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.
1,000
3.00Wizards has apparently made some changes to the default decks that Arena provides. Please vote in discord as to how you'd like to continue the tournament.
https://discord.com/channels/915138780216823849/1077484177626255381/1090376678829723708
@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 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.
@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.