own if you can get people to back it (though please vote for one of the other options as a secondary choice).

Possibilities for rule mods:

1. Dominant cost: When you play a dominant, you must immediately discard a card from hand of the same alignment in order for the dominant's special ability to activate. You can still play dominants for no effect at no cost.

2. Seeker Challenges: If your opponent has no Lost Souls in play and your Hero wins a battle challenge, you may search an opponent's deck for a Lost Soul and put it in play, regardless of protection/restriction (optional). Note that the LS comes after the battle ends, so that the battle-challenge winning Hero cannot rescue that Lost Soul.

3. No rule mods

4. Create your own rule mod. If enough others support the idea, then we could go with it, but please vote for one of the other options as a secondary option. Even if yours does not receive support this month, it may be an option for future tournaments.

If you are interested in joining, please sign up here and mention which option (1-4) you would vote for. Note for number 2 that you should specify whether you would like protect/restrict abilities (Naz/HSR/Jerusalem Tower/Simon the Zealot) to stop the seeker search or not.

Sign Up Sheet
1. Red
2. redemption101
3. Drrek
4. TheHobbit
5. MasterKChief
6. jbeers285
7. MitchRobStew
8. jmhartz
9. slugfencer
10. Professoralstad
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in 3

In, no rule mods.

best 2 of 3.

I like the idea...and would definitely consider implementing it. Anyone else have thoughts?

Also, as far as implementation, I'd need to know how to best consider the following:

1. Would the same decks be required for all games?
2. Would a 1-hr/game time limit be reasonable? Or would 45 min be better? Or maybe a running time limit of 2-2.5 hrs for all 2/3 games?
3. Anything else to consider?

Here's how I would envision/prefer it if I were playing (which I might, in case there is an odd number of others):

1. Default 1 hr time limit per game (can be waived upon mutual agreement)
2. Games don't have to be played sequentially, or on the same day, and decks are allowed to be changed (I like this to avoid people having to devote too much time in one sitting for a game).
3. Players who lose the first game are allowed to forfeit before or during any of the other games without the usual forfeiture penalty (0 pts, -5 LS diff). If the player forfeits before or during either round 2 or 3, then only the LS differential of the first game will count.

Points would be given as follows:

Each full win (up to 2 in a round per player): 4 pts, X-Y LS Diff (where X is winner's LS total, Y is loser's LS total)
Each timeout win (up to 2 in a round per player): 3 pts, X-Y LS Diff (where X is winner's LS total, Y is loser's LS total)
Each timeout tie (up to 2 in a round per player): 2.5 pts
Each timeout loss (up to 2 in a round per player): 2 pts, X-Y LS Diff (where X is winner's LS total, Y is loser's LS total)
Each full loss or forfeit (up to 2 in a round per player for full losses, 1 forfeit per player allowed per round): 1 pt, X-Y LS Diff (where X is winner's LS total, Y is loser's LS total). In cases where a player forfeits during a game, the final score is assumed to by 5-Y, where Y is the number of LSs that player has at time of forfeit.

So that means that players can get anywhere from 2-8 pts per round. Is there anything I'm failing to consider? I know 2 out of 3 is commonly used in other CCGs, but I have no idea how they are run, or how it would fit within the Redemption system. And I would still need a majority vote to implement this for this month.

With your system someone could beat me twice 5-0, and would get 8 VPs with a diff of 10.  But if I wanted to keep them down so my buddy could finish higher, I could just forfeit the second game limiting them to 8 VPs and a diff of 5.  I don't think it's a good idea for the loser of a matchup to have that kind of control over the winner's differential.

While LS differential doesn't matter nearly as much anymore, because of head-to-head tiebreakers, you may have a point. Anyone else have thoughts?

The only thing I don't like about 2/3 is that it requires people to come up with more time during the week to devout to Redemption.

That's my biggest reservation as well. That is why I am hoping to come up with a system that allows for 2 out of 3, but also allows for players to avoid that if they prefer.

What about letting players decide before the game if they would like to do 2/3 or not, and then scoring a series win or loss exactly like a normal win or loss? The only issue there is timeouts. It also might be weird to have a player win 5-4, 0-5, 5-4 to have a win with a -3 LS differential but, A) That's pretty unlikely, and B) LS differential doesn't really matter much for final rankings in most cases anyway.

I'm in as long as it's not 2/3 just because of time restraints.

I like the 2/3 but just don't have the time right now. If you decide to go with 2/3 it's fine.

In.  I'll vote for a Mulligan rule.  My proposed rules:

1. LS stay in play after Mulligan
2. You forfeit the right to choose who goes first, unless your opponent Mulligans same/more than you
3. You draw 1 less card on each Mulligan

I sympathize with those voting for 2/3; ideally Redemption would always be 2/3.  Unfortunately, I just don't have time for this, unless we cap the time for games at 45 minutes or so.

Rankings and Pairings have been created in a new thread. You can still join the tournament, you just won't have a game for this week unless 2 people join in the next few days.