OverPower Championships 2015 (October 9/10)

[breadmaster]

2, 4, 6, 8, who do we appreciate

seems like drawing an even seed was the ticket!

[chuu]

Oh man, based on my ranking, I shouldn't have even played...

[AO user]

So, almost a quarter of contenders rocked battle sites.  How did they do against DOW?  was an activator allowed to be placed for this tourney?

[Jack]

Activator place wasn't used for Saturday's tournament. It is still in the play testing stage, we'll have two meetups before the end of 2015 to determine what the ruling should be for tournaments in 2016.

That said, Sean did quite well going 8-2 with a Battlesite deck. Unfortunately he also got knocked out in the quarter finals against a nasty early DOW.

[BigBadHarve]

Yeah, I didn't face a single site this time around - all of my opponents were using Any Heroes. So 80% win ratio against Anyheroes with a Battlesite seems to buck the trend nicely.

[breadmaster]

it was a good run, but the overall win total is still 16-15 for anys by my count

and as always, it is too easy for an any team to draw a god hand against a site one.  of course sites can get lucky too, but the frequency with which it happens the other way is brutal

2 of my matches were more or less over in round 1.  against phil (match 1), he drew entropy field and dow hand 1...I managed to drag the match out to round 4 or 5 ish (I forget, it's on camera), but I still didn't play an activator that game.  the problem was, he kept placing and conceding, then going hard the next round.  even though I ventured 3 (which I'm pretty sure he knew was bullshit, and could easily win) he still conceded, and dominated the following rounds, and my hand full of activators went to the dead pile

against marcel, same issue.  devourer round 1.  I go first, so I desperately try to get out post's obfuscate to mitigate the event...negated.  that was the only activator I played that game.  same thing; he loaded up and conceded, even knowing that my ventured 2 was bullshit

entropy field, dow, and team overpower all have advantages over their battlesite counterparts. add them up, and  site teams are swamped, and require good luck to but together a good tournament

it is so common for any teams to place out and concede round 1.  god forbid the site team has a bad draw hand 1, and loses, as was my case with henry.  so round 2, I have a good hand and venture 4...he draws dow.  so I lose that round, and now have 5 missions in defeated to start round 3...good luck winning that game

[BigBadHarve]

16-15 is a balanced overall result. That's really what we're going for. We don't want sites to dominate any more than any-heroes do.

Of 31 Any Hero Vs. Battlesite matches, the Any Heroes only edged out Sites by one point. That's an encouraging average.

[chuu]

Breadmaster, how is your record just in the finals?

[breadmaster]

my record in the finals is 1-1. I beat mike way back, and lost to phil in Toronto last year

15-16 seems balanced, but there are other factors.  sites have made it close like this before, but the average still favours anys.  I believe that battlesites have NEVER beaten anys head to head in a single tournament.  if it was truly balanced, the overall average would be 50-50 ish, with each side having the edge in different tournaments.  anys still win 60% of the time

another factor, is that sites needed a historically good run with one team to go 8-2 (that's REALLY good!), and still couldn't pull even.  a site took the top seed, which is great, but I think it's also the only top seed to lose to an 8 (no surprise 8 was an any). 

I crunched some numbers, and in the recent tournaments (since the 4/year), 46 teams have vied for the championship (odd number, because sometimes 4 teams play for it, and sometimes 8 do).  I came up with 38 any hero teams, and 8 battlesites.  of those 8 site teams, 6 lost in their first match, and were out of the running.  one match was site vs site, leading to one advance, and 1 site team beat an any once.  both sites lost their semi-final match to any heroes

that means in elimination games, where the best sites are playing the best anys, the head to head record is 1-7, which is FAR from even.

also interesting, is of the 16 any hero teams to play in the finals, 10 used the shattered image set.  this is of note, because they aren't losing ground against anyhero teams that use a different event set (which in theory should give them the advantage over shattered image, but doesn't)

[chuu]

thanks for the interesting read Breadmaster, my thought was that Battlesites are fine during the regular tournament games since there is a wide variety of opponents but when they start facing opponents in the "playoffs" they hit a wall.  Until battlesites win 2 out of the 4 tournaments I don't see it as being even.

[BigBadHarve]

Yes, everything you've said makes total sense, and granted this is one sampling. But we are working on nudging things back into balance. The DoW multi activator drop has made a noticeable difference in that trend. We want to avoid massive change that just swings the pendulum too far in a short period of time.

The next step is to implement the ability to place Activators to Team OP, and see how that helps things. It will certainly help curb the placed card advantage that Any Heroes enjoy. One step at a time. Even a single tournament parity is a sign that things are moving to where we want them.

[chuu]

Activator place wasn't used for Saturday's tournament. It is still in the play testing stage, we'll have two meetups before the end of 2015 to determine what the ruling should be for tournaments in 2016.

That said, Sean did quite well going 8-2 with a Battlesite deck. Unfortunately he also got knocked out in the quarter finals against a nasty early DOW.

Any idea when the next two meet ups will be Jack? 

[Jack]

Sometime November, sometime during the last week of December.