Talk:Voltron Tournament
An explanation of the underlying philosophy behinh the scoring system:
Written by Kieran the Lucky:
I've been an EDH player since the 2000s - before it was officially recognized by WoTC in 2010/2011. Since then, I have played in quite a number of tournaments. An important lesson I've come to learn 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.
Some decks may be 60/40 combostax, some may be 90/10 staxcombo, but combostax is the final evolution of every compeditive EDH meta at every LGS I've ever been a part of.
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.
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
The game uses positive reinforcement to reward the behavior it wants to see, without changing any acyual rules. • look-the-part potions reqards costuming, which fosters a relaxed, silly admosphere • look-the-part potions also incentivize players not to scoop, without actually making a game-rule against it • 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 deck deny their owners the opportinuty to score
The tourney tries to use the 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. There are so many LGSs to choose from.
This is an attempt to
devolve into some combination of combo and stax
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"Game Design Philosophy" section
(OLD TEXT, from before re-write in june 2022):
Within the game of MTG Commander: the Commander card is supposed to represent the player playing the deck.
This tourney was designed to encourage MTG players to conduct themselves with the honor and chivalrousness of a sword-knight. Winning a game of MTG with an "infinite-combo" is like a caster killing with verbals or spell-balls! But killing with 21-commander-damage is like beating an opponent in 1v1 with single shorts. In this tourney: you must fight with the honor of a knight, regardless of the belt color you wear.
