I was thinking about this the other day. Tiebreakers kind of feel bad, because you don't have any control over the opponents you're matched up with, especially in early rounds. Beating someone in R1 who ends up 0-X and dropping tanks your tiebreakers and you have no real out.

Suppose that instead, T1 was the win% of opponents you lost to, T2 was win% of opponents you beat, and T3 was your personal win%. Does anyone who's thought about this in more depth than I have see a reason that wouldn't be a better system?

I hear your frustration, but I sincerely don't know of a better way to do things. This scenario happens every single weekend in other TCGs.

I actually agree here. It's something I've had an issue with since the IQs 2 years ago. I find it very frustrating that the first tie breaker is something you can't control and affects placements in tournaments

I accept that eventually this has to be used as a way to decide on the standings. Not all wins are created equal and sometimes your round 1 win just happens to be against someone who would eventually win no rounds or the person who would eventually win the tournament. My issue is with the order in which it is decided because the first tie breaker is something you have no control over.

Currently
Tier 1 is based on your opponents match win %
Tier 2 is based on your opponents opponents match win %
Tier 3 is based on your personal game win % (As in if you won 2-0, 2-1 or lost 0-2 or 1-2)

What I would prefer is for tier 3 to be moved to tier 1. You actually make an impact on that result where as the current tier 1 and 2 are something you just can't help so it doesn't feel good when that is the reason you miss out prizing.

I think the reason that T3 is currently where it is, is because the difference between 2-1 and 2-0 (and between 1-2 and 0-2) is often more about variance than who had the better deck.

I have to say I prefer the way it's now than the 2 solutions posted

I agree it's a problem, but neither of the suggestions in this thread so far are fair or would be better. Particularly in the case of personal win record, as thoom said, that's not really a measure of your deck vs. your opponent's deck, it could just as easily be variance.

That said, something ought to be done to stop your tiebreakers tanking from people who lose 4 rounds in a row and then drop, or last minute shifts because multiple previous opponents lost the final round that you won. You have no control whatsoever over who you're matched against in the first 1-2 rounds, but that can absolutely affect whether you end up in 10th place or 40th place just based purely on tiebreakers, without any interaction or influence from you.

What rounds did you lose in?

Usually people who lose early on have worse tiebreakers as they are more likely to get paired against people who will continue to lose or drop.

Im not sure how to improve the system, it does feel bad but you kind of just get used to it. Who you get paired against is just another aspect of randomness in the game you cant control.


Maybe if outside of the the "cut to top 8" the rest of the prizes were distributed on record rather than standings. I know MTG grand prix used to cut to top 64 or 128 for day 2 but they changed it so everyone on X-2 made it instead, seemed like a positive change.

What problems would there be if the first tiebreaker was the sum of the rounds in which you lost? So someone who lost in rounds 7 and 9 would place higher than someone who lost in rounds 2 and 5.

Seems easy for people to complain about tiebreakers, not so easy for them to propose workable alternatives.

Tiebreakers have to exist.

They're kind of part of the game.

It's why people at *insert other game* agonize over mutual draws sometimes, playing their odds.

It's super feel bad, but it's just kind of a "live with it" situation.

Sorry it happened to you, OP.

The system effectively already does this, just in a better way. The people you lost to in round 9 have a much better record than the average person you lose to in round 2, so you end up higher.

However, in extreme cases the current system is far more fair. For example, in the first platinum plunder I lost to Griffinheart round 1. He eventually finished in 9th, and I made the top 8 due to tiebreakers. Under your proposed system I auto-lose because I got matched against one of the top 10 in round 1.

might be better to just have 1 tiebreaker. the secondary/tertiary scores are almost never going to matter

something like a weighted average of: how often you won the coin flip, how strong your opponents were (currently T1), your game win rate (currently T3)

Would ignoring the first two round for the tiebreaker help? After that you have at least had an impact on how good your opponent is.

Does a dropped opponent count as having lose all the later rounds? (it should but since you don't play any more rounds it's possible it freezes your win % when you drop)

The other obvious solution is to make the tournament even longer -I suspect that wouldn't be popular

that you make someone who lose 2 first rounds then win the 7 next have better tie than someone who win the 7 first then lose 2 rounds, it would not work


Hex tiebreakers are one of the best system I saw as tiebreaker goes, yes there is case where you can fell cheated by them but those case are rare compared to other tiebreaker system

I placed 9th in 1st CCS, before cut to top 8, because the person with a first round bye had slightly better T1 tiebreakers than me.

The most elegant solution to this, is find ways to promote and play in large tournaments that do not even look at tiebreakers at all.

For example. A tiered ticket system for Clash:

Tier 1:
At 6am on Sunday (PT), Clash Tournament T1 #001 opens with 128 slots, min participants 64. When 128 is hit, it immediately fires.
Clash Tournament #002 opens with a 15 delayed start time from when clash #001 was suppose to start at 8am (PT) with 128 slots, min participants 16. When 128 is hit, it immediately fires.
So on, so forth
Reward Structure: 4-0 get ticket into Tier 2, which includes a free new sealed limited pool, 3-1 and below get w/e
Each 128 pod can only result in 8 4-0's.

Tier 2:
At 2pm on Sunday (PT), Clash Tournament T2 #001 opens with 128 slots, set to fire at 4pm (PT). (A second can be created if Tier 1 fires more than 16 tournaments - hypothetically)
You can do similar structure - with better rewards, and the clash $ payout can be based on 4-0s, and maybe 3-1s(depending). If you have more than 1 4-0, that means the prior tier 1's were tremendously successful and prize money would scale with participation.

Dates and times can change.

Anyway, I'm not saying Iron man's are not fun, or that the time commitment has to be any less, but the thought process around how tournaments complete and fire for limited pools could always be revisited.

The fact that this is essentially already being done is why I proposed it. It solves the problem that in the last round tiebreakers can change significantly based on matches out of either players control.

I don't think it would be possible to solve both of those issues - if tiebreaker changes only depend on the matches of the tied players, they will never be able to take into account being matched against a strong opponent early.

I don't really see this as a problem. Additionally the suggestions don't really solve the problem but rather they just push it in a different direction. There will always be players on the cusp of some prizing threshold and it is always gonna feel bad to not make it.

Also I kinda got the vibe that folks thought not making a cut based on breakers is uncommon... it is not uncommon at all... it is rare for breakers NOT to matter.