Top 8 of the CCS Should be Constructed

    • Top 8 of the CCS Should be Constructed

      If Hex is aiming to have more coverage build up for the game, the top 8 of the largest event should stop being limited. It is a shown fact in other card games that limited coverage has worse interest / viewer numbers than constructed, so having the final rounds of your major event be less exciting is not ideal. People get more excited / invested in decks they can actually play card for card, which constructed allows, but limited does not.

      If the goal is to have the CCS always included limited and standard, perhaps put draft or sealed for the first 3~ rounds of the swiss. Would give the competitors an extra prize as well since they'd get some free boosters for this to happen. I'd assume this would require some dev time to make happen though, so I don't expect this change to happen any time soon, just food for thought moving forward once your giant TODO list narrows down a bit.

      Cheers!

    • JeffHoogland wrote:

      It is a shown fact in other card games that limited coverage has worse interest / viewer numbers than constructed, so having the final rounds of your major event be less exciting is not ideal. People get more excited / invested in decks they can actually play card for card, which constructed allows, but limited does not.
      Personnaly I prefer to watch limited stream than constructed.
      I find more interresting to see improvisation and unexpected fun combo than to see the same lines of play over and over and over again...

    • I personally think it should be a mixed up mash-up of the formats that can get you there. Some rounds of constructed, sealed, draft, and maybe somehow EVO. Not all four in the same tournament mind you, but a shifting thing for different CCSs. We already have a ton of coverage of constructed and very little to 0 of draft in a tournament setting (and only 3rd party coverage of the pick phases of limited if we are lucky).

      Maybe one day they will give me the ability to watch replays of the just picks portions of drafts based on seat. Too dreamy I imagine.

    • Gregangel wrote:

      Personnaly I prefer to watch limited stream than constructed.
      I find more interresting to see improvisation and unexpected fun combo than to see the same lines of play over and over and over again...
      Preference is obviously subjective. People in the other game profess to loving watching limited too.

      When push comes to shove though, the limited viewer numbers are always worse. The deck building is the most interesting part of limited, not watching people slam under powered cards into each other for 3 matches afterwards.

    • So what you're saying is that a tournament that you can enter by being good at limited should have no limited component at all?

      I saw your second paragraph, but that seemed like more of an after thought in light of your post...
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    • Eraia wrote:

      JeffHoogland wrote:

      "I read the second part of your post where you said limited should be included still, but let me take the time to ask you if you think there should be no limited in the event"

      FFS. These boards. Troll elsewhere.
      You said, and I quote, 'if the goal is to have both' as though you think that's a mistake. No offense buddy, but with how critical you are of other peoples' wording, you can be surprisingly careless with your own.
      I'd honestly be surprised if someone, in good faith, read "If the goal is to have the CCS always included limited and standard, perhaps put draft or sealed for the first 3~ rounds of the swiss" and believed that the person writing this was inferring that they think this is a mistake. It sounds like you want Jeff to be a jerk and are reading that into his text when it's not there.

    • StewardUlk wrote:

      Make the CCS a Monthly Event, rotate Day1 Constructed/Day 2 limited vs Day1 Limited/Day 2 Constructed each Month
      The goal of this post wasn't to suggest adding more events, just to suggest a structure for the existing one that would be better for coverage.

      If they were adding more events as you suggest half of them would still have a top 8 that is bad for coverage.

      Constructed gets people excited to play more Hex and look up data. Every Saturday I go looking for what did well and what ultimately won the Bash because there might be something interesting for me to pick up and play myself.

      Every week I could care less about the Clash results because I can't play someone's draft/sealed deck verbatim.

      TCG coverage is already tough to make engaging and limited is even more so. Ultimately cash events are advertising for Hex, so optimizing them for coverage makes sense.

    • JeffHoogland wrote:

      Preference is obviously subjective. People in the other game profess to loving watching limited too.

      When push comes to shove though, the limited viewer numbers are always worse.

      I can not dispute these opposing observations. It is 100% true.

      But in my opinion there is two main reasons explaining it :
      1/ prize payout are always the main factor that drive viewers. So if when constructed is more valued (and overall it is the case) they lure more spectators.
      2/ viewers who prefers constructed are more regular viewers and limited viewers are less regular but with with a wider speard throut several events...

      About the suggestion, in an ideal world. 2 cosmic crown event should take place : one constructed and limited with the same $5000 price structure.
      To compensate the raise in prize, they could cut the Bash and the clash taking place on these cosmic weekends. And raise the entree fee of the others clash and bash by 100 or 200 plat.

    • Gregangel wrote:

      JeffHoogland wrote:

      Preference is obviously subjective. People in the other game profess to loving watching limited too.

      When push comes to shove though, the limited viewer numbers are always worse.
      I can not dispute these opposing observations. It is 100% true.

      But in my opinion there is two main reasons explaining it :
      1/ prize payout are always the main factor that drive viewers. So if when constructed is more valued (and overall it is the case) they lure more spectators.
      2/ viewers who prefers constructed are more regular viewers and limited viewers are less regular but with with a wider speard throut several events...

      About the suggestion, in an ideal world. 2 cosmic crown event should take place : one constructed and limited with the same $5000 price structure.
      To compensate the raise in prize, they could cut the Bash and the clash taking place on these cosmic weekends. And raise the entree fee of the others clash and bash by 100 or 200 plat.
      Again it depends on what the goal of an event like the CCS is. We have single format events every single weekend - why do we need more single format events?

      As someone who isn't personally a fan of playing limited, I think having a split format event is a good thing. It challenges players in a way single format events do not. I just think as I highlighted in my first post that putting the limited portion for the top 8 is a mistake if Hex has a goal of making coverage better for its events.

    • JeffHoogland wrote:

      StewardUlk wrote:

      Make the CCS a Monthly Event, rotate Day1 Constructed/Day 2 limited vs Day1 Limited/Day 2 Constructed each Month
      The goal of this post wasn't to suggest adding more events, just to suggest a structure for the existing one that would be better for coverage.
      If they were adding more events as you suggest half of them would still have a top 8 that is bad for coverage.
      Sure, but should Coverage realy be the #1 Concern here? I dont think so. CCS is about crowning our Champion out of the very best Players the Hex Community has to Offer.

      Given the current Method of qualifiing for CCS it only seems logical to have 50/50 split between constructed and limited.

      Simply cutting back on limited like you suggested would just upset the limited Players.

      By adding another Event you would have both, a more coverable Event like you want and not loosing the Focus about was CCS is suppose to be.

    • JeffHoogland wrote:

      Again it depends on what the goal of an event like the CCS is.
      When it was first announced (in the Gameforge boards, so exact quote no longer available), Hex said that the CCS was formatted this way because the "cream of the crop" would need to master both Constructed and Limited play.

      Unfortunately, the only viable way to do draft (without it turning into a completely different format) is to have exactly (a multiple of) 8 players. You can't guarantee what the turnout is going to be at the very beginning of the tournament, so you can't count on having full draft tables other than having a cut to top-8 (with all the tiebreaker problems that it brings, but that's a discussion for another thread).

      Is draft the right format for the limited portion of the CCS? That's up for debate. I think draft taps into a broader skill set than sealed, so I would say it's the limited format best suited for a competitive setting, but that locks us into having 8 players. In terms of "after-the-fact" coverage, there is also the possibility to replay the entire draft phase and see how the winner ended up building the deck he built.

    • You could make the argument that Limited for Top 8 doesn't actually show you who's a better player as there's a lot more variance involved than typical gameplay. Maybe your opponents manage to draft something amazing and even though your picks were correct, it's just not as good.

      On the flip-side, Constructed for Top 8 would be more consistent as the only variance would primarily be your draws and how you side-board/pilot/etc.

      I'm personally not a fan of Limited either; however, if everyone was given the same 'Sealed' pool to build a deck in Top 8, that'd be interesting to see.

      Not only would everyone have access to the same cards, they'd have to analyze what would be played and build around that. It'd be mind games + deck building skills + piloting skills all-in-one. I think that would be absolutely fascinating to watch and commentate on since the variances would be primarily what the players think should be played or used. This is also assuming the pool is large enough and varied enough; theoretically, the decks that would be built would vary quite a bit as well.
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    • the problem :

      Fred wrote:

      You can't guarantee what the turnout is going to be at the very beginning of the tournament, so you can't count on having full draft tables other than having a cut to top-8

      The solution :

      Kami wrote:

      I'm personally not a fan of Limited either; however, if everyone was given the same 'Sealed' pool to build a deck in Top 8, that'd be interesting to see.

      But why for top 8 ?
      Why not make the first 4 rounds of the swiss portion of the CCS this way.
      Same sealed pool for every one (tailored by the dev or rzndomly generated). It negate variance at opening pack and it place deckbuilding as a very premium skill.

      As a side note : it is funny you mention this idea because i was recently thinking about a game mode which I called Kismet Sealed to replace the normal scealed gauntlet which fire so little.
      The idea in my mind involve a same crafted sealed pool for every player in a 48h event where players have to play 10 bo3 matches. Records grant you prize according to number of win. Dev could come up with wacky format every week. It should be phantom sealed though.

    • If you have a tournament mixed of limited and constructed players, you can't just have one mode and not the other. In that regard, it makes sense that the tournament ends up with a draft, since putting it in the middle of the tournament is (for now) highly unlikely.

      I do, however, think that CCS should be split in 2 tournaments, one day for limited, one day for constructed. Instead of one 5K tournament, maybe 2 tournamentes with a 3k pool each one would be more fair for limited and constructed players. I know that this is not the point of the thread, but to be honest, I don't see a way to have a tournament that is fair for both limited and constructed players without having someone upset (with reason).
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    • Kami wrote:

      I'm personally not a fan of Limited either; however, if everyone was given the same 'Sealed' pool to build a deck in Top 8, that'd be interesting to see.

      Not only would everyone have access to the same cards, they'd have to analyze what would be played and build around that. It'd be mind games + deck building skills + piloting skills all-in-one. I think that would be absolutely fascinating to watch and commentate on since the variances would be primarily what the players think should be played or used. This is also assuming the pool is large enough and varied enough; theoretically, the decks that would be built would vary quite a bit as well.
      Unless the content of the pool is hand picked, I feel like most of the time, it would just end up being a festival of mirror matches with very little difference between decks. I don't think it would be enjoyable to watch.

    • I like limited for day 1 because it is also a fairer take to the event even if I am to ignore all the good points above. In the current setup, why be any good in limited when you absolutely, must, 100% have to be good at constructed before you can draft? One is super unlikely to get into draft portion without good constructed skill because only 6.25%(assuming the maximum number of players which is 128) of the field gets into the draft portion. That is not "cream of the crop" in both constructed and limited; more like I need to be amazing in constructed first, THEN I can either choose to improve my limited play or just pray to Kismet so I open on-color bombs on the 3 rares and let them carry me to top 1 easy-peasy. Since it's likely that all 8 or at least most of the field are constructed-first player, you probably don't need to be 99% percentile in limited to do good.

      Day 1 with both limited and constructed, on the other hand, will ensure one needs to know both format to do well. Or at least knowing limited will actually has an impact of helping someone go into day 2.