Splinterlands | Skill-Based Deck Builders Tournament Format Idea

Tournaments in Splinterlands right now still are pretty bad given the extreme Pay2Win factor while they have so much potential to be fun. Here is a format concept for them that I believe could work.

To sum up Splinterlands Tournaments right now with a metaphor is that it's like poker where everyone pays an equal entry fee but where richer players have access to getting dealt Ace, King, & Queen cards while the poor just don't have those cards available putting them at a clear disadvantage.

If this was the case for poker, it would be a total joke with only rich players that have a statistical edge playing as it makes no sense for the poorer players to put up a stake and play the game. I also believe this is the reason why so few players join tournaments and it is the reason why I stay away from them.

Properties of a Fun Tournament

These are the properties that I like to see Tournament:

Everyone Plays on a Level Playing Field (or it's very affordable to achieve this)
The Most Skilled Players Rise in overall Tournament Leaderboards
Less skilled players occasionally will get lucky
Time Requirement is Limited
SPS Staking requirement to join to avoid bot farms entering.

Skill-Based Deck Builders Tournament Format

So this is the idea I have for a format that puts everyone on a level playing field and brings fun challenging gameplay that really makes you test your skill against other players while not requiring a crazy amount of time is the following:

1 Weekly Event where a certain ruleset is given, each week something different to keep it interesting.
Players need to build and submit just 1 deck which they think is the strongest possible given the rules.
Once the building stage is over, battles happen automatically in some kind of bracket format each time best of 5 games.
A certain amount of SPS staked is needed to enter and either all cards are available to all players or they are allowed to used rent cards at the time they have them.
An overall leaderboard is kept to keep track of your own position and to make it competitive for real gamers who are actually the most skilled.

A tournament type like this would bring a fun weekly event to Splinterlands which I personally as a gamer would be hyped for to both test my own skill and see what the real skilled players come up with. It would also be something that would add a lot of value to SPS giving players who want to join an incentive to have it staked.

Manual Test Tournament?

I'm thinking of manually organizing something like this is there is interest (leave a comment in case you want to join). The format would be 8 players max to enter, only Chaos Legion Cards up to Silver League allowed with the 5 Rare Summoners. Neutal Game Rules and a 40 Mana Cap to keep it all as neutral and acessible as possible.

Once there are 8 people (including myself), everyone individually would send me their deck on Discord so there is no peaking. Once All Teams have been submitted, I would make a post showing all the decks and the bracket with players that are matched just finding a time that suits them in order to fight the battles. There would be no reward aside from maybe for the winner to get put up as beneficiary of the post made breaking down all the battles.

If this sounds fun to you, make sure to leave a comment or talk to me on Discord (costanza#2335) and I will see if I can make it happen!

Conclusion

Tournaments in Splinterlands right now just suck as they require everyone to pay an entry fee while they are not played on a level playing field. Having a weekly tournament that just requires players to build and submit 1 deck on specific rules could be something really fun that I believe many players including myself would be hyped for and it could provide an extra use case for SPS.

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