Tournament Mode

I've been working on this for a few weeks. I've been thinking of how this can be implemented into the game, how it rewards players, how it can pay for itself in the long run, and mainly how it can be fun. As we go through this, if you spot anything that I didn't cover, stuff that would be un-fun, or things that need improvement, let me know. If the player base stays vocal on this topic (maybe this thread) we might be able to make things work and bring some new fun to our favorite game.

The Basics:

The way the mode will be implemented will be similar to that of Tavern Brawl. It will be live for an entire week before maintenance/reset.

Cards/sets will be rotated in and out. This will give us use of older cards and while also taking away staple Classic and Basic cards. This is to prevent a stale meta. this is why Battlegrounds is a hit. Team 5 have been very vigilant and hands on when it has come to balance Battlegrounds, if they could use this philosophy with Tournament Mode (The one I'm describing) then it will last.

Rule sets can be used to limit deck construction even more. Rule Sets such as;
- Pauper: No Epic or Legendary Cards
- Stay Dead: No Deathrattle Cards
- Be Quiet: No Battlecry Cards
- This is My Main: Only Class Cards are used

Tournament mode can also use the Standard format, to make things more interesting since the Standard format Meta is more often than not figured out.

There are 3 different levels of entry to this mode, I will go over the rewards after I lay these out.
1 - Free: Everyone will get one FREE entry into the mode each week. After you have use your Free play, you'll have to play in the other levels. This free entry will also give you access to ALL of the available cards whereas the next two levels come straight from your collection. This mode will not affect your rating.
2 - Casual: The cost of entry will be 150g or your local currency. This is for people to practice in while still obtaining rewards. This mode will affect your rating.
3 - Competitive: The cost of entry will be 500g or your local currency, this is where the big boys go to play. Go hard, or go home. This mode will affect your rating.

With the introduction of Battlegrounds, Team 5 has shown us that Hearthstone can hold 8 people together enough to get through a game. So Tournament mode will be using an Eight Player Bracket. You will see your opponents Tournament Portraits and their rating and they can see yours as well.

This is a rough draft of what it will look like, match- ups are not set in stone:

With each game you'll have your rating changed according to how well you did, similar to Battlegrounds.
For example: 

Obviously it will go higher than 999 but Hearthcards can only do so much. Do not worry about the portraits at this moment, I'll get to that soon.

The Rules:

As stated earlier, there will be sets/cards rotating in and out each week to keep the game mode feeling fresh each week. This also keeps people from developing unbeatable strategies for too long.

All eight players will be matched together, you will all be shown what sets are in use, followed by being sent to the a collection manager inside the mode and everyone will have 40 minutes to craft 4 decks.

The matches will be best of 5.

You will be able to ban an opponents deck.

Once a deck wins, you cannot use it anymore in that game until the next match.

There is 1st Place, 2nd Place, 3rd Place, and 4th Place.
- 1st place is the winner.
- 2nd Place belongs to the person who lost to the winner,
- 3rd place will be decided in a match between the two players who didn't make it to the final match-up.
- 4th Place belongs to the player who lost the decider match for 3rd Place.
- All other players will not get a placement.

There will be spectating in place for those who lose, but no cards from either players hands can be seen.
-The only match they can watch is the grand final of the tournament, this prevents sniping.

Once you have won your match-up you will sit in the bracket screen until a match-up ends, then you will be matched with the winner of that match-up. There will be  a two minute pause before the match begins to let the winner take a small break.
- This is your time to do what you need to do before the next match.

Rewards:

Competitive will grant the largest amount of rewards.

Casual and Free will grant the same amount of rewards.

These rewards should be;
-Gold
-Dust
-Pack Tokens for YOU to DECIDE which pack you want.

Rewards for placements will be;
- Players in 1st place will receive a pack token, some dust, and more gold than what 2nd place got.
- Players in 2nd place will receive a pack token, some dust, and some gold.
- Players in 3rd place will receive a pack token and some dust.
- Players in 4th place will receive some dust.
- Players below 4th place will not receive anything.

These rewards will scale based on if they are played in competitive or casual.
-It should be noted that Arena tickets should be given out in competitive.

Progression:

Progression comes in the form of Tournament Mode exclusive Hero Portraits.
-These will be rewarded based on how many games you have won with a particular class inside Tournament Mode.

Hero portraits will not be represented in the match-up themselves. If you play Shaman, you will be whatever Shaman you chose for your deck during deck construction or be defaulted to your favorite.

This is a great opportunity to use some old art, here are some examples;
Druid - 500, 1000, 1500

Mage - 500, 1000, 1500

Warrior - 500, 1000, 1500

So on and so forth for each class. Also, ignore the health for these portraits, I couldn't find any without health indicators.

These portraits aren't set in stone but it's a good motivator to work towards something.

Friendly Matches:

Friendly matches should be available within this mode.

A host should be able to make their own rule sets and decide what's banned and what isn't.

Friendly matches are free, and thus no rewards are given.

Things to Consider:

Deck boxes.
-While this mode exists people will want to keep decks they know work for next time around. There needs to be a feature implemented that way players who don't use 3rd party sites to save their decks (Like outof.cards) can, well save their decks.
-If cards in those decks are now illegal, they can copy/paste the deck code within Hearthstone to make a clone and edit it.

Splitting the player base:
-Some of you will have fears that this will split the player base and I totally agree. I'm not a Legend Wild player but I've heard it's slim pickins up in the higher ranks. My philosophy on this is the same from when I played WoW wishing for something like WoW Classic: "It's better to have a split player base than no player base at all." Agree with that statement or not, that's just how I see it.

How long will a round of Tournament Mode Take?
-This is probably the most concerning, and may very well be the reason as to why it hasn't came to fruition yet. Doing a round in tournament mode is and SHOULD be a commitment, it shouldn't be a throw away game because you're at 1 HP and think you've lost.
-It will take well over two hours four one full Tournament. Simply because players need ample time to look through what's available and decide what the best route is.

Is it worth anything in the competitive scene of Standard Hearthstone Tournaments?
-No, this is something entirely separate from official events.

Conclusion:

I think I've laid out a pretty good foundation on what Team 5 could do with Tournament mode. Is it perfect? I don't know the answer to that question. What I do know is, that I'm trying to help and I'm trying to get you, the players, behind this idea that we've all been asking for, for years.

Thank you for reading.
-Grif.

Hired!

Post this on reddit if u haven't already. Team 5 usually lurks around there.

Seems great BTW 

Quote From Gilbie

Hired!

I wish lol

Quote From Marega

Post this on reddit if u haven't already. Team 5 usually lurks around there.

 

Seems great BTW 

I did: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/ehlocg/tournament_mode/

I just hope it doesn't get lost in the aether or just straight up ignored.

This sounds great! I do have 2 issues though.

One, the rewards seem a bit small. Tournament mode seems like a big investment of time and gold, playing for over an hour straight only to make a 10 gold profit would be frustrating for a lot of players. You didn't mention exactly how much gold or dust would be rewarded, but it would have to be a lot. Only the top 3 players get a pack, and it looks like 3 and 4 don't get enough rewards to compensate for their investment. If only the top 2 players get to make a profit then this mode will be swarming with only the most competitive spikes and a LOT of salty people.

Two, it will take forever. You get forty minutes to make four decks, and then there will be four rounds of elimination, that can easily take over an hour and a half. Plus you cannot break in between games, you have to play throughout the entire thing. I just don't think a lot of people have that kind of time on their hands. If there wasn't a 'deck building' phase then it would take much less time, you could just make your decks before entering. Another thing you could do is have only 6 players instead of 8, this would also mean you only have to build 3 decks instead of 4.

Quote From KANSAS

This sounds great! I do have 2 issues though.

One, the rewards seem a bit small. Tournament mode seems like a big investment of time and gold, playing for over an hour straight only to make a 10 gold profit would be frustrating for a lot of players. You didn't mention exactly how much gold or dust would be rewarded, but it would have to be a lot. Only the top 3 players get a pack, and it looks like 3 and 4 don't get enough rewards to compensate for their investment. If only the top 2 players get to make a profit then this mode will be swarming with only the most competitive spikes and a LOT of salty people.

Two, it will take forever. You get forty minutes to make four decks, and then there will be four rounds of elimination, that can easily take over an hour and a half. Plus you cannot break in between games, you have to play throughout the entire thing. I just don't think a lot of people have that kind of time on their hands. If there wasn't a 'deck building' phase then it would take much less time, you could just make your decks before entering. Another thing you could do is have only 6 players instead of 8, this would also mean you only have to build 3 decks instead of 4.

1: I left the rewards ambiguous because I honestly don't know how much the actual rewards would be. I'm sure there's several combinations of awards that can be given to the players, I was more focused on writing the article rather than do the math of the rewards themselves. It's mainly there to show what to realistically expect. I think top 3 should make a profit, 4th place should come just under even. Plus giving players dust helps them craft cards they want/need for the Ladder.

2: Oh yeah, it will take a LONG time. Like I said I think this is one of the main reasons why Team 5 canned a few years back, BUT that doesn't mean there aren't players who won't play it daily. You can break in between games if you win fast enough, there's also a two minute break if the other player is waiting on you to finish. It's in the wall of text somewhere up there, and it may need to be adjusted to 5-10 minutes but then again that's adding onto total time. I think I should add in a check system if all the players are done making their decks the match can go ahead and start, but that could also cause griefing/trolling. Plus the deck box could help but that would need some more thought than what I put into it, the main reason for deck crafting is so that people can adapt their strategies to what cards are legal. I defaulted to 8 players simply because we know Hearthstone can handle 8 players in a session at once. I want to keep it at 4 decks so players can ban a deck as they see fit. Unless banning is removed then yeah go down to three decks and make it best of 3, BUT that means less games in total which then should reflect on total rewards. Less Games = Fewer rewards.

Quote From griffior

2: Oh yeah, it will take a LONG time. Like I said I think this is one of the main reasons why Team 5 canned a few years back, BUT that doesn't mean there aren't players who won't play it daily. You can break in between games if you win fast enough, there's also a two minute break if the other player is waiting on you to finish. It's in the wall of text somewhere up there, and it may need to be adjusted to 5-10 minutes but then again that's adding onto total time. I think I should add in a check system if all the players are done making their decks the match can go ahead and start, but that could also cause griefing/trolling. Plus the deck box could help but that would need some more thought than what I put into it, the main reason for deck crafting is so that people can adapt their strategies to what cards are legal. I defaulted to 8 players simply because we know Hearthstone can handle 8 players in a session at once. I want to keep it at 4 decks so players can ban a deck as they see fit. Unless banning is removed then yeah go down to three decks and make it best of 3, BUT that means less games in total which then should reflect on total rewards. Less Games = Fewer rewards.

That isn't what I meant when I said that players wouldn't be able to take breaks. I mean like how when playing arena you can play two games and then the next day play two more games and then three days later finish the run. With tournament mode you would have to be attentive to your game and be at your computer for over an hour all at once. Battlegrounds already takes about half an hour and with what you proposed simply building your decks will take even longer than that.

I like the idea of tournament mode, but I don't think you should have to invest so much time and attention to it. I am sure that if it worked like you suggested than most players wouldn't even bother to use their free run each week simply because there is so much effort involved.

I think it would work better if players only had to build 3 decks, and one of them would get banned so that you only had two decks to play with and you would build these before the tournament mode started. I understand about the limited set thing would make building the decks a bit harder, but you could easily put a "Tournament" filter in the deck building section to only show the sets that are being used. You would only need 2 decks because you wouldn't be fighting the same person more than once (assuming we are doing elimination and not swiss. And even if it is swiss than you shouldn't ever be fighting the same person more than twice). Also I would reduce the number of players so that it won't go on too long, having six players instead of eight wouldn't be the end of the world. Besides you could always just add the option to cue up against six or eight players.

Quote From Marega

Post this on reddit if u haven't already. Team 5 usually lurks around there.

 

Seems great BTW 

The Reddit post died, and I've sent it to devs and Well known names via Twitter. Only time will tell.

Quote From KANSAS

Quote From griffior

2: Oh yeah, it will take a LONG time. Like I said I think this is one of the main reasons why Team 5 canned a few years back, BUT that doesn't mean there aren't players who won't play it daily. You can break in between games if you win fast enough, there's also a two minute break if the other player is waiting on you to finish. It's in the wall of text somewhere up there, and it may need to be adjusted to 5-10 minutes but then again that's adding onto total time. I think I should add in a check system if all the players are done making their decks the match can go ahead and start, but that could also cause griefing/trolling. Plus the deck box could help but that would need some more thought than what I put into it, the main reason for deck crafting is so that people can adapt their strategies to what cards are legal. I defaulted to 8 players simply because we know Hearthstone can handle 8 players in a session at once. I want to keep it at 4 decks so players can ban a deck as they see fit. Unless banning is removed then yeah go down to three decks and make it best of 3, BUT that means less games in total which then should reflect on total rewards. Less Games = Fewer rewards.

That isn't what I meant when I said that players wouldn't be able to take breaks. I mean like how when playing arena you can play two games and then the next day play two more games and then three days later finish the run. With tournament mode you would have to be attentive to your game and be at your computer for over an hour all at once. Battlegrounds already takes about half an hour and with what you proposed simply building your decks will take even longer than that.

I like the idea of tournament mode, but I don't think you should have to invest so much time and attention to it. I am sure that if it worked like you suggested than most players wouldn't even bother to use their free run each week simply because there is so much effort involved.

I think it would work better if players only had to build 3 decks, and one of them would get banned so that you only had two decks to play with and you would build these before the tournament mode started. I understand about the limited set thing would make building the decks a bit harder, but you could easily put a "Tournament" filter in the deck building section to only show the sets that are being used. You would only need 2 decks because you wouldn't be fighting the same person more than once (assuming we are doing elimination and not swiss. And even if it is swiss than you shouldn't ever be fighting the same person more than twice). Also I would reduce the number of players so that it won't go on too long, having six players instead of eight wouldn't be the end of the world. Besides you could always just add the option to cue up against six or eight players.

Then maybe the best way to approach it would be allow players to build their decks prior to entering the bracket. I thought about taking Arena's approach of letting players step away whenever they want and cutting down the number of total decks needed, but then at some point it becomes very close to being identical to Arena with just another name and a different reward structure.

At some point the mode will lose steam, I mean every mode does. You're right, some players might not even use their free runs. I mainly put that there because there are dedicated players who save their gold for new packs and simply can't afford to spend money to play a game that they love, so the free ticket is a compromise. I feel like it should be such a commitment is because when you win and get all those rewards, it should feel well deserved. The "I earned this" feeling, as opposed to "I grinded ladder with this deck from rank 5 to legend" each month.

Tournament filter would be a great addition, and have separate deck slots for said decks since they're only temporary. Yes, Elimination, once you've lost your match-up you're out. Options are always good, I agree, having an option for a 6 Player Bracket and 8 Player Bracket would be best. Rewards would have to be restructured as well because of the maximum number of games a player is committing to.

Excellent work on this post. Sure, its probably not perfect but I really liked a lot of it and enjoyed the read. Props to your work put into this!