Gemp-LotR Leagues - schedule, ideas, results, etc

[hsiale]

Hi everyone

Recently MarcinS gave me league admin rights at Gemp. I am responsible for creating the leagues. I want them organized in a way so that everyone gets interesting competitive environment giving a lot of fun to all players.

1. Basic system

I wanted the system to be predictable (so you know what to expect) and low on maintenance time. This means that everything should happen at regular intervals. Here's what I've came up with (some of you might have already read that).

- each league consists of 4 series, a new league starts immediately after a league finishes,
- each series lasts 9 days, a next one starts immediately after one ends,
- you may play up to 10 games during one serie, you may not repeat opponents within a serie (you may within a league),
- a new league starts every 12 days, to have 3 leagues running simultaneously,
- entering a league costs 50G.

2. League types

There are 3 types available:
- sealed deck,
- constructed,
- collector's constructed.

I will start with trying to run one league of each type at a time. This may change if one type turns out to be a lot more popular.

3. Sealed leagues

Next 3 leagues will use rules similar to one we already had:
- week 1 you are given a starter deck and 6 booster packs from base set,
- weeks 2 and 3: starter deck of choice and 3 packs from expansion sets,
- week 4: some combination of packs.

King Block league will start 12 days from now (May 14th). It will be followed by War of the Ring Block and Hunters Block leagues. BTW: does anyone have starter deck lists (preferably for LotR Online TCG, but physical decklists will be OK as well if online are nowhere to be found) from sets 13, 15, 17 and 18?

4. Constructed leagues

Movie Block non-collector's league starts in half an hour. 24 days from now a collector's league will start. Its general theme will be Towers Standard, so most probably 3 of the 4 weeks will use the following formats:
- sets 1-4 with TS X-list,
- sets 1-5 with TS X-list,
- sets 1-6 with TS X-list.

5. Your feedback

a) most important - always feel free to ask questions, I have surely forgotten to write lots of important things here
b) as I've already mentioned above, I'm looking for starter decklists for Bloodlines and later sets,
c) league ideas - first (and most important now) is an idea for the 4th week of TS Collector's Constructed league. It not necessarily must be week 4. Remember that a collector's league should not have big card pool changes from week to week, so it must somehow fit the general league theme.
d) further league ideas - most important constructed, but sealed are also good (though they'll be needed a bit later with schedule for next 3 leagues decided),
e) anything other you see fit for this topic

----------
Currently active leagues

Movie constructed
Serie 1 : 02.05-10.05, sets 1-7
Serie 2: 11.05-19.05, sets 1-8
Serie 3: 20.05-28.05, sets 1-9
Serie 4: 29.05-06.06, sets 1-10

King sealed
Serie 1: 14.05-22.05
Serie 2: 23.05-31.05
Serie 3: 01.06-09.06
Serie 4: 10.06-18.06

TS Collector's
Serie 1: 26.05-03.06, sets 1-4
Serie 2: 04.06-12.06, sets 1-5
Serie 3: 13.06-21.06, sets 1-6
Serie 4: 22.06-30.06, sets 1-6, 9, 14 and 16

Leagues starting soon
War of the Ring Block, constructed
Serie 1: 07.06-15.06, set 11
Serie 2: 16.06-24.06, sets 11-12
Serie 3: 25.06-03.07, sets 11-13
Serie 4: 04.07-12.07, sets 10-14

19.06, War of the Ring Block, sealed
Serie 1: 19.06-27.06
Serie 2: 28.06-06.07
Serie 3: 07.07-15.07
Serie 4: 16.07-24.07

Leagues starting less soon, details in progress
01.07, Towers Block, collector's
13.07, Fellowship Block, constructed
25.07, Towers Standard, sealed
06.08, Movie, collector's
18.08, Standard, constructed

[hsiale]

For everyone's information:

Gemp-LotR League Prize Support

1. Individual win prizes

Each game won earns you a small prize. The prize depends on how many wins did you already have in a given serie. Prizes are as following:

1st win - a booster choice,
2nd win - a foil common,
3rd win - a booster choice,
4th win - a non-foil promo,
5th win - a booster choice,
6th win - a foil promo,
7th win - a foil uncommon,
8th win - a booster choice,
9th win - a foil common and a non-foil promo,
10th win - a booster choice.

2. Overall ranking prizes.

Here's the formula:

Code: [Select]

        int count = (int) Math.floor((2 * playersCount + 24) / (position + 9) - 2.4);
        if (count > 0)
            count = 1 + (int) Math.floor((count - 1) * multiplier);

Where the multipliers are:
0.35 - for constructed leagues (excluding the current one)
1 - for sealed league
2 - for collector's constructed leagues
For those not used to such code:

Take number of players in the league, multiply by 2, add 24. Also take your final position, add 9. Divide first number by the second, subtract 2.4, round down. Then subtract 1, multiply what you get by the multiplier (depending on league type), round down once more, add 1 (note that this sentence actually is doing anything only when multiplier is not 1).

For those not used to things I wrote above, I will add examples. But probably next week Now only two examples, which I calculated out of curiosity. Most probably I will finish Towers Sealed league 2nd out of 74 players and FotR Collectors league 8th out of 41 players. My overall classification prize will be 13 boosters for the first one and 6 boosters for the second.

[Air Power]

Do the individual win prizes start over each series?

[MarcinS]

Do the individual win prizes start over each series?

"The prize depends on how many wins did you already have in a given serie."

[TelTura]

why is it written serie everywhere?  this looks like a typo in english; series is never singular (where it would be sery anyway based on the ending).

[MarcinS]

why is it written serie everywhere?  this looks like a typo in english; series is never singular (where it would be sery anyway based on the ending).

Will be changed after restart, though "serie" still exists in the dictionary.com as a singular form of series, though seems to be obsolete.

[TelTura]

humm, looks like 1610-ish is where that dates from, by poking around elsewhere.  Guess I'll eat my words, then, about the spelling.

[ket_the_jet]

Got to be honest, the prizes kind of suck. I mean, why would I ever want to get a common foil--most of which sell for two silver--when even the worst rares sell for much more?

I mean, compared to the GCCG payout, GEMP really doesn't really support collecting sets or series. I kind of like the cash payout idea so that people can buy their own cards or packs and participate in more than one league at any given time.
-wtk

[mikefrench]

yah i would suggest adding an EXTRA foil common to every non-booster pack win.  the 2nd win of a week just seems TERRIBLE every time.

also i would consider occasionally still running a free league with less prizes. 

[Arcanite]

Like with the first Towers and FOTR Sealed, should the newer sealed leagues give you the cards?

[TelTura]

hey, coulda been worse.  You coulda had your hopes entirely dashed by a foil version of a useless card.

Wait.

[hsiale]

Next sealed league (starting Monday) will be King block. Look at http://www.supercheats.com/pc/walkthroughs/thelordoftheringsonlinetradingcardgame-walkthrough01.txt to see decklists which will be used. As usual, week 1 everyone gets a starter of choice from set 7 and 6 boosters of set 7, next week set 8 is added (a starter of choice and 3 boosters), then set 10 in the same way. I haven't decided week 4 boosters yet - maybe 2+2+2 as before, maybe 1+1+1+2x Reflections.

Few questions to you so that I can see some opinions before making decisions:
1. What cards (if any) should be additionally given to everyone?
2. One of set 8 starters features Gondorian Captain. Should he be replaced with some other non-unique companion so that pulling Base of Mindolluin doesn't allow a filter (I think it will be possible to have 12-15 fortifications in a deck if someone plays all available)?
3. What boosters you think would be best for week 4?
4. Do you see any other problem that needs to be corrected before league starts?

[Gartax]

1- For the mount doom week, everyone should get a Sam. Else everyone will take the Sam starters.

I would avoird reflection pack, because of its random factor.

[mikefrench]

the downside of that gondorian captain thing is that they give an absurd amount of twilight for site 4.

no reflections, it doesn't really fit with the rest of the block, imo.

[CoS]

However I'd you give reflections as option for week 4 you can in good conscience provide everyone 2 Enquea and 1 Nertia from FotR. I think this would be GOOD for the sealed enviornment.