Talk:Voltron Tournament

An explanation of the underlying philosophy behind the Voltron Tournament.

Written in the words of Kieran the Lucky, game designer:

TL;DR

Hello, fellow MTG player,

Amtgard is a LARP. This tournament is for Vorthoses, Timmies and the occasional Johnny) in our LARP community. It is for roleplayers and flurbs and folks who want a different experience than what they'll find at their Local Game Store (LGS).

Observations

I've been an EDH player since the 2000s - long before this fan-made format was officially recognized by WoTC. I've played in many tournaments, large and smol.

When an LGS creates a new EDH tournament scene: for a time, there may be a healthy and interesting level of deck biodiversity. But from what I've observed: on a long-enough timescale, all competitive metas will eventually devolve into some form of combostax.

Another stark reality I've observed: Most MTG players don't play in tournaments for this very reason. Combo/stax decks aren't particularly fun to play AGAINST, unless you yourself also run one of the few deck archetypes that can deal with it (and combostax is [arguably] the best way to counter other combostax decks).

Meh

In a combostax-heavy meta, 90% of the deck types are unplayable. Anyone who plays such an archetype will be absolutely miserable (with very few exceptions). In this way: combostax is like phyrexian ichor. Combostax is like a Permeating Mass that infects a meta. And that's so boring.

If you like combostax metas: that's just fine. This is not a personal attack. There are so many LGSs to choose from, where you are free to play in a meta you'll enjoy. You are simply not the target audience of this tournament.

Minimalism

This game's scoring system is designed to cultivate a meta ecosystem that never devolves into combostax. This scoring system tries to use the most minimal intervention, to achieve maximum results.

• there is no banned list beyond the official one,
• there are no actual changes to game rules,
• there is no negative reinforcement,

Instead, the Voltron tourney uses only positive reinforcement to reward the behavior it wants to see:

• look-the-part potions encourage costuming, which fosters a relaxed, silly atmosphere
• look-the-part potions incentivize players not to scoop, without actually making a game-rule against scooping
• the scoring system rewards non cEDH strategies, without punishing others (not-being-rewarded isn't the same thing as being punished).
• the one-hour time limit incentivizes faster gameplay; discouraging slower control decks or stax decks because such a deck would deny their owners the opportunity to score (as well as denying others that same opportunity).

The tourney tries to use the absolute minimum intervention, ONLY positive re-enforcement, and NO changes to the mtg-rules, to cultivate a friendly meta that never devolves into the same stale repetitive combostax meta that every other LGS's tourney scene seems to have.

Final thought

As you probably know, the fan-made format we knew as "Elder Dragon Highlander" was not originally intended to be a competitive format. While winning has always the goal of any MTG game, EDH was different - the idea of "cEDH" was a laughable anachronism. EDH was officially recognized by Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro in 2010/2011-ish, and the name was changed from "Elder Dragon Highlander" to "Commander". Since then, the format has changed a lot. In some ways, it has become an antonym of it's former self.

I invite you to me for a walk backwards in time to the early days of the EDH format, and enjoy a fun and different style of play.

I hope you all enjoy yourselves at this tournament.

:)