Preliminary Planeswalker Points

Magic tournaments get reported whenever the tournament organizers get around to sending the information in. On Sunday there were no FNM events reported from last week but several were entered on Monday. So there is some data available to look at in terms of what's going on at FNMs around the world. My FNM has not yet been reported so I'm currently listed with 0 FNM points this season but I know from doing the math myself that I should get 42 points and that's the most I could have picked up at 401's FNM since I won every round. Note that I have no way of knowing what percentage of events have been reported on thus far and there could be substantially more people ahead of me but as we'll see that doesn't matter even a little bit.

The first thing I noticed is the worldwide listing only lists the top 500 people. Currently in 500th place? Someone with 54 points. Note that this is 12 points more than I could possibly have earned. The likely way of getting to 54 points is 5 match wins and 3 participation points. That only needs 32 people which isn't that unreasonable. I can imagine there being a large number of FNM's which get at least 32 people and run 5 rounds. Unless there are draws mucking things up there's guaranteed to be at least one person at every such FNM to pick up 54 points. This bodes poorly for my chances of getting more points then they do over a year but it's still possible. If the winners of those events keep rotating a lot and I always win my event I can see passing some of them.

But 54 points is currently in 500th place. Who's in first? A gent by the name of Giuseppe Splendori who somehow managed to get 99 points! FNM is run with a 3x multiplier which means he pulled in 33 normal points. How is that even possible? My best guess would be 6 participation points (requires 256-511 people) and 9 match wins. 6 rounds, cut to top 8, win the whole thing? But that doesn't work because you'd need more than 6 rounds with 256 people. Maybe they just play 9 rounds of swiss in a 256 person event? That's essentially the same as a day at a Grand Prix!

I was reading a thread on mtgontario about the new system where Dedly Edly complained that stores can actually run two FNM events each day. Let's assume this Giuseppe guy played in 2 events. Then his 6 participation points could have come from a pair of 32 person events. If they play 5 rounds at each of them then he just needed to go 5-0 at one and 4-1 at the other. That's not terribly unlikely.

How about if he managed to find 3 events to play in by running around town? Then he could get his 6 participation points from 3 16-31 player events. Play 3 rounds at each event and he just needs to go undefeated in the 9 rounds. That might sound harsh but I could easily imagine it happening if there were 3 such events to play in. Draft would probably take too long but I could see pounding out 9 rounds of constructed with a small number of players.

Ok, but that's one guy doing crazy things... How about the rest of the people near the top? 2nd place has 93 points. 3rd place has 93 points. 4th through 10th all have 90 points! This is clearly not just an aberration somewhere, this sort of thing is happening all over the place and these people have access to many, many more points than I do.

Filtering for just players in Canada gets me the leader at a mere 72 points. That could easily be 7 match wins and 3 participation points. 32 people, 4 rounds, cut to top 8 could set that up. That doesn't even seem like an unlikely tournament format, especially for constructed. But people playing in that format can earn 30 points more than I can.


Let's look at the points potential for a few different tournament set-ups. First up, the event I played in. With 25 people and 4 rounds there are 25*2=50 participation points going around. 13 matches each round could mean a total of 52 winners for 156 winning points. Triple it all and you've got a total of 618 points to go around with a minimum of 6 points, a maximum of 42 points, and an average of 24.72 points.

Now take a 32 person event with 4 rounds, cut to top 8. There are 32*3=96 participation points. 16 matches each round with 7 more in the top 8 means 71 winners for 213 winning points. Tripled the event generates 927 points with a minimum of 9 points, a maximum of 72 points, and an average of 28.97 points.

How about some of Giuseppe's possible events? A single 256 man, 9 round event? It generates 256*6=1536 participation points. With 128 matches each round there are 1152 winners for 3456 winning points. Overall the event generates 14976 points with a minimum of 18, a maximum of 99, and an average of 58.5 points.

How about 2 different 32 man, 5 round events? They'd generate 32*6=192 participation points. The 160 matches would have 480 winning points. Overall it would only generate 2016 total points. The minimum would remain 18 points, the maximum goes up to 102, and the average would actually spike up to 63 points.

3 events with 16 people and 3 rounds each? 16*6=96 participation points. 8 matches per round, 9 rounds total is 72 winners and 216 winning points. Overall we're down to 936 total points which is pretty close to my event. But the minimum is doubles to 18, the maximum is almost tripled to 99, and the average is back to 58.5.


So if someone can manage to find events at all capable of generating Giuseppe's total then I'm screwed. The average player in his events makes way more than my possible maximum. This is obscene. Consistent very high finishes might enable me to overcome the difference between a max-42 point event and a max-54 point event. There's no way it can overcome the difference between a max-42 point event and a max-99 point event. Any thoughts I may have had about making it to the FNM championship are shot, and they're shot for almost everyone in the world. If you don't have a local store or group of stores willing to run FNM events all day every Friday you simply have no chance.

As far as competitive goes the standings are currently dominated by people who played in the recent Pro Tour. This is not surprising to me in the slightest. Many of those people will already have invitations from their pro player club level and therefore won't hurt someone who may be trying to grind their way into events, but the FNM structure certainly will. My confidence in being able to grind points into Nationals next year is dropping rapidly. Maybe I need to find a new FNM that plays lots of rounds? But even then I don't know where I'd find time to play in them. I have to work a full day on Fridays...


But how could it be fixed? For competitive I'm not sure that it can. I expect it'll mostly just reward the people who go to all the GPs and such anyway (thought if someone can rake in close to 100 points every week at FNM they'll be in a good way regardless). But for the FNM championships I feel like something really needs to be done. The average player in Giuseppe's area will earn 2.5 times a many points as someone in Toronto who plays at 401. It's inconceivable that anyone from 401 could make it to the championship no matter how often they play or how much they win. This seems like a real problem to me but I think there are ways to fix the system. Some potential options...

• Restrict the definition of an FNM for the purposes of this championship. Only count the first 'FNM' a player plays in each week, for example.
• Force all FNMs to cut to top 8, or prevent any of them from cutting to top 8. Alternatively let people keep doing what they want but score the top 8 as a different 1x event thereby removing them from the FNM ranking list.
• Count a draft as a round that everybody won. Or maybe even that they all drew. It's a little silly that I'm spending more time and money to play 4 rounds than constructed people spend to play 5 rounds and yet I get fewer points.
• Do something about participation points and number of rounds. Letting people play in more rounds while scooping up more bonus points just for showing up seems like a little much. I can see wanting to reward bigger events but when you make the reward substantial you marginalize everyone who doesn't play in a big event. Possibly have participation points based on size of event vs number of rounds so a shorter event gives more participation points?