The No-Starplayer-on-finals-rule

[Afroman]

On page 30 in the rulebook, the following it's stated:

"Inducement and treasury gold may not be used to starplayers or mecenaries for this games..."

I am curios about the reason behind this?
This rule is quite aggravating against races that rely on inducements (Like Tier 3) and I can't really see what it adds to the game.

Since I am sure that nobody though "Let's make sure those few pesky stunties that managed to get to the finals don't get any further!" and then created this rule, I wonder what the reason was.

Anyone out there that knows?


PS: sorry if this is a duplicate. My search failed me in that case.

[Loki]

That section of the rulebook is talking generally about tournaments and gives examples of how a commissioner might like to run his league/tournament. It's up to the commissioner whether this rule is enforced or not - to quote "At the end of the season the League Commissioner will need to decide ... how the tournament will how the tournament will be run..." and "Typically..."

[Darkson]

I like it, if you want to win use your own players, but then I feel Star Players are overused in the rules so I'm probably not the person to ask.

[mzukerman]

We've had serious debate about this in the LIBBL. We started out allowing them in the playoffs. We also combined it with a house rule allowing people to spend their own treasury before a game without impacting team value. By season 6, that got out of hand. We have since gone back to the rulebook entirely.

Now we have a goblin team who has a chance at making the playoffs and he's lobbying to change the rule for tier 3 teams because his only chance of competing is by using star players and/or getting tons of lucky breaks on his fouls.

I understand the desire to have teams compete as they are. And I have seen teams fall in the playoffs due to Morg n' Thorg romping all over the place. That is mostly what led to the backlash in our league. I don't really have a good answer, I can just tell you that we've lived with the pain of allowing it.

[dode74]

I understand why the rule is in place (to encourage development), but given that the underdog win% is ~33% even if he is allowed stars I really don't see why it's an issue from a competitiveness perspective.

[Afroman]

We've had serious debate about this in the LIBBL. We started out allowing them in the playoffs. We also combined it with a house rule allowing people to spend their own treasury before a game without impacting team value. By season 6, that got out of hand. We have since gone back to the rulebook entirely.

Now we have a goblin team who has a chance at making the playoffs and he's lobbying to change the rule for tier 3 teams because his only chance of competing is by using star players and/or getting tons of lucky breaks on his fouls.

I understand the desire to have teams compete as they are. And I have seen teams fall in the playoffs due to Morg n' Thorg romping all over the place. That is mostly what led to the backlash in our league. I don't really have a good answer, I can just tell you that we've lived with the pain of allowing it.

This is interesting, because I would have though that if a non-tier3 team gets Morg(that is 430K) then either the opposing team is really well developed(and should be able to handle it) or he gets an(some) equally awesome inducement(s) or maybe even his own Morg(which would negate Morg for both).

But it sounds that the use of Starplayers actually tipped the balance in your league by a lot pretty often. Do you have any concrete examples? like what races took which starplayers ending up beeing overpowered agains what races.


And has it happened with Tier 3 teams?

[dode74]

it sounds that the use of Starplayers actually tipped the balance in your league by a lot pretty often

I'd have thought this would have more of an effect:

• We also combined it with a house rule allowing people to spend their own treasury before a game without impacting team value

[mzukerman]

We've had serious debate about this in the LIBBL. We started out allowing them in the playoffs. We also combined it with a house rule allowing people to spend their own treasury before a game without impacting team value. By season 6, that got out of hand. We have since gone back to the rulebook entirely.

Now we have a goblin team who has a chance at making the playoffs and he's lobbying to change the rule for tier 3 teams because his only chance of competing is by using star players and/or getting tons of lucky breaks on his fouls.

I understand the desire to have teams compete as they are. And I have seen teams fall in the playoffs due to Morg n' Thorg romping all over the place. That is mostly what led to the backlash in our league. I don't really have a good answer, I can just tell you that we've lived with the pain of allowing it.

This is interesting, because I would have though that if a non-tier3 team gets Morg(that is 430K) then either the opposing team is really well developed(and should be able to handle it) or he gets an(some) equally awesome inducement(s) or maybe even his own Morg(which would negate Morg for both).

But it sounds that the use of Starplayers actually tipped the balance in your league by a lot pretty often. Do you have any concrete examples? like what races took which starplayers ending up beeing overpowered agains what races.


And has it happened with Tier 3 teams?

We have teams that are at varying stages of development, so it happens quite often with non-Tier 3 teams. Although I've put the vote up for limits for team ages, every time it's gotten voted down. So in any given season, we'll have rookie teams facing third or even fourth season teams.

For example, the team that is romping through the regular season right now is a 4th season Chaos team. Last season, the final one where we allowed teams to buy star players in the playoffs, this team was ranked #1 and faced a rookie lizardman team (match sheet). The TV difference was 790K and the lizardmen were missing their Krox and a Saurus due to a match in an earlier round. We expected a slaughter. The lizardman coach (a skilled coach coming into his own) hired Morg n' Thorg and Hemlock. Both Hemlock and Morg had major impacts on their offense, allowing them to steal a late 1st half TD and then Morg trudged downfield amidst a cloud of lizards in the second half. They ended up winning 2-1.

Another example is a semifinal game I was involved in a couple of seasons ago. I was playing my wood elves against my arch rival who had high elves (he was responsible for my only two losses that season). His team had just gotten completely decimated by dwarves in the quarters. He had beaten me during the season after inducing Eldril Sidewinder and hypnotic gazing me into submission. So I decided to taunt him in the playoffs. I told him I was spending my treasury on Eldril, so if he chose him, he'd have to forfeit his use. He decided instead to get Dolfar Longstride and Prince Moranion. (Match sheet) Now, I had possibly the worst dice luck I'd ever had. I had turnovers on each of the first 7 turns of the game and was down 3-0 by then. However, Sidewinder got taken out first turn and never returned. Meanwhile, Moranion went on a tear, KOing 6 players over the course of the game. Longstride wasn't a huge factor.

Tier 3 teams have yet to make the playoffs (only the also-ran post season tournament), however I have seen numerous occurrences where they have won or pulled out a tie solely due to having Morg and friends.

I'm not saying that this shouldn't happen. I'm not saying that it should. Just a couple of examples where star players were a big difference maker in a playoff game. Some feel that that shouldn't be allowed.

[mzukerman]

it sounds that the use of Starplayers actually tipped the balance in your league by a lot pretty often

I'd have thought this would have more of an effect:

• We also combined it with a house rule allowing people to spend their own treasury before a game without impacting team value

Dode, you are absolutely correct. I think that the house rule allowing people to spend money with no repercussions favored established bashy teams tremendously. We decided to get back to the rulebook and just disallowed the use of both.

[CyberedElf]

Our league changed our stance on this rule.

The original thought was, pick the rulebook suggested "typical" and it is a bit more fluffy to have to win with your own players.

I preferred the change because I support more balanced play. Inducements are there to help the underdog have a better chance. Of course Nuffle always picks the winner. Sometimes Star Players run rampant, and sometimes you get my last game:

Opponent induced Nobbla Blackwart (without a bribe)
Opponent received
I got Blitz kick-off result
My killer blitzed Nobbla and got a K. O.

While I support balance, ALL HAIL NUFFLE!

[stashman]

We use CRP+ and we have stars for playoffs. This is great, last season the halfling got to final vs. vampire!!!

Seasons before with out the rule it was not even fun to face a stunty team in the playoffs!!! Cards, wizards don't do much for a stunty but Morg do.

[MattDakka]

Page 30 of CRP says:
"Tipically there are two semi final matches, followed by a final.
Inducement and treasury gold may not be used to induce Star Players or Mercenaries for these matches as the NAF, while not monitoring day to day games on the road to the finals, enforces using your own team for these important matches!"

My point is that "Tipically" refers just to the tournament structure, then the sentence ends.
The part saying that Star Players and Mercenaries cannot be used is another sentence, not related to "Tipically".
It's even written in bold characters.

[Dr. Von Richten]

Opponent induced Nobbla Blackwart (without a bribe)
Opponent received
I got Blitz kick-off result
My killer blitzed Nobbla and got a K. O.

That's not Nuffle, that's just a bad setup.

Why on earth did your opponent set up in such a way that Nobbla was Blitzable? Setups should always take KickOff results like Blitz and Quick Step into account, unless the situation is too desperate, but that won't be the case on the first drive of the game.