So, i know a few of you have waited for this to happen. It did, and you missed it. BUT! I made a recording of it, so you get to see it anyway! _________________________________________________________ Stexe: Here's our rematch "I got a bit lucky, but obviously I think I would have won regardless of the luck due to holding onto so much WW to disrupt the VP spots and my Parry (which failed). Excuse my voice (I start narrating towards the mid with some strategy and thoughts) since I just woke up like 30 minutes before and was (am) still groggy."
It was a good match, but the horrible WWE position I got combined with PaladinGP's good positioning (away from his Wizard) and the lack of NS late in the game cost me the game. I knew it was going to come down to luck since our builds are somewhat similar in style. The large Elo difference made me not watch to face someone that boils down to luck over skill. Either way, no more complaining that I never played you! =) Oh, and it looks like he started copying a large portion of my build after the game.
I was definitely inspired by getting to watch your deck at last. I think I was blitzing too hard, and had *too many* step attacks! I've not copied your build (there's bits of it where I think an alternative approach is better), but you did inspire me to take some steps out and return to the bigger attacks I was playing on the previous mapset. I'll be posting decklists in July, and seeing the differences between what we play should be interesting. I agree with Stexe: it was a good game, and luck was always going to factor into the outcome with that many Whirlwinds in play. We brought quite different decks, on the day: his was beefier, mine was faster. Consequently, I had to try to eliminate his mobility (the wizard), before he could rely on winning static head-to-heads against my warriors who didn't have the huge attacks.
Well, I lagged in that match and my game then froze. You know I would have won. I expect a rematch now that I'm on a huge losing streak and my Elo has dropped way below yours. Lost twice today due to drawing multiple Combustion on the first turn and due to a fail Parry. Then I lost a one or two more due to frustration and bad planning. Today just isn't my day -- longest losing streak I've had in 6+ months. Just let it be known, I would have been at 1860 something still had I called it quits for the week (I was at 11 games played) and not have played you. So I guess all your whining about me avoiding you paid off. :-P
Absolutely, I'd love to play you again. Yep, about 16 hours ago we were 1797 and 1848 - I thought you'd have stopped there, actually, but I must have done just enough to pressure you into feeling you needed to play some more. Getting back up is pretty painful: we're both horribly committed after such a long time in this competition, and it's a slog to come back to 1800 from the low 1700s. I wonder if Feleran's given up on doing that? There are 4 people in play for the top 3 positions, and it only takes 2 losses from a high position for 50ELO to throw everything open..
Lord Feleran said he pretty much gave up since he wanted to be #1 or #2. At least that's what he told me. I played a lot more only because I needed to be nearly 100+ Elo above you each week for the rest of the time to pass. I started the season off poorly and that's come back to bite me towards the end. Oh well. And yeah, it is brutal with such tight clusters at top. I think the whole system of averaging Elo towards the end is flawed -- would have much rather seen the top 10 or something all done a "best of 3 match" against each other or something to determine the winner. Leaving it up to who gets lucky or abuses the ladder is kind of silly in my opinion. Games like League of Legends, StarCraft, and Magic: The Gathering all use a system where Elo is just a qualifier before the finals. But I'm sure I'll go over this again more in the post mortem. =)
I couldn't make it any higher last 2 weeks. You can see I even got 3rd place in the most games section lol. (= I tried, didn't give up. Atm I was travelling for the last 4 days.) And you could have calculated it yourself: why did I play past 1822 2 weeks ago? You were still far behind Stexe and had I kept that rating, you wouldn't have passed me. I played on to pass Paladin too. Not a good idea lol Anyway things got much more interesting now with TST rising to compete for TOP 3 and Stexe falling from his 2nd place
Haven't you said repeatedly that matches come down to who gets lucky? How then does a finals end up different?
You play a best of 3 or 5. It helps mitigate the luck from a single match. It is possible that finals would still be determined by luck, but a series of games reduces it. That's what they do with similar games like Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone which are both heavily luck based.
Whatever the format, blaming luck after a loss isn't really part of (e-)sportsmanship. Furthermore, luck is a part of card-based games, even more so when the contenders rely on WW this much. It's not like you failed us or anything, Stexe, you don't need to point out the how-s and why-s for your loss. There's honor in losing too!
Those games have series to help mitigate luck. I'm sure if we had a series of games I wouldn't blame it on luck as much, unless WW/WWE was allowed. Those cards are just ridiculous in any format. Also, I always do an analysis after a game to figure out why I lost, what I can do better, and what I can learn from the game. Me saying "it was luck" is usually just that... but despite what people think I really don't always blame it on luck. Yesterday I lost a match by misplaying -- I should have Frost Jolted the enemy Warrior to lock him down instead of moving away and trying to rely on zone of control for restricted movement. I've just been playing the game for so long that it usually does boil down to luck, as I know all the cards, basically all the items (at least all the top in class stuff), and know what I should do when I play. That wasn't the case when I first started playing, although there was a bit of luck there too (as there will be with any card game). I attribute a lot of my success to constantly analyzing my gameplay and other people's gameplay. Not trying to prove something to anyone, just trying to understand and learn from it.
Well then it seems that if the top players would all just keep playing each other then it would play out like a series rather than a single match (and would be the greatest mitigater of luck since more games mitigates luck more). This seems to be a issue with the players, not the season format then, especially since the season was to encourage more play.
Yeah, it's not a structure tournament organized to determine who is number one at a given time. It is a long event that rewards people for consistently doing well.
You'd still need to play games to qualify. Thus more people would still play. Then it should be a tier system like in League of Legends or StarCraft. Simply have X average score over the entire period to win Y prize. Having the competition be against individual people but in an indirect manner doesn't work well. The system is currently some weird hybrid of the two and doesn't work as well as it could. But we're a bit off topic anyway. We can discuss this in the season forum and in more depth when the season is over.
