This will be a quick one but hopefully long enough to encourage more dialogue about altering WBO scoring to take into account round wins. Today's 3v3 format was a normal standard format event with just two primary differences: matches were recorded by total points in the first stage, with the players with the most individual round wins going to finals, and ties were recorded as 1-1 from the onset. To streamline the process, I added one additional rule that alone would not have made the format experimental in nature—rather than automatically recording all opposite spin matches, players would have to let a judge know if they wanted their match to be recorded and if they did not, video would not be used as a reference point. Video footage has been the cause of significant judging fatigue for many of our regulars, so this rule change felt like a justified addition and one that made sense in a format were players would already be encouraged to avoid ties.
While these two rules may not seem that impactful, they certainly influenced deck selection and added more pressure to the first stage, especially when it came to matches against less experienced bladers, where giving up a point or two could mean the difference between whether or not you make finals (this was the case for me, as I would have needed just 1 round win to pull ahead of AJL and go to finals). For my part, I reversed course from the day prior, where I had used Drift, Metal Drift, and Br' in my deck throughout first stage, and primarily used a combination of Guilty X', Vanish HXt+, and Dynamite Br' as I was more confident that they would result in a clearer round win, ultimately going 5-1 (compared to 4-1 the day prior).
Although match points were no longer recorded in finals (in single elimination this just doesn't make sense), we continued to run the tie rule with the adjustment that players who tied would select their next beys in secret. Strategically, I felt that this could be an interesting way to reset and potentially gain an advantage in the all-to-common scenario where both players' decks cover one another's combos and the player who earned the first point through blind selection wins. Godly_Requiem and I ran a deck match for practice before finals, and I found that the blind selection after ties also resulted in some fun mindgames mid-match, as I had a feel for how his deck would play and what he would feel most confident using against me.
Overall, I found the change of pace refreshing and would highly encourage other regions to give this rulset a try. We ran the event in block round robin with 14 players and finished finals in just about two hours. Looking forward to hearing others' feedback and if there is anything you would change about these rules!
While these two rules may not seem that impactful, they certainly influenced deck selection and added more pressure to the first stage, especially when it came to matches against less experienced bladers, where giving up a point or two could mean the difference between whether or not you make finals (this was the case for me, as I would have needed just 1 round win to pull ahead of AJL and go to finals). For my part, I reversed course from the day prior, where I had used Drift, Metal Drift, and Br' in my deck throughout first stage, and primarily used a combination of Guilty X', Vanish HXt+, and Dynamite Br' as I was more confident that they would result in a clearer round win, ultimately going 5-1 (compared to 4-1 the day prior).
Although match points were no longer recorded in finals (in single elimination this just doesn't make sense), we continued to run the tie rule with the adjustment that players who tied would select their next beys in secret. Strategically, I felt that this could be an interesting way to reset and potentially gain an advantage in the all-to-common scenario where both players' decks cover one another's combos and the player who earned the first point through blind selection wins. Godly_Requiem and I ran a deck match for practice before finals, and I found that the blind selection after ties also resulted in some fun mindgames mid-match, as I had a feel for how his deck would play and what he would feel most confident using against me.
Overall, I found the change of pace refreshing and would highly encourage other regions to give this rulset a try. We ran the event in block round robin with 14 players and finished finals in just about two hours. Looking forward to hearing others' feedback and if there is anything you would change about these rules!