2023-March Civilized Challenge Tournament

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Theo
Posts: 1393
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:49 pm
Location: Denver, CO

I'd like to open registration for a Civilized Challenge tournament event. Registration deadline is Feb 28 EST, with round pairings commencing March 1 and in roughly 7-day intervals thereafter. Games will be played on cardnum (or other mutually agreed upon method that supports adding site cards to decks) according to the rules below. The event is expected to run at least through March.

Summary: bring a Challenge Deck or make one with similar restrictions including max 3 rares, 15 card sideboard, and certain banned cards and rule modifications to reduce traps for new players and decks getting totally shut down. Same deck against all opponent alignments.


The goals of this event are:
  • a constructed format that is less scary to less-experienced players than General Opponent;
  • potential for more card play diversity than expansion-restricted formats (such as METW-only) or the traditional Challenge Deck format;
  • bring to the community new decks that generally wouldn't be too terribly expensive for new collectors to create with physical cards.

Civilized Challenge Format Rules:
  1. Game Format - Games must be in accordance with the 2-deck game format.
  2. Deck Integrity - Players must use the same deck (pool, main deck, sideboard, Fallen sideboard, and rare site(s)) for each game. Players may optionally submit their custom deck lists 3 days in advance of their first game for verification of legality. The server logs may also be used to check legality afterwards.
  3. Deck Construction - Players use the same single deck against all opponents. There are two options for decks:
    Players may use any ICE Challenge Deck, except The Witch-king preconstructed deck must replace Long Winter and Foul Fumes with other allowed cards (see below). Challenge Deck players may move any of their non-avatar characters into their draft pool. They may also add a sideboard up to 10 cards against Fallen Wizards following the below restrictions to deckmaking, as well as backup wizard characters in case opponent declares as Fallen. Note that the decks included on cardnum account creation were historically incorrect; players should consult viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1601 to verify (viewtopic.php?f=128&t=4215 may help).

    Players may alternatively make a custom ICE-legal deck following 2-deck game format along with these additional restrictions:
    1. No more than 3 rares, which must be different. Cards that only appear once in the MEBA box set are considered rares (cardnum lists these as rares). English-printed promos are not considered rares. Rare sites count against this limit and should be placed into the sideboard in the cardnum deckbuilder.
    2. No more than 15 cards in the standard sideboard.
    3. Players cannot have the following cards anywhere in their custom decks:
      1. Sustainable roadblock hazards: Long Winter, Snowstorm, Foul Fumes, Beorning Skin-changers, Drowning Seas, Winds of Wrath, The Way is Shut
      2. Immediate removal hazards: Call of Home, Muster Disperses, News of Doom, Tookish Blood, Call of the Sea, Early Harvest, Stay Her Appetite, Your Welcome is Doubtful, Will not Come Down, Twisted Tales, Unhappy Blows, Reluctant Final Parting, Neither so Ancient Nor so Potent, Rats!, Aware of their Ways, Desire All for Thy Belly, Rolled down to the Sea, Pilfer Anything Unwatched, Veils Flung Away, Indur Dawndeath
      3. Character removal resources: A Malady Without Healing, Ren Unleashed, No Better Use, Sack Over the Head, Treason the Greatest Foe, Use Your Legs
  4. Additional Modifications to Play:
    1. There is no One Ring victory.
    2. At any time during the character draft, a player with a Challenge Deck may announce that they are using a Challenge Deck to get character priority over an opponent that has not so announced. That is, an announced Challenge Deck player that has a duplicate reveal with an unannounced opponent successfully drafts the character. This does not change that players may not draft characters already drafted by an opponent.
    3. Players may only use their own rare sites explicitly included in their deck (counting against the rare limit). To use, players should place the standard cardnum copy from the site deck face down as they would any site, and when it is revealed they should retrieve the explicit copy from their sideboard as proof. (An announced Challenge Deck Saruman, Alatar, Radagast, or Adunaphel can also use their specific rare site without explicit sideboard proof.) Other sites may be used freely.
    4. Influence checks against opponent’s characters and resources cannot add more than 8 to the roll, and an identical character cannot be revealed.
    5. Discards of hazard player’s characters and resources are ignored for these cards: The Arkenstone [M], People Diminished, Lord and Usurper, Invade Their Domain, The Riddle Game, Bow of the Galadhrim
    6. Attacks from CvCC or Hounds of Sauron get a -2 prowess penalty. Uncivilized!
    7. Additional Card Errata: Chance of Being Lost may be used against any opponent. Against an opponent of the opposite alignment, the site is set aside and the opponent uses his or her own version of the chosen site. If it is taken from the discard or is an unavailable rare it enters play tapped and is not usable by that player for any purpose besides that movement. If the used site becomes tapped otherwise, the original site set aside is discarded when the opponent discards the used site. Otherwise, the original site is returned to the location deck when the used site leaves play.
  5. Tournament Points - This event will be using an adaptation of the CoL tournament points, roughly 1.5x of the CoL TP, designed to slightly elevate the importance of winning over the CoL MP gaps, as well as reduce Swiss pairing skill variance from early concessions and One Ring losses. Details below.
Last edited by Theo on Fri Feb 03, 2023 6:52 am, edited 8 times in total.
One [online community] with hammer and chisel might mar more than they make...
All players are welcome at Meduseld! https://theo-donly.github.io/MECCG/
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Theo
Posts: 1393
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:49 pm
Location: Denver, CO

More of the typical cardnum event rules follow.

Overarching Rules:
  1. Communication – communication with the event officiator (me) must be via the MECCG Discord event announcement https://discord.com/channels/6880583535 ... 3699818497, or Discord private messaging if on game info or other private matters. (Discord has no registration or download requirements.)
  2. Core Rules - The rulesbooks, Collected Rulings File (CRF), ICE rulings, and CoE rulings, and Council of Lorien Tournament Policy are available in the Rules section of cardnum. Deck Construction, Game Setup, and Game Play must adhere to these rules except as modified above. Rules disputes should be submitted to the officiator for adjudication.

Logistic Rules:
  1. Registration - registration should include a cardnum account name and a Discord username, as players must at a minimum be able to communicate on Discord for coordingating their games with one another. Registration should also include an assurance that the registrant has read these rules. For example: "I've read the event rules. I'd like to register. Cardnum: Theo2. Discord: Theo#4594. Thanks."
  2. No Scouting - Players are not allowed to share any player's card collection nor deck information, specific or general, other than their own info in their own games until the final results have been announced. Violators will be handled on an individual basis, with ejection from this and future events possible. Keep reflections in a personal journal until the tournament ends.
  3. Scheduling of Games - Players have 7 days to complete each game and should typically attempt to begin communicating availability with their opponent within the first 24 hours after pairings are announced. If the game is not completed in time and it is your fault, you will receive no points for the game and may be dropped out of the tournament. If it is no one's fault (e.g., scheduling not possible), both players may either receive three tournament points or points for partial games as if they had reached the time limit. Determination of fault and outcome is at the discretion of the tournament officiator, although failure to submit a report as to why a game was not completed automatically puts you at fault. This is an international game, and players are discouraged from entering the tournament without anticipation of at least a few different possibilities (including weekday and weekend) within a week (more for players choosing Both alignments) for sychronizing with players in other time zones or with other work and family schedules.
  4. Requesting a Bye - If a player knows that they will not be able to play one of the rounds in advance, they may request a bye for that round before pairings are announced. This bye is always worth a tied game. One per player per tournament.
  5. Time Limit - All games have an optional time limit of 150 minutes (2:30). If either player requests the time limit before the game, or during the first 90 minutes of the game, it is in effect. After that, either player may set a limit of as short of one additional hours of play from when notice is given to the other player, or both players can agree for the 150 minute maximum to be in effect.
  6. Reporting Results – Both players should agree and submit the game outcome along with both players' Marshalling Points to the officiator. Players should capture a screenshot of the End-of-Game state for their own records in case of dispute, including the Marshalling Point tracker and all cards in play. On Windows, the “Snipping Tool” or the PrtScr button (and paste into Discord or a document) may be used to capture screenshots.

Cardnum Rules:
  1. See "Card Num Guidelines" at viewtopic.php?p=36989 (items 13-20).
  2. Cardnum Malfunctions: any player may submit a report of a malfunction in cardnum for possible at-discretion adjustment of the game point outcome, explaining what happened and why the impact is perceived to be significant. Submissions received after the announcement for the next round of pairings will be received with more skepticism.
Last edited by Theo on Wed Mar 08, 2023 6:24 am, edited 5 times in total.
One [online community] with hammer and chisel might mar more than they make...
All players are welcome at Meduseld! https://theo-donly.github.io/MECCG/
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Theo
Posts: 1393
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:49 pm
Location: Denver, CO

Tournament Points:
This event will be a trial of the following Tournament Point system in place of the the Council of Lorien system. This system is roughly 1.5x TP of the CoL, and is designed to slightly elevate the importance of winning over the CoL MP gaps, as well as reduce Swiss pairing skill variance from early concessions and One Ring losses.
  • A One Ring win is 10 TP. (not applicable to the Civilized Challenge Format)
  • A Marshalling Point win more than 2x+10 over opponent is 9 TP.
  • Otherwise, more than 1.5x+5 over opponent is 8 TP.
  • Otherwise, more than 1.2x+2 over opponent is 7 TP.
  • Otherwise, over opponent is 6 TP.
  • A tie is 4.5 TP.
  • An MP loss is 9 minus opponent's TP. (This is equivalent to 3 minus 1 for each complete gap of (opponent's MP + 10)/6 from opponent.)
  • A loss to One Ring is as though opponent had twice the MP needed to call. (For 2-deck games, this means 20 MP gives 1 TP, 30 MP gives 2 TP, 40 MP gives 3 TP.) (not applicable to the Civilized Challenge Format)
  • Concession is 0 TP to the one conceding and max TP to opponent according to their deck capability (9 or 10). Conceeding early during an event will also incure a participation penalty and the player may be dropped from the event. Event participants are strongly encouraged to contact the event coordinator prior to round pairings when an absence is foreseeable.
  • A bye from an incomplete pairing is worth 9 TP for the first round and 1.5 less TP for each round thereafter, to a minimum of 4.5. When possible, tournament organizers should strive to have a standby player to make even pairings for the first round.
  • Point modification from early concessions and byes are awarded incrementally at the start of remaining tournament rounds for pairing purposes. (E.g. consider a 4-round event. A round 1 early concession at 15-20 MP will cause the conseeder to be paired in round 2 as if the game contributed 2 TP, in round 3 as if that game contributed only 1 TP, and in round 4 with that game contributing 0 TP. A bye from an incomplete pairing awards 4.5 points immediately, and another 1.5 points prior to each remaining round.)
One [online community] with hammer and chisel might mar more than they make...
All players are welcome at Meduseld! https://theo-donly.github.io/MECCG/
User avatar
Theo
Posts: 1393
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:49 pm
Location: Denver, CO

Just a couple days left, and not yet as many new faces as I was hoping. Now is your chance!
One [online community] with hammer and chisel might mar more than they make...
All players are welcome at Meduseld! https://theo-donly.github.io/MECCG/
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Tom Bombadonne
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2020 6:05 pm

How did the tournament turn out?
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CDavis7M
Posts: 2816
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 3:10 am
Location: California

There's discussion on discord about it, though I'm not sure if this link will work.
https://discord.com/channels/6880583535 ... 3699818497
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