Tournaments in Splinterlands are UNFAIR. Come and rant with me, lets try to change this! + Giveaway

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(Edited)

Tournaments are Unfair for new players.

New players need their own kind of tournaments!

Hi All! Im EDUSAN, an avid Splinterlands player for about 2 months. Im enjoying the gameplay, the earnings, fighting my way up the ladder, fighting my way up the power, fighting my way up the loot chests and fighting my way up the Dec gains!

But there is something im not enjoying... TOURNAMENTS

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Little info on what are tournaments, just for the sake of context:

Tournaments are... well, tournaments, in which you pay a fee (be it Dec or SPS) upfront to enter

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You do some Best of 1, or best of 3 battles against other participants, until you get disqualified. Once the tournament ends, with some luck, based on your final placement, you earn some prizes (which are already announced before you enter the tournament)

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These tournaments have some:

  • Requirements: For example: having a minimun amount of power or minimun amount of staked sps
  • Conditions: Rules that apply to the decks that can be used in the tournament

And here is the problem. I believe High League players are abusing this system.

The way Requirements and Conditions are implemented punishes New Players

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REQUIREMENTS

Requirements are shown as "minimun of something that is needed to enter the tournament" Most of the Official tournaments held by Splinterlands use this (I havent seen it in other tournaments)

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What does this mean? ONLY people that met this amount of power can join.

So lets say i have 1k power. I can join the tournament, but there is nothing stopping someone with 1millon power to enter too.
I will be wasting my hard earned currency to enter that tournament. The only way it can work is:

  1. Lots of 1k power players enter the tournament together with me and im faced against them
  2. I somehow dodge the 1million power players that also joined and i Hope that they battle each other and disqualified themselves
  3. I made it into a position in which the earning is higher than my spending

And is VERY frustrating to have to fight someone full of legendaries and golden cards and a super summoner. Its just a massacre

What should be done about this?

I think the most obvious thing to do here is add a maximun power cap. Let players between 1k power to 5k power enter the tournament and try to battle each other. YES, 5k power could be (potentially) a lot more available cards than 1k, but with battlefield rules this can get pretty even.

Now lets tackle the 2nd issue here

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CONDITIONS

This is something that has troubled me a lot and i dont understand why its not implemented.

How do they work conditions work?

They let players that join the tournament play with specific expansions, without legendary cards and with a Summoner/Monster level cap according to a league

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So, for example in Bronze League like the screenshot above, you are allowed to play with level 3 commons, level 2 rares, level 2 epics and level 1 legendaries


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Now, why do I saw that this is bad for new players? Because a Bronze guy that is fairly new doesnt have a lot of level 3 commons, level 2 rares, level 2 epics, or even a legendary card, but in a "bronze league" tournament, these kind of levels are allowed (which means the selected summoner must be AT LEAST LEVEL 2), and who has this kind of cards? High level players

So again... a new player that joins a tournament with level 1 summoners and level 1 cards (which is expected from players in bronze trying to grind cards to reach the power for the next league), will waste their HARD EARNED currency in this tournament because he will probably have no chance against leveled up decks.

What should be done about this?

This one is trickier than the issue with requirements, but i think there could be 2 possible solutions
  1. Compare both opponents, and make the player with higher level cards use the level of the cards of the lower level player.
    For example: I have a lvl 3 Sandworm and im against someone who has a level 1 sandworm. If i were to use the sandworm, it will appear as level 1. But if both players own a level 3 sandworm then thats the level that will be played

  2. Make all the cards be of the highest level possible in the league, no matter if the player owns that card at that level.
    For example: I have a lvl 1 sandworm, which is a common card. If i use it in a bronze league tournament, it will appear as a level 3.
    If i dont have the card of course i cant use it

  3. This option is weird and could potentially be used as a special type of rule that is "make the owner of the tournament select the pool of cards that can be used and their level". Doing this it will allign all power, making the tournament really be about skills

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Summary (TLDR)

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New players cant compete in tournaments because they get matched against people with a lot more powerful cards and more leveled up cards than what they own.
  • Create a power cap to enter the tournament, make it a fair match.
  • Help allign the cards available and their powers, make a tournament be about winning with skills and not by buying it.

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GIVEAWAY

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How to enter the giveaway?

Just upvote the post and leave a comment with your HONEST thoughts about how tournaments are implemented! I really want to see if you readers and players have the same opinion. I feel discouraged to enter tournaments, but this might not be the case for you. If you are a high level player also comment, the experience might be different in your league! Please! comment your point of view!

I will chose the winner in 3 days by selecting the best comment myself

I really hope this get checked by someone with enough collection power in life to at least consider making tournaments a more friendly place to have fun without lowering our Dec Capture Rate!

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Im also playing A LOT of Rising Star lately, and probably you should too if you didnt! its completely easy going and doesnt take much time! Start Playing it Now!

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Are you looking to hang out with other Crypto-Gamers? Join us over at The Crypto-Gaming Guild discord. We are looking for game captains and folks who can help organize. If you are interested, please step up!

Edit: @andy-plays won the giveaway! Sending him the card as soon as he sends me his SPL user!



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27 comments
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I agree that something needs to be done about tournaments for beginners. First of all, I can't enter most of the tournaments because the fee is SPS which I don't have a bunch of as a new player. Second, the "beginner" tournaments I can enter are filled with silver level players with higher level cards, which makes it nearly impossible to win.

These tournaments work great for those who already have a hefty amount of assets in the game, but offer the new player nothing but struggles and loss. Thanks for raising this concern because something needs to be done about this. @blueleader03

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Thanks for your comment!

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I understand the frustration of entering a tournament knowing you won't be able to finish at the top spots.

But i think most of the 'solutions' you've come up with already exist in some form.

See, as a silver league player i could enter the tournament below. But i would pay way more entry fee than a bronze league player would. I would have to get in the top 16 to break even on the entry fee, whereas a player in bronze/novice league would have to finish 128 or higher to profit from it.

Not a hard restriction, sure. But definitely discouraging.

Also if i were to join the tournament below, restrictions on monster/summoner levels would be in place already. depending on the league chosen by the host.

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You're saying that card levels should be adjusted to either the lowest or highest level available for both of the players to keep an even playing field

Though if you were to do that why would you even combine/ level up cards in the first place? There wouldn't be any benefit in doing so, right?

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you would combine level up cards for the ladder anyway which is the "free" mode (because you dont have to pay to play), and get better season rewards, etc.

i did not know that there was an option that makes lower player pay less, non official tournaments use that too? never seen it before

Thanks for your comment!

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I think in unofficial tournaments it's not used as much, sadly. but the option is available to anyone making a tournament :)

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Personally I think that tournaments are more or less what they should be. A lot of us play in Bronze league despite not actually have Bronze level cards (lvl 2+ summoners, lvl 3 commons,etc) Tournaments in ALL TCGs are sort of the best of the best. When you enter a Bronze league tournament the Bronze tag alone will limit any advantage a silver deck would have over a Bronze deck if it truly was a top level Bronze deck, ie most things at max level for a Bronze. That said, I'm not winning anything in tournaments so I feel your pain, it does sort of suck to not have a chance against those that are truly competitive in Bronze.

To alleviate your concerns a bit though. The game does scale entry costs based on your league. IE if a Silver player is entering a Bronze tourny, the price is WAY higher. For example, the Bronze buster tourny goes from a 6sps entry to something like a 75 sps entry fee with places 65+ paying out only 12.

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thanks for your comment! I did not know about the variation in entry fee, never seen that before!

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I've tried a few tournaments and yes you are right, since I just started and dont have much money to throw in this yet, I have never won anything yet at all the decks they had where just too good. Just throwing DEC away. Something should be changed I completely again with you. "Fairness: is the key word.

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Yes, Fairness is the word, because it is not IMPOSSIBLE to win, you just need a couple of conditions to be met for a new player to be able to advance.

And its also not fair in the sense that i see tournaments with 150 players, in which 100 are bronze or novice and 50 are gold or diamond players. When i see that i see misfortune for the 100 players haha

Thanks for the comment!

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Honestly, I just signed up yesterday to one tournament for 1 dec and it's the first time I will try it so I don't yet know much how it works, but it does sound like it's going to be tougher for us new players to have a shot from what you said here. I've been playing the game for about 2 months and have been slowly building my collection. May owned cards are here and there and I have no one Splinter that has a complete line up yet so I don't think I will be able to win any tournaments any time soon.

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Yes, the way splinterlands is done for the battles requires you to have several good cards across all elements. If you have 1 good splinter you could get screwed by the battle rules and lose it all

Thanks for your comment!

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yeah tournaments suck right now. I have only entered 3 in the 2 months that I have been playing.

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haha yes me too, i joined 3 .... i ALMOST made it to the last tier of winners once (because i had luck with some players joining the tournament but not playing)

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yeah i fully agree, i cant compete on tournament 😭

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thanks for your opinion! I hope tournaments change in the future adding more options for all leagues and players to be able to compete on their own leagues

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I can feel what you are saying in this post as I have been playing for almost the same amount of time..

After playing for 1 season and becoming confident in my skills I spent more than half of the DEC I had accumulated throughout my playtime on renting card for a tournament. As I was still really new I was only used to playing with and against the starter and level 1 cards. there was 3 tournaments that were for novice and bronze league that day so I was confident in at least getting something back from participating.

Needless to say that I was eliminated in the qualifiers by summoners I could not afford and monsters with abilities from levels I had not encountered... Since then the only tournaments I've entered are ones that only require 1 DEC and do not go out of my way to get cards specifically for it.

While I do understand and share a similar point of view on this post, at the same time I know that this will always be the nature of Blockchain Gaming. Weather someone has "Paid-to-Win", lucked out on card draws, HODLed, have the skills to win against higher level players, just started the game, or have been helped along the way, that is what makes the game fun. No matter the category you fall into.

Everyone has their own strategies and mindset when playing this game, while being NFT based brings a monetary aspect to this, it is still a game. It's hard for everyone to win.

Sorry if this sounds offensive, it's only my humble opinion

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Its not that everyone will win, because if you do a tournament that serves to new players, there will still be the same amount of winners, but is just that it SHOULD encourage new players to enter a tournament if they have a chance of winning.

thanks for your comment!

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Sorry for the late reply, but you're right it SHOULD, but as it stands it doesn't

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You do not need to put #peakd as a topic-tag ... there is no real benefit and the post is not about PeakD.com so there really isn't a reason to. We are likely the only account to search for posts with the topic tag #peakd so it really doesn't benefit you much. We suggest you use that space for another topic tag that will help your post more and is more related to the topic of your post.

I hope this has been a helpful educative comment.

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Thanks for the giveaway! Count me in please!

I haven't joined any tournaments yet, as the whole system isn't very fair to newbie players with only lvl 1 cards, like me. It should be interesting if there was a "novice" tournament, where you could only play the starter, lvl 1 cards. This way, all new players could enjoy the experience without being rolfstomped by veterans.

IGN: @luizeba

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There is a novice tournament, in which all cards are lvl 1, the problem is that still they allow people with legendary summoners/monsters in

So you will still lose when you are faced against legendaries if you are new

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I totally agree with you! I am also a very new player and am willing to pay some money for good cards, but it is impossible to get far in any tournaments. I didn't participate for quite some time, since I had the feeling, that my chances are low, but since tried to at least get to Round 2 or 3 in the cheap Tournaments (1 or 3 DEC ones), in hope, that these would meet the conditions you listed above.
But in the end, the chances to win are not existing. I have a full lvl 1 deck, while my opponent fought with a couple of lvl 2-4 cards, which made even the more unfavorable battles easy wins for him.
So I think I will abstain from tournaments as long as this doesn't get fixed. Just throwing DEC or SPS out of the window is nothing that makes sense imho and the chances of winning some DEC or SPS are so low, that it doesn't seem worthy.
I would hope, that they work on that, since even for ppl, who want to invest money and time into this game, it is not fair how tournaments are designed.

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Congratz! you won the giveaway! tell me your Splinterlands user so i can send it to you!

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@bakuoni
i've only joined 2 tournaments before 1 was okay i think they banned legendary cards obviously i didn't win but i had some wins under my belt
the other one oh god first match was literally legendarys and epics galore, needless to say i got rofl stomped in that one.
i guess making all of them same lvl 1 maybe? or giving a set of the same cards to everyone? i don't know what i'm talking about i'm a scrub thats only been playing for a few weeks haha.

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it'll get better when chaos legion releases
until then yeah it's retarded

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