Summoner Wars iOS Tournament Wraps Up
AcidVeins23 Claims the Championship with Cloak Victory
Thanks to all who participated in the first official Summoner Wars iOS tournament. AcidVeins23 managed to come out on top, going 4-1 in the final round, including a victory over DoctorPenick, who came in second and also went 4-1. Congratulations, AcidVeins, on notching 11 wins during the tournament, winning the championship and earning the $50 credit to the PlaidHatGames.com store! Thanks to Colby for generously providing the prize and to Playdek for putting the Everything Bundle on sale during registration.
Although the Phoenix Elves, Tundra Orcs or Guild Dwarves were chosen by both competitors for most matches in the final round, AcidVeins defeated DoctorPenick by using the Cloaks. DoctorPenick had used the Phoenix Elves for every match during the first two rounds and had a ton of success. He guessed that his third round competitors would try to counterpick against the Phoenix Elves and so he picked the Guild Dwarves against AcidVeins. He was right; AcidVeins picked the Cloaks against DoctorPenick, since the Cloaks benefit from the Phoenix Elves' low unit count and Elien's low life. However, maybe he out thought himself, as his Phoenix Elves had been extremely tough to beat throughout the tournament no matter who they faced. Nonetheless, it was great to see a less-loved faction win the tournament for AcidVeins.
I was stunned by how well this tournament went. 195 matches and we had no deadbeats, no cheaters, no complainers, and essentially no problems. That means we had 54 classy, diligent compeititors. Thank you all again. Click here to view the full results, standings and stats.
Next week we'll post in more detail about AcidVeins' matches; he's writing up details.
What's Next?
I thought the structure of the tournament was perfect (i.e. 6-person pools, 3-day matches, top two from each pool move on). We'll likely stick with that structure in the future. I thought up that structure because it makes use of the iOS strength (multiple games at once) while mitigating its weakness (games can potentially take a long time to resolve). In the end it provided us with 195 matches in less than a month, staying ahead of schedule the entire time.
Perhaps next time we can bump it up to 162 competitors (one additional round), and a few more prizes. I'll have to recruit some tournament co-organizers in that case to help me keep track of matches.
I'll definitely pre-announce the tournament two or three days before registration opens next time, so that those who really want to participate can ensure that they're at their computer to sign up the moment registration opens.
We got lucky to have no unbreakable ties, especially in round one, so I think next time the final tiebreaker (after head-to-head and strengh of victory) will have to do with using the less-used factions or something like that.
Finally, we might go with a different tournament format. I went with "choose any faction and build you want every single round" this time because it was simple (nothing at all to administrate) and because I was curious about how it would play out. Next time, perhaps we can do the iOS equivalent of Five for Fighting, which would be that each round, you must use five different factions in your pool.
Please comment below on your thoughts and ideas for the next iOS tournament.
