Discussion Regional: Time Constraints and Players Health

poke4trade

poke4trade

Raising Ash
Member
My kiddo and I sat down and watched the regional. We had no surprises as our current LC's/Cities were ran in expanded, so everything we saw was pretty much what we thought it would be. However, what through us for a loop was the amount of Control Decks. With 500 participants and a good quantity of trainers playing controls, I started wondering how the players felt about it. I know they had to skip lunch, and some control deck players were playing for draws.

I honestly thought it was a bit abusive on players. Last year at states I watched a trainer go into a seizure for one reason or another. Our States went to midnight. 16 hours of plays is a lot to ask from players. Anyways, It was scary. I love this game, but the health of players comes first, how do you feel about it? Did you feel it was fine, or does pokemon need to reconfigure game mechanics for health of players?

I know in other competitive sports they have reconfigured game mechanics for health reasons. Just wondering your opinions on it?
 
As a competitive player all my city championships are fine here in UK, but if that is happening in US, something needs to be done about it, as that is unacceptable.
 
I was at the St. Louis Regional this past weekend and to be honest, something needed to be changed. We started playing around 10 O'clock and didn't finish until midnight. As you mentioned they scrapped the only lunch break and very poorly communicated how much time we had between rounds. At one point I ran (literally) to get food and missed an announcement with my name to clarify a match slip, and was given a match loss because of it. 14 straight hours without being able to leave for even 15 minutes seems unreasonable and not an environment conducive to fun. I agree that something should be done, but it is hard to ask people to give up more than a day because if you don't make top cut, day 2 isn't worth staying for. It would be tough to eliminate the 2 out of 3 format. Its a tough situation for pokemon.
 
Danglesmcjangles said:
I was at the St. Louis Regional this past weekend and to be honest, something needed to be changed. We started playing around 10 O'clock and didn't finish until midnight. As you mentioned they scrapped the only lunch break and very poorly communicated how much time we had between rounds. At one point I ran (literally) to get food and missed an announcement with my name to clarify a match slip, and was given a match loss because of it. 14 straight hours without being able to leave for even 15 minutes seems unreasonable and not an environment conducive to fun. I agree that something should be done, but it is hard to ask people to give up more than a day because if you don't make top cut, day 2 isn't worth staying for. It would be tough to eliminate the 2 out of 3 format. Its a tough situation for pokemon.
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Thanks for explaining it. To your point if a format is going to try and cause physical harm to the players, I think it needs adjustment.

My Kiddo and I were watching on stream, I started feeling bad for players and commentators. I started seeing all the draws and time outs from the trainers. I thought about hydration, food, and resources -- bathroom breaks. And then thought about the brand pushing itself more than ever with the super bowl commercial. I think it's great the game is getting attraction, at the same time, when ever a games starts exploding, player safety concerns and quality of playing needs to be taken into account.

I thought it was unacceptable by Pokemon to push that kind of treatment on players. I believe they should address the issue, immediately. 14 hours of playing, to me, is way over the line. It forces trainers to make decision they normally wouldn't. Those decisions go way outside of just card strategies, and asks players go into possible physical harm. To me, that is not Pokemon.
 
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I see what you mean. I go to Regionals for VGC, and those by themselves take forever to get through when it comes to the Swiss rounds, and those are just Bo1 matches. The TCG section of the tournaments are non-stop Bo3s, and those sort of events see even more players than TCG. I can see time and player health becoming a huge concern, especially with decks like Sableye/Garbodor running around.
 
I am a fairly new player. I have decided not to participate in regional events because of this rampant problem. With such an emphasis on control decks running around the expanded format, it pushes games to their time limit and players to their limits, both mentally and physically. At a local league tournament, they recently decided to shift to a 1-game format to make it easier and more comfortable (on the newer players especially). I think it is promoting a healthy environment.

If the game is growing this big, it might be a good idea to host more concurrent regional event venues so less players are scrambling for the same points and more people can then participate in the expanded competitive environment without additional discomfort with closer locations.
 
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I'm glad other people are concerned about this!!!! THANK YOU!

I've never played TCG at a Regionals/Nationals level but I have played a lot of VGC. Let me tell you that my concerns were the exact same, if not greater. I remember, as a "younger" Masters player I was always inclined to stay silent about it because I didn't want to come off as "weak" among my Pokemon playing peers. Still, I used to watch with great sympathy and a truly aching heart as Seniors and Juniors, many accompanied by their highly disgruntled parents, many of whom had traveled long distances to let their kids fulfill their desires to play either yelled at judges, advocated for their children, stormed out, consoled their disappointed children because they had to leave early, called their family to tell them they were going to be "later than expected," ran out to buy lunch (and dinner, and snacks) for their kids and more. It didn't help that so many of the Masters players lacked basic hygiene (cigarette & body odour, unclean clothes and hair, etc.), contributing to the unhealthy vibe. Anyways, that is a whole other thread (one which I think it may be time to start haha).

The problem here (and I feel like some people are missing this) is not control decks or time limits -- it's the downright abusive amount of time they expect us to play continuously. There are literal laws in the working world that prevent people from working for longer than a certain period of time continuously. Exams like the MCAT are just under 8 hours, but they include 10-30 minute breaks.

Why in the world are breaks not built into VGC/TCG competitive events? Why isn't this basic human aspect of the game being considered? Pokemon Co. knows full well the expected attendance, and while shorter time limits would help, I think the ultimate problem is lack of break times. Yes, I realize an hour worth of breaks would have made your midnight event run until 1am. This too is ridiculous. And it is perhaps indicative of that fact that someone at TPCI needs to be hired to oversee logistical overhauls to in-life events.... because I don't want to choose between suffering through 12-16 hour days and my love of competitive Pokemon.

Call me weak... but I'd rather be weak and compassionate than just take it. That, and concerned parents at Pokemon events make me feel terrible :(.
 
Sabaku said:
I see what you mean. I go to Regionals for VGC, and those by themselves take forever to get through when it comes to the Swiss rounds, and those are just Bo1 matches. The TCG section of the tournaments are non-stop Bo3s, and those sort of events see even more players than TCG. I can see time and player health becoming a huge concern, especially with decks like Sableye/Garbodor running around.
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Not only stall decks, but stall tactics are super frustrating to play against. I lost game one to a toad/tina play because I dead drew. I would've won game two because it was a good matchup for me, but they would slow play and "check the discards" an unreasonable amount of times. It just such a hard thing to monitor. Maybe add a turn clock? But even then you'd be favoring certain decks/players.

LightningCloud224 said:
I am fairly new player. I have decided not to participate in regional events because of this rampant problem. With such an emphasis on control decks running around the expanded format, it pushes games to their time limit and players to their limits, both mentally and physically. At a local league tournament, they recently decided to shift to a 1-game format to make it easier and more comfortable (on the newer players especially). I think it is promoting a healthy environment.

If the game is growing this big, it might be a good idea to host more concurrent regional event venues so less players are scrambling for the same points and more people can then participate in the expanded competitive environment without additional discomfort with closer locations.
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I like the idea of increasing the amount of venues to decrease the number of players. There is also the idea of changing the number of rounds of swiss or reformatting it into some sort of double elimination bracket type tournament. That would be difficult because getting a poor matchup could spell the end for your hopes very early on, and you wouldn't be guaranteed the same amount of games. I honestly don't know what they should do. Does anyone know how magic or Yugioh function? Are these issues elsewhere?
 
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Danglesmcjangles said:
Not only stall decks, but stall tactics are super frustrating to play against. I lost game one to a toad/tina play because I dead drew. I would've won game two because it was a good matchup for me, but they would slow play and "check the discards" an unreasonable amount of times. It just such a hard thing to monitor. Maybe add a turn clock? But even then you'd be favoring certain decks/players.
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A round clock will put pressure on players that are naturally slower, more methodical or play slower decks. I think instead there should be a penalty for that kind of deliberate and obvious cowardly stalling. Now that I think about it, that might fall under the category of against the "spirit of the game" which is discussed in the official rules, so that might have deserved a penalty.
 
Danglesmcjangles said:
I like the idea of increasing the amount of venues to decrease the number of players. There is also the idea of changing the number of rounds of swiss or reformatting it into some sort of double elimination bracket type tournament. That would be difficult because getting a poor matchup could spell the end for your hopes very early on, and you wouldn't be guaranteed the same amount of games. I honestly don't know what they should do. Does anyone know how magic or Yugioh function? Are these issues elsewhere?
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We did this for our cities. They were all one round. Top Cut was Swiss. It was tough, but it did move the event along. I think the smallest Cities was 30 trainers and our largest was around 80. Even doing that the games would easily go from 9 to 5, or 9 to 9. The longest games were control decks. We always received lunch. I can't imagine getting there at 9AM and leaving at 12:00AM -- only to come back at 9:00AM to 5PM the next day. I heard top cut didn't finish until midnight on second day. I don't know if that is true. Can anyone verify second day?

LightningCloud224 said:
A round clock will put pressure on players that are naturally slower, more methodical or play slower decks. I think instead there should be a penalty for that kind of deliberate and obvious cowardly stalling. Now that I think about it, that might fall under the category of against the "spirit of the game" which is discussed in the official rules, so that might have deserved a penalty.
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They did promote Chess in the Train On Ad. I guess comparing pokemon to the mental toughness of chess. Those moves are timed.
American Football is 4 quarters with a half-time, 31/2 hour games with a running 25 second clock on each down to call the play.
 
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Maybe they need more than 2 days for the tournament if the enrollment is so big. If they can't do it on a Friday-Sunday, maybe 2 consecutive weekends.
 
Danglesmcjangles said:
Not only stall decks, but stall tactics are super frustrating to play against. I lost game one to a toad/tina play because I dead drew. I would've won game two because it was a good matchup for me, but they would slow play and "check the discards" an unreasonable amount of times. It just such a hard thing to monitor. Maybe add a turn clock? But even then you'd be favoring certain decks/players.
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Why not put a cap on how many times you can look through the discards per turn outside of when you're using a trainer card or an attack/ability that deals with your discard pile? There doesn't need to be a time limit for turns, but I don't think anyone would mind if there were limits placed on how long you can casually look through the discards.
 
Sabaku said:
Why not put a cap on how many times you can look through the discards per turn outside of when you're using a trainer card or an attack/ability that deals with your discard pile? There doesn't need to be a time limit for turns, but I don't think anyone would mind if there were limits placed on how long you can casually look through the discards.
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There's already a 45 second limit on turns, but it's just not monitored and enforced. I've had friends play against other players who are well known stallers, only to lose because even though a judge was asked to enforce the ruling, they didn't even give an official warning. Even then, 45 seconds per turn is barely enough to get through BO1 with some decks in 30 mins, let alone 50 mins BO3.

Overall, the health issue concern is a major issue. Giving players a lunch break is absolutely necessary. Canceling it is not okay, no matter how late it makes the rounds run. It's usually pretty easy to catch a bathroom break in between matches, so that's not too much of a problem. At least an hour minimum is absolutely necessary for lunch for safety reasons though. I'm a military vet, and i'm used to going the entire day without eating, and at this past fall regional even I was starting to lose my temper with the fact that our lunch break was shortened. It's something that absolutely needs to be addressed.
 
@OmnomOrNah Yes. I've seen that too. Some stall decks played at a standard rate of play, just take longer. The damage output is low or not at all and will inevitably need to mill the opponents deck. It takes a bit to do that. I wonder if any stats have been built around decks and length of game play.

As for men, the bathroom is easier, for women though, it can be tougher. I've been at games where women waited in line, with no time to Hydrate up, or shove food in their mouth because they had a longer game. In those kind of matches, the male takes physical advantage due to biological ease of situation. Just stuff I think Pokemon needs to take into consideration.
 
One thing they may want to consider for tournaments is single game swiss. This seems to work well in cities and LC's. Maybe this could shorten the round time and make time for breaks, lunch, etc. Overall I have noticed this being a problem and I feel there should be something done about this.
 

In addition to the above, there's a lot of reports of injuries and the stress associated with esports you can find on the web. It's a problem that really affect any sort of competitive scene, from fighting games to actual real sports. The biggest thing that you see players do to compensate for these risks, as shown in the video above, is to just make sure you're both mentally and physically able to take on the workload. The benefits of doing so are not only good for how well you play, but also how well your body will actually allow you to play. Some of the responsibility obviously lays on the player to make these health decisions, but the organizers and companies putting these events together also should be giving their best efforts to keep their players' health in mind.

The main problem you find when trying to shorten the event or adding in breaks is just trying to fit everything into the time frame. See, I've always been an opponent to the swiss format because it has so many cons. It takes way too long to complete, and I never feel like it truly rewards winning due to the way people can take advantage of it or get screwed by it. I don't like seeing players avoid a match because it can affect their standings, as it's possibly one of the most uncompetitive things you can ever do. The one thing swiss is good for is for players who have to travel. With single or double elimination, which I feel does reward the best player and can go by so much quicker, you have the obvious problem of losing out early due to a bad matchup or just bad luck. Swiss doesn't mean you're done forever because of a single bad matchup. It doesn't make you feel like you wasted your time traveling miles to play. It's why I don't think Pokemon would ever even consider dropping the swiss format. Like I said though, it takes a longer time frame to complete, and this makes it difficult to fit in breaks for players.

Semi-unrelated, but Sableye was the worst thing to watch during Regionals. As a spectator, I don't want to watch a player burn through his resources and pretty much dictate how his opponent plays the game and wins. It's no fun to watch a player pass every turn because the Sableye player left them with no possible resources, nor is it fun to watch a game go to time because the process of decking out an opponent is a chore. I felt absolutely bad watching Brad C. suffer during the first match of this game, and I felt even worse as a spectator having to sit through an entire hour of that. Even though he won the second and longer match, it feels crappy to watch go down. I can't even imagine this feeling as an actual player where even if the game is win or lose, you still have to spend all of your time in order to reach a result. It doesn't help that it becomes an even better play now that Puzzle of Time and Delinquent are legal. I'm all in favor of unique win conditions that some decks might try to reach, but not when it takes away almost all of a player's options and drags out a match.
 
I know I find myself exhausted after several rounds of 2-out-of-3 matchups - especially when I'm on a losing streak. Does anyone know of any practical tips on how to combat this?
 
RunningWithScizors said:
I know I find myself exhausted after several rounds of 2-out-of-3 matchups - especially when I'm on a losing streak. Does anyone know of any practical tips on how to combat this?
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Whenever I finish a Bo3, when I have the free time, I'll talk to other TCG collectors and players and try trading with them. I'll also spend time opening packs I get from the booths or selling any additional bulk I get. If you don't think you'll be fast enough to do much, it helps to bring at least 1 non-competitor with you to help with getting through the day. If you can't do either one, then simply talking with other people and bringing snacks for later also helps.
 
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