Guys, I used a totally random draw for London but it is clear that in a 3x game tournament the intial game draw can have a large impact on the results.

As an alternative, would it be worth using s 'ceding' mechanism or even the results from the previous tournament to determine the order of players?

Ceding
So you take the current (or last year's) positions and split the attendees into two groups with the 'odd' numbered positions playing each other and the even numbers playing each other.

Last Game
As above, but only consider the positions from the previous game.

The advantage would be that the first tournament games would be much more balanced, tending to make the tournament more balanced as a whole. The disadvantage obviously being that the same people might tend to end up playing each other in the first game, and so the subsequent play-offs would have a similar feel, though that tends to happen at the moment anyway (with a limited few getting the honour of challenging Dave Thomas for top spot when he is playing).

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

We used to do ceding draws back when I did stuff with the ECBBL blood bowl tournies. We really liked it. There it worked on team and was also a global ranking through the NAF.

The advantage of playing the average best against the average best first round is that obviously don't get such a potential tournament skewing set of results for a couple of lucky chaps, but you can still get a few big wins or losses.

Yes it would potentially mean a new player who was still learning the ropes won't play one of the 'heavies' but thats more to the regulars advantage, not his. Who really wants to be wiped out or beaten 5-0 as its their 5th gme of Epic?

I'm for it, you still get to play new guys who are doing as well as yourself and you don't get pitched into harsh match ups.

As a further measure I would suggest peoples home clubs are used to try and ensure that regular opponents don't end up against each other unless its a tournament deciding round.

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If ya'll are going to be properly tournamenty, then a ceeding system would seem to make sense.

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The 1st round draw could be split into 2 groups and then a random draw done for each group.

We could use the previous or current Championship table as the base for seeding players.

Using London 09 as an example.
16 players would be split into 2 groups of 8.
Group A would be the 8 highest on the championship table and Group B would be the newcomers,Players who haven't scored points yet and lower positioned players.
Then carry on as a swiss style system afterwards.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Oh yeah only use ceding for the first round draw.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

I actually would advocate a different system, more akin to tennis, with the porposed system the first round is more balanced but the second round would be skewed as an expereinced winner will likely play an inexperienced player.
I would do it sosplit into two halves then pair the upper with lower so ceding difference is same
i.e
1 V 9
2 V 10
3 v 11
etc
With this you would expect all top 8 players to win and then play others the same all the way up

I'd prefer the random system as is personally; I like the fact I could come up against the top players, who realistically I'm unlikely ever to face otherwise. Yes they'd likely wipe the floor with me, but I'd learn a lot. The poorest players otherwise could stay stuck at the bottom of the table the whole time and never play anyone good.

However experienced a player I was, one of the draws of going to a tournament would be the opportunity to play new people. Arranging the selection so that the best of the regulars play each other instead reduces that variety and I think is a worse option for the tournaments.

I agree with GlynG. The swiss system ensures the better players will play each other in the later rounds, but the first round should remain random to allow the chance of playing against anyone.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

Thats fine zombo for 2 day tournies, but for one day ones (or very large ones which epic doesn't yet have), having a great win game 1 then a coupe of average games is enough to clinch it sometimes. Yes having a ceding first round doesn't make the problem go away as its still there int he second round, but at least there is now less of it. Add in you don't play people from the same club rounds 1 and 2 and you have plenty of variety and a fairer challenge.

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

I really dont think its needed, Ive always found the random, luck of the draw element of one day tournaments to be quite fun and I am not convinced a seeding system would really achieve that much anyway.

Besides luck of the draw or not - Dave T wins in the end

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Okay, *NOW* I get what you're all taking about here... couldn't figure out what was meant by "ceding" in this context and how this would make for a better tournament.

Cede - to yield or formally surrender to another: to cede territory.

vs

Seed - to arrange (the drawings for positions in a tournament) so that ranking players or teams will not meet in the early rounds of play.

All clear now.  

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