Weekend Blog #2 - Critical Analysis of Tournaments
Been patiently waiting for my Hive Resource Credits to regenerate :). I may have been "trigger happy" with the recent success of the Critical Analysis blogs. Would like to thank the readers of this series which inspires to me create more meaningful content and strive to get better with blogging.
Got my inspiration for this topic when my friends asked me on how do I select the tournaments I participate to. The amount of information may be overwhelming if you are the type of person that wants to know every specific detail about the tourney and underwhelming if you are just looking for the overview. Hope this analysis be somewhat helpful for everyone. Let's go!
Special thanks again to @monster-curator Team for the support on my blogs. Check out their profile to know more about their great contribution to SplinterLands community and how to be part of it.
Tournaments
Also known as "Events", the coliseum icon on the upper left that new players may have barely clicked or checked out due to a possible notion that it's for veteran players. I myself have not won much from participating on several tournaments but it drastically increased my understanding how deep the strategy for this game is.
It is quite different from Ranked games since there are instances that you may be fighting a "BOT" which are not that completely configured to adjust to all rulesets but in a tournament, you can be sure that you are matched with another person that has tendencies (you may want to check out my previous blog: Critical Analysis of Studying Enemy's Previous Battles: https://www.splintertalk.io/hive-13323/@cadama/weekday-blog-1-critical-analysis-of-studying-enemy-s-previous-battles). This is where reviewing your opponents cards that were used before is critical.
How should I know what's the right Tournament for me?
I guess this is the whole topic of this blog :) Let's go through all the details then:
I've put a number on all I believe important information a player should understand when participating in a tournament and we'll try to expound each.
1. Tournament Name and Sponsors
Not much information on how you should prepare for the battles ahead though it contains the name of the tournament and who created it. It's quite important for the community to recognize individuals that contribute by hosting tournaments.
2. League cap
We cannot simply call a tournament competitive unless it's fair for everyone right? just like in sports, there are weight classes :) The cap dictates the maximum level of cards that can be used just like in a regular ranked game for fair competition.
3. Entry Fee
This is the amount of DEC or other form of token that you will have to pay prior to the start of the tournament. There are instances that a player who is already above the current league will have a higher entry fee compared to players that matches the league cap. For example, Champion League players will show an entrance fee of 10,000 DEC but it only shows 1,000 DEC for Novice and Bronze league players. Which I think is taking the fairness on another level :)
4. Rewards
The rewards are set by the creator of the tournament. Normally, there will be corresponding DECs depending on your placement on the tournament. You may also see Cards and Delegation of Cards or combination of these prizes. I have not created my own tournament yet so there may be more combination or type of prizes available aside on what I have mentioned.
5. Tournament Start Date and Time
I believe the tournament's start date and time is based on your system's timezone therefore, you don't have to use timezone converters and make your life a bit complicated :). I am not entirely sure the amount of time given for you to check yourself in since I usually play "Anytime" type of tournaments but to be safe, be there 15 mins before the scheduled start time.
Though you may not have to worry about this on a type of tournament that can be played "anytime" within 24 hours per round from the start time. We'll have an in-depth explanation on section 9.
6. Number of Participants
This information shows the number of players who have successfully paid the entry fee to be able to join the tournament. You can also see the minimum required participants for the tournament to take place. You don't have to worry if the minimum required is not met, your entry fee will be refunded when the tournament was supposed to start.
7. Minimum Required Power
I am quite impressed with the calculation of this. The calculated power which the aspiring participant have is based on the restrictions for the tournament. For example, the tournament has a rule of "Gold Foil Cards Only". This information will only show the gold foil cards power you currently obtain and will not include in the calculation the non-gold foil. This is another way to ensure that fair play will be observed during the tournament. The player must also meet this requirement to be allowed to participate.
8. Rules
These Rules are additional to the random rulesets in each battle and is applicable to all participants. As explained on section 7, the calculation of required power is based on these rules. This is an information that is quite important when joining tournaments since the available cards you can play heavily depends on these rules. For example on our screenshot, legendary cards are not allowed and the only edition that can be used are untamed edition cards which will make all participants usual card combinations unavailable.
9. Types
There are 3 main types of Tournaments:
a. Single Elimination
It's your usual usual style of tournament that you need a certain number of wins to progress onto the next round depending on what was set by the tournament creator. For the example above, there are 3 rounds that you need to win 2 out of 3 and depending on your final points will be your standing for the whole tournament. Points is based on the amount of Wins, Lost and Draws you've achieved and a complicated tie-breaker scenarios that I do not have an access as of the moment so maybe we'll talk about it some other time.
This is also the type of Tournament that you have to check in prior to schedule start date and time.
b. Anytime
This type of tournament is very similar to Singe Elimination though this time, the players participation is not only measured if he/she have won the series but measured by the points accumulated for each round. There's a percentage set by the creator which decides the amount of player that will advance to the next round.
The scheduled start and time will only indicate when the 24 hours per round countdown will start. Even if a participant missed the first few hours of the tournament, you still have enough time to enter your teams. For example, an anytime tournament with 2 rounds started on Jan 1st at 1pm, you can still input your team for the 1st round until Jan 2nd at 12:59pm. This type of tournaments gives players flexibility to not always wait for the start time if it's not compatible with their schedule.
c. Sit-n-Go
This is the fastest type of tournament out of all the 3 types. The tournament starts as soon as the minimum number of players have been met so participants should always be aware once they've joined.
The participants are immediately matched with another participant and it's single elimination. Once a player wins the battle, they have to wait until the next opponent is available and once matched up, they will only have 5 minutes to accept the invite of the match or the non-accepting participant will be forfeited.
Tournament will be cancelled if the minimum required participants is not met on a date and time set by the tournament creator. Entry fees will be refunded.
10. Team Select Time
This is the time set by the tournament creator how long participants can strategize for each battle.
All of these information is somewhat available on the main page of Events which a player can filter depending on what they are looking for.
Closing Remarks
These are only guidelines which information I look for when searching for tournaments. There may be important details that I have overlooked and will greatly appreciate if anyone can mention it in the comment section. I myself like participating in tournaments to polish my skills and as another source of resources. Hope this blog helped you in anyway and assisted you in learning about SplinterLands events.
If you have any other ideas or topics in mind, don't hesitate to let me know. Also, I highly encourage to correct me on any of my statements on this blog, I strongly believe that mistakes makes a person better. Hope you enjoyed this topic!
Thank you and happy grinding to everyone!
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