Talk:Voltron Tournament
An explanation of the underlying philosophy behinh the scoring system:
Written in the words of Kieran the Lucky, designer of the Voltron tourneys:
Hello, fellow MTG player. I've been an EDH player since the 2000s - before it was officially recognized by WoTC. Over the years, I have played in quite a number of tournaments, large and smol. An important fact I've observed from my decades playing this game: all tournament metas eventually devolve into "combostax".
An LGS may create a new EDH tourney, and for a time, there may be a healthy and interesting level of deck biodiversity. But on a long enough timescale: all competitive metas will eventually devolve into some form of combostax.
Another stark lession I've learned over my many year of MTG: 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).
The trouble is, in a combostax-heavy meta, 90% of the deck types are unplayable and overall. Anyone who plays them will be absolutely miserable. In this way: combostax is like phyrexian ichor. Combostax is like a Permeating Mass that infects a meta. And that's boring.
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.
If you like combostax matas: great. 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.
