Thanks for doing this video! It was refreshing to see your perspective and that of others as I was working and couldn’t experience the Set Championship in person. I agree with your comments and think that if we treat everyone with respect, the Lorcana community will be in good shape.
Very insightful commentary Franz, your section on Player Responsibility and Etiquette was something all players should learn; its especially so more important, when the players you may be with feel robbed because you drove 2 hours to get there and it’s your first time
Everyone has a responsibility to be respectful, but sometimes circumstances mean that you should go above and beyond! I think this is one that absolutely calls for that.
I won my local event. It was 9 people half were parents and the other half were our children. In second place was a 12 year old girl. I won round 1 against her then gave her some coaching tips for her deck for the later rounds. She had the biggest smile on her face when we sat down for the finals. I won the champion mat but I could see the real excitement on her face as she unveiled the 2nd place mat. Kid was over the moon. Made me feel bad for having a teched deck in the event. My daughter came in 5th and was very very excited. This is good period.
I understand that and have been in that position as well, but I can promise you that missing on top cut because draws are double losses or forcing judges to spend the time to watch every match and make a judgement call would make for an overall worse experience.
@@TraverseTavernit really is as simple as making draws count as a loss. It's a competitive event. Compete. If you lose, you get no points. If you draw, intentionally or not, you get no points.
Yeah lost 3 opportunities to a crew who did this at 4+ stitch tournaments. Played the same decks but tailored to take down specific match ups and id'd their way to top cut and took home 10+ stitches over the first weekend. Still salty
@Xoulrath_ except that doesn't work at all with the big tournaments going by the 2 game format. Can't have a 2 game format where a draw is 0 points. Makes it not fun at all for the player base.
@@Xoulrath_ I think doing this disincentivizes specific types of decks that take a longer approach to the game by severely punishing draws. I dislike this type of rule greatly but if RB ever changes to this rule I would go along with it.
I think ID in any competitive card game is the exact opposite of competitive. It allows players a "get off easy" chance instead of actually allowing the best players to win. I am an old magic player i was at a nationals for my country and the side event i was in was a top 8 cut and i just won my match and knew i would make top 8 only to hear the 2 players next to me say "why did you even play? We just ID and you cant make top 8 now" its like seriously? I worked hard and played really well only for 2 bad players to totally invalidate a entire event for several players who now no matter what had no chance at top 8.
I loved how you summarized what was already going around online. I had my first ever championship a few weeks ago and was almost last. all my games took the whole round of 50 min. a week later, i became 4th! everyone was so supportive, even the topplayers from who I won helped me understand how the world off tcg was build. but i hope the 'irritation' from some player online will vanish. it's a game and supposed to be fun!
Proud of your improvement and wish you luck in future competition! Things like this will always be a learning process so we just gotta keep chugging along.
My problem was top cut. Don’t do top 8 if there’s no prizing for it. It just felt like a kick in the teeth playing well and losing in top cut and missing top 4
It definitely hurts, I would have liked to see something for top 8 as well even if it wasn’t the stitch or a mat. Fits into I wish prizing structure was more defined.
@@TraverseTavern I think my problem with ravensburger as a whole is the lack of foresight. Most of these people have worked on tcgs and act like they’ve never seen a tournament before. Prize support throughout the game, reprints that matter, being deaf to the player base were all problems most of them saw when they worked for topps or wizards… you’d think these would be things they would attack early. A ban list maybe. Something to give the players the hey we see that you have to play ruby or steel to win let’s try balance the game… but no lol
@@Bongoplays120 I mean I don’t think a banlist is or has been needed in the games lifespan and for the most part RB has been incredibly forthright with the community. I don’t love how they did the no structure for prize thing for set champs but I understand why it was done. So stores were able to get the kits for free and then make the decision for themselves. Ok concept but I think there’s probably a better way.
12:01 This i think is one of the main root causes of people being frustrated. The prizing is not just really cool, but they became extremely valuable. And money will always corrupt people and make each other jealous. We're all human and will want the money/value. Because it went from a cool thing a lot of locals/noncompetitive players thought was being given to stores for their locals specifically, seeing it become incredibly valuable and out of towners come in and "steal" what they thought was supposed to be for them would be really shocking.
Part of the expectations vs reality, this was never meant as a sort of league promo. This was an exclusive prize for a competitive event. Definitely caused a ton of whiplash.
I don’t disagree! I think my point was that without any guidelines the prizing felt extremely random and I can see people getting whiplash going to different events.
I don't think that it's about getting rewarded for losing. It's about not having this massive disparity between the payouts. His example was extreme, but if you win first, get the Stitch, the Champion mat, and get a booster box, while second place just gets the Stitch and the mat, that's pretty poor planning. A tournament like that has everyone paying a pretty hefty sum, so to almost get first place, then miss out on an entire box after spending say $25 bucks for a single entry fee, isn't just "feels bad," it's awful organization of a tourney. It isn't hard to allow the top 4 to split that box (or boxes) in some way, with first place obviously getting the most, and fourth getting the least.
@@Xoulrath_ get good 😊 first wins the best prizing second is lucky to get the stitch even 3rd and 4th get a stitch that’s Disney being generous, let the trash players get the scraps
@@Cool-ve2bj get good? I've been playing card games for almost 30 years. Are you even 30 years old? You clearly don't understand prize support for a tournament. You're also clearly overlooking that fact that I used the Stitch as an example while making a general statement. If I pay $50 for a tournament, there better be NO DRAWS, actual rules enforcement, and top 3 pricing at a minimum. That's how it was done back in the 90s before Wizards ever supported competitive play in any way themselves. A Gold, Silver, and Bronze medalist type of mentality basically. There were NO Top 8s, or Top 4s. First place got the MAJORITY of the store credit split at 60%. Second place got 25%. Third place got 15%. The percentages got played around with a bit, but you weren't getting anything if you weren't Top 3. This was in a store where it was very typical to have 20 people show up, and have a total of $100 store credit on the line, and back when packs were $3 a pop. Getting $60 in store credit was a very worthwhile prize for a meager $5 entry. However, were the entry higher, say $20, for the same $60/$25/$15 payout, then it wouldn't have been worth participating. Hence the percentages working well, since the prize pool simply got bigger as more people entered the tournament. It's literally not hard at all for Ravensburger to implement something like that. More importantly, if they wish to get the majority of the community to show up, then they need to offer some type of participation prize. They've already slacked on serious tournaments and rules foe their game in an effort to keep it family friendly. If they think that the same handful of mouth-breathing troglodytes winning the majority of the Stitch Enchanted card is a good thing for what their goals are, then they've already dropped the ball.
@@Xoulrath_ you must not have a very strong grasp on the English language little one, you don’t seem to have understood a single thing I said, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with draws princess, go back to playing with urself and not winning, get good or go play go fish
I was able to win 3 stitch championships and a total of 4 stitches. Paid off my last 2 car payments with selling 2 stitchs and sold 1 mat to pay another bill. Way a great experience.
The thing about ID's that should be discussed is the competitive integrity surrounding them. They've existed within TCG's everywhere and very few actually directly address them. It's a competitive etiquette in some ways and I think that is problematic at its roots. It goes beyond sportsmanship and competitiveness and is another form of rules manipulation that normally would be worth amounting to penalties if you choose to change semantics around here and there. The difference is, unlike manipulating the clock for turn actions and gameplay decisions, manipulating points and standings to gain a competitive advantage is considered alright as long as you're not blatant about it. The thing about all of that that truly feels bad is that people IDing are experienced. They know what they're doing and they are, at the bare minimum, looking like they are manipulating the system to gain a competitive advantage compared to your average participant. There isn't a good solution, but at the same time simply accepting it as part of the competitive arena and normalizing it rather than considering means of addressing it and the damaging effects it has doesn't help either.
I disagree that it is manipulating the rules in any way. The rules in lorcana are extremely clear that intentional draws are allowed. There is no "Oh draws equal a point and they can't prove we didn't draw on purpose so let's ID" it is black and white simply allowed as they are being performed. You may request a draw one time at the beginning of the round. If your opponent accepts then it's a draw and if they decline it is not. Something looking like it's underhanded or manipulation doesn't make it manipulation. This may be true in other games but currently not here. My point of keeping it short and saying it's currently allowed is because ID's have been around in TCGs forever with multiple different TCGs taking vastly different approaches on handling them. There isn't enough time in a video or in a comment section to handle that debate with the brevity that it needs so I shorten it to, currently it's allowed if you want to ID you may and if you don't want to ID you may say no. People who ID aren't being underhanded or doing anything wrong, people who dislike ID's are not wrong or need to get good for not accepting an ID.
@@TraverseTavern I think it's very disingenuous to use the very pointed and specific rules RB offers surrounding them as a defense of players not being manipulative. Are they always? Definitely not. Is it not very obviously seen as being manipulative? Absolutely. Further, if it didn't have this potential there wouldn't be specific vernacular for it. Competitive players understand points and values within standings extremely well, it's a competitive edge and I expect them to. However, these rules address discussing with your opponent. You don't think it's manipulative already knowing your opponent in round 4 and discussing IDing with them before the match, working out standings, points, and knowing whether or not its "safe" before they're officially your opponent? It's certainly not within the same realm of sitting down with them officially your opponent and offering it once and accepting or denying, but because you're discussing it with your friend hypothetically regardless of your game knowledge it's absolutely not manipulative? - this is something I witnessed at 4 events, something people vocally complained about after they realized they messed up their ID calculations and tie-breakers because others did the same and screwed up the standings. Hell, it's something I even did, knowing a friend of mine would be my opponent and we could both ID to top 8 and aim for our Stitches. To be clear, I did specify that the perception was based on semantics and that will always matter a lot so it's not that I disagree with you about it being legal currently. I certainly agree that it's allowed, but a lot of the discussion that is being dismissed is the very dismissal of it being problematic and why. Further, sportsmanship is entirely subjective so it's a tough one to even begin to break down. It's often associated with what the organizers and competitive community have come to agree upon and normalize. Its why certain games penalize ID's so heavily, and others don't, IDing itself within the scope of TCG's beyond Lorcana is controversial as to whether it's within the realm of sportsmanlike conduct in the first place.
@@HiroAyami I don't believe it's being manipulative to discuss about potential outcomes with people outside of rounds. Like you said there's no guarantee things work out the way you calculate it to and that's the risk of ID's in general. It's not like me talking to someone about what could happen if we get matched up in the next round makes the event pair us together. Obviously it's not in the same realm because it's next to impossible to enforce any official rules regarding talking to people outside of the event, most TO's have even expressed gratitude to me in other events for explaining outside of the event so there wasn't a huge stink at the beginning of the round. The third point is precisely why I brought up that it's specifically legal here, at the moment what is sometimes considered sportsmanlike in games like FAB/YGO where ID's and draws in general are harshly punished doesn't translate to here because it's not under the same ruleset therefore it's not ambiguous at all. Because of this I say in the video to make your decision and do what you want regarding the subject. Say no or don't offer if you don't like ID's and offer/take ID's if you're fine with it.
No mention because I don't believe it ends ID's at all, 1-1 is still worth 3 points each and there will be a point in the event where both players benefit more from guaranteeing 3 points rather than risking 0.
@TraverseTavern Yes, but while the potential I-Draw folks are contemplating taking 3 points there will be players hustling to get their 7. That is a huge point difference when it matters; seems like the reward won't outweigh the risk. And honestly, this point system will make the spread much larger. That will, hopefully, make the practice moot. I suppose time will tell.
@@tametz The Risk will only ever be taken in general if the 3 points are all that is needed to get to a specific threshold that is calculated during the tournament. What other players in the round gain will not affect the players who ID if the math is done correctly. Some people may do the math wrong and bubble out because of it but that happens now anyway. As long as there are points available for draws, there will be intentional draws.
First time tcg players, so my feedback is reflective of that, I love your honesty and I loved seeing how the competitive market works (in our market with over 30 stores within a hour drive), but where I felt a bit offset was groups of people playing as teams. Meaning a group of people who were sharing cards and full decks, simply for the fact of trying to capture as much of the prizes in the market as possible. Including things like both ID, which I understand but to be honest it is junk when added with that team effort often being used. When you then add in several players who had lost a game then throwing games or reporting wins when they lost simply to help someone advance. It was pretty much ended up after 3 rounds that if you hadn't lost that you simply stopped playing, but yeah knowing that is how that goes it for sure will change how I approach events going forward. I do understand that stores rely on lots of Meta players buying top end cards to boost their revenue, but at the same point the folks who show up once and only once every 3-4 months are unlikely to be buying cards from your shop if they aren't a regular player there. So when a store holds an event and every weekly player (who play very competitive decks and actually are better players than they know) who simply were limited out at most locations or too intimidated to play, so that group that buys boxes of products, takes part in your smaller events end up being alienated. I do appreciate your thoughts, but I think perhaps the biggest sticking point for a lot of new competitive players was the ID issue, which I get is not an easy issue, but when you have 4 people doing ID in round 4 and 8 people doing ID in round 5, if that isn't a form of rigging an event, well I am not sure what is. The reality is that had those 4 and then 8 people had to play the games, there would have been loses that would hugely impacted the final top 8 cut. So that makes it a topic that is going to remain very hot with a lot of people. I also thought it was funny, that locally we had one tournament that started at 10am and one that started at 12 a few miles away, a small group 2-3 players who had lost two matches in the first event tried to make it to the second event to join it to try to have better luck, sadly they showed up a few minutes too late and even their desperate cries of "I will take a forfiet in the first round" simply to be told, sorry we have our players and our event has already started. I do think you made an initial point that got lost, from what was said by RB it did feel to many people that this was supposed to be an event for some of the newer tcg players to be introduced to competitive play, that got very lost in people leaking links sent to FB groups to post for players to their friends for smaller events before posting to the group, to stores holding fake events for their players (while their players were out at other events). The system was too loose with too few guidelines, which resulted in a whole lot of people having very negative experiences and taking away a very negative viewpoint of competitive events. I get it, so I just count it as learning. I will copy that latestest meta deck, play it online for a week before the event and then register for 8-9 events and grind like the grinders do next time around, a lot less fun, a lot less enjoyable than what Lorcana should be. Oh and please for the love of all things, don't say "this is how it is with game x, so it's just how it is" RB can control what the competitive experience looks like, and while that may offend a few of the grinders (not a bad thing, I get it), it could open up competitive Lorcana to a much, much larger group of players which could be much better for the long term success of the game. Just some thoughts.
Yeah the 'teams' thing is a problem in the SWU community as well. a team of 4 or 5 go to every local event with pure meta decks and shared cards. They took most of the top 4's in the local community and it was pretty lame. Hey if people want to hide behind the rules to say they're being competitive then i guess that's their prerogative but its not actually competitive. Especially when specific groups can take strategic IDs that others dont have access to.
It’s hard to speak on the team/ID stuff as I don’t have the full context as to what happened but quick points on it. - sharing cards with friends is part of what trading card games are about imo - if you suspect anything unsportsmanlike is happening during an event then please speak to a judge so it can be investigated - I don’t believe IDs qualify as stacking an event or cheating as it is covered in the rules as being allowed, I understand that many people don’t like them but at the moment there isn’t really anything stores can do. Regarding the event expectations, I believe that the events succeeded for the most part in being a realistic gateway for new players to competitive play. The DLC’s/nationals/worlds/even third party cash events have at least the same level of competitive drive and likely more in the DLC’s/nationals/worlds case. These are SET championships not STORE championships, nothing in the wording ever indicated that this was for a single community at a specific store, if this was their intention it would have only been held on a single day or weekend. I understand that you feel strongly about this but I think the expectations may have been misplaced. I hope that you’re able to have a better time at the next events if you decide to participate!
Think of the id's as being similar to "byes" in competitive sports. The teams that win their divisions in American Football don't have to play the first rounds of the playoffs. Going 3-0 then drawing the final round is basically the same thing, the division winners skip the wildcard round.
I also think if you win a set championship you should be required to use a different deck in another tournament. Probably easier said than done but would a real show of skill if you’re not just running the same meta deck in each event.
Doesn't this just benefit the "evil teams" that share cards? This rule would never work or be enforceable, you just want a way to handicap better players to increase your own chances.
If players wanted a less competitive environment they should stick to league. Not sorry about it. If a prize worth $500+ is in contention then the competitive sweatys will attend. You have every bit the same chance to win as anyone competing, just play well. I had the chance to play in 7 champs, I played in a total of 4, and won only 1 stitch and 1 playmat. Be mad at me if you like but this is the real world.
While what you're saying isn't technically wrong I think there can be more empathy used to say it. It feels very "pull yourselves up by your bootstraps" to a lot of people and I can see why. It's not that difficult imo to listen to the issues and try and have a conversation. It may just end with "this level of play may just not be for you" but it also might end with "I'm excited to get ready for the next event!" Which has the potential to build the community rather than divide it which is really what I think games like this need.
Alls sounds pretty anti-competitive to me. If you're traveling to dump on another area's local store then you aren't looking for something competitive you're just looking to dunk on other players. It's like smurfing in league of legends, its disrespectful no matter how 'nice' you act. IDs are also anti-competitive, you arent playing to win and you aren't trying to be competitive you're just trying to game points
I don’t see it as smurfing, I’m traveling to experience new competition and see what is in my area. I attempt to be as respectful as possible but if you feel that it’s disrespectful anyway then there isn’t much else I can do beyond being cordial. Regarding ID’s, if it’s within the rules and increases my chances at getting to top cut then I personally see that as a competitive tool that is at my disposal, if you do not then you are not forced to do so and can say no at any time.
