I was at a tournament today where the TO wanted to enforce a time limit in the single-elimination top 8 portion. Upon asking him how he planned to settle a draw in a top 8 elimination situation, he said he would settle it by whoever has the higher life total. While I explained to him that this wasn't kosher and why, and it turned out that it didn't actually come up, it caused me to review MTR. Here's a worrying quite from MTR, Appendix B - Time Limits:

Single-elimination quarterfinal or semifinal matches — 90 minutes

While it's unlikely a match doesn't end in 90 minutes, what is the procedure for a match which doesn't end within 90 minutes in a single-elimination quarterfinal or semifinal situation?

MTR 2.5. In single-elimination rounds, matches may not end in a draw. If
all players have equal game wins, the player with the highest life total
wins the current game. In the event all players have equal life totals (or
are between games and the game wins are tied), the game/match continues
with an additional state-based action: if a player does not have the
highest life total, he or she loses the game. Two-Headed Giant teams are
treated as a single player for determining a game winner.

2015-10-25 12:58 GMT+01:00 Lyle Waldman <

The common practice is to use the sudden death rules. At the end if round players get the usual 5 turns and if the game is not over at this point, a new state base action is applied : whenever a player has not the highest life total he loses the game.

As a side note the 90 minutes are what is advised and can always be altered if conform to the minimum round time, if you have specific logistics constraints, as long you make the announcement beforehand. And if you do not use the standard MTR procedure you should always announce it beforehand anyway.

The TO was correct, as indicated above, unless the event fact sheet for whatever type of event you were running specified differently regarding time limits.

I'm not sure why you feel that the MTR quote you provided is “worrying”. Perhaps you could clarify that?

Originally posted by Thomas Ralph:

The TO was correct, as indicated above, unless the event fact sheet for whatever type of event you were running specified differently regarding time limits.

I'm not sure why you feel that the MTR quote you provided is “worrying”. Perhaps you could clarify that?

The reason I find it “worrying” is because, as I explained to the TO, let's say someone is playing a mill deck or an Infect deck, or a deck which takes a long time to execute its other not-life-total-based win condition (think Battle of Wits or Coalition Victory; I'm not saying these are all things that come up in practise, but some of them definitely are). The rule of using a time limit unfairly punishes players playing these nontraditional strategies by giving them a binary state: you win, or you lose; having the tiebreaker be life-total based adds a 3rd option to the traditional strategies: you win, you lose, or you go to time and you win because your opponent doesn't give a hoot about your life total so you win by default.

As I understand it, this is the impetus for the unlimited time rule for tournament finals, as well as the untimed nature of the elimination rounds of most high-level tournaments (the Pro Tour, SCG Opens, GP Top 8s, etc). I could be mistaken, but I do not recall ever seeing a timer for any of those settings.

In any case, this isn't really a big deal, because 90 minutes is probably functionally equivalent to “untimed” for almost all intents and purposes. It just seems a bit weird to have it when there is clearly philosophy against it and no (high-level, publicly broadcast) tournaments actually use it.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Oct. 26, 2015 09:27:08 AM)

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

As I understand it, this is the impetus for the unlimited time rule for tournament finals, as well as the untimed nature of the elimination rounds of most high-level tournaments (the Pro Tour, SCG Opens, GP Top 8s, etc). I could be mistaken, but I do not recall ever seeing a timer for any of those settings.

In any case, this isn't really a big deal, because 90 minutes is probably functionally equivalent to “untimed” for almost all intents and purposes. It just seems a bit weird to have it when there is clearly philosophy against it and no (high-level, publicly broadcast) tournaments actually use it.

That's the difference though between higher level Premier play events and the rest of us slogging along. :) The people that make the top eight in tournaments with a 1,000+ attendees tend to play and make decisions faster. Decks like ‘Eggs’ being possible notable exceptions.

There is another, recent tournament report where in the semi-finals, a match went close to 2 hours. We have to think of this from a customer service perspective. Sure, we want the best outcome for everyone. But think of the other players waiting around for (what is likely) and extra hour or more after the conclusion of their matches. I'm sure they want to have things decided in a more timely fashion. Actually enforcing a 90 minute time limit seems like a very good idea from that perspective (not to mention, possibly from the LGSs perspective as very long tournaments often go into ‘after hours’ for them, where they're not making any profit against having to keep the lights on, the heat/ac on, and so forth).

That's just my perspective, but I thought it worth sharing.

Cheers,
Charles Featherer

Edited Charles Featherer (Oct. 26, 2015 09:35:46 AM)

Originally posted by Charles Featherer:

Lyle Waldman
As I understand it, this is the impetus for the unlimited time rule for tournament finals, as well as the untimed nature of the elimination rounds of most high-level tournaments (the Pro Tour, SCG Opens, GP Top 8s, etc). I could be mistaken, but I do not recall ever seeing a timer for any of those settings.

In any case, this isn't really a big deal, because 90 minutes is probably functionally equivalent to “untimed” for almost all intents and purposes. It just seems a bit weird to have it when there is clearly philosophy against it and no (high-level, publicly broadcast) tournaments actually use it.

That's the difference though between higher level Premier play events and the rest of us slogging along. :) The people that make the top eight in tournaments with a 1,000+ attendees tend to play and make decisions faster. Decks like ‘Eggs’ being possible notable exceptions.

There is another, recent tournament report where in the semi-finals, a match went close to 2 hours. We have to think of this from a customer service perspective. Sure, we want the best outcome for everyone. But think of the other players waiting around for (what is likely) and extra hour or more after the conclusion of their matches. I'm sure they want to have things decided in a more timely fashion. Actually enforcing a 90 minute time limit seems like a very good idea from that perspective (not to mention, possibly from the LGSs perspective as very long tournaments often go into ‘after hours’ for them, where they're not making any profit against having to keep the lights on, the heat/ac on, and so forth).

That's just my perspective, but I thought it worth sharing.

Cheers,
Charles Featherer

The counterargument (not that I'm making or defending such an argument, but I'm just stating it as food for thought) is that if a match goes for 2 hours, except in exceedingly rare cases, it's likely one of the players should have been given TE - Slow Play at some point. Which is why your events should always have good judges on staff, and that's why we're here!

(Not saying the judge who posted the report is not a good judge, more likely that this was simply one of the rare exceptions, because rare exceptions happen. However, the event that prompted me to make this post did not have a judge on staff and I noticed some of the players were playing somewhat slowly, however as I wasn't officially on staff for the event I didn't butt in)

The fact of the time limit has long been something that players who play
slow, plodding control decks that take a long time to win have had to deal
with. The additional constraint of a timed Top 8 is merely another. This
policy has been in place for a long time, at least as long ago as the
Masters Series, for anyone who still remembers that. It's been on the
books for at least a decade, so it's just another hurdle such players must
overcome to win the tournament.

Frankly, I suspect any such player who has made the Top 8 of the tournament
should be capable of playing at a pace that will not require the time limit
to force an end to the match. If they are not, then Lyle's point about
watching for Slow Play should cover us and keep the tournament moving.

Unlimited top 8s are there because we want matches to end organically.

Timed Top 8s are a concession to the fact that sometimes stores just gotta
close. There are venues that start charging extra if you stay past a
certain time, or employees that start getting paid overtime.

On the matter of history, the highest life total rule and timed knock-out rounds is quite old. I recall a player in an Onslaught block sealed PTQ I judged (which must have been in 2003) winning game 2 in extra turns to draw level, and sideboarding to 39 Swamps and a Misery Charm. (He proceeded to mulligan to 1 without drawing the Charm, and lost a couple of turns in.) As far as I remember, the rule has been around since I started judging in 1998 – at which time the top 8 matches were usually still 50 or 60 minutes rather than 90.

On the matter of disadvantage to players with mill/poison decks, the MTR do sometimes cause minor disadvantage to players with certain preferences. A similar example would be the rule requiring Battle of Wits to be able to shuffle their decks without assistance. Mill deck players need to plan their play in order to win during the time limit. You still have USC – Stalling up your sleeve in the event that the player's opponent tries to delay him unfairly.

Don't forget to mention to the TO next time you see him that you were mistaken and it is permissible for timed elimination matches to be determined by life total/first life change when the time limit expires.

I recall, long ago, that Top 8 matches were 60, 90, and untimed in the finals. I also recall a PTQ with Absorb playing a key role in deciding a match, in the “sudden-death” period… that dates it (and me), just a little.

The change - not all that recent - was to have certain premier events used untimed rounds for Top 8; this variant was specified in the fact sheets provided to TOs. If a Comp REL event isn't defined by a fact sheet, it can run timed or untimed rounds, as per the MTR.

As to the players “inconvenienced” by a time limit on their slow, controlling deck? My response is simply “learn to play faster”. Earlier this year, I enjoyed watching someone - possibly Zac Elsik - play the Lantern Control deck, at the StarCityGames Open in Cincinnati. What most impressed me was the rapid decision-making he exhibited, in an effort to keep the pace moving along quickly. Conclusion: it is possible to play control within the 50-minute limit.

d:^D

Originally posted by Thomas Ralph:

Don't forget to mention to the TO next time you see him that you were mistaken and it is permissible for timed elimination matches to be determined by life total/first life change when the time limit expires.

I wasn't quite mistaken. In this particular situation we were both wrong. I was wrong about the top 8 being untimed. He wanted to have a “normal” (45 minutes) round time for the elimination rounds. When I brought the issue (incorrectly, it seems) to his attention, he changed the timer to 90 mins as per MTR.

But anyway when I went through MTR at the time and found out I was wrong, I apologized at the time, so that's covered :p