How to Score For a Draft
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Posted on Feb. 23, 2014, 7:17 p.m. by codebread
I plan to co-host a draft at my school and was wondering what would be a good way to keep scores/distribute prizes.
We don't have access to a computer or anything and will be keeping scores on paper. There is a likely chance that there will be an odd number of people so someone will get the by. Last time we drafted, there ended up being two or three people with the same score for second and third. How can we avoid this again?
Servo_Token says... #3
Like how regulation matches are scored, you need to look at tie breakers in those cases. If player A and player B are tied for second, but player B lost to player C while Player A beat player C, player A would be put ahead of player B. Granted, that could get a tad complicated with a lot of people, so the alternative is something of a single elimination bracket style tournament. Tournament brackets solve many issues here.
February 23, 2014 7:35 p.m.
There was no issue for first, only for second and third. In the end, we gave everyone a pack and first, second, and third got two or three. We're a casual group but would still like some gratification for paying $13 entry (there are seven of us, by the way. maybe eight or nine come our next draft). We tried doing it the way ThatBlueMage suggested, but worked around the by and not players. It evened things out a little.
Another issue we had was that people would just around in the ranking but we didn't want to give the same person the by twice because that takes fun away from them. This eventually ended up to the people in second and first place needing a by, which is a little unfair. How can we solve this?
February 23, 2014 9:11 p.m.
When we first started, everyone would bring a few packs for ante. After each match, the winner got a pack from the loser. That way, the prizes were self-tracking. I don't know how this system interacts with local gambling laws. Another complication came when people were bringing packs from different sets, and Fallen Empires was seen as a horrible set. Today complications might come from people buying mapped boxes/packs for cheaper on the internet.
If it's a free tournament, and the prizes are being provided by the sponsor, you could give everyone ante tickets that could be redeemed for prizes at the end. 4 rounds=4 tickets, etc. 7-8 tickets required for the best prizes: something like that.
February 24, 2014 11:57 a.m.
tigersfan774 says... #7
On a kind of similar note, does anyone know of any good software for scoring drafts?
February 25, 2014 5:04 a.m.
There's a Swiss Tournament app for Android that's free on the Google Market. I imagine iPhones and whatnot have a similar product.
As for how to do tournaments, the Swiss system goes like this:
- Round One is random. If there's an odd number of players, one of them gets a bye.
- The winners of Round One each get three points. One point is given to players who tie their matches, and zero points are given to those who lose. Byes count as wins, so they get three points.
- In Round Two, the players with the highest scores play against each other, and the lowest play against each other. In the case of an odd number of people, the player with the lowest score gets the bye.
So for eight people (the standard number for a draft pod), an example would look like this (we will call our players A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H):
Player A vs. Player E: Player E wins 2-1Player B vs. Player C: Player B wins 2-0Player D vs. Player G: Player D wins 2-1Player F vs. Player H: The round is tied at 1-1-1
Scores would then look like:
Player B: 3 pointsPlayer D: 3 pointsPlayer E: 3 pointsPlayer F: 1 pointPlayer H: 1 pointPlayer A: 0 pointsPlayer C: 0 pointsPlayer G: 0 points
Since players cannot play each other twice in Swiss rounds, they are then paired according to their scores. Round Two would look something like this:
Player B vs. Player D: Player B wins 2-0Player E vs. Player F: Player F wins 2-1Player H vs. Player A: Player A wins 2-1Player C vs. Player G: Player C wins 2-0
Round Three scores would then be:
Player B: 6 pointsPlayer F: 4 pointsPlayer A: 3 pointsPlayer C: 3 pointsPlayer D: 3 pointsPlayer E: 3 pointsPlayer H: 1 pointPlayer G: 0 points
...and so on until you complete each round. The number of rounds will depend on the number of players, which is:
8 players or less: 3 rounds9-16 players: 4 rounds17-32 players: 5 rounds33-64 players: 6 rounds65-128 players: 7 rounds129-226 players: 8 rounds227-409 players: 9 rounds410+ players: 10 rounds
For more details, see the MtG: Tournament Rules PDF.
Epochalyptik says... #2
There's no way to avoid that problem except by keeping an even number of players. Even then, ties for final placement are relatively common. You'll need to use tiebreakers (typically, performance in matches) to separate them if possible.
For prize distribution, it depends on the size of the event, and the kind of players you have. Do you have a casual group that would appreciate a relatively even distribution of prizes, or a competitive group that would advocate for a placement-based prize system?
February 23, 2014 7:33 p.m.