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Originally posted by tragicmagic:
Well, then they told me I should do Double Elimination. And I explained that would take entirely too long.

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Swiss really is the best way.

I don't know how many players you have, but if someone goes X-0, they don't have to worry about anything.

Also, you're never going to make everyone happy. Magic players are a fickle bunch, always complaining.

If you keep a set schedule with the same setup, people are going to get used to the structure and stop complaining because they know what they're getting into when they enter.

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Originally posted by tragicmagic:

a.) How can I articulate the Swiss format better?
b.) How do I explain why it's more efficient?
c.) How important is it that I push Swiss format?

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Some questions I have for you:

1) Are you only holding FNM, or are there other tournaments?
2) Do you cut to top 4 or top 8, or simply award prizes at the end of the tournament, based on rankings at the end of the swiss tournament?
3) What kind of prizes do you hand out?

As for your questions:

A) A swiss tournament pairs people with similar records against each other. The rankings at the end of each round are first determined by the number of match wins and losses you have, while the second tiebreakers are determined by the match win % of your opponents. This is meant to gauge the strength of your wins and losses. Winning against a player with a low win match % is not as good as winning against a better player. Losing against a player with a high win match % is better than losing to someone with a low win match %.

B) Explain that brackets are generally only done for playoff tournaments, when you are trying to determine the best player.

C) It's the standard, the accepted tournament style that everyone else uses and what Wizards expects if you officially host a tournament, but you should explain that in any tournament, there are going to be problems and weaknesses. However...

At my LGS, they have both draft and Standard for FNM. For both events, prizes are given out for how many match losses and wins you get, regardless of ranking. So, if someone goes 3-1 and is in 4th place, he gets the same prize as someone else who is 3-1, but in 9th place. The same rules are in place for pre-releases. All of these events are where the majority of players play.

This sidesteps ranking, when you are simply given prizes based upon how many matches you win, not whether you're in 3rd or 4th place. The problem might lie with your prize payout, not the swiss tournament, if people see a big difference between coming in 5th or 9th with virtually the same record.

For the more serious events like a PTQ, prizes are based on ranking, so that the top 4 get something, 5-8 get a smaller prize, 9-16 get a smaller prize. These tournaments are generally only attended by serious players who don't complain as much about the fact that the system shorted them.

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How can someone with a better record get beat out by worse. X-0 > X-1 even if the X-0 player played worse people.

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I assume he means that someone will go 3-1 in matches, 6-3 in games and have a higher ranking than someone who goes 3-1 in matches, 6-2 in games. If the first guy only lost to the guy who went 4-0 and the second guy only lost to a guy who went 1-3, all other things being equal, the first guy will have better tiebreakers.

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I'm not entirely sure but at Game Day yesterday, we had a small sanctioned tournament, and I went 3-2 in sets, and another one of my friends went 3-1. I ended up getting 7th and he got 9th. He was not pleased missing top 8. And he had a better record than 7th and 8th.

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There are no "sets" in Magic. Do you mean games or matches? Games are each time you shuffle up and play magic. A match is each opponent you faced. It's not possible for one person to be 3-2 in matches and another person is 3-1 in matches. 3-2 in games versus 3-1 in games is different. The individual game score doesn't mattter as much as the matches and your opponents' win percentage.

EDIT:

Since it looks like there may be some confusion about games, matches, and records when it comes to swiss tournaments, let me put a little story here to illustrate the point.

David, Edgar, and Francine all enter a tournament that has four rounds. They will all play four different opponents.

They all end the day by beating three opponents and losing to one opponent. However, the number of games they each won is very different. David wins 6 games and loses 3. Edgar wins 7 games, and loses 2. Francine wins 6 games and loses 2. However, David gets third place, Francine gets fourth place and Edgar gets ninth place. It appears that something is very wrong. The 6-3 player is higher than the 6-2 player who is higher than the 7-2 player. But, a quick examination of their opponents quickly shows the reasons why:

David won his first match (2-0) against Gary, who ended the day in sixth place, also going 3-1. He won his second match (2-1) against Harry who ended up going 2-2, then David won his third match (2-0) against Irene who ended up 3-1, in 7th place, and he lost his fourth match (0-2) to Jacob, who ended up 4-0, in first place. On average, his opponents win 75% of the time. The fact that he went 6-3 in games doesn't factor in here.

Francine's opponents ended up going 1-3, 2-2, 2-2, 3-1. Her opponents win 50% of the time. She won 2-0, 2-0, 2-0, then lost 0-2, but that matters less than how her opponent did.

Edgar, on the other hand, lost 1-2, won 2-0, won 2-0, and won 2-0. He has a 7-2 game record at the end of the day, but gets the lowest of all the 3-1's. His first round opponent manages to go 0-4 in matches, his second round opponent goes 1-3, his third round opponent goes 2-2, and his last opponent ended up 2-2. His opponents have a win percentage of 31.25% That puts him at the bottom.

To put it another way, ask your friends to consider other sports where the individual game scores matter more than the opponent's records. In these cases, you might try to "run up the points" against a team, clobbering them 40-0. Now, does that really seem more impressive than the team who wins 7-3 against one of the top teams?

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1) Are you only holding FNM, or are there other tournaments?
2) Do you cut to top 4 or top 8, or simply award prizes at the end of the tournament, based on rankings at the end of the swiss tournament?
3) What kind of prizes do you hand out?

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1. I do 2 tournaments on Fridays, and a midweek tournament.

2. Everyone in my tournaments gets promos for playing, (granted, I currently only average 8-12 players). Then I pay out prizes to 1st-3rd.

3. During my midweek and my Friday Early Bird, I usually have packages made up. It's only $3 to get in, and it's to get newer players more into competitive play. So I usually do booster packs/deck boxes/sleeves in some sort of arrangement. The Standard tournament that is much more competitive I usually give 1st place a Fat Pack and then give second and third other packs as well.

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Originally posted by tragicmagic:
I'm not entirely sure but at Game Day yesterday, we had a small sanctioned tournament, and I went 3-2 in sets, and another one of my friends went 3-1. I ended up getting 7th and he got 9th. He was not pleased missing top 8. And he had a better record than 7th and 8th.

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There's a missing game in there somewhere, or an extra win. Did he go 3-1-1? If you were using the wotc tournament software that should not have happened. I would have double checked that there was not a data entry error at some point in the tournament.

EDIT: Or do you mean games over matches? Yaku's explanation above should cover the issue pretty well.

__________________
Wisconsin - smells like dairy air!

You as a new store owner need to set it up how you feel it works best for your store. You can never please everyone, but if they want to play they will still come. Also, you said you are in a small town so I'm assuming you aren't really competing for players so that should help.

As far as worse records getting to top 8 than better records that just does not happen if you are using the correct system. If this is happening something si wrong with the points set up or somebody is being shady.

In concerns to double elimination taking too long that just isn't the case either. How it works is once you have a loss you drp to the losers bracket and that bracket goes on at the same time the winners bracket is going on. It may add a round or 2, but that shouldn't be enough to get you to want to drop double elimination if you decide to go to bracket format.

Give the same prizes for the same recorded should clean this up. (well ok this mess it up win the 2 undfeateds draw in the last round to get the same prize.)

You can also try Swiss+1 which is what my store does for big events. (they don't like people drawing to make top 8 and stuff)

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Originally posted by tragicmagic:
I'm not entirely sure but at Game Day yesterday, we had a small sanctioned tournament, and I went 3-2 in sets, and another one of my friends went 3-1. I ended up getting 7th and he got 9th. He was not pleased missing top 8. And he had a better record than 7th and 8th.

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Originally posted by D'Shay:
I have found that alot of those problems with these type of ties and 3-1's would all go away if you had a 5th round, but you need 17+ people for that.

4 rounds just allows for odd things to happen and for people to luck sack into the top. A fifth round seperates the men from the boys

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Originally posted by TimeBeing:
don't need 17+. It's called swiss+1 and is a viable option. My store uses it for special tournament and big pre-release they run, to save time with no top 8 and discourage people from IDing.

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Originally posted by D'Shay:
as in this is an option in the program?
can you explain more in detail please?

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Yeah you manualy set the rounds to be 1 higher then the suggested.

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Originally posted by edsillars:
For what it's worth everyone, if there is a cut to top X, it is indeed possible for someone to go 3-2 in matches while another player goes 3-1 in matches.

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Originally posted by TimeBeing:
Yeah you manualy set the rounds to be 1 higher then the suggested.

Swiss +1 is a swiss tournament with one extra round then suggested. With up 16 players you would play 5 rounds. So there is a chance that there will not be an undefeated player at the end. It makes taking draws not a great idea. In the final round there will likely be 2 or 3 players playing for first place and the player playing the undefeated player will have little reason to concede or draw since beating that player will likely give them first place.

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Originally posted by Speed Demon:
No it isn't.

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If you cut to top 4, and 5th place was 3-1, then yes it is possible