From what I understand tournaments are probably going to be a team agaisnt the game and whiver team does the 'best' job of completeing the quest wins the tournament.  That sounds like it would work, but my biggest question with that would be how to stop cheating?  I would hope its not an issue in most groups but the higher level the competition the more this could be an issue.  If none of your opponents are at the same table as you, what's to stop you from cheating?  Having a judge watching every table doesn't sound feasable.

Its also possible to have a team that really doesn't understand the rules very well and may play with some kind of inadvertant 'house rule' that makes the game much easier for them.

How could you police this kind of thing with no opponent at your table?

This is my issue with it.  Pretty much no way to police it other than a judge for every team.

As much as I am interested in the co-play (and demo'd at Gencon), I really think revised rules and minion decks along with 1v1 probably will happen someday.

Personally I hope they leave the competitive tournie edge on the backburner.
This one should be first of all for casual fun. Coop. They have other LCG's better suited for traditional tournielevel play.
Though I suppose 'team' tournies may be interesting. With decks pitted against preconstructed decks.
Still it seems hard to pull off.

Not to forget that they haven't even figured out a multiplay ruleset for WH:I which shouldn't be that hard. Pulling of tournie acceptable rules will be far more difficult.

 Competitive rules were in the rule book we had at the con... I, of course, had 98723239847 other things to do and kinda breezed over those... at least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

I heard something about 2 2-player teams (4 people totals) playering the quest deck... team that wins best wins that round... i could be crazy...

I do not see this for a competetive tourneys that much as well, but if there was need it could be done like this:

Each team consists of 3 players. Each round, 2 players play a 1 watches another team. Change each round.

It's clumsy but it could work if need be (or you could sit the teams in such a fashion that a judge would be able to monitor more at the same time).

Instead of teams competing against other teams why not just call it a "Lord of the Rings" game day and give out participation prizes? Or perhaps have each group decide amongst themselves who among them contributed most to the fellowship and award them something above and beyond?

Why must CCGers try to turn every game into a competitive tournament?

dbeman said:

...because some people find competition fun?

dbeman said:

because that's the Warlord way? ;)

Saintsman said:

Then again allow me to direct you to every other CCG on the market, including the other LCGs from Fantasy Flight.

Hates_End said:

LOL...all 50 remaining players!

51 :)

Back on topic though, I think this game will be incredibly hard to have tournaments for unless you go with multiple judges or have some other way to prevent teams from cheating.  That being said, hell yes I want tournaments - it's the competition that makes games fun :)

Hates_End said:

But we're talking competition in a cooperative game? I'm not saying there isn't a way to do organized play but that conventional methods simply will not work. (nor will having multiple judges supervising multiple tables.)

I'm thinking more along the lines of (somehow) measuring each player's contribution to their game and have the top contributor(s) move on to team up with the top contributor(s) from other tables and keeping the cycle going. This way each table will police itself and each player will try his or her hardest to contribute. This should preserve the cooperative spirit of the game while still giving those who feel as though they need to prove they're better than everyone else a chance to do so.

dbeman said:

That my friend is going to be insanely difficult - how are you going to measure top contribution?  I think when we see the rules and/or cards (hint, hint FFG! ) then we'll have a much better idea of where/how they are going.

Another interesting possibility for "competitive" play or tournament play would be for FFG to put together an "enemy deck" (or whatever they call what the players play against in the co-op model) specifically for the event. Harder to cheat when you don't know what's coming and cannot prepare for it. Lots of flavor in that, too. You don't really know what you're going to encounter before the Fellowship leaves Rivendell.

ktom said:

tbh, while that idea is really solid, the surprise factor will last ohhhhh....about the first tournament.  with the advent of the forums, email, facebook, etc. all you really need is about 2-4 people thinking up ways to dominate the "deck" and then it's done.  granted, it could be broken as all and you really, really need to get lucky to beat it, but it will happen sooner or later.

I don't have a clue as to how the game works yet, but it seems curious that there'd be a competitive form with seemingly no way to directly affect each other.  Is it that you create the enemy deck for your opponent's team so they don't know what's coming?  That could be pretty interesting, actually, though I still don't imagine a co-op game being hugely popular in a competitive scene.