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

Amtgard is a LARP; and 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 LGS (Local Game Store).

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 (with combostax being arguably the most reliable way to counter other combostax decks).

Meh

In a combostax-heavy meta, the overwhelming majority deck archetypes are completely unplayable. Anyone who plays such an archetype will not have a fun time (with very few exceptions). In this way: combostax spreads like phyrexian ichor. Combostax is like a Permeating Mass that infects a meta. And that's so boring.

If you prefer playing cEDH and/or combostax: that's 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 diverse 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, if 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 -plus- maintaining the sort of flurby atmosphere one would expect at a swords-n-sorcery LARP such as Amtgard.

Final thought

As you may know, the fan-made format "Elder Dragon Highlander" was not originally intended to be a competitive format. While winning is technically always the goal of any MTG game, EDH was different - the idea of "cEDH" would have been considered a cringeworthy anachronism. Years later, 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 join me for a walk backwards in time to the early days of the EDH format, and experience an altogether different style of gameplay.

Above all, I hope you all enjoy yourselves at this strange and silly tournament.

:)