New FFG GNK guidelines

[tomdidiot]

Apparently - according to the new guidelines that are in the GNK, you now need to cut with 16+ players?

[mendax]

FFG may have just broken their own record for "rule that is most likely to be ignored".

[spags]

I really don't get it. They seem to want to keep things casual, and the GNK is the epitome of that, which is cool. Why introduce something like a 'cut' into it?

[Humanoids]

I'm sorry, does this mean that no more than 16 players can participate? (English isn't my first language, after all.)

[Korrigan]

No, it means after swiss you play double elimination with 8 (?) players

[Xenasis]

Apparently, in London there's currently a 20 player GNK going on with a cut to top 8 because that's what it said in the GNK...

It's a bit silly, not having a cut makes GNKs a bit more variance-y, which I think is more than acceptable for a GNK. They're meant to be lighthearted...

[tomdidiot]

I'lll be on my way there soonish. I'll grab a screenshot of the paper.

[x3r0h0ur]

And I'm just sitting here running 5 person round robin gnks

[Humanoids]

Yeah, that was what I thought at first but then it's so illogical! GNKs usually contain 17 cards for participants (+everything else the top places get). So that means that they're meant for approximately 16 players (+1 for the TO). Plus, they're usually attended by less.

[tomdidiot]

We routinely get 30 or 40 person GNKs in London becasue there's 3 stores in a city of 8 million.

[mendax]

Even in Bristol we often have attendance in the 20s.

[maznaz]

How is a double elimination lower variance than standings after several rounds of Swiss? That doesn't make sense to me.

[mediohxcore]

How is a double elimination lower variance than standings after several rounds of Swiss? That doesn't make sense to me.

Everything else being equal, the more games played, the more likely the tournament winner is going to be the best player.

[maznaz]

But it's entirely possible that the winner comes from bottom of the brackets and the person that won the most games doesn't win the tournament overall. Isn't that variance? There's a reason most competitive sports' primary leagues don't involve playoffs at the end (I know a few US ones do).

[hypomodern]

I think this is funny, since last week's 12-player attendance was the best I'd seen in Michigan since late 2013 (for a GNK).

Is having more than 15 for a GNK a netrunner #firstworldproblem :)?

[Kesterer]

Wow, glad I didn't go now; a GNK should not involve players spending their entire Sunday on it.

Intentional or not, FFG seem to be doing their best to make organised play as unfriendly as possible to anyone who has commitments in their life besides Netrunner.

[Apo]

not having a cut makes GNKs a bit more variance-y

Huh? I thought the cut was the main variance factor in netrunner tournaments. I get it that it is necessary for thrills and stuff, but the cut simply provides a way to mess up well established swiss results.

[Xenasis]

In Dark Sphere's defence, they had a vote, and people voted for the cut.

the cut simply provides a way to mess up well established swiss results.

This to me sounds like saying more Swiss can mess up established Swiss results. More games are better, and a top cut is the best way to ensure that the games quickly filter to the best players playing against the best players, something Swiss can sometimes not accomplish.

[Apo]

This to me sounds like saying more Swiss can mess up established Swiss results

Sounds catchy and I almost buy it . The thing is we have single games in the cut, things get really fragile there.

[SamRS]

in a specific matchup yes, but the bracket is a test of who can go the longest without losing twice, which tests consistency pretty well.