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Sep 6, 2011 -- 4:34PM, vtphoenix26 wrote:

3) It's always been difficult to qualify on rating, you had to be the top 100. You still have to be the top 100. Are all the people complaining really in the top 100 often enough so that this change is that significant?

In smaller countries here in Europe it's relatively more achievable to get in the top75.

Sep 6, 2011 -- 4:34PM, vtphoenix26 wrote:

4) FNMs being weighted more than Thursday night drafts etc - Wizards considers FNM the most important play program for "acquisition". Do you guys know what that means? It means they want to "acquire" more consumers of their product.

This is a problem from a while back, but again, here in Europe friday is going out night. They should allow FNM to be on thursday again, like they used to.

Sep 6, 2011 -- 5:35PM, orcishartillery wrote:

Sep 6, 2011 -- 3:52PM, TobyornotToby wrote:

My biggest problem with this system is that it resets every year.

Actually, the Competitive Points Total resets every four months.  There's a lot more detail about the program here: www.wizards.com/Magic/PlaneswalkerPoints...

Thanks for the heads up, good to know! I like that better actually. Easier to play more intensively for a few months than a whole year.

One of my problems with this new system, is that I can't see any incentive for an FNM level play to grind away.  Even if you play FNM, plus one or two drafts, generally go 3-1, by the end of the season you are unlikely to have enough points to qualify for Pro-tour.  Then the scores reset and you start again.  What for?  What's the point?

This is the exact setup which stops me from playing tournaments online.  The season last 4 weeks, and unless you play everyday grinding and winning, you won't qualify for end of season.  So why play at all?  Not that I don't practice online I do - probably at least 20 hours a week.  But the payoff for grinding in tournaments isn't high enough.

In real I play FNM, pre-releases, launch parties, game days, and have just started drafting.  All with an eye on my rating.  Not a great rating system, but a rating system non the less than can be monitored, with aspirations of overtaking regular opponents scores.  But now what to aim for?  I know there are lots of players that play once a week or twice a week more than me.  I could do the same, give up other hobbies, other lifestyle choices, but again to what end?  After 4 months that score resets and nothing has been gained.

Now if I was a pro-tour level player I can understand the concept.  But Im not.  So selfishly I ask, what's in this system for me?

Now that FNM is one of the top ways to build your PWPs, and are among the 'most casual' events both for players and organizers, please consider the following:

- What is stopping stores from running 7-round FNMs, doubling the number of points players in that store will get?
- What is stopping stores from sanctioning two FNMs, running one on Thursday and one on Friday but reporting both on Friday?

I would be pleased if you would announce that 'only the first 3 FNM rounds per week count' or whatever. It is too easy to fraud up this system. 

There is some good discussion in this thread so I hope it's read and I'm happy for the rating system to be tweaked more if deemed necessary.

I do like the intention of the new system and think it will encourage more play at least initially but I have a couple of concerns.

1) I'm somewhat concerned that areas where there isn't much opportunity to play high multiplier tournaments it is going to be even more impossible to 'break out'.  Living in Australia where we only have one GP a year I could see situations where you could come first and not recieve an invite to the next ProTour given there isn't any other high multiplier tournaments to play in.

2) I hope the balance is right beteen rewarding skill and participation.

3) I want to reitterate what others have said about bringing this to MTGO.  I don't have the time anymore to carve out my Fridays or Thursday for drafts at the store yet I'll play till 2am a night or too online.  I imagine there is less ways to game this new ratings system so maybe we could have games online count under the one system.

Finally, there was little mention of what lifetime points or say FNM points would get you as you leveled up.  Maybe we could integrate the old Player Rewards system as that (and actually playing with people) was what got me to come to a store rather than play online.  

I really like the system.
- The issue of players sitting on their rating and getting rating invites to Nationals because they played well in two back to back tournaments with high K-Value opposed to people who actively play tournaments ist gone
- The issue of people not taking part in tournaments although they'd like to because they are afraid of losing rating is gone


For the aspiring Pros, it probably will be necessary to play more GPs.

For everyone else, it really makes no difference at all.

And you don't qualify anymore for anything just because you have a high rating. But you qualify because you played well and often during this particular year. You don't play competitive Magic anymore, at least not on a regular basis? Then why should you go to Nationals?

EDIT: OOps, Mistake.
I wrote:
- The issue about GPs and Pro Tours vs. FNM is hardly one. If you end up  in the Top16 of a GP you probably get something like 900 points. You  just CANT get that much from FNM.

This is not true. You get much less. I calculated the Top16 points x 24. But the Top16 points already have the 3 points for a win built into it. So... you get something like 250 points for a Top16 at a GP.

EDIT2:
I really wonder about the FNM part, though. I wonder how many venues will start their FNMs at 14:00, then 18:00 and 22:00, to let their homies play 3 FNMs each Friday, to rack up points for this FNM championship and allow massive point grinding.

Sep 7, 2011 -- 2:37AM, _Flin_ wrote:

And you don't qualify anymore for anything just because you have a high rating. But you qualify because you played well and often during this particular year.

That's the problem many see. You don't have to play well anymore. You just have to play very very often.

I like the principle, but not the execution.

My old coach used to say "everyone wants a report card". And I have found him to be correct, in all walks of life. So, whilst having a lifetime scorecard is something, I would like it to mean more than just that I turned up to more events than the other guy. In other words, I would like to see it improve with my play.

It seems there is no place for me to go with that mindset. Under this system, it means more to lose 0-3 each week at FNM than to turn up once per month at a booster draft and win 3-0. The FNM loser gets 3 x 1 each week, ie. 12 points in a month, whereas the booster draft winner gets 1+ 3x3 = 10 points a month.

I would have enjoyed the lifetime rating more if accompanied by a lifetime gameplay rating.

I decided to check some sample tournaments to see how it adds up.

If you go 3-2 at a 32-person FNM, you get 9 points from matches + 3 points in participation, with a multiplier of 3, for 36 points.

If you go 4-2 at a 128-person PTQ, you get 12 points from matches + 5 points from participation, with a multiplier of 5, for 85 points.

If you win a Grand Prix like Yuuya Watanabe just did in Pittsburgh, you got 40 points from swiss, 9 from top8, and 8 participation, with a multipler of 8, for a total of 456.

That means playing 1 FNM and 1 PTQ every weekend for 1 month (121 x 4 = 484) is more valuable than winning a Grand Prix (456)!  Does that really seem right?  I understand that averaging 4-2 at PTQs puts you in the better half of the player base, but compared to winning a GP?

Direct effect on me is insubstantial, but I'll sure be disappointed the first time I hear a GP winner isn't qualified for the Pro Tour but grinders who haven't even won anything are.

(BTW, anyone who's thinking of saying "but Yuuya would have other points too", you're completely missing the point.  Don't bother.)

Sep 6, 2011 -- 4:46PM, Nyktos wrote:

Sep 6, 2011 -- 4:34PM, vtphoenix26 wrote:

4) FNMs being weighted more than Thursday night drafts etc - Wizards considers FNM the most important play program for "acquisition". Do you guys know what that means? It means they want to "acquire" more consumers of their product.

I'm aware Wizards thinks that. I also think it's bullshit. My first sanctioned event was a Thursday draft. Why? Because I didn't have a Standard deck. I guarantee you that the fact that one was "FNM" and the other wasn't had absolutely no weight in the decision about which one sounded more interesting to me. A lot of stores run both a Standard night and a draft night. Either one can be Friday, and that one gets some neat promo cards, but in the end it doesn't really which one is on which day, right?

Well, apparently now it does, because the one that happens to be on Friday is worth three times as many PWPs.

New players might not know what Planeswalker Points are, let alone care about them, so that's absurd.

The bigger problem about that is that more serious players with more serious decks will now go to FNMs to earn more points, meaning those events will lose their casual appeal.

I'm surprised that the reboot of DCI Rating doesn't take MTGO into consideration, what's the reasoning behind this?  These days, a major change to Magic that doesn't consider MTGO, sticks out like a sore thumb.

wow. this is definitely a big change for the game. not sure if it is a big blunder, but besides some upsides, this cannot be called "rating" anymore, because it just isn't. It's more a marketing trick than anything else, leveling always is, because it just rewards quantity. (and btw. if you take a look at the website you can already see how this "trick" is trying to motivate you ... " x points left for level x" ... kind of pointless) plus, for every grownup, this whole "what level are you" -thing is really, really childish.

This is not a rating system, it's obviously a selling system...and although I was never someone who cares a lot about it, it was still a indicator for your game skills. Everybody gets, that as a company they want to make money - who doesn't, but taking a mediocre rating system away from competitive magic and replace it with something like this cannot be good for the game at all.

For everybody mentioning the ELO system. I am a chess player too, and I can say, the ELO rating system works a little bit different than the DCI rating. In Chess, the ELO system also protects good players from random losses, because there is not just plus/minus points, there is also a factor based on your actual rating. The higher your rating, the less ELO points you can win and lose. This makes a big difference, because a good player can keep the variance very low. The DCI rating, however, made some really ridiculous things possible. For example, typically the one who wins Nationals has the highest rating afterwards, just because of that many wins in a row. In such a system, it's more than understandable, that competitive players want to keep their rating and don't play minor events.

So, if the intention was only just about rewarding players for playing, then i wonder, why just not change this little thing in an existing system. This would be way more professional than just rewarding stupid grinding.

As it is, it's definitely NOT about having a professional rating system for competitive playing, it's all about marketing and selling.

But in the end i guess, the old rating system was also as bad, so I think I do not really care at all. Let's see, how it turns out.

Sitting on Rating wasnt the worst thing ever. If you are good enough to Q for a PT and sat on your rating one of two things would happen when that PT came around. You play well and keep your rating where it was or you play poorly and your rating plummets. Thus earning you a spot on the next PT. It wasn't like people would earn a good rating years ago then play in every PT and not perform well. To stay on the PT you have to play well consistantly. I feel like people are imagining these magic players who don't play at all(because they don't go to FNM or other weekly tournaments) as people who are bad at the game. When in fact they test alot with friends and put more time into getting better through practice not going to a draft where barely half the field even knows what a signal is!

 Why does Wizards have to punish good players who want to have a life. And FNM 3x!!? As hard as it is to believe for WOTC, some magic players have lives outside of magic. A lot of top pros want to enjoy their weekends and go out with magic and non magic friends to do no magic things on friday night. Not be FORCED to play in FNMs where the metagame isn't up to par and the players suck.

Considering ratings invites to the Pro Tour:
For example Germany gets it's number of PTQ halfed, to 6.
Furthermore the number of GPs in Europe will be 3 in the first season of 2012, compared to 8 in the USA. Add to that big K-Value tournaments like the SCG-Open, and suddenly, as a German player, you are in the position that there aren't many high value tournaments around to get competitive points.

So expect to see an enormous rise of US Pro Tour participants. Because the Europeans will just lack the possibility to qualify via rating (due to the lack of high level tournaments), plus the number of PTQs is heavily reduced.

While the change overall seems reasonable (apart from the way too high FNM factor), this detail appears to anger a lot of the European players.

Sep 7, 2011 -- 5:22AM, TobyornotToby wrote:

The bigger problem about that is that more serious players with more serious decks will now go to FNMs to earn more points, meaning those events will lose their casual appeal.

I don't necessarily see that as a problem.  Yeah, the guy who got to be big fish in the small pond now has some sharks back in his waters, but on the whole it adds to the cosmopolitan nature of FNM.

What I liked least about the old rating system was when someone would just grind FNMs against a safe audience to get their ranking up instead of taking on real competition in something big.  Case in point: last weekend's PT mentioned John Stolzmann, who wasn't quite qualified after GP Kansas City.  So he flew to Wisconsin to play FNM for a few points since he knew his odds there. I don't know what impression the anecdote was supposed to give, but to me it sounded like "couldn't really qualify so he found a loophole."  (Nothing against John, that's just not the threshold I want to see.)

Now this new system would save a flight but only because any FNM would do.  The worst part has been made the standard.

Imagine 2 cases for Competitive rating:
1. A player plays every day a draft for 8 people with an average result 1:2. For every such event he gets 4 points to his competitive rating this season. At end of season he gets 4*30 (days in a month)*4(months in a season)=480 points
2. Another player plays only once a week, but he wins every draft. For each draft he gets 10 points. At end of season he gets 10*4(weeks in a month)*4(months in a season)=160 points

And now some questions:
1. Who plays better and who gets more rating?
2. Who will get buys and invitations based on a rating?

Thinking about the amount of magic im going to have to unwillingly play just to stay as competitive as I am now is literally sickening.

While the ideas behind the change are solid (remove incentives to stop playing events for high rated players, boost tournament attendance in general), as a European player the recent changes seem overall very negative. 

First of all, it seems clear that if you live in an area with smaller tournaments of all sizes and less tournaments overall, you're realistically never going to qualify for anything (apart from Nationals) with the PW points.

PT slots likely require several solid finishes per season from very large events (including the previous PT, so grinding in from the outside is extra hard) and it's very hard to compete with someone who can play a PTQ, say, every two weeks anyway when your country has 1 PTQ total for the whole season given equal opportunity to play FNM weekly.

With GP's giving out no PT invitations, it doesn't seem worth it to travel to GP's anymore since you'd have to attend and do well in several during one season to have any chance to get an invite through PWPs and without the PT slots of the GP, you basically need to make top 32 to even cover the costs of getting to the tournament. Previously doing well gave you a nice rating boost (that didn't go away at end of season) and a realistic shot at a PT slot.

The FNM champs slots are also most likely out of reach unless you live in an area that has large FNM's due to the double whammy of participation points multiplying by three and larger FNM's being more likely to have more rounds to score points.  

So, for a lot of places in the world it looks like the only thing the points will ever be good for is qualifying for Nationals and GP travel becomes a waste of effort unless you're in the position to be able to play 3 GP's or so during a season and PTQ's (of which there are now less of in Europe) now become the only reasonable way to get to the Pro Tour.

And my final, maybe naive question to someone from WoTC: is there even a small chance that you maybe cancel this system when playing is more important than winning? Maybe you make a referendum to vote with a DCI number?

Just in case – I’m just a casual, relatively new player and definitely not sitting on a rating. Untill April this year I was playing at least 5 sanctioned events a month, I was analyzing my mistakes, reading articles and trying to get better, trying to make every tournament profitable to my rating, growing it slowly in a hope that one day it will bring me some buys on GP or invitation to Nationals. Then I had to move to another place when no one plays Magic, but still I tried to keep up my skill buy traveling to prereleases and playing MTGO. Now all my efforts seem to be worthless. What I used to like about Magic is that in a situation when everyone is equally lucky statistics will favor the smartest. Really, I think what you are doing with a new rating system is wrong.

Sep 6, 2011 -- 8:01PM, Landiur wrote:

I mean most Commander players probably aren't looking at the pro tour anyway, but I still think its unfortunate that you chose to overhaul the system in a way that is completely disproportionate to Commander, since there are only casual Commander events.

But under the old system, casual events didn't count at all.

Looks extremely bad.

For Mark:

RPGs are a very popular type of game...grinding is the WORST part of them.

I now feel like Magic is grinding.

Sep 7, 2011 -- 8:24AM, quadibloc wrote:

Sep 6, 2011 -- 8:01PM, Landiur wrote:

I mean most Commander players probably aren't looking at the pro tour anyway, but I still think its unfortunate that you chose to overhaul the system in a way that is completely disproportionate to Commander, since there are only casual Commander events.

But under the old system, casual events didn't count at all.

They still don't, if you think they do, then answer this, "What do they ultimately count for?"

I like it a lot! The labels for how many points you have aren't really necessary (though I do like the levels). What really matters is that the stupid old system is gone, hurray!

My thoughts:

ELO had to go, as did the qualified on points "camping" that was going on.
Kudos there.


Now the bad stuff...

1. The rank names are ridiculous. Not everything you put out as a company has to resemble video games. We don't need titles that are based on the flavor. Save the flavor for the game, stop trying to make your player base feel forcefully immersed in it, the beauty of magic has always been that it is an intellectual game that rewards smart strategies and attention to details, that also rewards hard work and a commitment to improving your ability to play. This is high brow stuff, and I feel like it is the primary reason you still have the people playing into their 20s and beyond. You can play Magic, and not feel like it is a child's game because the flavor and art has a mostly serious tone, that matches the serious gameplay and competetion possibilities. 
    Other popular CCG/TCGs use cartoonish art and flavor, and mimick the video game culture to attract children to their games. You also do not see nearly the same amount of adult players of those games.  Serve your customer base, stop trying to lure in the kids, they'll come when they are ready for a grown up game. 

These rank titles feel cheap and video game inspired. I am reminded of the title systems in games like World of Warcraft. That is not what this game needs, I hope you realize this.

2. Awarding more points based on an event's attendance numbers seems unfair. It falsely skews pts towards high population areas.  Someone in a location that fires off FNMs that are double my size for example, can perform poorly and still match or potentially exceed my points. Seems to delegitimize the small shops that your recent changes in PreReleases and Release events served to assist. 

3. This is more of a response to some of the attitudes I have seen from R&D staff on social networks such as Twitter. I'm growing quickly tired of the sardonic responses we recieve to valid issues and complaints about changes. It seems everytime the community rises up to discuss something they percieve as troubling, we get snarky/irritated responses. A direct example would be the one that inspired my efforts to come here and post this in the hopes it would be read. Eric Klug  tweeted: 

klug_alters 
I remember a day when Magic was a fun game people played and wasn't a labored measurement of EV.

RT'ed by TomLaPilleMagic

This was of course in response to the great deal of discussion about the rammifications of the new PWP system has on top competitors. I can't fault Eric for having his opinion, he doesn't work for WotC. Tom LaPille however is on the dev team. My initial reaction to reading that was, ok well Tom thinks we should all shut up and just play for fun. Completely belittling the concerns of the competetive player base, which if no one has noticed, is one of the chief driving forces behind the game's continued sucess and popularity. 

Adults play Magic because it is fun, mature, and challenging. Many adults choose to be competetive because it is intellectually stimulating, and has historically been financially rewarding to those who excell. 

If you remove the incentives that make the game inviting for adults, and you remove the incentives for competitive play, your player base will fall out from under you. Pros and Semi-Pros will fall off if the support becomes drastically less than it is now. If Pro/Semi-Pro players fall off, their fans will not have a continuous source of inspiration to keep their interest. This is fundamentally bad for the game. Competetive players push interest in the game, which drives product sales and the secondary market, the secondary market supports all these websites the competetive players write for or get featured on. It is all very cyclical. This recent change and the attitude presented about concerns over it could scare some of those players aware, and that would be awful for the game.


In conclusion, stop emulating video games, we play with your tiny pieces of cardboard for a reason. Don't give people more points just because they can attend larger events week after week (or at least make the scaling less dramatic).
Stop treating our concerns as mere annoyances, if we care enough to rage on the internet, we probably have some important information for you. I garauntee your casual players aren't getting back to you on this in the same volume, that should tell you something. 

Sep 7, 2011 -- 12:17PM, Serak_DeSardis wrote:

if we care enough to rage on the internet, we probably have some important information for you.

That's one of the funniest things I've ever read on a forum.

Think I'll share that with my friend who's a YouTube partner. Hope he's not drinking anything when he reads it.

How is it that a company whose success is based on a product invented by someone with a PhD in mathematics puts people with such a poor understanding of statistics into positions to implement these decisions regarding its Organized Play?

The formula used to calculate ratings was as effective a system as I have seen in over twenty years of being involved with games and organizations which use them.  The only issue was with how it was utilized to providing byes for Grand Prix and invitations to Pro Tour events and National championships, the "sitting on rating" business.

The solution to that is available and has been mentioned previously in this thread.  Instead of awarding byes and invites off of the ratings on a specific date, instead set it up so that it's based on the highest DCI Rating attained during a qualifying period - the 90 days leading up to the cut-off date seems reasonable.  Add in a minimum threshold of activity required over each qualifying period and weight that activity based on the K-value of those tournaments.  A player shouldn't be able to attend a few 8K FNM tournaments where they're not putting enough DCI points at risk to lose their position.  If you're legitimately good enough to achieve a particular level then you're good enough to stay there.  Also, if all players are required to do it then the playing field remains level.

This new method is nothing but an aggregation of "points" with too much emphasis on frequency of play than success.  As such, the statistics it generates are meaningless.  I state this definitively based upon the debate and decisions made by an online gaming site, WorldWinner.  They *used* to provide an equivalent set of data - Victory Points and Player Levels.  Those were accrued entirely based on tournament victories without showing anything related to win percentage.  They were purely window-dressing because they knew they had no real relevance.  They did away with the Victory Points entirely because players kept thinking those values meant something and would leave the site because they thought they were being unfairly matched.

Based on all these facts, I know that this new idea has not been sufficiently thought out and needs to be utterly scrapped.

I agree that this new system is badly flawed.

But Planeswalker Points are not the only way to get on the Pro Tour. They are only replacing DCI ratings as a supplementary way of getting on the Pro Tour. The real way of doing so is still a test of skill - the Pro Tour Qualifiers.

So this isn't the end of the world. Sadly, I think they did know exactly what they were doing, and their purpose was basically: "Hey, if we're giving away a few extra plane tickets to promote the game, why don't we really put them to work, and give them to the people who buy the most cards instead of the (second-)best players?" - which is pretty bad, but which still doesn't matter too much as long as the players who really belong on the Pro Tour get there through the PTQs, which still do measure skill.

As long as we're not as bad as Yu-Gi-Oh! we can do what we like to make more money; they've got nowhere else to go.

That's the way it's starting to seem, and, yes, that's going to make Magic players upset. But as long as there is still a huge distance between Magic and its closest competitor... being understanding as Wizards tries to justify its existence to Hasbro in difficult times also makes sense.

If Legend of the Five Rings starts to experiene a giant upsurge in popularity, then the handwriting is on the wall. I don't expect that to happen - regrettable though this may be, it will blow over and we will put up with it, as remains appropriate.

Most agree that the ELO part of the ratings system needed to be revised. So why not simply root out the ELO issues without creating a host of new issues in the process?

Allowing people to buy ratings points will benefit stores. Their carrot, the trickle-down of FNM invites, seems plausible at first, but honestly, those invites are going to go to the few who are willing/able to spend full-time hours on this hobby. Some say that pros will already have invites and that trickle-down will uplift the casuals. Well, more cut-throat FNMs may help to improve one’s game, but won’t necessarily lead to the Pro Tour. With many pros already qualified for events which garner high multipliers, a ‘gravy-trainesque’ situation occurs as long as they perform even moderately. That’s not necessarily a bad thing- players should have a reason to ‘get there’ and ‘there’ should be a place worth getting to. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that by playing in FNMs, noobs can make up the points that pros glean from their big events. The pros can do the same and their FNM wins achieve much more bang for their buck than noobs attendance points.

Should one’s place of residence be a hurdle for PT eligibility? Like it or not, location does matter under the new system. The potential lack of CASUAL tournaments will now hinder success. Too bad for you guys in countries with fewer big events or you small towners with limited play options. Too bad for those of you with fewer SCG or other specialized tourneys nearby. Too bad for those of us with out-of-state TOs who only perform at the bare minimum (and why should they do otherwise when WOTC has been removing their incentives too&hellip? Full time job? Have a family? Well at least they left you PTQs (sorry about the GPs {and States…}). I guess if you really want to be competitive, you’ll just have to move or open a store of your own.

So should stores now change their play formats? Do they work longer hours to squeeze in more rounds or more tournaments? Should they incentivize players to show up/play more? Most won’t, but what about those who do have an incentive to incentivize (stores run by pros for example)? Won’t players in those stores gain an advantage?

My store runs one FNM a week of 3 rounds and typically gets 14-16 players. Why would I continue to go to that store if a nearby store runs an FNM of 6 rounds or more and has more players, increasing the multiplier? My inner Spike tells me I’m nuts to continue at my store. What else affects attendance or the number of rounds played? Those are now discriminators under the new paradigm.

Could store attendance crash in the later portion of each season?  Halfway through the season, when we’ve been spending all of our time & money to attend everything, when we see THOSE FEW who somehow have double the points we have and the gap is widening- will we continue to go for it the rest of the season? Or start again next season? Or not start again next season?

And seriously? You cut the GP invites? ARRRRRRRG!!!! HORRIBLE decision. I can get over the stupid double sided cards, the 'fight' keywording, even the idiocy in printing Dismember. But now you’re in effect requiring us to drive/fly 500-1000 miles to the nearest GP at considerable expense and at least 3 times per season in order to have ANY chance at the invite? And you’re only giving out byes for those who do this? I want to WANT to go- not to HAVE to go. Side events at the PT made me want to go even if not qualified. States made me want to go to defend the home turf. This change makes me much less interested in attending GPs and in the PT in general.

Simply put, there are far better solutions. WOTC should at the least tweak their new system to cut out the loopholes (for example, limit FNM points per week). I can’t escape the feeling that WOTC is making decisions like American politicians- tie a ribbon on it, add sugar coating, tell people it’s super special and hot off the press just for them. But this change simply shifts us into a new set of issues. Seriously guys. Please. Stop before I become one of those 'I'm quitting Magic' whiners.

Disclaimer: I am not a pro, but am a road warrior who has travelled the US for GPs/PTQs/SCGOs. The new rating system does benefit me (Battlemage) and I live in a major market of the USA (i.e. many tournament opportunities). I’m not commenting just because I got the short end of the stick. I just hate to see WOTC make ANOTHER moronic decision.

As a system in itself I don't really have any problem with it (Though I'm in a pretty poor area for accumulating PWP, especially combined by my being on public transport; nearest gamestore that has sanctioned events to me is 90 minutes away for me)

...However, it has been implemented to replace a ranking system (Albeit one which, apparently, had a fair number of problems with it), and that's where the issue lies - Even in the 'four months only' implementation, it... Isn't a ranking system, but it's use to give byes and places in the PT means it is being used as a ranking system. And that's where there's a problem.

(Well, no, there is a problem of the 'players in events = points' - Which, don't get me wrong, I can perfectly understand why they're doing it. More players in events = more magic consumers = more money to the company, and companies basically exist to make money. However - This method of trying to increase customers, especially when tied to a system being used as a ranking system, is going to, in areas where there are multiple stores that hold sanctioned events, drive customers to the larger store, reducing revenue to the smaller store.)

Sep 7, 2011 -- 5:11AM, vtphoenix26 wrote:

New players might not know what Planeswalker Points are, let alone care about them, so that's absurd.

Uh, that contradicts what I said...how? That was pretty much my entire point. To a new player, the difference between a Thursday event and FNM looks like it's just day of the week. I don't like the fact that there's such a huge difference now.

I've been of the opinion for a long time that FNM should be replaced with a "Magic Night" program that can be done any day of the week, and this cements that in my mind.

I am disappointed that the system failed to import 22 of the 27 events I have participated in, and now I need to fix it.  I'll get to it when I can and if I can, since all the events took place before 2006 (I think).

With a major overhaul why not allow people to tie their MTGO account ot their RL raiting/points?  It's still plaing Magic, it's still giving Wizards money and it's still playing tournaments.

From an FNM standpoint this is absolute fail, it will drive casuals and new players away from FNM.  Because there will be a tourney to qualify for thru FNM all the pros and semi-pros will grind it our because it's likely they will at least top 8 or top 4 if not win and since you can accumulate points thru mass play they will show up most weeks and push the competitiveness to a level that will drive away the more casual and new players away.

I play FNM at 2 locations, one where its mostly homebrews and casual slanted decks and one where over half are playing the power deck de jour.  At the casual site i can top 4 about half of the time and win occasionally at the power site im lucky if i win half my games.  Im not hard core, only been playing about a year, so guess where i play more often?

This is an inelegant attempt to fix a simple proble. If you want to keep people from sitting to protect their rating you simply institute a mechanicn to penalize this behavior.  I can think of to simple fixes right off the top of my head:

1) either suspend or reset the rating of any player that hastn played for 30 days (or less), if you dont play for 30 days either you rating resets to 0 or you lose any privileges that you get because of your rating.  While this wouldnt keep them form sitting often it would cause them to play and some would undoubtedly loose occasionally and then they would WANT to play to get the rating back up.  But at the same token it wont flood the most casual of tourneys with over-qualified people.

2) Decay ratings, every month you decay ratings by 5 or 10%, those at the top would have more points and therefore lose more to decay.  This would keep high rated players playing to offset the decay, but lower rated players wouldn't be punished because they would not be losing as much rating.

Also because of the attendance points those that pros will outpace others so badly that a non-pros really dont have a chance.  Any one tha top 8's a PT makes more points than i have in a year. And the system is gonna feed itself, pros earn more points get more byes are less likely to loose which earns them more points etc.

Simply put, incentivizing pro and semi-pro players to play casual tourneys to keep them from sitting on a rating is going to end up being a mistake of caw-blade proportions. Its simply going to see the rich get richer and alienate the new player base.

Also from what i see in my own PP and form what i hear of others it seems like the transfer was flawed as everyone is complaing or missingf events.

Incidentally, in searching for information on the Elo system, I found out about an attempt to reform it so as to correct some of the same flaws noted - the incentive to sit on one's rating - but in a way to make it more accurately indicate skill.

This attempt is called "Chessmetrics", and was invented by Jeff Sonas. Some modifications would be needed, such as removing the role of the rating of 2300 in the "padding" part, before using it for Magic, but it would be perhaps a better start.

The nice thing about this, is that it rewards both playing often and playing well. If you go to every FNM, you get points, even if you only win around half your games. If you go to FNM and other events and win them, you get even more points, even if you go to fewer overall events. So overall it's nice for people that can play a lot.

The problem is, plenty of people playing infrequenty but well. They're more than willing to risk rating, they simply have more important things to do - or even other hobbies. While guys like Jon Finkel and Kai Budde can show up whenever they want due to being in the Hall of Fame, plenty of excellent players have taken breaks from the game and then been able to get back into things due to a previously high rating. So much for that - now some measure of grinding, even if it's a few PTQs, is going to be necessary for skilled players that want to get back into the game. That's often impractical.

Honestly, I'd like to see Wizards keep the old rating system around in addition to the new points. Don't have it mean anything, like with the lifetime points, but then at least players that have been away from the game or don't get to play very often have something to point at to indicate their skill to some level.

Sep 7, 2011 -- 6:51PM, Ebontail wrote:

Simply put, incentivizing pro and semi-pro players to play casual tourneys to keep them from sitting on a rating is going to end up being a mistake of caw-blade proportions. Its simply going to see the rich get richer and alienate the new player base.

I agree, although this is not an inherent problem with the new system. They can easily fix it by giving FNM a lower multiplier (making it useless to grinders) or by promoting Gateway everywhere alongside FNM.

As it stands now, I too fear ugly things will happen to the casual nature of FNM.

Sep 7, 2011 -- 1:37PM, quadibloc wrote:

I agree that this new system is badly flawed.

But Planeswalker Points are not the only way to get on the Pro Tour. They are only replacing DCI ratings as a supplementary way of getting on the Pro Tour. The real way of doing so is still a test of skill - the Pro Tour Qualifiers.

That's certainly true.  I'd have trouble even identifying people who'd made it onto the Pro Tour by rating alone, though I know they exist.  I can say that Tennis would be diminished as a sport if the US Open replaced the top 32 seeds invites with a system that pulled superfans from the stands.

Heck I'd rather they didn't do any invites off this system.  If they want to replace skill rankings with loyal customer bonuses because it fits their new marketing plan better, so be it.  But don't treat the Pro Tour like a Player Rewards system.  

On the plus side:
-No more rating drops allow for more creativity in deckbuilding, without ratings plummeting if some concept doesn't hold up in real life. Same in limited, where you can try out experimental draft strategies, and having a sucky Sealed pool doesn't punish you.
-No more dropping or not attending simply to preserve one's rating.
-Rewards for being an active player.

On the down side, however:
-Meaningless numbers. A high rating used to give some indication about how good a player is. A high point level could mean either that someone is a good player, or just that he has been playing for a long time. 2 years of winning everything imaginable shouldn't earn the same score as 6 years of mid-level performances. (Changing the multiplier values might fix this).

-The point system makes it virtually impossible to catch up with the pro's, unless they stop playing. The old system made it progressively harder to increase one's rank, causing everyone to stabilize at a certain level. As a new player you started out low, but if you were good you could just keep winning and increasing your rank until you reached 'your' level. Reaching the pro level could take a while, but it wasn't going anywhere.

The point system has no such brakes, creating an ever-widening gap between the experienced playing field and starters. Making up for a 500-point rating difference is doable as long as you are good enough. A (for example) 5-year planeswalkerpoint difference, not so much. No matter how good you are, you can't just squeeze 5 years worth of playing into one. Even if you keep winning, catching up will take a loooong time. And that's just if everyone stops playing. By the time you have earned the 10000 points you were behind, the pro's could be at 20000. Even worse if they play in more high-value tournaments (entry granted by high point rating), making it easier for them to earn points. If you are unlucky you might end up even further behind than you were in the first place.  
---

For now the point system feels like too drastic a change. The old rating worked fine, with the rewarding for static players being the only real problem. While that is annoying, it doesn't require scrapping the entire system. It feels a bit like chopping off your leg just because your toe itches.

Sep 7, 2011 -- 12:17PM, Serak_DeSardis wrote:

3. This is more of a response to some of the attitudes I have seen from R&D staff on social networks such as Twitter. I'm growing quickly tired of the sardonic responses we recieve to valid issues and complaints about changes. It seems everytime the community rises up to discuss something they percieve as troubling, we get snarky/irritated responses.

Well maybe someday they'll get their wish of working somewhere without the annoyance of customers who care about your policies.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 1:45AM, PhyrexianRogue wrote:

-The point system makes it virtually impossible to catch up with the pro's, unless they stop playing.

The meaningful scores all reset to 0 every season (4 months). The lifetime total is just ornamental.

First of all I think this is an improvement in the fact that the Icons (pro players) need to play more instead of playing less and only against the other high ranked players solely in big tournaments.

I do think that there are some things wrong with the way the multipliers are determined. For example the rules for FNM are just bad in the Netherlands. I do think wizards does a good job by making one night a 'Magic night'.

The only problem I have with that is that it's too much centered around Friday. For example;

In the Netherlands there are 3 flavours in openingtime policy:
Cities who'll allow shops to stay open later at thursday
Cities who'll allow shops to stay open later at friday
Other (mostly larger cities) with more freedom in closing times (this is a relatively small number of cities)

Most middle sized cities have their shopping nigths at thursday this makes it harder for players to attend FNM, because by law the shops can't be open on friday. For this reason I think FNM shouldn't be bound to Friday's. I think wizards should allow shops who can't be open due to regulations to pick an alternate day for FNM.

This would lead to all players being able to attend to at least one weekly magic event where the extra (special FNM) plainswalker points are available.

Sep 7, 2011 -- 7:19AM, Guest1639776099 wrote:

Imagine 2 cases for Competitive rating:
1. A player plays every day a draft for 8 people with an average result 1:2. For every such event he gets 4 points to his competitive rating this season. At end of season he gets 4*30 (days in a month)*4(months in a season)=480 points
2. Another player plays only once a week, but he wins every draft. For each draft he gets 10 points. At end of season he gets 10*4(weeks in a month)*4(months in a season)=160 points

And now some questions:
1. Who plays better and who gets more rating?

That's a wrong question. The right question is:
1. Who spends more money to WotC and who gets more rating?

Since "the DCI" isn't independent sportsmanship organization, players' skill has no real value for it.
That's the obvious reason for the rating system change.

Sorry, read most pages but not all.

I am very dissappointed.

In the previous system, if you took two active players of Magic, particularly ones often playing in the same tournaments, and looked at their ratings, you would in fact be given the simple answer to the question "Which is the better Magic player?"

Ok, so there are corner cases and Magic by nature is a bit like rock-paper-and-scissors, so that the worse-rated player might in fact consistently beat the better-rated player, for reasons like their choice of decks, or even just the playing style of the worse-rated player being the perfect foil to the playing style of the better-rated player. But nevertheless, in an "overall sense", the ELO-based ratings could be fairly be seen as a measure of skill, a way of ranking players in terms of skill.

The new system has nothing to do with skill. If you after this point want a good "rating", all you need is to grind, grind, grind. Why anyone would, I almost fail to see - but then I realise there are competitive types of all sorts.

Knowing who is a good player satisfies human curiosity. For example, when I have moved to new cities, I have played at FNMs and afterwards checked the ratings of my opponents to get a gist of who is actually good and who just got lucky/unlucky/bragged.Does it change much? Perhaps I take the analysis of cards and decks and stuff like that a bit more seriously from better rated players, but more importantly for me it allows me to gauge where I stand and how I have developed as a player. In fact, put this way, the rating system forms the core of competitive magic: it gives something to strive for in the long run: a better rating. Well, not really. I strive to be a better Magic player, but I know that my progress in this respect is reflected in my rating (at least in the long run, short term fluctuations aside).

From this perspective, the new system is a joke.

The word that keeps coming back to me again and again is "childish". This new system is childish. It rewards everyone and does so almost equally. There are no losers anymore. In other words, it wipes out the core of what makes competitive Magic competitive. You can't have a competitive system where everyone is a winner - it just isn't competitive then anymore.

It seems to me that the point of this new system is indeed to make people play Magic more often, i.e. make more money to WotC. And hey, WotC is not a charity, making money is their prerogative. But what they are doing is essentially wiping away any reasonable manifestation of competitive Magic and replacing it with a new, casual faux-competitive Magic.

This has of course been in the air for quite some time. I used to be a competitive player, but who turned largely casual in the last years of pay-to-win-Magic of overpowered mythic rares and simplified design (e.g. of no downsides and like that).

But I am seriously quite astonished by this new system.

Let's be honest. Most casual players could hardly care less about their ratings. But it seems that the new system is geared towards pleasing them. Since I am pretty sure it doesn't please those who actually took their ratings seriously. Who are the only people who actually care about how the ratings are calculated. It seems to me like a lose-lose change in every respect, except of course the most important one, card sales.

I just really wish that WotC could have tried to come up with other ways of improving card sales, because this really rots the core of what made competitive Magic meaningful.

And still, having said earlier that the new guiding philosophy behind this "competitive" system is to have no losers, even that is blatantly not true. If you live in a rural area or otherwise have at best an irregular access to tournaments, well, tough. If you have real-life-commitments, well, tough.

Furthermore, it seems to me that it is impossibly difficult to stop people from "gaming" the new system. For example, before a big tournament, me and my friends used to (when I was still more seriously competitive, flying to a couple of GPs per year and stuff like that) play-test a lot, tweak our contructed decks and study match-ups or hone our limited skills. Now it clearly makes much more sense to do that "officially" in a store and record the results. Frankly, I don't see who benefits from that. Anyone who wants to get PT invitations based on rating will have to record and report every fun game they play. Yeah, that's real fun. Everyone loves filling in forms. And how can you actually make sure that those tournaments aren't just made up. Let's say I have a friendly shop-keeper who wants to help me get on the PT. How can you ascertain whether I actually played in two tournements per day every day for the last few months? Maybe I did. Maybe I am a Magic fanatic. Or maybe I didn't. Will you fly over and look at me while I do it? At least in the old system, I could not "make rating" out thin air - each point I gained, someone else lost. That meant that to "game the system", I would have had to have seven or so friends (who don't play Magic or don't care about ratings) make seven accounts and then we organise fake tournaments in which all of them always lose to me, inflating my rating. Doing so would look quite suspicious and be much harder to begin with. The new system on the otherhand seems to be riddled with loopholes that are impossible to supervise and even banning them is bound to be a game of whack-a-mole. Previously, other serious Magic players would rather not help me in inflating my rating through playing with them. Now the situation is the opposite: there is a huge motivation for collusion, for schemes that benefit everyone involved.

But anyway, all that is pretty much beside the point, because as anyone with even half a brain can see, the new ranking system has very little to do with skill and is much more about attendance. All you can say from someone with a high rating from now on is "Wow! You've attended (or pretended to attend) a lot sanctioned events!" But I am pretty sure that everyone who gets to attend PTs because of this new "rating", some sort of foul play is bound to be the rule and not the exception.

For even those who play by the rules, it benefits them to "shop around" for the most casual FNM locations and come and repeatedly bash the poor players there. And you seriously think that you are doing a favour to the less competitive players?

Fundamentally, what you have managed is to make the whole Magic-rating system utterly meaningless. Congratulations.

Having said that, I understand that the new system aims to correct some faults of the previous system. I like how this new system promotes creative deckbuilding and trying out new ideas without risk of losing rating. I like how it makes avoiding playing in tournaments obsolete. But I think those benefits are far outweighed by the negatives. It just doesn't look like a well-thought through system. Already in this thread, I have read several suggestions that are far better than the new system will be. I have myself thought of a few as well, just now, as well as in the past. There are a whole lot of ways these goals could have been accomplished while still maintaining a rating system that actually reflected player skill.

Sadly, this was not to be. The cure seems worse than the disease.

Calculation:

Person A is a pretty lousy magic player. He does however have some  spare time on weekends and also happens to live in the US. He makes it  to three of the eight GPs, but only gets a record of 4-5 each time,  losing more than he wins at all of them.
This equals to 3*(4*3+8)*8=480 points.

Person B is one sick magic player. Some weekends he’s occupied with  magic unrelated stuff though. He lives in Europe, and attends one of the  three GPs. He runs pretty good, going 9-0 day 1, 5-0-1 the next day,  and then promptly sweeps the top8 3-0.
This equals to (17*3+1+8)*8=480 points.

How can anyone not feel that this is ridiculously flawed?

This debate stimulated me to devote some thought to ratings systems. I learned about Chessmetrics and Glicko-2.

Also, I devised a suggestion of my own - but that applies to issues in Chess, not to issues faced by Magic. Magic games seldom end in draws.

But another thing I learned is that the American Contract Bridge League uses a system which, like Planeswalker Points, reflects how often one plays, not merely how well one plays. Apparently, though, they manage with that, so possibly looking in to their situation might be useful to get some perspective on the impact of this.

I find some of these comparisons are just silly. For example, take the European vs American example one of the guests has. The invites for Europe and America are completely and totally different, being in different pods. So even if we take this absurd example, the European player isn't hurting, and it would be easier to compare other European players to themselves.

Furthermore, The whole comparison of the person who only plays a GP and the person who plays nothing but FNM is kinda silly as well, as that person who did the GP probably ALSO is doing FNM's and other games as well.

Yes, the system rewards people who play more. It even rewards those that play more and WIN more often. This isn't *really* all that different than the ELO standings, outside the "You have to play" thing.

The more I listen to the complaints, the more I wonder how many of the complaints are actually grounded in the reality of actual play, or takes into account the structure of organized play. While there are some valid complaints, some of them seem more lifestyle choices, and not an actual flaw with the system itself.

By all means, do bring up concerns about the system, though. That is a good thing. Just can you think about it outside of extreme cases? I don't think any of these extreme cases actually represent patterns Magic Players typically hold.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 11:58AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

I find some of these comparisons are just silly. For example, take the European vs American example one of the guests has. The invites for Europe and America are completely and totally different, being in different pods. So even if we take this absurd example, the European player isn't hurting, and it would be easier to compare other European players to themselves.

There are 35 specific geographic invites and 65 additional invites. If you're not one of the 10 best Europeans, you're competing for one of those 65 slots together with Americans.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 11:58AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Furthermore, The whole comparison of the person who only plays a GP and the person who plays nothing but FNM is kinda silly as well, as that person who did the GP probably ALSO is doing FNM's and other games as well.

There are actually many players who don't. It might not be a substantial group, but it's not some theoretical extreme, it is a typical player. See also LSV's article.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 11:58AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Yes, the system rewards people who play more. It even rewards those that play more and WIN more often. This isn't *really* all that different than the ELO standings, outside the "You have to play" thing.

Except the "You have to play A LOT" thing. Is this more about lifestyles than an inherent flaw? Sure, but that's what so many liked about magic.

Not that I particularly find competing against top 65 in the world unfair, mind you, but I did want to mention against this...

Sep 8, 2011 -- 1:15PM, TobyornotToby wrote:

Sep 8, 2011 -- 11:58AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Furthermore, The whole comparison of the person who only plays a GP and the person who plays nothing but FNM is kinda silly as well, as that person who did the GP probably ALSO is doing FNM's and other games as well.

There are actually many players who don't. It might not be a substantial group, but it's not some theoretical extreme, it is a typical player. See also LSV's article.

Actually, I've read his article. His article covers himself pretty well, and it morns the fact that one Pro will not be Pro because of the system. One. An Exception and Extreme case. Again, there are concerns about lifestyle, but note the emphasis he places in his article is about other people, usually, and not himself. Everyone is taking that one extreme example and running with it, and not finishing reading the article.

So, let us ask the question. If you aren't playing Magic on a Weekly basis, and are not doing well at a PTQ or GP, why do you feel you deserve to be in a pro spot? Shouldn't the Pros actually be, you know, being Professional about their game?

Sep 8, 2011 -- 3:28PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Actually, I've read his article. His article covers himself pretty well, and it morns the fact that one Pro will not be Pro because of the system. One. An Exception and Extreme case. Again, there are concerns about lifestyle, but note the emphasis he places in his article is about other people, usually, and not himself. Everyone is taking that one extreme example and running with it, and not finishing reading the article.

So, let us ask the question. If you aren't playing Magic on a Weekly basis, and are not doing well at a PTQ or GP, why do you feel you deserve to be in a pro spot? Shouldn't the Pros actually be, you know, being Professional about their game?

He uses one as an example. There are many like that.

As for the second, where does that come from? I was talking about people who aren't playing on a weekly basis, but who are doing well at GPs. People who neither play much nor well, yeah we can easily exclude them from deserving a spot =p

Sep 8, 2011 -- 3:36PM, TobyornotToby wrote:

Sep 8, 2011 -- 3:28PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Actually, I've read his article. His article covers himself pretty well, and it morns the fact that one Pro will not be Pro because of the system. One. An Exception and Extreme case. Again, there are concerns about lifestyle, but note the emphasis he places in his article is about other people, usually, and not himself. Everyone is taking that one extreme example and running with it, and not finishing reading the article.

So, let us ask the question. If you aren't playing Magic on a Weekly basis, and are not doing well at a PTQ or GP, why do you feel you deserve to be in a pro spot? Shouldn't the Pros actually be, you know, being Professional about their game?

He uses one as an example. There are many like that.

As for the second, where does that come from? I was talking about people who aren't playing on a weekly basis, but who are doing well at GPs. People who neither play much nor well, yeah we can easily exclude them from deserving a spot =p

I don't see the point of angst. So there are many people who don't play magic. Why should they be considered for a Pro Tour? If you don't play a sport professionally for a year, why should you come back for the Top Contenders rundown? It doesn't work that way in sports. Why are we arguing for it in the case of a Magic tourney?

Secondly, an apology if you don't feel the question belongs aimed at you. However, the general tenor of the forum seems to be "Great, I'll never qualify now", and part of me is going "Okay, so you're not devoting time to top events, playing a weekly game, and winning a lot. Why should you be qualifying in the first place?"

Being good or lucky at a GP should weigh a lot, but if it's the only event you do during a season, you should really be doing more.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 4:04PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

I don't see the point of angst. So there are many people who don't play magic. Why should they be considered for a Pro Tour? If you don't play a sport professionally for a year, why should you come back for the Top Contenders rundown? It doesn't work that way in sports. Why are we arguing for it in the case of a Magic tourney?

Secondly, an apology if you don't feel the question belongs aimed at you. However, the general tenor of the forum seems to be "Great, I'll never qualify now", and part of me is going "Okay, so you're not devoting time to top events, playing a weekly game, and winning a lot. Why should you be qualifying in the first place?"

Being good or lucky at a GP should weigh a lot, but if it's the only event you do during a season, you should really be doing more.

The issue is mainly the high-value tournaments that aren't available to everyone.
It is not a matter of devotion. If you are in Europe you can play 3 GPs in the first relevant timeslot. This means getting a flight and accomodation, so it is about 1.000 Euros. Other high value tournaments are Regionals, PTQs, Nationals. Regionals are everywhere. PTQs have been reduced in Europe. There is no SCG or similar.

So the problem concerning aspiring Pro Tour participants is that many will never get a rating invite, even if they play as much as possible and as good as possible. Or make that reasonably well. Because in the US you can play 8 GPs in 4 months. Add to that the SCG Open every other weekend, so chances are you can play 2-4 of those in that time. And on top the PTQs. So in the US players can play a big tournament every weekend, assuming they can spend the money or time for traveling. This is probably around 3.000, maybe 4.000 Euros, for 4 months of hardcore tournament grind.

Won't happen in Europe. Because for 4.000 Euros you can play 6 Grand Prix. The three on the same continent for about 300€ each, and then the ones on other continents for 1000 € each. Furthermore less PTQs and no SCG Open.

FNM? No comparison. You get about 40 points for winning a 4 round event. Playing bigger events gets you more attendance points and the chance to accumulate more points, since you play more rounds (Which is ok, bigger events, more points, reasonable).

So European aspiring pros, good players, with Pro Tour attendances under their belt, a high rating, will from now on lack that possibility unless they have a lot of funds to travel the world for big tournaments.

This is the only issue I do not like about the system.

For me personally it doesn't matter. If I want to go to special tournaments I have to qualify via winning tournaments, not by rating. I am too bad for that.

Playing in 8 GP's 4 months is *really* expensive, though. It's like flying to 4 different countries if you are in europe. Only people who already make their living doing it are likely to be doing those kinds of events. The SCG's are doubly so, given how spread out they are week after week.

Of course, I don't see anything stoping the Europeans from creating their own SCG-esque type tournament format. All you need to do is find a European based sponser to hold the rotating tournament, and you'd be fine. Heck, I think it could be fun and a blast to like be in Belgium one weekend, then in, say, Hungary the next. It'd pretty much be like being in Seattle one weekend, and then Salt Lake City  the next.

Although, in complete honesty, I don't know how challenging travelling through many borders is in Europe. Having lots of little nations close together is a really hard concept for me to grasp.

Still, there is no reason that you can't have big events in Europe, in my opinion. Just because they currently don't exist doesn't mean a sense of Continental Pride couldn't grip the community and work it's way to create larger events. It just is going to take some iniative and organization in Europe.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 5:49PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Although, in complete honesty, I don't know how challenging travelling through many borders is in Europe. Having lots of little nations close together is a really hard concept for me to grasp.

It used to be very challenging, but now that the European Common Market has become the European Community, the borders between the members are almost unregulated.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 11:58AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Yes, the system rewards people who play more. It even rewards those that play more and WIN more often. This isn't *really* all that different than the ELO standings, outside the "You have to play" thing.

You are wrong. Had you read my post above yours, it should be clear. But let me quote myself:

Anyone who wants to get PT invitations based on rating will have to  record and report every fun game they play. Yeah, that's real fun.  Everyone loves filling in forms. And how can you actually make sure that  those tournaments aren't just made up. Let's say I have a friendly  shop-keeper who wants to help me get on the PT. How can you ascertain  whether I actually played in two tournements per day every day for the  last few months? Maybe I did. Maybe I am a Magic fanatic. Or maybe I  didn't. Will you fly over and look at me while I do it? At least in the  old system, I could not "make rating" out thin air - each point I  gained, someone else lost. That meant that to "game the system", I would  have had to have seven or so friends (who don't play Magic or don't  care about ratings) make seven accounts and then we organise fake  tournaments in which all of them always lose to me, inflating my rating.  Doing so would look quite suspicious and be much harder to begin with.  The new system on the otherhand seems to be riddled with loopholes that  are impossible to supervise and even banning them is bound to be a game  of whack-a-mole. Previously, other serious Magic players would rather  not help me in inflating my rating through playing with them. Now the  situation is the opposite: there is a huge motivation for collusion, for  schemes that benefit everyone involved.

And really, why would you limit yourself to only two tournaments per day? I mean, it is still conceivably within the bounds of possibility that a group of (otherwise) unemployed Magic players could play among themselves even five or six tournaments per day. How can WotC check that they are really doing that? Will they demand video evidence? Will they demand to see their bank statements for proof that they are not employed (because no one who is employed would have time for playing six tournaments each and every day). And if you put a limit on how many tournaments can be counted, I can off the top of my head invent another dozen or so ways to game the new system, to inflate your rating fraudulently without much of a chance of being caught, at least without constant supervision.

Sorry for repeating myself, but I just don't see how some continue to argue that the new system has merit.

You are assuming, of course, that cheating wasn't possible under the old system, which, of course, it was.

So, either I can be paranoid that the store is falsifying it's reporting... or I can choose to believe that people in general don't cheat on reporting. Your anger is amusing, but it's nothing new, to be honest.

I think with such a stupid rating system as the new system is, any competitive environment would come up with ways of "gaming the system". But please also take into account that you are now talking of competitive Magic players, that is people who are in this hobby essentially to find ways to bend rules, to find ways to break cards and get stupid interactions.

Here is a good example, just off the top of my head:
www.wizards.com/magic/expert/wcd2000/wcd...

Play replenish when you have already filled your grave with enchantments, either by digging through your library and discarding the right enchantments or by using them to stall the game: parallax tide , parallax wave and opalescence . If you read those cards carefully, you will realise that this one replenish allows (with some neat timing tricks with stuff already on the stack) to exile all or most of your opponent's lands and creatures permanently and leaving you with a bunch of 4/4's.

Breaking (or rather, bendind) the rules like this is what Magic players do when they engage in their hobby competitively. They try to find loopholes in the card rules that gives them competitive edge. I really don't understand why they would not then apply a similar approach to an easily breakable rating system? That is what competitive Magic players do already: try to find ways to break the system.

Previously, your DCI rating essentially reflected your ability play well and to break the metagame and the game mechanics in the most favourable way. Now, the new rating will to some extent reflect that, but this is obscured by how you have actually managed to break this new meta-meta-game of the ratings themselves.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 7:21PM, elonilo wrote:

Sorry for repeating myself, but I just don't see how some continue to argue that the new system has merit.

I'll repeat my position. I agree; the new system does not have merit.

But if I understand things correctly, this is just about a limited number of extra spots on the Pro Tour; PTQs are still the primary method of getting on the Pro Tour, and winning those is still based firmly on skill. So I don't see this as the end of the world.

Yes, this is a move which supports Wizards' commercial interests at the expense of the role of skill in Magic competition. But ultimately, Wizards' prize support of Magic competition is basically a part of its promotional budget. It's not as if Magic players are earning their winnings, the way football players earn their salaries, by selling TV commercials on telecasts of high-level Magic tournaments. The game hasn't attracted outside interest to permit outside commercial sponsorship.

And so, in tough economic times, it is a rational, but sad, decision on the part of Wizards to focus its promotional spending more directly on encouraging the sale of product.

So, while I am saddened that this had to happen, I can't really blame Wizards. I don't know how things are at the boardrooms of Hasbro, but I do know they were scrutinizing their divisions, and I do recall news indicating that D&D isn't doing well - they had big layoffs in that part of Wizards.

Things aren't as we would wish, some of the free ride is over. That can't really be helped.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 7:40PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

You are assuming, of course, that cheating wasn't possible under the old system, which, of course, it was.

So, either I can be paranoid that the store is falsifying it's reporting... or I can choose to believe that people in general don't cheat on reporting. Your anger is amusing, but it's nothing new, to be honest.

Oh, I certainly believe that people are honest in general. But you seem to miss the point that if about 100 people qualify for the PT on rating, those 100 represent a very small proportion of Magic players: they are NOT your "general Magic players". I have no doubt that most people under the new system will be honest. I just doubt that those top 100 are.

Or even if they are perfectly honest, I doubt that will simply be qualified on playing as much and as well as the best and most active. Instead, I think they will be qualified based on having found the most efficient (even if legal and honest) way of maximising their rating.

Sorry to keep on spamming, but I think I should state my problem with the new system as consisely as possible:

It takes away anything meaningful for me to strive for as a serious Magic player.

Yes, I have already become more and more a casual (non-recorded) Magic player, but when I enter a sanctioned tournament, I always become a Serious Magic Player (TM). Under those circumstances, I do my best to improve my rating. That is pretty much the point of playing Magic seriously. [Note that while I am doing this, the non-serious Magic player in me is having fun playing Magic. But a lot of that fun comes from the "serious" business of always striving to find the right play.]

Now that the rating is meaningless, there is no more serious Magic. The only thing left is casual. And actually, like I said, I don't really mind that much since that is the way I have been drifting of late anyway. But this essentially signals the end of Magic as a mental sport and leaves it to be a game that can be played for fun, for kicks and laughs (apart from at the very top levels of play, like the PT). You know, the way people play Risk for fun - no one really takes that game seriously in a competitive way.

Most Magic players couldn't care less. But then again, these are the same players who didn't care about their rating to begin with. Those who have a Serious Magic Player (TM) -side to them are the only ones affected. And from those, the only ones benefitting are those who aren't very good at playing Magic to begin with, but who are very enthusiastic about playing it and who will continue to care about their rating. But since the rating is now meaningless, that pretty much means that only simpletons will continue caring about their rating. Most of those affected are thus affected negatively.

I don't think that this rating system will be death of Serious Magic in a long shot. Winning is still most important. As long as Winning is important, people will tune net decks, and play hard. The best decks are still going to float to the top of the tournaments, and even if players bring in more rogue decks, the basic motivation for showing up, "Winning", isn't going to disappear simply because the measure stick for skill is different.

I understand that particular part of your concern, but I think you underestimate how competitive people get. I mean, even RISK has their tournaments to determine the best in the world.  Heck, Scrabble is horribly serious business at the highest levels, and most people consider that a very casual game.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 11:05PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

"Winning", isn't going to disappear simply because the measure stick for skill is different.

I understand that particular part of your concern, but I think you underestimate how competitive people get.

Quite the contrary, I don't think you understand how competitive people get.

The people who will care about winning actual games of Magic in this new system will mostly be the more casual players, those who haven't figured out just how broken the new system is. They will think that winning makes a difference. Of course, if you only ever lose, you won't rack up many points. But no one only ever loses. In the new system winning half your matches is better than playing half as many matches but winning them all. Thus those who "win" according to the new system are those who rack up the most sanctioned games. This is simply because you can in essence inflate that number to an arbitrary amount.

Look at it by way of analogy. If the previous system of ELO ratings as a measure of Magic skill was similar to IQ tests as a measure of intelligence in that they are probably somewhat correlated to the thing that they measure, even if they measure it imperfectly, then the new system of Magic "skill" ratings is similar to measuring your intelligence by the number of people you can get to post the words "Person X is smart" on your facebook wall. Now imagine that there is some competition that gives away free flights to the 100 most "intelligent" people measured this way.

For simpletons, it might seem like getting lots of people praising your intelligence on your wall is indicative that you are actually intelligent. They might think the competition is fair. After all, who would say that you are intelligent and not mean it? For those who actually know how these things work, they will realise that those who win those flights were simply the people who managed to run the most succesful campaign to "game" the system and that the end result has nothing to do with the actual intelligence of the people who took part.

Now, let's say WotC realises how ridiculous this new system is and limits the number of tournaments you can report officially to one per day. The system is still broken. Since there is an "attendance multiplier", a place like New York with a lot of competitive Magic players can form a cartel, whereby they all agree to show up everyday at the same venue to play a tournement, getting a huge "attendance multiplier" for all everyday. Even if WotC realises how ridiculous the "attendance multiplier" is, then people can still play everyday, and moreover, those who find the weakest play groups and play against the weakest opponents rack up the most points. Big fish in small ponds. And the only way to get around that is pretty much to go back to something that actually attempts to measure play skill (like the ELO system did). And note that in this scenario, if you are seriously competitive, then you are gaming the system against other similarly seriously competitive people. That means for example that if you really want those flights, you can't miss a single tournament. Even if you are gravely ill. That just isn't healthy or wise, but I do know a lot of very, very competitive types who I have no trouble believing to disregard their health and not go to hospital when they really should because they are so close to attending a PT and getting the free flights there.

Actually, all that talk about competitiveness reminds me of a real example from the past, from the system that was much harder to "game".

We are talking about a semi-"gravy train" rider here. Someone who even had a weekly column on the WotC website, has written a lot on the SCG website. Someone who you would know by name. That someone and me shared a close friend. And that friend confided to me that whenever this someone was at risk of falling off the "gravy train" or not qualifying to PTs on previous performance, he would fly to Thailand (where people are poorer) and bribe his way to a victory in a PTQ there. See he had wealthy parents, lots of money and no real need to work.

So the story goes anyway. It might not be true, but I think my source is quite trustworthy. I think this story is quite likely to be true, though admittedly, I would not bet my head on it.

But whether or not the story is true is a bit beside the point. The point is what does the new system enable?

The new system just blows the sort of corruption in that story out of the water. Anything goes, pretty much. The most daring cheaters who are not caught will be the ones getting the flights.

But I personally couldn't care less about those flights. I wouldn't be getting them anyway. It's just an example. The whole point is that the new system utterly fails to capture anything about how good someone is at playing Magic. Instead of playing at sanctioned tournaments, you could just as well play at the kitchen table at home with your friends - in the end you still have to deduce your abilities as a Magic player from now on yourself, rather than have a somewhat trustworthy (even if imperfect) metric.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 11:05PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

I don't think that this rating system will be death of Serious Magic in a long shot.

Actually, about this you are probably quite right. It's just that the face of competitive Magic will have changed. The underlying motivation for WotC was clearly that they want to promote a "pay-to-win" model. I disagree with that as a player, but I can understand it. Companies are greedy and exist to make a profit. "Rewarding" players by the amount they play seems a simple way to increase revenue, especially where limited players are concerned.

But from a player's perspective, if you care about these new ratings, it is quite similar to allowing people to win with stupidly broken decks with overpowered and ridiculously expensive cards that very few can afford. Or then you take my stance that you decide not to care a single bit about the new ratings.

I am not saying competitive Magic is dead this instant. I am just saying that there is no longer a non-degenerate way of evaluating how good someone is at the game, which takes away a lot of the motivation to play it seriously, at least for me. But at the same time, there will continue to be those who don't care that the ratings are degenerate and easy to manipulate and still want to rack them up. And PTQ's and PT's will continue much the same way they used to. I just think fewer people will be interested in getting to the top if they have no real means of tracking their progress while trodding through the middle ranks. Essentially, there will be the top levels of play, PT's, PTQ's, GP's that can give you some indication of who is actually good and who is not, but below that level, it's anyone's guess. The vast bulk of competitive play will be an indecipherable mess of "he's not that good"/"he is pretty good"/"he is a really strong player", all relative to the level of play locally, which can't be anymore meaningfully compared with the level of play anywhere else really.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 4:04PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

I don't see the point of angst. So there are many people who don't play magic. Why should they be considered for a Pro Tour? If you don't play a sport professionally for a year, why should you come back for the Top Contenders rundown? It doesn't work that way in sports. Why are we arguing for it in the case of a Magic tourney?

Secondly, an apology if you don't feel the question belongs aimed at you. However, the general tenor of the forum seems to be "Great, I'll never qualify now", and part of me is going "Okay, so you're not devoting time to top events, playing a weekly game, and winning a lot. Why should you be qualifying in the first place?"

Being good or lucky at a GP should weigh a lot, but if it's the only event you do during a season, you should really be doing more.

Define "don't play magic". Not playing for a year is a logn time, but there are many who don't play weekly. We are arguing for it because Magic used to be quite combinable with a life.

On my local forums the tenor is more "Great, I'll never qualify again". For PT invites, this is about europe being outclassed by america in number of high-profile events. For NAT invites, it's the person we've been talking about. The one that plays GPs and PTQs but is now outclassed by those who just playa  whole lot more.

About the last part, the big question is how much more? How will grinding look like under the new system? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 7:40PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

You are assuming, of course, that cheating wasn't possible under the old system, which, of course, it was.

But it seems so much easier under the new system. Under the old, those points had to come from somewhere, from someone else. So you had to make a lot of fake players and I'm sure that's just better identifyable.

Under the new system, those points just come from time. So a group of players can imrpove all of their points by playing a lot, or reporting to play a lot.

EDIT: double post

Is there a list of the multipliers used for each level of tournament play? I didn't see any comprehensive list of such in the announcement.

Yes.  I don't have the URL handy off my iPad, but one of the article's links has all the #s.

Wow... This is going to actually make me use the Multi-Quote system! I appologize profusely for the length this is probably going to get.

Sep 8, 2011 -- 11:29PM, elonilo wrote:

Quite the contrary, I don't think you understand how competitive people get.


The people who will care about winning actual games of Magic in this new system will mostly be the more casual players, those who haven't figured out just how broken the new system is. They will think that winning makes a difference. Of course, if you only ever lose, you won't rack up many points. But no one only ever loses. In the new system winning half your matches is better than playing half as many matches but winning them all. Thus those who "win" according to the new system are those who rack up the most sanctioned games. This is simply because you can in essence inflate that number to an arbitrary amount.

You realize that's the point, right? That playing *less* matches makes a person less of a Professional, right?

It's quite simple, really, and I think you're missing it. Either that or you don't like it. If it is the later, I'm sorry. Magic is divided now into 3 seasons. During each season, you are expected to play at least once a week, and really competitive players probably more. This is why Friday is worth 3x as many points as other nights, outside of special events. This is the equivalent of Monday Night Football (Or, whatever the European equivalent is). In any case, those that win the most games, and play the most Fridays, will be in a better competitive position than those that just play half as often.

Yes, the system is *designed* around the concept that to be in the top, you have to continuously play. Yes, it *is* possible to play in more than one FNM depending on your area. I know I could have done it down in Los Angeles. If you want to call it unfair, then that is in your perfect right to do so, but Attendance is important. Number of people attending doubly so.

While you *could* buy your way into more points if you wanted to, and I have no doubt someone is going to try it, what exactly is the payout for doing so? If you *KNOW* you're not winning the majority of your matches, then you should Logically know that the payout of the Pro Tours are out of your reach. So this person is going to 'cheat' his way in... and then lose to the field anyway.

I really feel your worry about this is going to balance out in the end. People who win more consistantly will still end up at the top. Just avoiding playing during the high points of the season will hurt you score wise.

I mean, hell, even with paranoia, do you *really* think that you can organize 64 people into some type of social contract to get an edge on a competition for maybe their top 10%? Really? Attendance will start dropping after the third week, I guarantee, as people start to realize that no, they aren't going to be in the top 100 by such a lame duck strategy.

....

I'm not saying that is is a concern, but it's really hard to see such schemes working out in the long run. It's much more likely that just the person who shows up at the shop every day after work at those dedicated Magic Cardshops will be in that better position than any of these crazy plans.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 12:03AM, elonilo wrote:

 The whole point is that the new system utterly fails to capture anything about how good someone is at playing Magic. Instead of playing at sanctioned tournaments, you could just as well play at the kitchen table at home with your friends - in the end you still have to deduce your abilities as a Magic player from now on yourself, rather than have a somewhat trustworthy (even if imperfect) metric.

I disagree.  ELO isn't the only yardstick one can determine how well a player is. Given the era of decklisting, it often times is just a measuring stick of how lucky one is in tournament. While we will accept that most top ELO players do have great degrees of skill in the system, I am not really convinced that ELO served much purpose beyond that.

Because ELO's were never reset over the course of the game, players that started out poorly, and then started doing well later on never ended up in consideration for competitions. THe ELO system included a huge penalty for not knowing the game before entering, and as such, it is quite possible that such a system actually prevented new and upcoming winners from actually entering into the circuit.

The current system, by not only resetting points every four months, but by not tracking losses as penalties, gives those kinds of players, the fresh blood, if you will, a better chance at succeeding then an old system where you could choose not to play, and deny other people the chance to take your place. ELO, then, really doesn't become about skill, and more about the status of your past, and that's not conductive to play, either.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 12:56AM, elonilo wrote:

Sep 8, 2011 -- 11:05PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

I don't think that this rating system will be death of Serious Magic in a long shot.

Actually, about this you are probably quite right. It's just that the face of competitive Magic will have changed. The underlying motivation for WotC was clearly that they want to promote a "pay-to-win" model. I disagree with that as a player, but I can understand it. Companies are greedy and exist to make a profit. "Rewarding" players by the amount they play seems a simple way to increase revenue, especially where limited players are concerned.

But from a player's perspective, if you care about these new ratings, it is quite similar to allowing people to win with stupidly broken decks with overpowered and ridiculously expensive cards that very few can afford. Or then you take my stance that you decide not to care a single bit about the new ratings.

Again, I repeat, if you are *choosing* not to play magic competitively as fully as you can during a Magic Season, then you shouldn't be being rewarded for being a good player. Anyone can be a good player if they wanted to. Dedication of time is all that it really takes. Why should playing less than other people be considered more skillful, and why should it be rewarded more? I don't think you've addressed those issues.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 12:56AM, elonilo wrote:

I am not saying competitive Magic is dead this instant. I am just saying that there is no longer a non-degenerate way of evaluating how good someone is at the game, which takes away a lot of the motivation to play it seriously, at least for me. But at the same time, there will continue to be those who don't care that the ratings are degenerate and easy to manipulate and still want to rack them up. And PTQ's and PT's will continue much the same way they used to. I just think fewer people will be interested in getting to the top if they have no real means of tracking their progress while trodding through the middle ranks. Essentially, there will be the top levels of play, PT's, PTQ's, GP's that can give you some indication of who is actually good and who is not, but below that level, it's anyone's guess. The vast bulk of competitive play will be an indecipherable mess of "he's not that good"/"he is pretty good"/"he is a really strong player", all relative to the level of play locally, which can't be anymore meaningfully compared with the level of play anywhere else really.

The problem is, of course, is that was always the way it was, anyway. Your local meta always was warping your perception of your ELO, anyway. Take an isolated country town, for example. They have a magic shop. Every week they have their local community come in a few dozen to fifty miles to play magic competitively. They get a player that has a really high ELO after a point, but they are in isolation from everyone else. That player decides he is going to hit the Grand Prix and see if he has what it takes, but when he gets there, he finds out the Meta is completely different than the environment he is used to, and even with research, the style of play that is present throws him off.  He ends up scrubbing out.

Now, tell me. Is that ELO really a measure of how good a player that person is, or just how bad his local Metagame was?

ELO is as poor measuring stick as anything else, and in someways worse. A player that took a big point hit when they started playing and has to climb out could be the top contender for *this* season, but you'd never know, because he started out at a larger penalty.  Meanwhile, the player that may not be as good as they used to be is still sitting there with a Rating that no longer reflects his actual skill level.

Neither system is perfect. I understand that there is a preference for one over the other. The main point I have is that the new system is not as bad as people make it out to be, that if you wanted to be dedicated and cheat or game points, it really isn't any harder to do so than in the older system, and in the end, it actually affords people the opportunity to take time off without being rewarded for it, and lets people be competitive to an easy to plan for schedule during the seasons.

Magic with actual seasons. Now there's something brilliant.

"The problem is, of course, is that was always the way it was, anyway. Your local meta always was warping your perception of your ELO, anyway. Take an isolated country town, for example. They have a magic shop. Every week they have their local community come in a few dozen to fifty miles to play magic competitively. They get a player that has a really high ELO after a point, but they are in isolation from everyone else. That player decides he is going to hit the Grand Prix and see if he has what it takes, but when he gets there, he finds out the Meta is completely different than the environment he is used to, and even with research, the style of play that is present throws him off.  He ends up scrubbing out."



The oppposite end of your example is another of the big problems with the new system.   Not a single person living in that small town will ever have a chance to get Byes or invites to competitive events.  It doesnt matter how good they are, the simple fact that there is only ONE SMALL tournament a week that they can attend means even if they go 3-0 every week of the 4 months, they will have less points than the guy with a 10 percent win record that plays in a larger tournament every day in new york.     The ONLY place this new system rewards skill, is in those coastal cities where there are enough events for the skilled players to play multiple tournaments a week.  For everyone else, it does not matter how skilled they are, they simply cannot attend enough tournaments to compete.    In the old system, someone would eventually be able to raise their ELO high enough to get byes and invites after playing for years, now they have no chance.

Here are some thoughts on tweaks/updates that could be made to lead to a workable system:

Transform the ‘ Planeswalker levels’ into a lifetime achievement system- replacing the previous player rewards system. Mail out rewards to players for achieving levels. At higher levels perhaps this is free entry to PTQs/GPs etc. to allure players to play more and/or higher level events. Perhaps even give a PT invite upon achieving the highest levels. Perhaps roll out rewards for higher levels gradually and grandfather older players to receive the new rewards in order to keep costs lower.

Limit FNM Points. Limits are necessary to ensure that players/stores do not fraud the system. Limits are crucial to have confidence that we won’t spend all of our time and effort only to discover that we didn’t know/have access to the cheats to achieve success. Limits let us know that by showing up, we’re maxing out our possible FNM points for the week. 

Allow worldwide stores to send in an ‘FNM’ tournament once per week, but  allow some countries and/or stores to hold FNM on a non-Friday with  WOTC approval. WOTC can approve changes for countries which are not  conducive to playing on Fridays or stores with hardships.

Reinstate GP invites- At least a couple, and more based on attendance.  This keeps the dream alive for MTG Online players or Spikes whose  responsibilities take frequent precedence over Magic. For many, the invite is the  biggest allure to attending a GP- especially later in the season when  they figure out that they can’t keep up with Planeswalker Points.

Give out a few random invites to players who achieve a certain level of Planeswalker Points in a 4 month season. That would keep players incentivized throughout the season to attend more tournaments. There could be a 2 or 4 week cutoff before the PT to announce it- and how exciting would it be to have another announcement of that sort to make eh? If they want to incentivize attendance, as they obviously do, they could even weight the odds based on number of events attended. That way, we could achieve the level, but still want to play more for better odds.

To make play skill more relevant, multiply a player’s point total by their win %. This limits exploitation of the system by player’s attempted abuse of attendance. I think it’s pretty clear that WOTC wants to move away from win % mattering though, since it potentially leads to sitting on ratings. 

And a couple of other WOTC-related comments:

Limit the speculation: If we are expected to take a system seriously, then the system being implemented should be perceived as being robust. Mike Turian gave us many important details, but left us with many questions and the promise of more to come. When they make announcements like this and leave many details open to speculation, they give off the appearance of taking decisions like these frivolously. It seems like important changes like this should be better thought out and/or more completely presented prior to release.

Stop moving the goal lines: The requirements to achieve success in Matic can be costly both in time and money, but historically we see that the benefits received from success are not what was promised the year before. If players are to invest what is now being asked of us, for promises of future glory, there should be an understanding that the carpet won’t be swept out from under us again next year. There are very few sacred cows in this game, but fulfilling promises SHOULD be one of them and WOTC has pretty consistently shown that there are other things more important to them. When the perception is that money is more important, any changes will likely be taken quite negatively. 

Hopefully I'm overreacting and Wizards will make the appropriate changes as necessary to have a successful system. As it stands now, the system is ripe for abuse, makes skill comparisons difficult, is discriminatory based on location and/or lifestyle and is generally deceiving in a variety of ways to people who don't understand it. As a result of this as well as the manner of announcement,  the perception given off is potentially that WOTC is making these changes frivolously and greedily. At the least, this devalues any sense of legitimacy about the new program.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 8:26AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

You realize that's the point, right? That playing *less* matches makes a person less of a Professional, right?

This is a disagreement of such a fundamental level between us that I don't know where to start. Essentially, you are arguing that we should have "professionalism rating points" whereas I am arguing that we should have "skill rating points". For example, in Chess (which lacks random elements), the ELO rating of two players is an extremely good predictor of who will win when they are matched together. In Magic, it is a less good predictor since Magic is more random, but it is still a good predictor. This to me is a fundamental requirement of a "skill rating point" system. And I could not care less for any other types of rating points.

Some people play chess for a living, though it's starting to be a bit passe. Do you think the "professional" chess player (one who makes his living out of chess) should have a higher rating than a better player (i.e. one to whom he consistently loses, and who also beats the field better), but who has decided to pursue a career in, say, science instead of chess? Certainly the former is more "professional".

If you want "professionalism rating points", should you start getting rating for showing up at FNMs wearing a suit? Should you carry your deckboxes in a leather briefcase to get more rating? Should you go on advertising campaigns? Shouls you wear Magic ads in your clothing? Should you promote Magic to kids at your local school? What do you want with this "professionalism"?

I don't think sitting on rating is a good thing. But talking about professionalism, do you think Tiger Woods should have been required to start playing golf altogether anew from the little regional level events after having quit for a little while? Was it unprofessional and unreasonable to let him straight back to the highest levels of play? Should he have spent a year or two beating amateurs into submission to reprove that he is a good player? Should his skill be primarily measured by how many such games he actually recorded and entered into some digital database, rather than on how he actually played those games?

I personally would prefer the top tournaments of any competitive "sport" to have the most skilled players competing against each other, rather than the most enthusiastic ones.

It seems to me that you are confusing skill, enthusiasm and professionalism into something that is none of them but a bit of all of them.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 8:26AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

It's quite simple, really, and I think you're missing it. Either that or  you don't like it. If it is the later, I'm sorry. Magic is divided now  into 3 seasons. During each season, you are expected to play at least  once a week, and really competitive players probably more. This is why  Friday is worth 3x as many points as other nights, outside of special  events. This is the equivalent of Monday Night Football (Or, whatever  the European equivalent is). In any case, those that win the most games,  and play the most Fridays, will be in a better competitive position  than those that just play half as often.

From Ravnica to Shadowmoor, I usually played three sanctioned drafts per week. Having done that, I can most certainly vouch that I never felt entitled to good ratings just based on the frequency at which I played. In my play-group, I was quite middle-to-good ranking and the ratings my play-group  accurately reflected their skill and our internal ranking and our chances of succeeding at GPs as well. I think it is wrong that suddenly I could have a much higher rating than someone who plays less, but who is likely to beat me if we ever play against each other. Like I said above, I think the ratings of two players should be a good predictor of who is going to win when they play against each other. Of course, those who play more tend to be more skilled too, but rather than measuring skill, the new system primarily measures frequency of play. They are correlated, but not identical. I have several other points that would fit here, but I am not going to repeat what I have said in other posts about this topic.

Just remember that there are huuuuge discrepancies between the numbers of tournaments people living in different places could reasonably be expected to be able to attend.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 8:26AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

The problem is, of course, is that was always the way it was, anyway. Your local meta always was warping your perception of your ELO, anyway. Take an isolated country town, for example. They have a magic shop. Every week they have their local community come in a few dozen to fifty miles to play magic competitively. They get a player that has a really high ELO after a point, but they are in isolation from everyone else. That player decides he is going to hit the Grand Prix and see if he has what it takes, but when he gets there, he finds out the Meta is completely different than the environment he is used to, and even with research, the style of play that is present throws him off.  He ends up scrubbing out.

Now, tell me. Is that ELO really a measure of how good a player that person is, or just how bad his local Metagame was?

Actually, that to me is a brilliant counter-example to what you are arguing, as already pointed out by Morifen, with whom I agree completely.

But furthermore, I think it is specifically also an example of how the ELO worked, if not perfectly, at least reasonably well. How? Specifically because that big fish in the little pond who had a rating higher than what he should have deserved to have globally speaking had sucked in the rating from his locals and then went to donate it at the GP to the global community. Doing this repeatedly over time (as happens with real Magic players who do travel), the overall rating level of that isolated community will tend towards representing their actual skill level on the global scale. If they improve, then their best players  (or actually, any of their players) should start gaining rather than losing rating at "outside events", bringing rating back to the community and making their rating better represent their now improved play-skill.

The new system certainly is not an improvement in the way you seem to imagine. How does getting a set number of points for a win, no matter who you play against, not give people in unskilled isolated communities inflated ratings (at least if they organise tournaments often, which unfortunately is what the new system is really about rather than anything else)?

Sep 9, 2011 -- 8:26AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

ELO is as poor measuring stick as anything else, and in someways worse. A player that took a big point hit when they started playing and has to climb out could be the top contender for *this* season, but you'd never know, because he started out at a larger penalty.  Meanwhile, the player that may not be as good as they used to be is still sitting there with a Rating that no longer reflects his actual skill level.

I don't think this is really as you say it is. All you need to do is play a few high K-value tournaments to adjust your ratings by tremendous amounts. You can easily gain or lose a hundred rating points at a single GP, for example. Not that it happens often, because usually people's ratings already reflect their skill-level fairly well. But I have seen it happen. Playing a few PTQs will quickly adjust your rating to roughly what it should be for that PTQ season.

But yes, of course the system is laggy to some extent. The opposite extreme would be to have only two ratings 1 (= won last match) and 0 (=lost last match). If you want something more gradual in nature in a "sport" where it really only matters whether you win, lose or draw (and not by how many points you win or lose), then you will have to have some element of lag to it. However, my experience is that active players' ELO ratings are usually adjusted to a good enough approximation of their current skill-level withing about two months when they attend tournaments weekly or more. Also, people's playing skills do not change that dramatically over the course of two months (not generally over 100 ELO rating point-equivalents - note: I am not talking about the rating itself there, but about the underlying skill level).

It's true that sitting on rating is something that did happen before and which most, me included, found an undesirable feature. I have not tried to defend it. I merely pointed out that people have suggested much more workable solutions to this problem than the new sytem that we were given.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 10:14AM, morgop wrote:

To make play skill more relevant, multiply a player’s point total by their win %. This limits exploitation of the system by player’s attempted abuse of attendance. I think it’s pretty clear that WOTC wants to move away from win % mattering though, since it potentially leads to sitting on ratings.

I agreed wholehartedly with every point you made except for the above. Indeed, this would make skill a little bit more relevant in the new system (even if not enough to fix what is fundamentally broken in half). But it would not incetivise people to sit on rating as you claim.

Oh, now I get it! You mean their overall win %!

I though that their win % for any one particular event (FNM, PTQ, GP, etc). Yes, overall might cause sitting. But doing it on a tournament by tournament basis should not encourage people to sit on rating.

For example, you play a 4-round FNM and go 3-1. You now got 3(points per win)*3(wins)*0.75(win%) points (multiplied by all the rest, like 3 for it being an FNM, plus adding the totally non-sensical attendance bonus).

I have to admit that would still encourage dropping out if you know that you can't win, for example, the final. Which understandably was one of the behaviours that the new rating system attempted to cure.

Having said all that, I don't think adopting something like this win % -system would really make any difference. Polishing a turd, as they say.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 10:57AM, elonilo wrote:

Oh, now I get it! You mean their overall win %!

Yes that's what I meant, but I agree with you that limiting the win% to the current tournament is superior.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 10:57AM, elonilo wrote:

Polishing a turd, as they say.

In that metaphor, Let's hope that the turd is fertilizer for improvements to come and not the remnants of respect that we had for WOTC.

Instead of the planeswalker-pay-to-win system, WotC could try this:

Make it much harder to play the mtg-game itself.

This way ppl of all skill levels would have to practice the game alot more in order to become good at it. And since no scene is better than the sanctioned tournament scene itself for practising purposes ppl would attend those more.

So far, this change has been wholesale disappointment.

I'm an 18-year old Magic player, and I've been playing this game since I could read--I was 6 when my dad introduced me to the game, and I started doing tournaments at 10.  We've been playing as a family ever since.  So, for the past 8 years, I've been playing at Magic shops, PTQs, State tournaments, JSS (back when it was alive), and a plethora of other Magic-related tournament events and places.

This rating change has been so disappointing, for the most part, over the fact it has eliminated itself as a proper indicator of talent.  If someone were to tell me their rating, "level," or whatever else, I can't respect it--they simply could be someone who has played for a long time, and has wracked up as many wins as losses.  When it comes to good players "sitting" on their good ratings, I think that Wizards is missing an important aspect to this: most players don't get to that point.  I have never reached the point where I would sit on my rating, even after passing 1900 points.  Seemingly, this was the largest reason for this change, but for most players, all you did was reward length of play in an MMO manner (which is grinding of the worst kind), without leaving a person's rating as a reasonable indicator of talent.

On another level, the multipliers are not figured correctly as well.  I have been playing at Thursday-night store tournaments for 8 years and, aside from PTQs and such, I now find that my rating would be equivalent to a person of commensurate talent who started playing over 5 years after me.  Also, a PTQ win (which is something that can take a person many years of work to attain, let alone including the need to have the right amount of luck at the right time) has been devalued--someone going 4-1 at a few 16 or 17-person FNM tournaments will earn them more points than a PTQ victory.  I haven't had a PTQ win, nor have I come very close, but I've had this kind of top-4 level record streak at store tournaments on multiple occasions.

In all, I haven't found an aspect of this change that I can really get behind, and I really hope there is another change of some kind.  I hope that I will be proved wrong.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 8:26AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Again, I repeat, if you are *choosing* not to play magic competitively as fully as you can during a Magic Season, then you shouldn't be being rewarded for being a good player. Anyone can be a good player if they wanted to.

That is utter BS =p
Anyone can be a good singer? Anyone can be a good physicist? Anyone can be a good pilot?
Unless it's coming from some kind of idealistic positivism, no not anyone can be a good player.

Thumbs down to who dislakes this new system and only thinks on themselfs rank. The "Pro" community was sitting on the players club and ranking system that makes they not to play at local events so they only go to PT.

The casual/new player didn't want to know about ranking because will take years of effort to raise your rank ( Yes sometimes you have a bad day at magic and you loose all your points in a big tournamment ).

With this system all people that play magic could be rewarded somehow and not always the same guys with their monthly wage of wizards at players club.

This new ranking helps magic to keep alive, yes some local stores in small places have dificulties to get players on their stores (usually only for prereleases) now they will have more and more players at FNM, why? because you get reward for it!! and if you loose doesn't matter you don't loose points. So pro players now could go to FNM!

Yes some tournaments are bigger than others, so people will earn more points in some locations who makes the FNM competition not equal for all. But PT invites will not suffer with that,  lot of people have affraid of "grinding" players. It's only 4 months season, you have 4 FNMS per month, a good performance on a GP with thousands of players could give you the points of lots of FNM's. And if not? Wizards can easily in the upcoming seasons change the multiplers.

The goal here is to have more people playing paper magic. And if more people are playing, this helps WoTC, and if they win more then they can give more to all players. Remember this is a game to gather people and get fun not "earn money", for that you have poker lol.

And this provides me a commun 1700 rating player possibility in a good season ( with some GP ) possibility to earn a ticket to a PT!!! Not only the invite but the ticket!!

I see many people saying I don't have time to play so much magic, you have 3 seasons, get time just to play 1 then!

I guess the GP attendance will keep unchanged, prizes at GP always sucked, so people went to GP to play in a big event, since they had no oportunity to play at PT. The funny thing now will see all people play the 9 rounds lol. In the past sometimes suck I have 2-3 looses. I can't play more, if not I get the risk to loose all my rank. 

This new ranking will help local stores, WTOC and improve the gaming experience. Since now you don't get punished by playing magic if you loose. You just don't win.  

Sep 9, 2011 -- 12:56AM, elonilo wrote:

But from a player's perspective, if you care about these new ratings, it is quite similar to allowing people to win with stupidly broken decks with overpowered and ridiculously expensive cards that very few can afford.

That's true enough, but that, of course, was a feature that Magic had under the old system.

And, of course, except for banning cards when only one kind of deck dominates, it's a feature Wizards could not, and would not, do anything about. That would require turning Magic from a CCG into another kind of game.

Now, to get into the Pro Tour on points, not only will someone have to be a good Magic player and win a lot - that hasn't stopped being a requirement - he will also have to play as much Magic as is humanly possible. Because there will be many other people competing to get one of those coveted spots.

Those who live where they can play Magic four times a week will have an insurmountable advantage over people who live where they can only play it twice a week. But if enough people live where you can play Magic five times a week or eight times a week, then the ones who can play it four times a week won't have any chance either.

This system will encourage some people to play a lot of Magic. Others will be discouraged by it from even trying.

For most of us, who don't have a shot at the Pro Tour, of course, it doesn't matter directly.

Actually, in the end, I have to say that I don't mind the new system so much as long as DCI keeps keeping records of the old style DCI ratings. I doubt that doing so would be prohibitively expensive.

In the end, WotC is a commercial company whose prerogative is to make money. If they want to encourage people spending more money on their product by adopting a rating system that primarily reflects how much money you have spent on their product, that is understandable. If they want to invite the highest spending Magic players to Pro Tours, that is fine too. I just don't think they should be called anymore the best Magic players or the most skilled Magic players. Which sort of makes the whole competitive side of Magic another casual format.

The one thing that I really want is for them to keep tracking the old ELO-style DCI ratings. Just so that we continue having some metric for how skilled we are at playing Magic.

kthanxbai

Sep 9, 2011 -- 8:22PM, elonilo wrote:

In the end, WotC is a commercial company whose prerogative is to make money. If they want to encourage people spending more money on their product by adopting a rating system that primarily reflects how much money you have spent on their product, that is understandable.

Here's the place where the logic of that concept fails.  This new system will discourage people from spending money on Magic.  Here's why:

Players who are going to try to outgrind one another are going to do so by playing events that provide them the opportunity to accumulate the greatest number of points.  For that, you need to play the formats which make best use of your time.

Limited - Draft and Standard - do not fit the bill in that regard.  You're losing time right off the bat to deckbuilding (and drafting in the case of drafts).  Also, the frequency with which rounds at tournaments I've run have gone to the time limit has been far more frequent in Limited, control-based Constructed decks notwithstanding.

Discouraging people from playing those formats reduces the amount of product being purchased and therefore less money to WotC.

Let see an example of three players:

1st player plays Magic every day with 50% wins.
2nd player plays Magic twice a week with 80% wins.
3rd player plays Magic once in two months with 95% wins.

Who is the best Magic player among them?

Obviously, Wizards think that the 1st one is, because he brings more revenue than the others. But we, players, are on another side of the barricade, so we can't accept that point (despite we definitely can understand it).

Obviously also, the 3rd player think, he is the best. But is it really true? I'm doubt. Most likely, he is not a better player, but a tricky one. He plays few matches and only when he can maximize his chances to win. There are many ways to do this legally, so we can't blame him as a "cheater". He is just a sportsman making an advantage this way.

The main flaw of the ELO rating system is, that it rewards the 3rd player behaviour. This is because ELO is used as a lifetime rating system and counts all the matches that a player plays during his career despite of how long ago they are happens. So, a player may (and many players will) do enough efforts to grow his rating once and then just "sit on it".

I must say, the Planeswalker Point system (with few fixes such as lowering the FNM multipler and allow a player to choose his/her "level avatar" among many variants instead of force an awful picture or one of an opposite sex) may be much better than ELO as a lifetime rating system. At least, it is attractive and easy to understand to those players who don't care about Magic as a sport (yes, that means "to absolute majority of Magic players!")

But i strongly suggest to keep the modified ELO rating as a timely and invitational ranking system. This may be done by linear decaying the weight of a match in the flow of time (such as Chessmetrics do) or by simply discarding all matches that was played more than 4 months ago from the count.

What are the benefits of this?

The main benefit from my point of view is, that the 1st player will never beat the 2nd one rating and win an invitation. Even if he will play two or six events every day, his "timely rating" will stay around 1600 until he raise his skill and percentage of wins.

The benefit for Wizards is, that the 3rd player can't "sit on his rating" under this system. To beat the 2nd player rating and win an invitation, he must play enough (and spend enough) to prove that his skill is really better.

In fact, i think this is better for the 3rd player himself also to have such a challenge. Playing Magic alot with many opponents is much more enjoyable experience than "sitting on rating" and avoid casual events.

Thank you, Wizards, if you have read my post. I hope that the opinion of a 40lvl Sorcerer has some weight for you

Seems to me, the real issue (and obvious fix) is that PWP is favoring FNM waaaaaaay too much.

Look, WotC, we all know you guys are just a small part of the Almighty Hasbro Corporate Empire.  We also understand that you guys need to make money to eat sometimes.  Just try to make the rampant moneygrabs slightly less obvious in the future, okay?

That said, the My Little Pony RPG thing you guys teased us with in 2006 needs to happen, NOW!

Sep 9, 2011 -- 10:51PM, DedlyEdly70 wrote:

In the end, WotC is a commercial company whose  prerogative is to make money. If they want to encourage people spending  more money on their product by adopting a rating system that primarily  reflects how much money you have spent on their product, that is  understandable.

Here's the place where the logic of that concept fails.  This new system will discourage people from spending money on Magic.  Here's why:

Players  who are going to try to outgrind one another are going to do so by  playing events that provide them the opportunity to accumulate the  greatest number of points.  For that, you need to play the formats which  make best use of your time.

Limited - Draft and Standard - do  not fit the bill in that regard.

That's true when players have a  choice between playing in a Limited event or two Constructed events.  Usually, though, that choice won't be available most of the  time. Instead, in a typical city, they might have a choice between one  Constructed and one Limited event some days of the week, when they would  choose Constructed, Limited or nothing another day, and maybe the  opportunity to play one Constructed and one Limited event at some venues  for FNM, as well as on the weekend.

So, since the goal is to be in the rarefied zone of the very top points  holders in one's whole country, it won't be possible to pass up those  additional Limited events each week for which no direct Constructed  alternative is available.

Actually, though, this analysis of why your argument is wrong shows the  reason that your conclusion is still right: this will only encourage a  tiny handful of players, those with credible Pro Tour ambitions, to play  more than they otherwise would.

Unless they start giving away T-shirts for smaller amounts of Planeswalker Points or something.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 11:47PM, Qmark wrote:

That said, the My Little Pony RPG thing you guys teased us with in 2006 needs to happen, NOW!

This gives me an idea.

Remember those old Space: the Convergence cards they teased us with?

Well, remember Portal: Three Kingdoms?

They could publish Space: the Convergence, except using the normal Magic back and the normal five basic lands. Thus, using Portal: Space cards, players would have access to Orbital, which, like Horsemanship, is similar to flying, except that it could only be blocked by creatures with Orbital instead of Horsemanship or Flying (or Reach). But Infiltrate Necroleum would be exactly equivalent to Swampwalk.

Sep 10, 2011 -- 2:25AM, quadibloc wrote:

Sep 9, 2011 -- 10:51PM, DedlyEdly70 wrote:

This new system will discourage people from spending money on Magic.  Here's why:

Players who are going to try to outgrind one another are going to do so by playing events that provide them the opportunity to accumulate the greatest number of points.  For that, you need to play the formats which make best use of your time.

Limited - Draft and Standard - do not fit the bill in that regard.

That's true when players have a choice between playing in a Limited event or two Constructed events. Usually, though, that choice won't be available most of the time.

The choice will be made based on what the players demand of their Tournament Organizers.  I've seen the schedule for the formats of FNM tourneys in my area change countless times, both within individual venues and between venues to best serve the players' wants.  This change will have the players here (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario) pressuring all three T.O.'s to run a pair of Constructed formats, with the minimum 40-minute time limit.  Whichever one capitulates first will be the one to keep/receive their patronage.  In areas without options for FNM but where enough players want the maximum opportunity to compete for PWPs for their Competitive Rating or want an invite to the FNM World Championships will press for that opportunity as well.  Further, any place where this isn't being done will have a player base incapable of competing for those achievements with those in regions where it is happening.

Sep 9, 2011 -- 4:46PM, TobyornotToby wrote:

That is utter BS =p Anyone can be a good singer? Anyone can be a good physicist? Anyone can be a good pilot? Unless it's coming from some kind of idealistic positivism, no not anyone can be a good player.

Umm.. yes?

Singing is a skill. It's developed by singing over and over and over again.
Physics is a skill. It's developed by solving problems over and over and over again.
Piloting is a skill. It's developed by flying/piloting over and over and over again.

ANYONE can be a good player. All that is needed is dedication and time. To think that one just magically is a "Good Player" without practice or effort is naive.

I have no problem with this system, but I think that that's mostly because I think the notion that it should be measuring people's skill is absurd.

The system isn't really in place to say "Player X plays magic better than Player Y". It's in place to decide who is able to attend Pro Tours and who gets bye's at Grand Prix's, etc. The fact that they included the element of pseudo-ranking and these 'levels' was, in my opinion, a huge mistake. The system doesn't need to predict who is more likely to win a match because that's not what they're using it for. If someone hasn't played the game in 3 years but played excellently 'back in the day', do they really deserve an invite to the pro tour over someone who has been playing at every FNM and going to every Grand Prix and PTQ (which they presumably didn't manage to win getting them an invite, but probably top 8'd) they could find? To me, this makes no sense. The person who hasn't played in three years might be favored if he played against the grinder (after he refreshed his memory of the game =P), but the fact that he can play the game well, IMHO, doesn't mean that he should get invites or byes over other people who aren't as skilled, but are active participants and actively trying to get invites and byes.

According to an ad for Innistrad...

Zombies love Magic players, because our brains are extra tasty.

Surely we should applaud a rating system that makes the brainiest Magic players harder to find! The Zombies might go and pick on someone else...

Sep 11, 2011 -- 6:09PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Sep 9, 2011 -- 4:46PM, TobyornotToby wrote:

That is utter BS =p Anyone can be a good singer? Anyone can be a good physicist? Anyone can be a good pilot? Unless it's coming from some kind of idealistic positivism, no not anyone can be a good player.

Umm.. yes?

Singing is a skill. It's developed by singing over and over and over again.
Physics is a skill. It's developed by solving problems over and over and over again.
Piloting is a skill. It's developed by flying/piloting over and over and over again.

ANYONE can be a good player. All that is needed is dedication and time. To think that one just magically is a "Good Player" without practice or effort is naive.

To characterize this as if we all have the same inherent capabilities is misleading. Some can remember all of the cards that are in the packs as they are passed around a draft table. Others lack the memory capable to do this. Some can hold in their heads all of the specific cards in the important matchups. Others never have that capacity. Some hold in their head all of the cards in the pool when brewing. Others have to use Gatherer to really see it all. Some excel at the math, others excel at reading players.

In the same vein, some of us have copious tournament opportunities under this new system. Others do not. Some have a life situation or resource limitation that limits play. Others do not. To characterize the argument as if this is a choice, or that the vast majority of us fall into the 'choice' category I would also surmise to be misleading.

This system encourages maximizing the use of resources that are not universally available, fracturing players along geographic, socioeconomic and even racial lines. Mature programs typically contain elements to mitigate these types of factors, especially potentially volatile (emotional) demographics such as these. Hopefully Occam's Razor can be more strategically applied.

Consider a 3D XYZ axis. X is Play Skill (PS); Y is the Play Amount (PA); Z is the Individual's Demographics (ID). For a long time, the graph has been skewed high for PS, low for ID and as a variable for PA (basically only relevant for players unless they are Pro Tour interested, in which case they have a high playability up to the point of rating squatting. 
When the player rewards program was removed the PA moved to low and ID to wild west low. The new program updates the graph to extreme for PA (yet variable depending on our fear of systemic fraud), variable for PS (note that it is normally low, however can sometimes act as a multiplier if the ID is perfectly in tune) and variable for ID (but extreme).

If the frustration with ELO stemmed from its irrelevance to pairings, then merely weight pairings to consider seasonal ratings. Why did we get all of the additional baggage?

To resolve the old issues, 80% was resolved by the addition of seasons. 19% is by establishing a rating system that awards invites/byes. 1% is ruling that your highest rating is always used during the course of the season. They are changing to adding seasons anyway, so this isn't the most avant-garde thought. 

Seasons reset rankings, encouraging store play where rating points are garnered and eliminating ratings squatting.
Grand Prix attendance is encouraged since they are great ways to build rating quickly. 
SCG/other events are encouraged since they are great ways to build rating quickly. 
Discouragement over low ratings/tournament finish memories rotates seasonally. We can move on and try again. 
WOTC-sponsored events can still award specialized tournament prizes. FNM or otherwise.
Demographics are mitigated since player finishes more closely reflect their interest level. A few big finishes in a particular format is meaningful. 

WOTC I think your pockets are empty on this one.

I didn't have the time to read every prior post on this forum, but I'm going to give my 2 cents on the new system.

First of all, I respect the decision to try and devolop a system that keeps players of all skills levels playing often. That is a good direction to go in. Some of the aspects of the new program are fine. For example, the flat 3-1-0 point values for match results is a good system because it discourages people to 'sit' on ratings for fear of losing points. It also discourages people from setting up multiple DCI numbers to protect their 'competitive' rating.  However, there are a slew of problems with this system that if don't get addressed soon, WoTC will find that everything they want to see happen as a result of the change will actually go in the wrong direction.

The first problem of course, is the way they are going to be granting invitations and byes to high level events. Most competive magic players, unfortunately, do not play magic as a career. Most of them have families, employment obligations, and other life events that keep them from playing the game every weekend. These players will no longer be able to stay competitive. Any player who does consistantly well at GPs but can only go to 2-3 GPS a yr will likely have no shot of playing on the PT stage anymore. This is a HUGE problem. The PT should be players who earn the invitation by doing well, not by grinding. Grinding is just $$$ and time, and not every player has a surpluss. The system ruins the game for these players ,as there is no longer a point to show up if you know you're not playing for a chance to move to the next level. Going to 3 GPS is no different than going to 0 GPs now. I understand they cannot award invitations to the top16 now that there are double the number of GPs, but if you're going to grant a PTQ winner an invitation, you should be granting an invite to the top8 or at least the top4 of an event that has 10x more players, regardless of point multiplyers. Keep the magic lovers who have lives in the competitive loop.

This new system, aside from doing damage to the players mentioned above, has many other negative side effects that are going to make the game less appealing for everyone involved in magic. The 2nd problem, is that because you now have to 'grind' points to earn byes and invitations, it means there is no longer room for side events at a major event. If you go to a GP, and have any desire to earn byes or PT invitations, you are now forced to play every round at the tournament for those match wins, even if you're not in the money or even in day2, you are just grinding points. This means the number of side events that fire during day1 of a GP will be dramatically diminished. No one can afford to earn 9 points from winning a side draft when they can win round 10 of a GP after an 0-9 performance and earn 24 points for that win. Say goodbye to the social side of a big event, where players that used to drop out would turn their day around by drafting in side events, playing standard, trading, cubing with their pals, or selling and buying singles from vendors. This is going to drastically reduce the income generated by tournament organizers, as well as dealers and vendors at all the events. It is straight up not profitable for ANYONE, including WoTC because there will be less packs opened, less events run, and less cards sold, traded, and bought.

This system only benefits players with enough money and time to grind every major event accross the country year around. These MTG 'road warriors' will now finally earn PT invites by going to every event regardless of their performance. Winning 2 GPs isn't as good as playing every round in 5 GPs and winning half your matches now, and that is a poor way to decide who the best players are. I understand, maybe WoTC only wants to see players with money to spend at the PT, and not the best players. That's a shame, because a lot of people play the game to be competitive and feel like they earned something by doing well. WoTC will hopefully realize these road warrior players are a minority in the MTG community, and the minority of the attendees at a GP, PTQ, and the like. I wouldn't be surpised to see GP attendance go down, because the number of existing grinders plus the number of pros protecting their rating that will come, will not outweigh the mid-level players discussed above. The casual/social players will be the same, they didn't care about DCI rating, they won't care about competitive points, they just want to play, and they will still show up.

The 3rd problem. FNM pro tour? This event is completely skewed toward your location and your availability. My 2 local stores have average FNM sizes around 8-16. I can't play in FNM because I work late on fridays, so I can only attend events on the weekend. I now have no chance to qualify for this championship, and I'm losing seasonal cometitive points every week because of my job. Imagine how many good players are in my shoes. In addition, the players who live near FNMs like SCG have a huge advantage, because their FNM events are over 100 people, so their points for attending are skewed upward just because they are privilaged enough to be near a big store, and privilaged again to be able to play magic every Friday. Maybe WotC will realize this is a poor idea when the FNM champs is 50% SCG regulars from the same region.

I hope WotC is receptive to the comments provided by the community and adjust the system accordingly. As it stands, its going to make MTG less appealing for a very large % of players as well as vendors, and TOs around the country. Here are some other suggestions that may help address the issues I've discussed.

Bonus points or multiplyers for high finishes in big events: If you finish in the money at a PT or a GP, you earn extra planeswalker points, which if the amounts are appropriate, may offset their inability to show up at every GP all season.

PT invites at GPs stay: Invite the top 4 or top 8 of a GP to the PT, they have earned a chance to ascend to the next level of play.

Pro points for GPs adjusted: If you don't want to give flat invites, give out enough pro points for a high finish to qualify them for a pro tour that yr.

FNM planeswalker point system adjusted: Remove the attendance multiplyer for the number of players for FNM points. The bigger events will earn players more points sheerly from the number of rounds they will play in already. Don't make it worse by punishing the smaller stores. These stores will lose business and players because of this system. Additionally, reduce the planewalker points multiplyer for FNM events. Players that can't regularly attend FNM events are now at a huge disadvantage to stay on the leaderboards for a season because of the amount of points that can be earned at FNMs. Reducing this multiplyer will also make other sanctioned non-FNM events more appealing, like stores that have sanctioned saturday, sunday, and weekday tournaments as well.

I strongly encourage anyone in the community who is less attracted to MTG because of these changes to speak up. Let the community be heard!

Sep 11, 2011 -- 11:34PM, EternallyTouched wrote:

This new system, aside from doing damage to the players mentioned above, has many other negative side effects that are going to make the game less appealing for everyone involved in magic. The 2nd problem, is that because you now have to 'grind' points to earn byes and invitations, it means there is no longer room for side events at a major event. If you go to a GP, and have any desire to earn byes or PT invitations, you are now forced to play every round at the tournament for those match wins, even if you're not in the money or even in day2, you are just grinding points. This means the number of side events that fire during day1 of a GP will be dramatically diminished. No one can afford to earn 9 points from winning a side draft when they can win round 10 of a GP after an 0-9 performance and earn 24 points for that win. Say goodbye to the social side of a big event, where players that used to drop out would turn their day around by drafting in side events, playing standard, trading, cubing with their pals, or selling and buying singles from vendors. This is going to drastically reduce the income generated by tournament organizers, as well as dealers and vendors at all the events. It is straight up not profitable for ANYONE, including WoTC because there will be less packs opened, less events run, and less cards sold, traded, and bought.

I think you are projecting incorrectly. Side Events will still remain viable.

Okay, so let's say you are at the local GP, and you've been playing in the 10 round monster. You've just gone 0-3 so far the first day. At this point, you *could* continue to play on and hope maybe one of the lower ranks will win out. a 1-5 on the first day is going to get you an additional 24 points, maybe.

OR, you can drop out, and grab a Draft. If you go 3-0 at the draft, you pick up an additonal 80 points (1 + (3x3))x8. It really serves you if you know you aren't going to win, to try to pick up a few drafts while at the event, for it'll help catch you up with those heading for the top 8 seat. Going 0-3 still is picking you up an additional 8 points, so the incentive to draft *is* there.

The Social side, I feel, is going to survive just fine.

Sep 12, 2011 -- 12:14AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

OR, you can drop out, and grab a Draft. If you go 3-0 at the draft, you pick up an additonal 80 points (1 + (3x3))x8. It really serves you if you know you aren't going to win, to try to pick up a few drafts while at the event, for it'll help catch you up with those heading for the top 8 seat. Going 0-3 still is picking you up an additional 8 points, so the incentive to draft *is* there.

The Social side, I feel, is going to survive just fine.

Except that x8 there is a x1 =p

Sep 11, 2011 -- 6:09PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Umm.. yes?

Singing is a skill. It's developed by singing over and over and over again.
Physics is a skill. It's developed by solving problems over and over and over again.
Piloting is a skill. It's developed by flying/piloting over and over and over again.

ANYONE can be a good player. All that is needed is dedication and time. To think that one just magically is a "Good Player" without practice or effort is naive.

I'm not saying one can become good without practice or effort. I'm saying it requires more than that, talent. Some grinders, no matter how much time they spend on it, just will never reach a level a talented person can reach with perhaps less effort. It's all about how our brain is developed. For some, math comes more natural than for others. Developing a skill is a combination of talent and hard work.

If I study triple as hard for a test as you, but you still get a higher grade, that just means you're better at the subject than me. This new system is saying "You've scored a E four times in a row, that adds up to a C, good job".

Sep 12, 2011 -- 12:24AM, TobyornotToby wrote:

I'm not saying one can become good without practice or effort. I'm saying it requires more than that, talent. Some grinders, no matter how much time they spend on it, just will never reach a level a talented person can reach with perhaps less effort. It's all about how our brain is developed. For some, math comes more natural than for others. Developing a skill is a combination of talent and hard work.

If I study triple as hard for a test as you, but you still get a higher grade, that just means you're better at the subject than me. This new system is saying "You've scored a E four times in a row, that adds up to a C, good job".

If you look at any competitive sport in the world, the same applies. For example, there are quite a lot of retirees that spend most of the day, five days a week playing golf. There are probably some that spend even more time. I'd hazard a guess that some of these amateurs spend even more time playing golf than Tiger Woods. The question is, should the players invited to the US Open be the ones who played the most, or those who are most skilled in the sport? Should the athletes invited to the Olympics be the ones who trained the most, or the ones who perform the best? I think you will find that in any competitive sport, it's not the effort that counts but the results. And you can't really have it any other way if the point of the competition is to separate the best out from the rest. WotC has now decided to turn against that sound principle.

Yes, places at PTs are still given out for winning PTQs, but nevertheless, these new changes severely dent the credibility of Magic as a competitive (mind) sport.

Why? I think it is a hallmark of taking a sport or game competitively that when you play it, your major motivation is to perfect your play. Whereas if you are taking a sport or game casually, you are playing it just for the sake of playing it. [Admittedly, both cases are mixes, in that you are (hopefully) enjoying the game for its own sake even when trying to play perfectly, and you are probably trying to win even when playing just for kicks - it's a matter of degrees, of what is your major emphasis.]

The new system does not encourage players to perfect each and every play they make. Instead, it encourages them to play "enough well", but a lot. Most good players can beat poorer players "on autopilot" more often than not. Really focusing on your game so as find just the right play will in the end make you win only few games you would have otherwise lost. I would say that over time, the majority of a player's skill in Magic becomes habitual, almost reflexive. But those intuitions did not become instinctive before you really thought hard about it time after time. After thinking it through many times, you learn to instinctively read the game-state much better, without having to think it through "from basic principles".

For me, a big part of the motivation to always doing my best and to play as perfectly as I can stems from my desire to not lose rating (or from gaining rating, but this is less significant in practise with the players I play against). Going that extra mile to try and play perfectly teaches me more about the game, and gradually those lessons become habitual, second nature, intuitive. One major issue I have with the new rating system is that it doesn't encourage you to really put that effort into playing the best Magic you can, which consequently means probably not learning as well as you could how to play better. Losing a rare game here or there that you could have won is hardly punished anymore. So why bother getting it just right? To me, this strikes at the core of what a competitive sport should be about.

Having said that, in most sports, you need to maintain your effort in order to stay good. This was a fault of the previous system in Magic: you could stay "officially good" with no effort. No one here seems to be defending that. We just (seem to, if I understood most posters here) demand more reasonable cures for this ailment of the old system.

Sep 11, 2011 -- 6:09PM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

ANYONE can be a good player. All that is needed is dedication and time. To think that one just magically is a "Good Player" without practice or effort is naive.

What you're saying here is at minimum a reasonable point of view.  You have Malcolm Gladwell on your side if nothing else.  So let's say that's true and I support your claim. You've still circled around to contradict your original point.

If Paul Cheon is good at Magic, then by your definition he must have practiced a lot.  If someone is good, then they must have put in the effort. That's what you said.  And I'm supporting you.

So if someone is good, which means they must have practiced a lot (your point), then why deny them an invitation because the work didn't happen to take place at last week's FNM?  Why is 10,000 hours over a lifetime worth less than 100 hours over the last three months?  I know which is the better customer, but I don't turn on Pro Tour webcasts to watch the best customers.  I want to watch the best players.  I don't care if most of their practice came 5 years ago or 5 weeks ago, if they can demonstrate the skill they shouldn't have to jump through hoops.

-----------------------

Having said that, in most sports, you need to maintain your effort in order to stay good. This was a fault of the previous system in Magic: you could stay "officially good" with no effort. No one here seems to be defending that.

You've made excellent points over the last few pages elonilo, so thumbs up there.  Although I'd like to dissect this last point a bit.

Suppose byes and invites were completely out of the mix.  Some people seem to think ratings would be valueless then.  But they wouldn't, not to anyone who takes the game seriously and likes being able to measure skill.  Mike Turian thinks it's somehow flawed that his rating is still 2316.  I don't.  I think the only flaw is using it to say he's "the best player in the world right now".  But that's not a flaw in the system, it's a mistake in how it gets used.  Instead of scrapping it we should use it better.

Who was better - LSV in 2009 or Jon Finkel in 2000?  DCI Rating should be a way to answer.  Average rating over the year, peak rating, trough rating - these are good measures and the data is there, but not once we throw out ratings for a player reward system of meaningless points.

And LSV vs Finkel comparisons aren't even the big loss because there are so many other metrics for those two.  How about me?  What if I want to compare my best year in 2001 to a friend who's having a good year now.  Before I could say "I stayed mid-1800s, how are you doing?"  Now I can say "Guess what Mommy I'm an Invoker!  Yay!"

The new system can be improved and there are a lot of good ideas here and elsewhere from commenters worthier than me.  Maybe they'll take some.  But I will remain insulted as long as they take this attitude that Magic skill isn't important enough to want to measure.

Sep 12, 2011 -- 12:14AM, Kensan_Oni wrote:

Sep 11, 2011 -- 11:34PM, EternallyTouched wrote:

This new system, aside from doing damage to the players mentioned above, has many other negative side effects that are going to make the game less appealing for everyone involved in magic. The 2nd problem, is that because you now have to 'grind' points to earn byes and invitations, it means there is no longer room for side events at a major event. If you go to a GP, and have any desire to earn byes or PT invitations, you are now forced to play every round at the tournament for those match wins, even if you're not in the money or even in day2, you are just grinding points. This means the number of side events that fire during day1 of a GP will be dramatically diminished. No one can afford to earn 9 points from winning a side draft when they can win round 10 of a GP after an 0-9 performance and earn 24 points for that win. Say goodbye to the social side of a big event, where players that used to drop out would turn their day around by drafting in side events, playing standard, trading, cubing with their pals, or selling and buying singles from vendors. This is going to drastically reduce the income generated by tournament organizers, as well as dealers and vendors at all the events. It is straight up not profitable for ANYONE, including WoTC because there will be less packs opened, less events run, and less cards sold, traded, and bought.

I think you are projecting incorrectly. Side Events will still remain viable.

Okay, so let's say you are at the local GP, and you've been playing in the 10 round monster. You've just gone 0-3 so far the first day. At this point, you *could* continue to play on and hope maybe one of the lower ranks will win out. a 1-5 on the first day is going to get you an additional 24 points, maybe.

OR, you can drop out, and grab a Draft. If you go 3-0 at the draft, you pick up an additonal 80 points (1 + (3x3))x8. It really serves you if you know you aren't going to win, to try to pick up a few drafts while at the event, for it'll help catch you up with those heading for the top 8 seat. Going 0-3 still is picking you up an additional 8 points, so the incentive to draft *is* there.

The Social side, I feel, is going to survive just fine.

Yes, but you're calculating very wrong. The side events do not grant the x8 multiplyer, only the main event does, so one round win at a GP is worth almost 3 side event wins. It's 100% not viable to play in side events if you intend to stay competitive and in the race to q for the PT.

The person that is currently #1 worldwide in the FNM competition has played two FNMs each 'Friday' over the past two weeks, gathering 45+45+54+57 points in the process for a total of 211 points. This person has done this by playing in two locations each week. One of those locations, Discordia Games, lists no FNM on their website but they do run a 'Saturday Night Magic': www.discordiagames.com/Calendar.html As such it is safe to assume that in reality, this person has received half of their points playing FNM on a Saturday. This is a very visible result, of course, but I know of a lot of stores nearby that are running their FNM on a day other than Friday, because they don't want to be // cannot be open on Friday. Players in these areas can get to the top of the FNM leaderboard, winning an invite to a highly desired event, possibly airfare to said event, (and can probably get some GP byes as well) because their stores are willing to cheat the system in order to get their players rewarded. Is this a desirable effect?

Wizards, please acknowledge the fact that this FNM leaderboard is a fraud disaster (waiting to) happen (ing) and use the simple option of limiting the number of FNM rounds to 4 per person per week (or any other number that fits whatever business goals you have for FNM).

I was wondering how someone managed to get 20k FNM points this season, the season being just over a month long so far...

Since they invited me to give my opinion here on my profile page:

It's ok to question the accurateness of the ELO rating, but turn it into a rating of obsession instead of a rating of skill makes it a completely uninteresting stat. 

I think it is not right that FNM awards points  i think it should just be to play with some people cause if FNM starts awarding points wach people pop out their 450$ deck then? So i think the point system is great in tournamets but not in FNM.

My blog on the issue from a few months ago.

community.wizards.com/shivandarkeyes/blo...

To make matters worse if a TO sanctions the event incorrectly the player gets nothing.  I have went to several FNMs in my local area and twice since PWP came out WotC has refused to give me any FNM points because of a TO "error" in reporting.  As a player this is incredibly frustrating and because of the "grindy" nature of the system its a huge disadvantage to me.

Sep 6, 2011 -- 10:07AM, Garmichael wrote:

This thread is for discussion of the Planeswalker Points Announcement.

I need help, I go to www.thedci.com and can see all my event where I lost and see my ranking, but when I go to Planeswalker points site, I am level one and shows I did nothing, same DCI number. Any suggestions?