Hey everyone, and welcome to The Real Deal! I’m back from my vacation to New Orleans. I had some good food, helped Kate nurse her way past bronchitis (frown town!), and arrived back in Roanoke safe and sound. When I returned, I was almost immediately messaged by a rather irate Craig Stevenson.
You see, Craig had played in a Two-Headed Giant Pro Tour Qualifier on this past Saturday, and ended up tied for fourth place. And when I say “tied for fourth place,” I mean that the following tiebreakers were identical:
1. Match Points
2. Opponents’ match-win percentage
3. Game-win percentage
4. Opponents’ game-win percentages
The tournament organizer awarded the fourth slot of the top four to not-Craig’s team, based on order of entry into the tournament. Craig felt very angry that his team had been denied a chance at qualifying based on such a random process, but according to the tournament organizer handbook from the DCI:
“If a tie still applies after the tie breaker calculation, the order of entry of the record in the tournament will always be used as the last resort.”
Craig was assuaged about the methodology used to determine his 5th place finish, but still felt cheated out of a chance to play his way into the top four. He noted that the 3rd and 4th tiebreakers were identical to the 1st and 2nd tiebreakers, since Two-Headed Giant is best one-out-of-one game. This is also compounded by the problem with a late start at Grand Prix Amsterdam (a couple of rounds had to be cut out of day one competition due to time issues). It got me to thinking: What are the problems with Two-Headed Giant, and are they being addressed?
Based on our own attendance figures at StarCityGames.com events, I knew that Two-Headed Giant is a wildly popular and quickly-growing format. We frequently get multiple single-player flights worth of players for our Two-Headed Giant Prerelease events, and our Two-Headed Giant State Championship attendance in 2007 was nearly double our 2006 attendance figure. In addition, the format is a lot of fun – everybody likes playing with a friend, the relaxed open-style communication allowed, and the idea of playing a team format as a team (versus the one-on-one-on-one of the three-player team unified format).
With all the positives and momentum behind Two-Headed Giant as a format, I was concerned about the snags that the format has hit so far this States and PTQ season. In order to assuage my fears, I went straight to Andy Heckt, Associate DCI Program Manager, DCI Judge and Investigations Manager and all around Grand-Poobah of all things tournament related. As Andy is a prince of a man, he graciously agreed to have my questions about the current Two-Headed Giant season answered – either by himself, or by other people in the know at Wizards of the Coast.
Hey Andy:
Question #1: The change from 40 life per team to 30 life per team came right before the Two-Headed Giant State Championships this year. What was the reason for this change? Has there been a noticeable difference in Two-Headed Giant because of this change?
Answer #1: The DCI consulted with R&D because 2HG at 40 life was having issues of too many draws due to time, but the increasing popularity of 2HG was having increased attendance meant that extending the round times would resulting in tournaments lasting too long. It was felt that though the 2HG is better with teams at 40 life, the format would not suffer noticeably by going to 30 life in tournaments. We’ve had little time to analyze the new data, but feedback from GP: Amsterdam was positive and there were much less matches drawing. The two complaints we’ve had were the short notice of the change before this event (as its Limited it did not put anyone at a disadvantage, but pre-event playtesting was less effective) and a perception some games now contained a "wild swing" based on a single attack.
Question #2: During State Championships, there were a lot of reported problems with DCI Reporter handling Two-Headed Giant – could you explain what was causing these problems (from a technical standpoint), and how Wizards has addressed these issues?
Answer #2: Reporter v3 has experienced some technical issues with 2HG. We are addressing these issues, but a version of v3 that works for 2HG will not be ready in time for the 2HG PTQ season. Organizers and judges should use reporter version 2.925
Question #3: There has been some confusion about effects that require payments of life, or that hit multiple players. For instance, let’s say Player 1 on Team 1 plays Temporal Extortion. Team 2 is at 24 life – in order to counter Temporal Extortion, either player on Team 2 can pay 6 life (half of 24). However, let’s say later in the game Team 2 casts Squall Line for 5. This would cause each team to take 10 damage (5 to each player).
The effects generated in Two-Headed Giant by these two cards has been confusing to many teams – they don’t understand why one effect only is half of a half, while the other counts double. Are the rules that cause these life-total swings going to be looked at during/after the current Two-Headed Giant season?
Answer #3: All the Two-Headed Giant rules will be looked at when we have more data. This is a new format, and this is the first time that these rules are truly being stress-tested. We already know that rule 606.6g will be updated to better handle an effect like Brine Elemental’s, and that 606.6d needs to be clearer. The life total rules are under particular scrutiny because this is an area where the way the cards are designed to work just doesn’t jibe with the format – the cards expect each player to have an individual life total. I’m not saying that anything is necessarily going to change in this area – no decisions have been made yet – but we’re certainly going to take a look at whether the current rules are the best ones.
Question #4: According to the DCI Rules, these are the current tiebreaks for Magic:
1. Match Points
2. Opponents’ match-win percentage
3. Game-win percentage
4. Opponents’ game-win percentages
The DCI Tournament Organizer Handbook says the following:
"If a tie still applies after the tie breaker calculation, the order of entry of the record in the tournament will always be used as the last resort."
However, since Two-Headed Giant is best one-out-of-one games, Tiebreaker #3 is identical to Tiebreaker #1, and Tiebreaker #4 is identical to Tiebreaker #2, effectively giving Two-Headed Giant only two tiebreakers before heading to order of entry.
Now, I don’t want to see fights breaking out over place in line before a PTQ, and I surely don’t want players camping outside the tournament hall overnight hoping to be first in line to sign up for a PTQ to get a competitive edge. Are the issues with the current 2HG Tiebreakers going to be addressed, and if so, how?
Answer #4: We have programmed a series of possible new tie-breaker for Reporter V3, the details for which are available it Tournament Organizer Handbook Section C4. We use these for Dreamblade events, which are also single-game matches and we hope to move 2HG Magic, and perhaps individual Magic, to utilize these new tie-breakers. The delay is the worldwide adaptation of Reporter V3 has been slower than expected mainly due to the operating system update required from what DCI Reporter 2.X had. Many organizers for smaller events and in some areas of the world are unwillling to upgrade their systems solely to use reporting software for their DCI events. The updating of DCI Reporter 2.X is not available any longer due to contract issues. We are looking at various options to resolve this issue.
Question #5: Any comments about the problems that went on at GP: Amsterdam on day 1?
Answer #5: Some unforeseen registration problems caused about a one-hour delay at the start of the day. Most of the other delays were related to the fact that we had 1336 players. This was far more than we had anticipated. The large crowd size coupled with a new, untried format led to the delays. We learned a great deal about the 2HG format at GP: Amsterdam and will apply what we learned to GP: Massachusetts.
So as you can see, Wizards of the Coast is pretty on top of all of the issues that Two-Headed Giant has experienced over the past few weeks. I have complete faith that as this season (and future Two-Headed Giant seasons) progress, the rules and logistics for running a Two-Headed Giant tournament will be fully ironed out, and the format will run as smoothly as any other one-on-one event sanctioned by the DCI.
Keep in mind that Two-Headed Giant is a newly-created format (under the official rules) and will take a little care and nurturing to grow up. Wizards of the Coast and the DCI have every best interest in heart to make sure the format stays healthy (especially given the growing attendances at States this year, the good PTQ turnouts so far, and the huge Grand Prix attendance), and based on Andy’s quick answers to my questions, I have complete faith in Wizard’s ability to do just that – nurture the format and weed out the early problems found in Two-Headed Giant.