Avoiding mirrors during ladder qualifications:
Global bans based on recent ladder bans for the map, like “the top 3 civs banned in the last 20 games”. Out of unbanned civs, players pick three to use, and then hidden ban two civs. At least one civ remains unbanned, and civ they use is randomly selected from the unbanned civs of their three picks. The hidden bans are used to decide global bans for future games. Global bans will always vary, since the hidden bans cannot be the same as the global bans, so civs will fall out of the global ban list occasionally.
Probably no one in the top 30 in ladder rating (with a realistic chance at qualifying for tournaments) reads these forums, but we can still have a poll!
- Good idea
- Bad idea
- I don’t care
If players banned civs, and then each picked ONE civ, then we would get still get a lot of mirrors. If Koreans are best, and civ X is second-best, and Koreans are banned then both players pick civ X.
But if each pick THREE civs, then possibilities:
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Both pick the same three civs. They can’t ban a civ they picked. So, one player is randomly given a civ, and the other player has 1/3 chance to be given the same civ. 1/3 of these matches are mirrors.
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Both pick Koreans, and two other civs. By chance, they both ban the other two civs their opponent secretly picked, so they both get Koreans. 100% chance of a mirror.
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One player decides they want to ban Koreans, which means they can’t pick it themselves. Opponent expects Koreans to be banned and picks it anyway, and also predicts the second ban and chooses that civ as well, so they have a 100% chance to get their third pick, which happens to be Malay (after confusing them with Magyars). It could still be a Malay mirror, but at least it isn’t a Korean mirror.
“don’t want to play against practice partner” https://youtu.be/WQETP1ubZvk?t=1004
solution: let players mutually designate their practice partner, registering in pairs. When a player is selected, their practice partner is placed on other side of bracket, so they can’t meet until finals.
If three players practice together, two will have to meet before finals if none are eliminated before meeting.
Let players choose to have a stronger opponent, based on seeding, to avoid fighting a second practice partner early on? Only for first round?
Concern is, “If I fight my practice partner, the loser’s practice will be wasted.”
Example: strongest player has weak seeding, is seeded as 4th strongest. Would be matched against 4th-weakest player, but they claim to want a stronger opponent with higher seeding. But so do the other three weakest players. Each can choose once to ‘fight a stronger opponent’ and each does so when facing 4th-seeded player. Then player who was originally matched must fight them, and their opponent is uncertain until other players have had a chance to choose, which takes time.
Allow each player to register up to two practice partners. Seeded in opposite bracket if those players designate that player as a practice partner as well. Not designed to be perfect: simple case of three players who all practice with each other. Select one player, two go in opposite bracket, even though those two practiced together. So, a risk in practicing with more than one other player. But this could be the best method for a hidden identity tournament, to reduce the risk of meeting practice partner early on without revealing which side of bracket every player is on.
- Good idea
- Bad idea
- I don’t care