Tournaments and playing to win

In this article I will draw heavily from David Sirlin’s series of articles on playing to win (http://www.sirlin.net/article-archive/). While he focuses on StarCraft and Street Fighter the ideas beneath are universal. Read the articles, they are awesome.

Playing to win 

 

Playing to win is what tournaments should be about. While you can enjoy a tournament in itself the main goal of the tournament should still be winning. While there is a general rule in Vtes that you should play to win I want to analyze what it means to actually do this.

To play to win every choice you make pertaining to the tournament should be with the sole goal in mind of winning said tournament, this means deck choice, meta analysis, deck tuning, deals, deal breaking and even table talk. Playing to win is not about having fun or even enjoying the game, it’s about winning and nothing else.

Letting go of mental barriers

 

The first problem a player who enjoys the game needs to overcome is the fact that “fun” has left the building and the focus is different. This means letting go of all fictitious rules and constructs that prevent him from doing the best move possible at each possible occasion. Lying, breaking deals and manipulation is what wins games other than actual cardplay. Anything allowed by the rules and anything not prevented by the rules should be seen as a possible tool to be used to win the game.

If there is a strong deckbuilding tactic, use it. If there is a chance to win the game by breaking a deal, do it. If you can influence the table to your advantage, do it.

While it can be seen as cheap playing a strong archetype every tournament available it needs to be accepted that this is just a mental construct used by players not focusing on the goal of the tournament itself.

Having alternate win-conditions, such as making it as far as possible with a weaker archetype or winning with weak discipline combos, is a false construct, it is not what the tournament is about. Letting go of mental barriers, leaving the constructs of false rules and seeing the game for what it really is gets you tournament wins.

Reaching another level of play

 

Let me quote David Sirlin: “Notice that the good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the "cheap stuff" and abused it. They know how to stop the cheap stuff. They know how to stop the other guy from stopping it so they can keep doing it. And as is quite common in competitive games, many new tactics will later be discovered that make the original cheap tactic look wholesome and fair.”

 If you have experienced this you probably understand how once a benchmark has been found in a game, the level of play will continue from this benchmark. If you want to keep up with the highest level of play you need to be part of the game from the latest benchmark set.

In Vtes you will notice this on how old player’s decks perform when they come back into the game after a few years hiatus, while their decks and play style might have been at the height of the game back then, the game has evolved and they feel hopelessly outdated.
 

This is not only due to influx of new cards, but also on how the game is viewed and how tactics in the game have evolved and been refined. Once you leave your mental barricades and join the highest level of play you will probably see that there is an enjoyment of the game even in this level, it is here that you actually feel the real depth of the game and where “game theory” is developed.

Degeneration and boundaries

 

If there is a tactic that is so strong that it breaks the game and makes it unplayable then it should either be ruled to be removed or you should probably leave the game, there is a line where a strong tactic is so overly so that it takes away from the depth of the game at higher tiers and makes the game into a shallow boring automation or randomization.
 

Degeneration of a game into an unplayable trash heap is a fear that is often attributed to the power creep of new cards, while this is a problem it takes a long time to actually happen. You need to be willing to explore a broken tactic fully and see its flaws and strengths and also give enough time to develop a useful counter that can be used before crying abuse.

If you think something is so strong it is broken because it counters your favorite tactic you might need to read this article from the beginning and leave the mental constructs that stop you from doing the best move possible in your meta choices. There are no favorites in the rules. The only boundaries set by the game are in the rules.

While doing sub-par actions, choices and deals can be a tactic for the long term (this is a social game first and foremost after all) it should still be analyzed in the light of playing to win. While most tournament style games have no social aspect Vtes does and it should not be ignored. Most high tier, high level players are also strong social personalities, while is this something that can be learned it is also something that has to be cultivated for a while and does set boundaries on balancing playing to win and having fun (or at least seeming to have fun).