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In a few weeks I will be taking over a long-running series of weekly tournaments, and one of the changes I want to implement is to occassionally have unusual tournament systems (As in, not standard or tag). So it seems the obvious first step is to call upon the collective experience and knowledge of all you shiny happy people on these forums:

Who here has tried any unusual tournament formats? How well did they work out, and what problems came up? Are there any unusual styles that have worked particularly well for your tournaments, or any that you feel should be avoided like the plague? What different styles would you recommend?

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Level 1 in Player Management, Tournament Organization, Specialist & Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Rules.

These are a few of the different tournaments that I have seen while judging :

 

Traditional Format - Players follow the Traditional Format Banned/Restricted list.

 

This follows the Traditional Banned/Restricted list and allows players to use a single copy of all the banned powerful cards again.

 

Booster Draft - Players are given "X" amount of booster packs and make a deck from those cards.

 

Players can use all the cards that they pull in their booster packs. To make this fair, all players receive the same boosters. ( for example: each player would receive 1 LOB, 2 MRD and 2 SRL or "X" amount of the same booster pack)

 

Arc Format - Players are only allowed to use 2 of each card.

 

This follows the nomal Banned/Restricted list and means thats any cards that are restricted to 1 cannot be used and cards that are best in 3's become less usefull.

 

Mega banned - Any card on the Banned/Restricted list cannot be used.

 

Like the description says, no cards on the Banned/Restricted list can be used, which means that you have the challenge of making a deck without some of the most powerful cards in the game.

 

Creature Feature - All monster cards used have to be of the same type.

 

This follows the nomal Banned/Restricted list, but has the restriction of having to use monsters of a single type.

 

Also similar to the above, I suppose that you could also have a restriction on having to use all monsters of the same attribute, however I have yet to see a tournament with this stipulation.

 

All of the above tournaments have worked well and as far as I am aware, there were no problems when running these tournaments.

 

I think that the players really enjoyed the change from the normal formats that are run and liked the challenge that the stipulations gave as it made them have to think more in order to do well.

 

Just remember to advertise well in advanced in order to allow players time to prepare for such events that are different from the regular format tournaments.

 

I hope that this helped and good luck.

 

 

 

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Andy Cummings
Rules Knowledge - Yu-gi-oh!: Level 2
Player Management: Level 2
Tournament Organizer: Level 1

UK Nationals Judge - 2006 - 2007 - 2008
UK Pharaoh Tour Final Judge - 2006 - 2007
UK Gen Con Judge - 2007
World Championship Judge - 2008

There's also...

Shadow Format: All Cards go to the next stage of limitation (IE: Banned Stay Banned, Limited are now banned, Semi Limited become limited, Unlimited are Semi Limited). It's a format someone introduced to me, which right now sounds far more fair than normal.

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Level 1 YGO Rules Knowledge Judge

Thanks for all the ideas, both of you =)

Some of these sound pretty interesting, especially Shadow Format.

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Level 1 in Player Management, Tournament Organization, Specialist & Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Rules.

Brown Paper Bag

Take donations of unwanted extra cards for a couple of months. Randomly place 100 cards in a brown paper bag. Players are seated and given a random bag. Each player constructs a standard deck from the cards in the bag and plays the tournament with that deck. After the tournament the bag is returned to the TO for future use. (You'd be amazed at what card some players think are useless and this format will test you judging skills when you see highly unusual and unlikely combinations) This format forces players to be creative and patient, you'll find it promotes a very light hearted tournament with a lot of laughs.

 

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Yu-Gi-Oh! RK3
PM L3
TO L1
Specialist L1

Also a very fun sounding idea =) Thank you.

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Level 1 in Player Management, Tournament Organization, Specialist & Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Rules.

Another one that is fun and that has been done locally here, is to have the winner of the tournament choose 1 card from the Banned list and that card will be usable in next weeks tournament ( the card is always limited  to 1 though )  and then that information is posted on the wall till next weeks game. 

 It makes for some fun games.

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YGO Rules Lvl 1
Player Management Lvl 1
TO lvl 1
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That which does not kill me, just royally pisses me off!

Ultimate Trinity - Every Card is Unrestricted (3 of even each of the banned cards)

"Blind Draw" - "Brown Paper Bag" except you select 40 cards without looking to see what you pull.

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107-744-616
Circle of Tragedy Duels
YGORK2, PM1, TO1
UDE May Use My Card Ideas At Will!
EVERYTHING I SAY IS PERSONAL OPINION
Prepare for the coming Global Crisis

Commons Only! - Players build a deck comprised of only commons.  All Forbidden/Limited lists apply.  If a card has been printed as a common, regardless if it has another rarity, it can be used, but you MUST use the common version.

Shadow Games!!! - A format Simon Sangpukdee and I used to run a while back when we had our own version of "Tag Team" dueling was the "Shadow Duel".  Basically, the winner of the tournament got to play in a "Shadow Game" against a surprise duelist (Usually one of the judges).  Since the tournament was unsanctioned, and we were not technically in the tournament, we always had an advantage and could build our decks based on what decks we had to face against.  We incorporated an additional Phase to the game called the "Shadow Phase".  This "Shadow Phase" happened right after the Standby Phase just before the Main Phase.  Neither player had Priority nor can any cards be activated during this Phase.  The turn player would roll 2 10-sided die and they would choose how they which to combine the numbers (A Roll of 3 and 5 means that it can either be a "53" or a "35").  Their role would be represented on a master list of effects that ranged from many effects already available in the game (Draw a card, destroy a monster, Discard a random card, Special Summon a Monster from your Graveyard, Discard your entire Hand, Gain 1000 Life Points, Lose 1000 Life Points, etc).  Now, the "Shadow Master" (Surprise Duelist) has 3 Shadow Tokens to begin each game with which basically allows them to use a Token to have anyone re-roll their Shadow Phase rolls.  Afterall, the "Shadow Master" should have an advantage! 

Just like in a Shadow Game, there were stakes involved.  If the player(s) lost the match, their prize support for the tournament would be halved.  If the player(s) won the match, their prize support would be doubled.  Players loved the format and participated mainly to participate in these Shadow Games. 

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Franklin Debrito
Player Management Lv4 / Yu-Gi-Oh! Lv3
VS System Lv1 / Specialist Lv2
World of Warcraft Lv1 / Tournament Organizer Lv1
UD Forums Moderator

other formats I could suggest

tribal - all monsters must have the name of their tribe, ie. crystal beast, gladiator beast, Elemental hero, Lightsworn

Highlander - 60 card deck, everything limited to 1/deck

the dreaded all effect monsters banned

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Player Management 1
Tournament Organizer 1
Demo Team Certification 1
Yu-Gi-Oh! Rules Test 1

All great ideas... Wow we have a lot of ways to play the game! Judging can become taxing though :-)

 

Our local would meet on Tuesday/Wednesday and offer suggestions and vote on alternate play. We called it the Yugioh Council. Strange things like "No card with the word 'THE' will be played", to "One card from the banned list can be played in an otherwise Advanced format".

That gave the local players a say in what would be played. They would offer the suggestion then everyone would vote (sometimes secret ballot).

Again, that can get crazy as a judge. Be careful in what you ask... you may get it.

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Ken Maness
Pflugerville, Tx
RK 2 YGO, PM2, Specialist 2, TO 1

The key thing is, as long as the tournament is unsanctioned, you can have as much fun as you want so be creative.  :)

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Franklin Debrito
Player Management Lv4 / Yu-Gi-Oh! Lv3
VS System Lv1 / Specialist Lv2
World of Warcraft Lv1 / Tournament Organizer Lv1
UD Forums Moderator

1587995:

The key thing is, as long as the tournament is unsanctioned, you can have as much fun as you want so be creative.  :)

I don't like the idea of pushing unsanctioned events.  All tournaments should be sanctioned and uploaded.  You can still be creative and have a lot of fun in a sacntioned event. 

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Jeff Piroozshad
Marketing Events Specialist
Upper Deck

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1503087:

1587995:

The key thing is, as long as the tournament is unsanctioned, you can have as much fun as you want so be creative.  :)

I don't like the idea of pushing unsanctioned events.  All tournaments should be sanctioned and uploaded.  You can still be creative and have a lot of fun in a sacntioned event. 

No one is pushing "Unsanctioned" tournaments but it needs to be made clear that (per one of your posts on another forum) that if they are running a tournament that is different from the official limited lists, they are unable to sanction it.  For example, if I ran a "One copy of each card allowed" tournament, I would not be able to sanction it.  This clears up any confusion and will not get someone in trouble for uploading their "Fun" tournaments.

Obviously if they are running a tournament, we would like for them to sanction it.  The point of this thread has been to come up with an alternate way to run a tournament aside from what is allowed so that the players may experience something new.

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Franklin Debrito
Player Management Lv4 / Yu-Gi-Oh! Lv3
VS System Lv1 / Specialist Lv2
World of Warcraft Lv1 / Tournament Organizer Lv1
UD Forums Moderator

That sounds really fun.