[Complete] Best two units, the tournament

[Gragorak]

I change my team: I'm going to play with cavalryman & ulfserker.

[lesy]

no one will choose skelton since they are all scared of the adepts;)

In my opinion, it does not matter since it's "the best two units" tournament, not "two units that are best against the list in first post" tournament. Rock does not become the best just because scissors are trendy and nobody will pick paper. I prefer to try and account both for unit combinations that are presend and for ones that are not, for otherwise it would be an arms race going in circles. Of course, that's just my take on this matter and i will never try to enforce it on anybody else; it's just that personally i would be hard-pressed to call some unit pair the "best" if it has multitude of dead counters.

this "arms race" is called metagame, and yes, once you stop talking theoretically and start to fight using actual pairs of units, you can no longer ignore it (ie. if everyone is using mass adept the ulf might be actually viable choice, but as soon as several ulf combos appear, they get countered and so on.) and i would dare to say that any pair of default lvl 1 units have a strong counter. personally i don't think trying to minimize "counterbility" of the pair is optimal strategy, but that's what we are here to find out

in your example, in fact that's actually exactly the reason Rock becomes the best - by the rules, rock, paper and scissors are equal, you have the same chance to win with either pick, however as soon as majority of players go with scissors, rock becomes the best option...

[Haart]

this "arms race" is called metagame

I know. I played competitive pokemon for some time, and competitive pokemon gaming is 99% about metagame; i didn't use that word to avoid confusing someone unfamiliar with it.

in your example, in fact that's actually exactly the reason Rock becomes the best

I think it's more terminological issue we are discussing here (to me, "best" means being objectively best, not "anti-current-metagame"; think of it as of by-product of my youth maximalism) and arguing over terminology is the last thing in my to-do list. I hope i made my point clear as it is: picking units on metagame basis makes this tournament more about players (and their understanding of metagame) than about units themselves.

[lesy]

yeah ok, i can't really think of a way how to avoid that (tournament being about players). but i agree that because of this even when the tournie is over, we might not learn much about which pair of units is actually superior.

[Haart]

i can't really think of a way how to avoid that (tournament being about players)

Well, i can think of a way to avoid metagame issue (but not issue with difference in skill levels of participants affecting outcome of some games more than difference in units themselves): make so that participants do not announce their unit choises in public but tell them only to tournament organizers (at least until registration is over; after that, organizers may declare "point of no pair reconsideration" and announce all pairs). But it is too late to do so in this tournament (even if we hide choices and ask players to reconsider them, everybody and their mothers will still expect lots of adepts); it is probably better to complete this tournament as it is and then (when adepts will be hopefully dethroned) open new one with hidden choices, blackjack and hookers. Well, even then there probably will be some percentage of players who will pick whatever combo will win this one but i can't think of a way to avoid that.

[Mabuse]

ghouls seem to be a hard counter to "adepts+generic melee" combo that is running rampart in our minds

btw, if you ask me, CAV is a lot more essential.
CAV+grunt is actually wonderful, but it cannot deal well with skeletons.

so any good combo(for me) is "CAV+other unit"
adept is a good choice since it can deal with drakes and skeletons

however, i think that you cannot renounce on a quick village grabber. so you really need a fast moving unit (unless the tounament is held on isars cross).

so for me its basically all about cav (cav only can beat a cav+adept combo).
having a cav+"anticav-which-can-deal-with-skeletons-and-drakes" would be xtra cool.

[Haart]

anticav-which-can-deal-with-skeletons-and-drakes

Do you mean orcish archer?

[Mabuse]

now if i think about it ......
sounds good kinda

man, cav+orcish archer would be something to consider ... -
i fear though that cav+orc archer lose to a massive spearman spam
(provided the spearman player has also a fast moving uit, else you coudl alwas to to win via better expansion/economy and outplay opponent)

... i also think about using cav+skeleton.

... or cav+clasher
(cannot deal properly with skels but who cares)

.. cav+troll
anyways, must make some thoughts


EDiT:
i fact orcish archer cannot deal with drakes i think, but that could be also part of the cav anyways.

[Superking]

With so many players I think a knockout structure is inevitable.

Rock/Paper/Scissors wins could well occour in some matchups, but because the winning player is going fight somthing in the region of 4-5 opponents, its not really going to be possible to predict what matchups you will face. to that end, your units either need to cover all eventualities or just be very efficent.

[Gnork]

With so many players I think a knockout structure is inevitable.

I strongly disagree : knockout will just make the tournament longer, because final will have to wait the end of semi-finals.

What I suggest is 4 x 4 groups, with top (4x)1 qualifying for final group.
Only 2 phases, and max 3+3=6 games per player.
How could it be simpler ?

[Haart]

4 x 4 groups

Only there are more than 16 of us already.

[Gnork]

4 x 4 groups

Only there are more than 16 of us already.

Oops ! Sorry, I almost forgot you

Well, with 18 players it would be 3 groups of 6, top 2 of each group qualifying for the final round-robin phase.

It's still simpler imho

[Gragorak]

Well, with 18 players it would be 3 groups of 6, top 2 of each group qualifying for the final round-robin phase.

But that has got a one big problem (I think it's problem, everybody doesn't), those players that don't qualify play only 6 games. If we would use 2 big groups, then everybody could play more games.

[Haart]

8 ) csarmi with cav+adept

14) Mabuse with loyalist cavalryman + adept

Just noticed that. I thought we were avoiding repeating as it is basically giving same pair of units a second chance.

[Gnork]

Well, with 18 players it would be 3 groups of 6, top 2 of each group qualifying for the final round-robin phase.

But that has got a one big problem (I think it's problem, everybody doesn't), those players that don't qualify play only 6 games. If we would use 2 big groups, then everybody could play more games.

From my experience, a tournament with more than 6 games per player is more painful to organize, sparks off more withdrawals and adds up only a little more fun.
Please see how The Black Sword is facing difficulty with as few as 7 games per player in WTT for understanding

Btw the tournament will start as soon as the 18th slot is taken (hoping it will quickly be).