This will be the central location for tournament info. See also the #mtg-tournaments channel in the Manifold Discord server. All markets about this tournament can go into the February MTG tournament group.
We have 16 competitors. We're going to be running this as a traditional Swiss tournament of 5 rounds, followed by a cut to top 4 single elimination. The prize payout is:
1st place: M$2000
2nd place: M$1400
3rd and 4th place: M$650 each
5th through 8th place: M$100 each
Your deck must be one of the 15 provided intro decks. (5 monocolor and 10 bicolor.) Please make sure you're using the Alchemy versions and not the Standard versions. You may swap decks in between rounds, but must use the same deck for all games of a single match. You also can't swap decks in the top 4, so the finals match must be played with the same deck you used in the semifinals.
All the normal rules about money and match result determination do not apply to this tournament. You can wager on the matches, bribe your opponent, bet against yourself and then concede, etc. The only rule is that you must be honest about what you did afterwards, so we can decide whether this is a good idea for future tournaments. Any wagers/bribes should occur only in mana, favors, or other items of non-monetary value. No real money.
I strongly recommend that you stream your match in the Manifold discord voice channel, or some other streaming platform. (Discord is very easy to stream to, it's all built in. Just join the voice channel and click the "go live" button.) This will let people spectate and place live bets on your games, which is more fun for everyone. Give people a heads up in discord and/or the market a few hours in advance, so they know when to show up to spectate.
Spectators should not provide gameplay advice to the players during a match, unless both players have indicated that they're ok with that. Players may not stream snipe their opponent. Looking at your opponent's decklist is allowed, even while the game is ongoing. (Decklists can be found here.) Looking up any other strategical information during the match is not allowed. (Looking up rules and card text is fine.) Betting in markets about your own match is allowed, even if seeing the current probability could give you some informantion about your opponent's hand. However, please don't read the comments or any Discord channels that may contain discussion about the match. The match should primarily be your skills and knowledge at play, not those of other people.
Note that we're using the traditional best-of-3 tournament matches, not Arena's default best-of-1. When you go to create a challenge, use the match type selection box in the top right and choose "Alchemy tournament match". (Screenshot)
For simplicity and ease of locating information, please always report your match result on the market that I made about that match outcome, including who won with what score, and what decks both people were playing.
You can see the current standings and results here.
mqp
MulticoreTyler ColemanConfluxGustavo MafraSirSaltyAustinJourncyMarty DettmannTobias VyseriWobbles[DesTiny]Jacob DeanPrigoryanOdoacreIanIsaac King
Is March 30 the actual close date, or are you going to close at a specific point in the tournament? Being a parimutuel market, this might impact my early bet strategy.
@IsaacKing I guess I needn't bet until the final match, when the info density is the highest. I don't often bet on parimutuel, but as I understand it, there's no penalty for pulling out your money before the close date, or for delaying putting in until just prior. It works just like Twitch predictions, am I right?
@TylerColeman Of course, you could close the market at any time, so there could be that penalty.
@TylerColeman I think it's still better to bet in advance, since if you can successfully predict which players are going to win matches other than the finals, you can make mana after they do so and their probabilities become higher.
@IsaacKing Oh, yes, I didn't realize the sell price could move from the original buy price. Now I understand that timing does matter.
Oh, I just thought of something. Most of the action in the individual-match markets takes place within a few minutes while the match is being played. This means that the liquidity subsidies from all the traders don't have time to actually enter the market, so the market ends up being much less liquid than it should be during the active betting window. I think an easy fix for this is if everyone who plans to watch the match place a M$1 bet in advance, and then the liquidity will be there by the time the match occurs.
Would anyone mind if Ian and mqp joined the tournament late, playing each other for round 1? It's being discussed in the Discord.
Alright, they're in! They'll be using their mystical Manifold employee powers to add themselves in to this market.
Bettors should update their bets on other markets accordingly. (e.g. we're now going to have 43 total matches rather than 38, which makes all the "will X happen" markets more likely.)
Reminder to choose "Alchemy Tournament Match" when challenging your opponent, to ensure that you're using the Alchemy cards and the best-of-three match structure.
Correct Alchemy decklists are here: https://mtgazone.com/mtg-arena-starter-decks-2023/
@IsaacKing I'm not sure those are fully up to date. For instance their decklist for Balancing Act includes a copy of Life of Toshiro Umezawa, which is not in the current version of that deck on Arena.
Anyone wanna volunteer to grab decklists from all 15 decks? If you send them to me as a text file, I'll format them nicely and host them somewhere.
Can we get 17lands recordings of all the matches? would require that players sign up on 17lands.com.
@IsaacKing I just realized I forgot that 17lands.com is focused on tracking limited format play, like draft, so it wouldn't work for the tourney. But it parses and records the full game see an example here. https://www.17lands.com/details/3ce032756e4040baa69f40802d6becd6
Some rule clarifications:
Betting in markets about your own match is allowed, even if seeing the current probability could give you info about your opponent's hand. However, please don't read the comments or any Discord channels that may contain discussion about the match.
Looking up your opponent's decklist is allowed, even while the game is ongoing. Looking up any other strategical information on the internet during the match is not allowed. (Looking up rules and card text is fine.) The match should primarily be your skills and knowledge at play, not those of other people.
Any wagers/bribes should occur only in mana, favors, or other items of non-monetary value. No real money.
For simplicity and ease of locating information, please always report your match result on the market that I made about that match outcome, including who won with what score, and what decks both people were playing.
@IsaacKing btw what are the tie breakers? Is it likely 3 ppl with 4+ wins advance but one person with 3 wins taking the last spot.
@DavidChee I still think we should have 3rd and 4th play to see whose actually 3rd (and give them a bigger share)
@DavidChee https://kb.challonge.com/en/article/rank-and-tie-break-statistics-1p5f7y4/
First tiebreaker is Wins vs Tied Participants, second is the Median-Buchholz system.
@IsaacKing I wonder if it would be helpful to randomize who's streaming, since there is an asymmetry there. Probably it doesn't matter much.
@Conflux Yeah, it's not ideal. It also means that spectators can only see one person's hand and not both.
What if we just used two voice channels and had each person stream in one?
Have spectators been using the voice channels so far to chat?
@IsaacKing Well, both players could stream in the same voice channel. There's been some chat in the voice channels but not that much.
@Conflux Oh right, I forgot two people could stream to the same channel. That seems like a fine solution.
Ideally there's be a way to let the spectators chat among themselves about the game without the players overhearing. Not sure there's an easy way to do this in Discord though, other than just asking the players to deafen themselves and trusting that they've done so.
The prize pool has been upped to Ṁ5000, so however Isaac decides to split that among the winners will be significantly larger
1st place: M$2000
2nd place: M$1400
3rd and 4th place: M$600 each
5th through 8th place: $100 each
With 14 entrants the total prize pool was M$700. We'll pay out to the top 4.
1st place: M$300
2nd place: M$200
3rd and 4th place: M$150 each
@IsaacKing I can add Ṁ1250 to the pool:
1st place: Ṁ1000
2nd place: Ṁ500
3rd place: Ṁ250
4th and 5th place: Ṁ100
@IsaacKing but you've gotta name the tournament, Manifold MTG tournament (sponsored by Wobbles)
Total prize pool is now M$1950.
1st place: M$850
2nd place: M$500
3rd and 4th place: M$300 each
Wait, is there no selling for multiple-choice markets? I don't see the option.
@TylerColeman Oh, it's there in "Your Trades", but only if you're selling all the shares in someone.
@IsaacKing oh I thought it was funny seeing as it's the last day of February and presumably the vast majority of the tournament will occur in March or later
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