Tournament Mode Anyone?

[Darb 40]

Hi everyone,

 

I love Hearthstone, but I think it would be even better if Blizzard provided a Tournament Mode within the client. I've heard this discussed many times so I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. Interestingly, a podcast I listen to regularly recently gave their opinion that a Tournament Mode could be one of the next big announcements that comes out, perhaps as soon as BlizzCon. I sure hope so! 

 

In order to make a Tournament Mode truly worthwhile, I feel it needs to allow anyone to be an "administrator" and thereby be able to start their own tournament with a decent amount of flexibility. Here are some neat features that I think should be included:

1. The administrator can choose the number of participants, perhaps from as few as 4 to at least as many as 16. Being able to do 32 or 64 would be even better, but people could get around this by having multiple smaller "tournaments" and then have the winners face off in a subsequent, final "tournament."
2. The administrator can easily invite people to join the tournament through their friends list or by entering a battle tag.
3. The administrator can choose the tournament format, such as Single or Double Elimination or Round Robin. He or she can also decide whether each match will be best-of-three, best-of-five, etc.
4. The administrator can decide the entrance fee, whether it be in-game gold, real money, or free entrance. Having no fee at all should definitely be an option, but allowing for an entrance fee from each participant could be fun if the fees are pooled together and given out to the winner(s). The administrator should be able to decide if the victor gets ALL the spoils or if the prize is split among the top few players. So for example, if a tournament of 8 individuals requires an entrance fee of 100 gold, that's 800 gold that could go to the winner! Or perhaps the winner could take 400, second place 200, and third and fourth 100 each.
5. Upon accepting an invitation to join a tournament, each participant would submit the deck(s) he or she will use. The players will be restricted to these decks throughout the tournament, thus removing the burden on administrators to make sure no inappropriate deck changes are happening.

I'm not a computer science guy so I don't know the logistics of making this happen, but I think it would be a ton of fun and would greatly enhance the tournament experience for many. It would also give more people access to a tournament-style of play, even if only among their group of friends.

 

What do you all think of having a Tournament Mode? Would you play it? What do you think of my ideas above? Do you have additional ideas that could make a Tournament Mode even better?

 

I look forward to hearing from you!

[Razzle 4]

Hey Darb,

 

I think it's a fantastic idea!  I would definitely be interested in playing in such a tournament, and I'd be willing to pay a small entrance fee to fund a prize -- small because I know, as a new player, I'd have almost no chance of winning.  

 

I like your idea of restricting decks, but have no idea whether it's feasible as a technical matter.  I know existing tournaments do place some restrictions on decks.  Also, don't tournaments sometimes allow players to "ban" their opponent from playing a deck?  And sometimes you have to abandon a deck once you lose (or win) with it, right?  Those rules suggest that it's technically feasible to set up all sorts of deck rules, but I could be wrong.

 

One thought about entrance fees: again, I know existing HS tournaments already do this, and I think it's a good idea.  But one should be careful about the online gambling laws, which place some restrictions on charging money for games of chance.  Personally I think Hearthstone, like poker, is a game of skill, and I think it's perfectly appropriate for an online tournament with prize money.  But if I were setting up such a tournament, I'd want to make sure that it was all nice and legal.

 

Anyway, I think it's a great idea.  I thought I saw something on the Blizzard launcher about tournaments recently.  Maybe you're right that Blizz is planning to make tournaments available to the masses. I hope so.

[Darb 40]

Thanks for your input, Razzle. The great thing about having a Tournament Mode in the client is that it could potentially be programmed to handle all the card and/or deck bans for you. I think it would dramatically ease the burden on tournament administrators, meaning a lot more small, local tournaments could start to emerge. Not to mention the fun of having your own casual tournament among friends!

 

I didn't think about online gambling laws, but I assume that would only be an issue if real money is being exchanged. I personally wouldn't want to put in real cash anyway, but I know some people would be willing to do so. As long as the fee consists of in-game gold, I would be willing to put some into a tournament pool to make the results more exciting. So if real money was a problem then hopefully we could still do the gold.

[Skurvy87 1]

I like this idea. It would be even more awesome if they could build in some spectating features so exisiting tournaments could be spectated by all of us non-professionals. Even better if they could add in the commentators!