It is time for the conversation we have all been waiting for. (No, we won't be talking about daala here )

Obviously Gencon is over and done with and I am curious what everyone's take on the scoring system and the higher point gambit was and is. I will weigh in later once I have more time on my hands.

And of course no good conversation is complete without a poll.(that's actually false, but I like polls, so I am putting in a poll regardless, lol) I would like to hear reasons for your opinion though. Feel free to elaborate and as always keep it kosher.

WHAT!! it's over!? dam! I better leave Indy, and head for home.

I think that the standing should be based on record first with points as the tiebreaker. Especially with the addition of 1 point losses. The effect on individual games is fine though. 10 point gambit forced quicker engagement, which was good.

Couldn't leave him. His car.

Where's the 'this loser couldn't make it to Gen Con/negatively impacted my week' button?

the 3-2-1 got me an extra point, which put me squarely in the top 8. However, without it, I might have still made it as some of the people with 3 wins would have had 8 points, and I would have had 9.

I did feel that overall there was more engagement of armies which IMO is good. Otherwise it didn't have much impact in my games.

I know that some people feel one point losses reward a player for losing and can bite the player that won in the butt. I feel that the game should be played to a conclusion personally. 2 point wins don't conclude in my opinion. Neither player met the victory conditions and they ran out of time to get to them. So now you have to go down to tie breaks in order to figure out the victor.

Personally I think 1 point losses encourage engagement and faster play, both things I think are good for the game. They devalue 2 point wins and are going to start forcing players to either play lower act squads, speed up or play a mass killer squad like Durge, Thon or the like. I think we may see different squads no longer played because they have a difficult time getting 3 point wins. Either that or players are going to have to get faster.

I love 10 point gambit. It actually has an effect on games now! It gives the game a king of the hill aspect that I enjoy. Also it helps more games to finish on time, but not before the outcome would otherwise have been unknown in most cases. As far as I know there were no lockout wins or loses this gencon. I think 10 point gambit makes lockouts more prevalent in players minds. That way they can blow doors before that even becomes a possibility. A lockout loss won't take you by surprise as much as it may have used to.

These changes do change the meta. I decided not to play my Vong squad that is very strong but plays slowly (no movement breakers) the day before the champs. I figured my Vong could have gone 4-1 with 8-9 points before the changes, but both changes hurt it. So I swapped, taking a squad that finished every game, and went 3-2 with 9 points. Luke and Leia on speeder was an extreme scissor squad, so it all came down to match-ups. Both Daala players in the top 8 acknowledged that they were glad they didn't have to face my squad, since it's nearly an auto-loss to both of them. I had bad luck and ran into the top 8 finishing rock squads in round 1 and 3 (and they both played brilliantly on top of it being a bad matchup for me), and it left me out.

So perhaps it pushes the meta toward what some people LIKE more, but it does restrict the meta.

I'm still a big believer that faster does not equal better. I don't like the fact that people with worse records can surpass people with better ones. It used to only be in extreme cases, but now it's much more possible.

Or you just made changes based on an expected meta and you were wrong. It happened to a lot of us.

With your matchups, (2 Rock squads?) IMHO you smash those squads (3pt wins) and make top 8 with Vong.
Even your projected 4-1 with 9 points with Vong would have gotten you into this years Top 8. I don't how your Vong handles the Top 8 sqauds but I bet you would have made Top 8. And once you make Top 8 it's win or lose and points don't mean squat

With my matchups I could have made Top 8 with Master Thon. I can beat Kybuck, Talon, Durge, & Naboo with Thon. I just can't beat Daala with Thon. Diplomats pinning Thon in a Force Bubble is depressing. So I switched to Bastila with Rangers because I knew Daala variants would be at the final tables. I wanted a better chance against Daala. Sadly, like you I had bad match ups and the only Daala I faced was Atmsalad who knows my squad well.

With FlyingArrow's matchups he would have been better off running Barebones Daala. TJ has a better chance against Mandos, Mace and Durge with Barebones. But he was afraid of Yobuck so he decided last minute not to run Barebones.
He got all the way to 5th place without ever playing against Yobuck. He regrets not running Barebones.

I didn't think either one made much of a difference on the meta. I didn't see a single person tell me that they changed some piece in their squad because of 10 point gambit.

As for the scoring system Tim, you know that we simply disagree. I don't consider a 2 point win a win. It's a win on a tie breaker :). I have no problem with a person with 3 complete victories being ahead of another person with 4 tie breaker wins on points or whatever. It makes the game more enjoyable for the most people, which is what we've always tried to do with the rules.

3-2-1 only had a very minor affect on my games. atmsalad and I were both tied after 4 rounds with 11 points and the two playing at table 2 each had only 8. We quickly figured out that if we each got to 100 we were assured 1st and 2nd in the swiss, so I played it that way to ensure getting over 100. It wasn't a make or break thing, but I did hear a lot of others saying the possibility of a 1 point loss was a positive motivation and experience. So overall I think most people liked it.