The Commander Brackets System Needs Work

[3drinks]

I think wizards should create an app/add features to companion that lets people track the games they play.

1. It should have the ability to rate games on a scale of "did I have fun or not" (similar to arena) and do it anonymously (aka without having to tell to your opponents how you rated).
2. Ability to link a decklist to any given game. So that wotc could see if there is correlation between certain cards and unfun games
3. Maybe some additional things like did people use the bracket system or was the game competitive (playing for prices).

I believe these should be pretty easy to implement to something like companion and it would give wotc actual data on games people play. Currently game changers and brackets are very vibe based and vibes change from one game to the next.

How does that affect the other players at the table whose app isn't being used? You'd have one person reporting which, for all intents, is skewed data towards one person's opinion and preferences. Additionally, what about those that don't have, and have never used, the "Companion" app? For example I've used MTG Tracker since pre-CMD (hashtag not sponsored) that is free, has full oracle support, and has a clean UI.

A single app doesn't give clean data, only the data of a select class of users. That's why this companion thingy doesn't hold water.

[yeti1069]

They could add features like this to Spelltable and MTGO.
1. When making a game, select No bracket/other, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 ) can select up to 2 adjoining brackets.
2. Give players an optional bracket box to enter the bracket for their deck.
3. At end of game, a popup asking, "Did you have fun?"
4. Also ask, "Who won?" with a seat selection or some such. Maybe populate with the commanders that were entered? And on which turn?

That data can be correlated with which commander the responding playing was running, which commanders they were playing against, and how those players responded.

It's not comprehensive, but would begin to fill in the picture, and for wide swathes of the commander audience.

[illakunsaa]

I think wizards should create an app/add features to companion that lets people track the games they play.

1. It should have the ability to rate games on a scale of "did I have fun or not" (similar to arena) and do it anonymously (aka without having to tell to your opponents how you rated).
2. Ability to link a decklist to any given game. So that wotc could see if there is correlation between certain cards and unfun games
3. Maybe some additional things like did people use the bracket system or was the game competitive (playing for prices).

I believe these should be pretty easy to implement to something like companion and it would give wotc actual data on games people play. Currently game changers and brackets are very vibe based and vibes change from one game to the next.

How does that affect the other players at the table whose app isn't being used? You'd have one person reporting which, for all intents, is skewed data towards one person's opinion and preferences. Additionally, what about those that don't have, and have never used, the "Companion" app? For example I've used MTG Tracker since pre-CMD (hashtag not sponsored) that is free, has full oracle support, and has a clean UI.

A single app doesn't give clean data, only the data of a select class of users. That's why this companion thingy doesn't hold water.

Each player could have have their own app. The app could like generate a code similar to already used in official events and have players join that "event". Of course if people don't want to use the app the data would be worth less but wotc could also provide promos to people who do.

I know that there are tool that can do this on some level but wotc isn't using them and isn't trying to develop their own tools. As far as I know the rc has only data from mtgo and %$#% people post on reddit.

[Moxnix]

Yea i dont know about everyone but i certainly would not be ok with any solution that requires i use an app i just wouldn't do it. If were using something with deck lists why do we even need the brackets just show me your decklist bro i can deffo match from that right.

[ISBPathfinder]

I refuse to install apps to utilize a product. I actively don't download company apps and wouldn't want a wizards app on my phone.

Not saying I won't use any apps, I just refuse to have them pushed on me.

[3drinks]

Right yeah, if your product doesn't work without some app that's certainly data harvesting in the background, your product isn't one for me. Right there with you ISB, legit I bought a second device to use as a work device (no SIM, just used the company wifi) so I wouldn't have to make my personal married to enterprise software.

[MAGUSZANIN]

I do think that the bias worry is overblown. If the app sticks to collecting objective data (what were the commanders at the table, what turn did the game end, etc) and skips subjective data (what brackets were the deck lists, how much fun did everyone have, etc), then this would still be an invaluable tool for the design team.

No, the bigger problem is that the data app is both inherently spyware (you know this thing is going to be collecting location data and everything else it can, as most apps do nowadays), as well as having all the inherent problems of self reported internet polling. It would be trivially easy for anyone with basic computer programming skills to work up some code that you could load on to any OS that will put 10+ results in every day. Those results would say whatever you want them to say. Likely even with a pseudo randomizer that can pull from certain tables for things like deciding which commanders to report in a pod.

We see this with dumb internet polls all the time, I don't see any reason why this would be much different. However, the two places I would like to see some actual data collection implemented are LGS's and Spelltable. Make it so that whenever you finish a Spelltable game the players can fill out a short, optional questionnaire. Do the same thing at the LGS level, with FNMs and such getting reported by the store staff unless there was some reason not to like custom event rules or something. Offer some free product or something as an incentive for them to actually report game results, and spot check the Spelltable submissions. These would be a decent pair of data sources, and also provide a method of potentially dealing with bad actors on spelltable.

[3drinks]

The only way it works is transparency. You need open source software with easily auditable code in a public github repo with multiple engineers checking and reporting in good faith. Anything else, especially closed source, can't be trusted because the source data can't be traced. You'd end up with WotC's worthless MODO results where they list the 5-0 decks but have no actual report of the events in question that produced those results.

We as a community could crowdsource such a transparent app. But therein lies the problem, we're just internet randos with no brand of affiliation, no one has any reason to trust us over whatever corporate nonsense they see in the public eye. That's that whole reputation thing that leads to large conglomerates that control the information spread because people look at what has a verified checkmark and what doesn't. In short, you need a bipartisan entity that people know, and trust – i.e. The AP but for Magic and other trading card games – that have the resources to get this out and without any bias or conflict of interest in what data is released.

[Dragonlover]

My LGS can barely get people to sign in to the actual event without prompting, never mind anything more strenuous than that. I think what this misses is that the vast part of the playerbase simply doesn't give a toss, they want to show up to the table, sling cards and that's the end of the thought process.

It's important in discussions like this for us to keep in mind our extreme level of enfranchisement - we like talking about this game so much we do it online, and not just online but on the replacement forum for a different forum, when 99% of the internet doesn't bother with forums outside of Reddit nowadays. We are none of us representative of the Commander community at large.

Dragonlover

[Rumpy5897]

Let's not forget that the previous body in charge of the format believed that banned as commander was too complex a thing to maintain, and with reason too. MaRo loves bringing up the silent kitchen table majority, and for those sort of people brackets are already on the upper end of complexity.

You could technically try to design a system accounting for a variety of different axes a deck can operate on, your volume of interaction, your critical turn. There have been various attempts at that across the years. However, you run a very real risk of "my deck is a seven"ing yourself unless you set hard guidelines. This is something the bracket system does right - it proposes a reasonable soft-ban list as a decent proxy for deck strength on top of the power descriptors that are shipped with it. Regardless of system, you can get bad faith actors. Regardless of system, you can get people who will minmax the hell out of any power arrangement to try to eke out an advantage. And it's understandable, as if you're in an unknown setting then getting a win is one of the most consistent ways to have fun when playing.

As a part of an established group, I mainly use the bracket system for the game changer list. Yeah, they may not be all created equal, but they're still a decent pool of cards to be mindful of if trying to watch a deck's punching prowess.

[MAGUSZANIN]

My LGS can barely get people to sign in to the actual event without prompting, never mind anything more strenuous than that. I think what this misses is that the vast part of the playerbase simply doesn't give a toss, they want to show up to the table, sling cards and that's the end of the thought process.

It's important in discussions like this for us to keep in mind our extreme level of enfranchisement - we like talking about this game so much we do it online, and not just online but on the replacement forum for a different forum, when 99% of the internet doesn't bother with forums outside of Reddit nowadays. We are none of us representative of the Commander community at large.

That is why I was aiming the data collection effort at Spelltable as a post-game thing and at LGS staff. If the LGS is getting some amount of free product out of it they will be more willing to have their staff walk over and take a couple quick questions whenever a pod wraps up. Spelltable people can both be spot checked and also are enfranchised enough to answer a few quick questions after a game.

Those are basically the only two groups large enough and enfranchised enough to get this kind of data reliably.

But that would require WOTC to give a damn about having actual data, so it's a pipedream.

[onering]

My LGS can barely get people to sign in to the actual event without prompting, never mind anything more strenuous than that. I think what this misses is that the vast part of the playerbase simply doesn't give a toss, they want to show up to the table, sling cards and that's the end of the thought process.

It's important in discussions like this for us to keep in mind our extreme level of enfranchisement - we like talking about this game so much we do it online, and not just online but on the replacement forum for a different forum, when 99% of the internet doesn't bother with forums outside of Reddit nowadays. We are none of us representative of the Commander community at large.

Dragonlover

Good point, but I frankly don't care if we're representative of the majority and neither should you. The majority may not think much about all this, but they are effected by it and will notice if they are liking what they are getting or not. And I can tell that they don't just want to sit and sling cards, they want to have fun, and while they may not understand what goes into making the format fun they will notice if it isn't.

Look, this format was founded by and made great by ultra enfranchised players who understood the game far better than the majority, and what makes the game fun. Sheldon and friends made the format so it would be different from what the majority was playing and have fun features that enabled people to use weird cards that would otherwise rot in binders. And then the majority heard about it, dabbled in it, and liked it, and it eventually displaced 60 card casual that was the typical kitchen table magic in the mid 2000s and earlier.

So if the majority is just going to sit and play whatever, then they'll do that regardless of what direction it goes in, and shouldn't be taken into account. Enfranchised players dissecting the problems of the format and making suggestions for improvements, if needed, will make the format better for the majority. If that sounds condescending, remember that the majority of players are playing a format designed by, and managed for years by, ultra enfranchised players doing exactly that, it's just historical fact. The RC relied on their own observations and the input of ultra enfranchised players to make their decisions and gauge the health of the format. They lurked forums like this for that reason. You can look at data all you want, but it doesn't tell you much of value, as anything you could get from raw numbers you could get from qualitative data as well. For this format, it's not important that a card is showing up in, say, 80% of decks, it's important how that card is impacting play, subjectively. Because this format isn't supposed to be balanced, and it's not supposed to promote high level competitive play, it's just supposed to be fun. That's a highly subjective measure, and more enfranchised players are better able to identify the WHY behind something being fun or unfun. Less enfranchised players, nevertheless, still notice that something is fun or unfun, they just can't articulate the why as well and are less aware of possible alternatives.

I guess part of the problem is that this format has been infected by an overly competitive mindset lately. My beef with the brackets is that they leaned into that. The whole bs with the threats against the RC after they banned some cards that needed banning, because some assholes got butthurt their cardboard lost value, was the inflection point. This is supposed to be a casual format, if you have a card that is only valuable because it's overpowered in an explicitly casual format, you shouldn't be pissed when that card gets banned. If you do, you shouldn't be playing this format, it's not for you (I want to be clear I'm not talking to Dragonlover here, but referencing the people who threw that %$#% fit). I blame wizards for printing %$#% like that Lotus, because they shouldn't be treating commander like they treat standard or modern and printing cards pushed for power that are designed for commander. It's the antithesis of what the format is for, and honestly the RC should have auto banned it before anyone bought it.

I know I'm ranting at this point, but my point is that we shouldn't be checking ourselves and saying "well, we need to remember we aren't the majority." We should be acknowledging that our greater knowledge of the game, the format, and what makes it tick gives us a more valuable perspective that what the average player has, and we shouldn't doubt that just because a lot of people will sit down, play whatever, especially when half the time they %$#% when one player has something too strong or plays something they didn't expect.

[TheGildedGoose]

I know I'm ranting at this point, but my point is that we shouldn't be checking ourselves and saying "well, we need to remember we aren't the majority." We should be acknowledging that our greater knowledge of the game, the format, and what makes it tick gives us a more valuable perspective that what the average player has, and we shouldn't doubt that just because a lot of people will sit down, play whatever, especially when half the time they %$#% when one player has something too strong or plays something they didn't expect.

Forgive them, Sheldon, for they know not what they do.

I'm inclined to agree somewhat but this is an awfully autocratic perspective. Could not the same argument be made that WotC knows more about the game than anyone, and we should all defer to them and their decisions? The second round of the restricted list (YO %$#% THE NAME "GAME CHANGERS") does show that they listen to the playerbase on some level for input. While I overall have mixed feelings about the way the format is going I'm cautiously optimistic that some of the rougher edges will be smoothed over, given enough time.

It's a tough line. I do think enfranchised players with a more vested interest in the game should be listened to more by WotC but I don't think that's going to happen while the suits are in charge, which is forever.

As for my personal experience with brackets, I'd say it's been a net positive. My overall number of nongames due to fast mana or large power disparities has gone down, and I've found it useful as a pregame discussion. I do agree that B3 is a little too wide in terms of overall power discrepancy, but B2 has very clear delineation and it takes a special kind of dipshit to not understand it.

For example, I consider my Teval, the Balanced Scale decklist B3. It's slow, but it's incredibly resilient and punishing towards fair decks while also having an explosive endgame. You haven't lived until you've Reprocessed most of your lands away to find a Splendid Reclamation effect as a hail mary while also making a metric %$#% ton of zombies.

Conversely I also consider this decklist for Kastral, the Windcrested B3, but at a lower tier than Teval since it's much easier to disrupt. It can pop off and do some silly things if I can get two or three attacks in on T5 when he comes out, but it's fairly susceptible to wraths.

B3 is far, far too wide, and that seems to be a universal opinion. I expect tweaks to be made when they next make an announcement about EDH.

[onering]

Autocratic? Lol, no. I'm saying that just because someone doesn't think very much about what makes the format work, that doesn't mean they don't notice when there's a problem. If a less enfranchised players has an opinion, they can obviously voice it, they are just a lot less likely to actually have an opinion or be able to articulate it. Enfranchised players straight up cannot dictate to less enfranchised players, so autocratic isn't the right word for it. Elitist, maybe, but a healthy amount of elitism is a good thing. The alternative is endless homogenization that results in slop that targets the lowest common denominator (meaning appealing to the broadest possible collection of people even if that appeal is shallow).

Like, a lot of people are playing commander because it's just the default at this point. Is that a good thing? No. It's not good for players who liked what commander was supposed to be, and it's not good for the players that are being forced to default to commander. Everyone would benefit if people were a little more honest and willing to say "hey, you seem to have a really competitive mindset, this format probably isn't really for you, have you looked at Standard or Modern?" Let commander shrink and become a bit more like what it was, and let the competitive formats grow again so competitive minded players don't get frustrated with Timmy and his goofy theme deck making suboptimal plays and ruining their chance at winning.

as for your WotC example, I DO think they know more than me. The problem here is that I don't trust their priorities. With the RC, I felt that they both knew more than me and that their priority was to promote the health of the format as the sort of format it was originally created to be. With Wizards, I trust that their priority is to make money, and that they will readily sacrifice the health of the format or even alter the nature of the format to maximize that. Their goals differ from the goals of the enfranchised player AND the less enfranchised player.

Well, I don't trust them much on design and development anymore, but that's based on what they have said about changes to their process (basically eliminating testing and quality control, and spelling out how their process prioritizes making cracking packs exciting over making stable healthy formats, because their goal is to push packs).

[Dragonlover]

Good point, but I frankly don't care if we're representative of the majority and neither should you. The majority may not think much about all this, but they are effected by it and will notice if they are liking what they are getting or not. And I can tell that they don't just want to sit and sling cards, they want to have fun, and while they may not understand what goes into making the format fun they will notice if it isn't.

Yeah that was more aimed at the data collecting side of things than anything else, I don't disagree with the rest of your post. Also, like, I'm not entirely sure I'd bother putting all that stuff into the app cause I too largely just want to play my cards. I already sort of resent the app even as I recognise it makes life a lot easier for both stores and Wizards in so many ways.

Dragonlover

[TheGildedGoose]

@onering
Like I said, I do agree with you, but I'm inherently skeptical about any system labeled as something comparatively mild like "elitist". It just rubs me the wrong way. I can agree with giving more attention to those who are more enfranchised and being more receptive to their arguments, of course, because they're likely to have better reasoned arguments. Conversely, it is likewise true that newer players are often ignorant rubes, mere NPCs in my games to draw the ire of my real opponents while I plot everyone's demise, and thus less likely to have reasonable ideas and arguments. All that said, I do agree that there's a "silent kitchen table" majority that WotC is aware of that they also want to appeal to, because capitalism. My underlying concern is that elitism is almost a circle in a Venn diagram with gatekeeping. You yourself have posited exactly that idea, that EDH isn't a big enough format for more competitive players or players who prefer to play at higher tiers of play, which is precisely what gatekeeping is.

For what it's worth, competitive non-B5 is completely %$#% stupid and anathema to the very concept of brackets. Once more, with feeling: Intent is the most important part of the bracket system.

I think a lot of your criticisms are directly the result of the suits and 100% correct and valid but I also think that cat is long out of the bag. There's no going home now.

As for having a finger on the pulse of the format, holy %$#% were the RC out of touch with the boots on the ground experience of playing in the wild. It was a common refrain - including from me - that their decisions didn't reflect the opinions and desires for a significant number of that enfranchised base.

I'm having more fun since the inclusion of the bracket system, even if I don't think the implementation is perfect or as comprehensive as it could be, I do think there could be more guidance, especially for B3, but there's no way they can stop bad actors. And there are a lot of Magic players who are bad actors.

Yeah that was more aimed at the data collecting side of things than anything else, I don't disagree with the rest of your post. Also, like, I'm not entirely sure I'd bother putting all that stuff into the app cause I too largely just want to play my cards. I already sort of resent the app even as I recognise it makes life a lot easier for both stores and Wizards in so many ways.

Dragonlover

Data is good, but a) using the app is an awful way to go about acquiring the information and b) what is or isn't fun is too subjective. For example, I don't mind playing against stax or hard control, but I hate T1-4 combo decks and chaos decks. I was collecting data on mana available and mana spent in the first 3 turns of the game and the winner to see if there was a large enough correlation between the three (spoilers: yes). I've been thinking about trawling through hundreds of post-bracket games to track the above as well as what turn the game ends. It's a long, labor-intensive task, but collecting data on that kind of thing should be helpful for a video essay.

[onering]

I mean, there's a reason people invented gates.

Not everything is supposed to be for everyone. The entire point of having formats is to gatekeep. The restrictions of the formats keep our some players, just as the unlimited card pool of vintage keeps out less enfranchised players. Would everything be better, or worse, if there was only one format?

What used to be great about Magic was that the diversity of formats meant there was something for everyone without expecting just one thing to be something for everyone. A bunch of gardens each with their gates.

The alternative is that the largest group always just gets catered to everywhere, and makes everything about them.

That's not saying you keep everyone out: it's a gate, after all, not a wall. Gates are supposed to let people in. If someone comes in and starts clamoring to change things to suit their tastes at the expense of the tastes of those who are already there, that person might be better off finding the door.

Getting off topic, but I feel like this is a general problem in our culture, we see how something can be bad when misapplied and then generalize it incorrectly. When people began talking about gatekeeping as a negative, they were talking about gatekeeping using irrelevant %$#%$#%, either by making assumptions based on their demographics or by saying someone is or isn't a fan simply based on how much they know or how engaged they are. To be clear, if that's what you thought I was saying, you need to go back and read it again. I never said the "silent kitchen table majority" aren't fans, I said that the enfranchised players, by virtue of knowing more, are better able to voice their opinions and shouldn't arbitrarily check themselves simply because majority doesn't think about the format as much as they do. I argued not for excluding the majority for being less enfranchised, but against deferring to the majority out of hand despite being more knowledgeable. But when it comes to attitudes that actively go against the spirit of the format? That's when gate keeping is appropriate.

Put it another way, gatekeeping Star Wars fandom by saying people who olly watched the movies aren't real fans is dumb and a problem. Gatekeeping Star Wars fandom by saying that people who unironically support the Empire missed the point of the story is right. Gatekeeping Star Wars fandom by saying that people who want the franchise to shift to be all hard scifi about people exploring new worlds and solving most problems through diplomacy is also fine, because Star Wars shouldn't change to cater to people who would be better off watching Star Trek, just like Star Trek gets worse whenever it tries to copy Star Wars. Yeah there's people who vibe with both and fit into both fandoms, but those who don't shouldn't expect the thing they don't vibe with to start catering to them either.

Like, I don't expect Marvel to listen to me about the state of Spiderman comics, because they'd be stupid if they did. I like Spiderman, but I don't really read comics so they damn well should value the opinion of their enfranchised, long time readers over mine. And if their preferences and mine diverge, they should win out.

Heck, the solution most people agree on when it comes to creating decent games is to have an established playgroup that agrees on a vibe. If you get a new member and try to get the to conform to the vibe, rather than change the vibe to fit their play style, you are to gatekeeping to some extent. You're implicitly saying "hey, this is how we do things, so that's the expectation."

Just, people need to learn to respect the spaces they enter, and not expect to change them to suit their own preferences. You SHOULD gatekeep the ones who can't be bothered to do that, while welcoming everyone else.

[onering]

Good point, but I frankly don't care if we're representative of the majority and neither should you. The majority may not think much about all this, but they are effected by it and will notice if they are liking what they are getting or not. And I can tell that they don't just want to sit and sling cards, they want to have fun, and while they may not understand what goes into making the format fun they will notice if it isn't.

Yeah that was more aimed at the data collecting side of things than anything else, I don't disagree with the rest of your post. Also, like, I'm not entirely sure I'd bother putting all that stuff into the app cause I too largely just want to play my cards. I already sort of resent the app even as I recognise it makes life a lot easier for both stores and Wizards in so many ways.

Dragonlover

Yeah, I misread your post a bit. I honestly think that willingness to use an app isn't even very correlated with how enfranchised a player is. Plenty of noobs would be fine with it, and plenty of 30 year vets would hate it. It's less to do with how much someone thinks about the workings of the game, and more about how willing someone is to do homework after a game. A competitive minded player who is already going to rehash everything that happened to find an edge might be very willing to do it, even if the are brand new to Magic, while someone who spends a lot of time posting on forums might just resent the idea of tying an app to their card game or even doubt how useful the quantitative data should be.

[Dragonlover]

I honestly think that willingness to use an app isn't even very correlated with how enfranchised a player is.

I just realised my point with regards to the app was missing a bit of context: my new store is predominantly newer (1yr -18 month playing) players, and just getting them to put the event code in has been a struggle for the store. It's not a lack of willingness, its a lack of understanding the relevance, which again, wraps back round the issue of newer players not knowing about external resources.

On the broader point of being able to point the more competitively minded players in the direction of Standard, I think the ship has sailed on that one. Standard is intimidating, seemingly expensive and if you're losing all night just not particularly fun. It's like, I can currently play a dragon deck in Standard, I'll probably do alright but I also might just hit three Vivi's in a row, or I can play my dragon EDH deck and there's no stress, I don't need more cardboard and win or lose I've both enjoyed myself and my opponents.

Dragonlover

[onering]

But, that's the problem isn't it?

Yeah, Standard is garbage right now, but it's not always trash. Still, it's not supposed to be a format where you can just bring whatever deck tickles your fancy and win consistently with it, it's a competitive format. You want to play dragons, then unless Wizards has made Dragon tribal competitive then Standard isn't for you. EDH is supposed to be what's for you, the player who just wants to have fun, win or lose. You don't really want to have the best deck with the latest tech, you want to turn some dragons sideways. If someone were trying to do that in Standard, and not having fun, it would be good if another player let them know that maybe Standard isn't for them, and they should check out commander.

The problem is that the competitive mindset of a lot of players who have been left homeless by the sad state of competitive formats and Wizards over pushing commander without actually communicating very well what it's about. Thats fine in cEDH, and why I advocated for cEDH to not become a separate format (because I think the top of the format will always attract the most competitive minded players, so cEDH serves both as a containment zone for that mindset and a pretty good format for those who like it). My big worry about the brackets the way they were made, was that it created 5 separate formats with 5 separate tops for people to get real competitive in, and that's how it played out. Before, if you weren't actually playing cEDH, you didn't really get much out of pushing the limits of the next lower tier. Its inadvertently fostered the competitive mindset throughout the format, and coupled with the lack of viable alternatives that's a problem.

The community %$#% about bans is also a problem. Bans are unfortunately needed, and could help Standard a lot right now. The backlash from fans shouldn't make Wizards scared to ban, it should make them rethink their dumbass strategy of barely play testing and hoping everything just goes well. Instead, they are ban averse while designing in a way that makes bans more needed than they have been in years.

I mean, the blame falls squarely on Wizards chasing ever higher sales numbers using cheap tricks while neglecting the health of the game, and cutting costs in R&D. They know exactly what they are doing, they just don't really care because they know that even if they turn out garbage (Spiderman) they'll sell a ton because of collectors. Competitive players are forced into a format that isn't made for them, and not given the tools to navigate it. What we should be seeing is a book in cEDH, but instead we're seeing a boom in the competitive mindset at lower levels of play, and ultimately that's not healthy because it means that the format lurches towards becoming like Legacy or Vintage: more diverse than standard, but your ability to just run fun stuff is restricted.

[3drinks]

I just realised my point with regards to the app was missing a bit of context: my new store is predominantly newer (1yr -18 month playing) players, and just getting them to put the event code in has been a struggle for the store. It's not a lack of willingness, its a lack of understanding the relevance, which again, wraps back round the issue of newer players not knowing about external resources.

It's not just less enfranchised players. I still don't report in-app, sign up in-app. I finish my matches and go up and manually report in person. Or if they handed them out, match slips. If you force Companion, I'll just play somewhere else.