Toolbox of Terror – Team Support
Posted by Scrubby Bubbles on October 7, 2008
After I watched my beloved White Sox get eliminated from the Playoffs last night I was a bit depressed, manic, angry, and even a bit smitten at the idea that it was finally over. Afterward, as in all sports, I tried to examine what went wrong, what the team could have done better, but it was an exercise in futility because, collectively, I knew all the players were to blame. All the parts were there, but some moved in different directions or performed better than others, which caused a breakdown in the system and eventually, failure.
One of the unique facets of the WOWTCG is the concept of teams. Even though tournament play revolves around a single player pitted against another single player, it’s clear when you pull away and look at the bigger picture that teams take on a significant role in the deck building and strategy creation process. Look at any of the best players in the game and you’ll probably find a group of players backing him/her up. Some teams have almost gained legendary status thus far; Team Cheatyface and TEC come to mind, but still we probably heap praise and awe on individuals as opposed to a collective group, even though we know that the win was probably due to countless hours and effort spent opposite a good friend or teammate.
Who cares right?
Personally, I feel that it’s time for UDE to step up and start supporting teams in the WOWTCG. Because of the increasing complexity of the game and its strategies, team support could facilitate the emergence of prizes that reward not one player, but a collective group for their ingenuity and prowess. Great deck builders could receive the accolades they deserve along with players who sit and play test for countless hours so a teammate could make it into the top 8. Warcraft, more than ever, has become a game of numbers; the more time you spend testing, the better your chances at a tournament.
How to implement this?
It would take a significant step on the part of UDE to step up their support, but it could be done. Like rating, they’d have to track a player assigned to a given team, during a given period of time. Players should have to register their teams prior to a new block and collectively should not have more than 4-5 people at any given time. A rolling tally of points should be kept on the main website along with performances in major tournaments by all teammates. These numbers could be pulled directly from Mantis. Obviously there are only a few ‘team’ events that are sponsored by UDE, namely, the two-headed ogre event and the Raid events. Both of these events should contribute to overall standing. The goal would be to have a system that rewards a group of players over an individual. Having a teammate win a DMF would be significant, but having three members of your team in the top 16 should be more significant.
What does it accomplish?
The encouragement of teams in a game such as the WOWTCG could create a more level playing field, especially if the prizes are significant. The emphasis would encourage players to team up and do well collectively at events. This would have the net effect of keeping people honest because there’s something to play for; players would actually finish a tournament instead of dropping their friends and thus gaming the system a bit. It would also encourage the sharing of ideas within a group and only within that group. I could list dozens of reasons a team system is good, but none would be more important than that of growing the game and creating a collective group that gets together every week to play. The play group is the core of what makes this game go and the more we can get new players involved, the healthier our game will become, especially when it would support something that’s already very pervasive in the game already.
Besides, having a team to back you up in the event of a rumble is just cool.
Jeff Mikos
Icarusforte@gmail.com
<editors note: This is our 200th post! Thanks all for reading for so long.>
Jedion said
Warrrriorrrrsssss
Come out to play?
Arathomir said
What about the people unfortunate enough that they can’t get a team? To me it seems discrimatory if geographic location (or lack of any support WHATSOEVER in the New Hampshire/Northern Mass. area
) prevents you from getting into a team. I have to do all my testing pretty much by myself for that reason. I did have a playtest team for Realms last spring, but pretty much they haven’t played much at all since then. I know it was have helped severely for Continentals and DMF Jersey.
While teams make sense in terms of the way WoW (the MMO) works, no other TCG game (that I know of) rewards teams for their performance. Yes, they have team events, but each result is based on the team’s performance and not the individuals themselves.
Scrubby Bubbles said
I think any ’system’ that would be put into place, just by virtue of limiting who can participate, is discriminatory. I mean, honor ranking is kinda of discriminatory now, rewarding those players who can spend the most money going to events, right? I don’t believe it’s a bad system, but the point being that you can’t make everyone happy. I do understand your frustration.
Part of what supporting teams ‘could’ do is allow players to interact and test online (which happens fairly regularly now) and allow those people to be rewarded for thier performance no matter what tournament they play in. Obviously a computer and some kind of software to play the game online would be required (Magic Workstation comes to mind), but honestly, if a program was in place ahead of time it could open up new possibilites for team creation across the world. I mean, what’s to stop a group of five people, from five different geographic areas from getting together, creating a simple messageboard, posting decks and eventually testing those on MWS? Anyone can do it, but the difference being, there’s no support because when these five people walk into a tournament, it’s only how well they each do individually.
Hopefully that made sense.
-Jeff-
NarchoN said
+1 Scrubby Bubbles’ idea!
bunklore said
All I really want is some goddamn Team Draft events at DMFs. I’d even settle for Team Sealed, which is a pretty meh format but at least it’s something.
LwoodY2K said
“What about the people unfortunate enough that they can’t get a team? To me it seems discrimatory if geographic location [...] prevents you from getting into a team.”
I don’t see why your team would have to be local. You can potentially use The Internet(tm) to test, locate teams, etc.
But anyway, my overall opinion – it would be cool, but I’d rather that they work on the other things people have been complaining about (late updates, changes, etc) collectively in the ‘fixing’ category before working to add something new and interesting but limited to some subset of the player base.
ThePiousFlea said
I agree with Lwood – I think it is a good idea but I would rather they do things like bothering to email people their fireworks codes from the ogre smash and bash events before worrying about teams.