More on Clock Management by Mike Rosenberg (a follow-up to yesterday's discussions)

Continuing yesterday's discussion, I'd like to go a little more in-depth on the natures of the Brad versus Niles quarter-final match at Worlds. While I touched on my opinion a bit already, I wanted to go into further detail on what I think of the match as well as relating it to my general opinions on the current state of end-of-match procedures and clock management.




First of all: Brad's pace of play. As many have noted, Brad plays at a very methodical pace and typically doesn't deviate from this. For his deck choice, Slow Mage, this could work to his benefit. The arguments of taking your time playing Slow Mage would be the following:

-It is a very complex deck to play, and making one mistake could easily mean that you lose.
-It has an assortment of the 'best of' Mage abilities, giving it main-deck answers to just about anything if the deck is built correctly, while most opponents may be ill-equipped for all of the generic answers Mage has.
-It's hard-pressed to finish a match, so winning game one typically means it wins the match if the first game takes forever

This, of course, means that there is only one real win condition to the deck: The Netherbreath Spellblade/Mystic Denial/Slow hard-lock. It is basically like the Voidfire Wand win condition, except more resource intensive but utilizing cards that the deck would already want to run. It wins by locking the opponent, and then either building up resources to strike at the opponent each turn with the Netherbreath Spellblade, or simply decking the opponent out since they will eventually run out of cards while you get to skip your draws.

The quarter-final match with Brad and Niles went as it usually would for Brad, as he would play slow and methodically, trying to make the best play each turn. As mentioned yesterday, the rate of Niles' play was much faster than Brad's. However, this is how both of them simply played their matches.

What Brad probably didn't expect, however, was that Niles would win the first game. In the second game, Brad's pace of play quickly picked up. Some players may ask, “Why would Brad play slow and methodically in game one and then speed up play in game two?” That answer is simple. If Brad played at the same pace as the first game, he would lose the match. There would be no way that he could finish the second game before time was called in the match, as game one took such an immense chunk of time out of their allotment.

So, what gives? Why the change? Isn't that manipulation of the clock?

Simply put, I think it's legal under the current tournament structure, as long as his pace is not deemed as slow play by a judge (whether it was can be debated, but whether it was right or wrong, no slow play warnings were enforced on him). Why? Brad plays at that pace consistently. It's something that he is known for. He's not really changing his style of play during the first game of his matches. He is not deliberately consuming time on the clock once he knows that he has the win: he just tries to find the best play each turn leading up to his hard-lock. At that point, the opponent can either concede, or play it out. Most of the time, a concession is the recommended course of action game one, or else they won't win the match. Now, if Brad started taking the full time to side deck after being up a game, followed by spending his time staring at a perfectly solid opening hand, then you're headed into a gray area. At that point, the intent is clear: he doesn't want the second game to end as he wins the match if time is called! At that point, I feel that it's easier to watch Brad with a careful eye: he obviously has some stake in the second game not finishing, whereas with the first game, anyone could win it until Brad can set up a situation where he would be unable to lose.

But why is game one's play legal? As it stands, and it's hard to accept this, but the clock is still an integral part of the tournament system for card games. Games can be won and lost based on the time allotted for each round, and some decks are built with this in mind. It's a natural flaw to the tournament structure we are used to, and unfortunately since there is no efficient way to implement a chess-clock system like there is in online games such as Magic Online, it is one we have to accept until a better solution is created. Mage decks aren't unaccustomed to building their deck around the clock either; it's why Conjured Cinnamon Roll is one of their best cards.

The 2-cost ongoing Mage heal is easily one of the Mage's most important tools in a tournament setting simply because it lets the Mage not lose. Has the Mage established control over a game but within range of a Storm Shock or two? Conjured Cinnamon Roll gets them into the clear. Looping Flickers from the Past with things like Solanian's Belongings and Netherbreath Spellblade also serves to re-use the Conjured Cinnamon Rolls, and drawing multiples can ensure that the Mage player can remain at 0 damage once they have created a board-state that the opponent cannot beat. At that point, their win condition can simply be letting Blizzard slowly kill the opposing hero, or they can rely on Netherbreath Spellblade to never run out of cards in deck while the opponent decks out. In Core Constructed, a Mage could win games by simply looping Flickers from the Past for some removal, Conjured Cinnamon Rolls, and maybe a burn ability or two. The opponent can concede, or he or she can let the Mage player go through the motions to finish off the opposing hero. The fact is, in Core Constructed, the Mage just has to create a game-state where they will go into time with no damage on their hero and multiple ways to heal to full, while having a few points of damage on the opponent. That's all they have to do to win.

In Brad's case, he can create that game-state, but because his deck lacks any way to actually destroy an opposing hero if they have one or two pieces of armor, his only method of winning was to establish the hard-lock and to deck them out. Because he was down a game in the quarter-finals, and he knew that's the only way he could conceivably win the match, he had to play as fast as possible, but if he was in game one, he was in no rush and could play at his normal speed. While some could argue this as unethical, the fact is that these players are competing for a lot of money, and they are playing within the tournament rules and using the tournament structure to their advantage in order to win.

I touched enough on the situation Niles was in yesterday, but I'd like to emphasize that it is the same. If he took his time playing game one, and then made Brad play out his win condition, then it was in his right to do so. He most likely would have won on time if he wasn't playing quickly game one as well, but one could also argue that he lost due to not playing the tournament structure as well as the game (as good-natured of a player that makes him in the eyes of others). However, as Brad couldn't actually defeat Niles and his hero in the second game, it was perfectly legal for him to play through the motions needed each turn, and in an upstanding level of integrity, Niles played through these turns really quickly. I'd like to note that, as I've spent a lot of time defending the actions of both players in this scenario as they played within their bounds to the tournament policies, that I did not approve of Brad getting flustered and wanting Niles to concede or play faster. As Brad took up more of the clock for that match, I felt that this was a little unsportsmanlike, but I understand that tensions can rise with the amount of money they were playing for being on the line. I can't honestly say that I wouldn't have felt the same way in his position.

I also want to emphasize that I think this is a huge problem from a design perspective. I wouldn't want this to be taking place in tournaments if I was designing this game, as they are playing decks and cards outside of their intended use (winning the game through tournament procedure more often than winning via destroying the opposing hero). It also leads to the creation of game-states that are not fun, which I wouldn't want representing the game to new players. There is, however, no elegant solution to this problem. Bans don't work, as tournament players will adapt and find another strategy that does this if it's one of the best decks, and this is a problem that extends far beyond just the World of Warcraft TCG (it's clearly an issue in some cases for Magic: The Gathering as well).

While I think that clock management for the intent of winning a match is unethical and unsportsmanlike, I also understand that it's a consequence of the current tournament procedures. While I share in Ben Seck's opinion on the matter, I realize that it's nearly impossible to enforce intent to use the clock over accidental slow play in the early stages of a match, unless someone is being really blatant about it (like staring at a ridiculously good opening hand for over a minute before deciding not to mulligan). I do believe that better understanding of clock management in a tournament as well as tournament procedures and slow-play is important, and making this topic more readily discussed will make sure that judges are on the ball and enforce it more.

While it is a fact that players do this in tournaments, being more liberal with penalties regarding slow play can help enforce reasonable play-speed, and it can also help find patterns in players that make a habit of this for the purposes of wasting time in a round.

I want to thank everyone, by the way, for being very respectful in their discussions on this subject yesterday. There was some great debates going on in the forums for the WoW TCG as well as here, and I loved reading what you all had to say.