Bit of a necro for this thread but I had another situation come up yesterday where the new BYE rule encouraged me to manipulate the standings.
It is getting close to the end of the SC season and I have yet to secure a bye, but many of the top players in my meta have. Yesterday, I was at the top after 3 rounds of Swiss, and got matched-up last round against someone who already had a bye. After winning the first game, I was 7-0, with no other players also having this record, meaning I was basically guaranteed to make the top4 cut.
With my advancement to elims secured, it dawned on me that if my opponent also made top 4, it would be 1 less person I’d have to beat in order to get the bye (as in, I could get 2nd to this opponent and still get the bye passed down to me). He was at the top table with me, so realistically all I’d have to do is “throw” this last game so we split, probably putting him into the top 4 as well. I of course just played normally (wouldn’t want to risk getting DQed after discussing this directly and openly with my opponent lol), and ended up winning, knocking him out of the top4. In the end, it all worked out anyways as his spot was taken by another bye holder .
What are people’s thoughts on this line of thinking? Specifically that the new BYE rules “promote” this kind of behaviour?
I’ve got some more thoughts on standings “manipulation” but I’ll leave it to that for now.
I definitely felt less pressured at the last SC’s top 4, where I knew I just had to place higher than one other player, as the other two already had their byes.
I can sorta see the appeal in the number of bye-holders being equal to the number of events guaranteed, on the other hand it creates some weird situations, both in- and out-of game. The guaranteed number doesn’t even really help you logistically all that much, seeing as people are attending multiple regionals and some won’t even use them in the first place.
I think the rule was kind of dumb. It makes sense for multiple regionals wins since there is only one nationals that you could get a bye to. But I plan on attending definately 2, maybe 3 regionals. I would absolutely take 2 byes from winning store champs if that were an option. I’d probably pass on the 3rd since I’m not sure I’m going to be able to play in 3, but I think you should be able to get byes to as many regionals you think you’ll be attending.
Scandinavia only has a single National-level event, instead dubbed the “Nordic Championship”, so no, that’s probably not where you’d want to reside. However, $100 easily gets you to Helsinki and back, so that opens up for Finland. The same goes, more or less, for a weekend in Amsterdam, Paris or Italy.
Here in the UK, Donald (ask @Xenasis if he has a Stimhack account) came 2nd out of 62 to Ian Reid. It was one of the first SC’s of the season. I think Ian has won two (ish?) more events, each time handing his bye to someone less deserving than Donald (from a numbers point of view).
Why can’t you win multiple byes? What’s wrong with stopping other people having them or entering multiple regionals?
Less participation and reward for the general community rather than a handful of power players. I agree that byes should be awarded on merit, and the current system isn’t ideal, but it would also be discouraging to attend events with someone who has already won a SC and they win again. This way, the top prize is always in contention and more people are excited about attending tournaments.
I meant people attending store championships feel like they have a chance at winning a regional bye if it’s capped at 1. Otherwise, they would be disheartened and maybe bitter by the presence of someone who’s already won a SC.
Donald’s on the forums as @raveladvice, but I’m not sure how much he checks it.
Thankfully, Donald got his bye at Birmingham, which I guess is an argument for the way it is now: good players will find a bye eventually during the season.
Still, I personally like the system as it is. Some people have concerns about denying others their byes or whatnot, and I guess it makes people more inclined to go to SCs where other good players are also attending, which makes for more fun for everyone.
It’s not perfect, and it could probably be done better, but I feel like it’s a better system than letting one person win all the byes or something…
There’s certainly some truth to all this. My experience has been that the top 8 will reliably contain the best players, but who wins the knockouts within those 8 is fairly arbitrary - so the current system does smooth out some of that arbitrariness if all those good players attend multiple store champs.
On the other hand, having byes awarded equal to the number of store champs does make me wonder what regionals are going to be like for those without one. With the number of store champs there have been this year (I’d guess 40+ across the UK? Maybe I’m overestimating), I won’t be surprised to attend a regional where ‘# of byes ~= size of the top cut’. As the importance of strength of schedule in determining the cut has been huge at pretty much every Netrunner tournament I’ve been to, that will make regionals a pretty poor proposition for those without a bye.
Tim was the only player without a bye in Cardiff top 8 last year? I did not realise that. You forgot to mention that he went on to win the thing!
Personally I prefer the current system to letting people win multiple byes. I’d rather more strong players were given the encouragement to attend regionals. Last year some players in the UK gave away 2nd byes they won even though they didn’t have to because it just seems wrong to get more than one.
I thought Tim had a bye - the only one I was aware of (or perhaps remembered) was Seb. So 6/9 made the cut, rather than 7/9, and the two in the cut without were the eventual winner and #1 after swiss.
I was one of the people who gave away a bye last year, though in my case had I been able to make a second regionals I would have kept it.
Another good solution I haven’t seen mentioned here - Make the bye card work for as many regionals as you can go to. I mean honestly, how many people (not counting myself) actually intend to go to more than two, maybe three regionals at most?
Did @raveladvice win one in the end? It seems like he’s the end boss for UK Store Championships. Sad, because his GRNDL is inspirational. I made one, and I’ve been having great fun.
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