Introduction
This post is about ideas enhancing the competitive aspects of the game. They would help bring some variety and freshness to the game and help keep things interesting in between expansion releases, while attracting good players to compete and crowds that enjoy watching high stakes skilled card battles.
This is part of a series of posts that collect ideas for game features that have yet to be implemented and I believe would be very beneficial to the game.
Observer mode
This would allow games to be replayed by anyone for a limited period of time, by providing a match code in the client.
There should be navigation features to move quickly to a specific turn, pause/resume, skip 1 play back / forward, etc. The mode should trim all the waiting periods and just show the plays in sequence.
This mode is useful in several different situations:
streamers who would like to show matches from tournaments or create content analyzing other people's matches
players looking to learn strategies from top players or see cards they don't own in action
players checking top ranked players in leaderboards for match fixing and fraud (see below)
Observer mode would also support broadcasting live matches, with the options to hide cards and broadcast with a delay. This would support live streaming tournament matches.
Challenges
This would consist of repeatable, always active skill tests constrained by some metric. Challenges should be tuned to a reasonably high difficulty level and probably require min-maxing a decklist, which creates a tension between being able to succeed in the challenge while at the same time remaining competitive. They should be active only in competitive game modes. The only limit would be the player's ability to fulfill the requirements. For example:
Deal x damage to creatures in less than y matches
In the next x matches, lower your opponent's God health to 15 HP or less before turn 5 y times
Destroy your opponent's God before turn 5-6 x matches in a row
Win 4 of the next 5 matches
Steal x creatures from your opponent's void in the next x matches
Recurrent leaderboards
The criteria could range from something very generic to very niche and quirky. I think it would be great to have a large number of leaderboards active permanently, distributing rewards and resetting automatically. Some leaderboards could be limited to the duration of game events.
At the end of the time period (they could be bi-weekly for example) the top players would receive rewards and the leaderboard would reset.
Before the prizes are distributed there should be some time where community members can inspect the prize-winning matches with Observer Mode and have the opportunity to flag them for review, in case there is evidence of match fixing.
There could be a reputation system, where higher reputation (earned from inspecting and reporting verifiable abuse) would yield enhanced prizes; lower reputation from being caught cheating or reporting bogus abuse situations would result in reduced rewards or a temporary ban from leaderboards, depending on the reputation score. Players with high reputation could also earn badges and Discord titles, for example.
Whatever the solution, I believe some kind of verification system would be necessary to discourage match fixing or any other form or unfair advantage.
These are the kind of leaderboards that I have in mind. Some are designed to bring iconic but underused cards into more frequent play, giving them renewed relevance and encouraging players to build innovative strategies around them.
Most damage dealt with Moramag
Most mana spent in one turn
Most damage dealt in one turn
One leaderboard for the tallest creature for each God
Tallest Archpriest of Parthene
Most stats in a Chosen One creature
Tallest Osiris
Most Dreads shuffled in the opponent's deck at one time
Most Dreads shuffled into the opponent's deck in total
Most damage dealt with Lokhart
Tallest creature created with Primal Tide GP
The rewards for the top places could include a themed chest for leaderboards tracking a specific cards. For example, the 10 top players in the Moramag leaderboard would receive a Moramag chest. This chest has a small chance of containing a alternative art of the Moramag card. The chests could be tradable.
Ranking highly in a leaderboard once could earn that player a badge to display in their profile or a trim around their profile picture.
The number of times a player ranks highly in each leaderboard could be tracked as an Achievement.
The number of exclusive chests a player opens could also be tracked either via Statistics or Achievements.
Automated tournaments
I would like to see a system for rolling automated tournaments. I see for example Champions TCG doing a good job with quick, daily tournaments distributing appealing rewards. It would be nice to have similar tournaments in GU as well.
As for larger tournaments, they could be automated, too. Here's a possible plan:
A week for registration. It could include a fee that goes into the tournament prize.
The registration would probably need to include a Discord handle and link it to the player ID.
The maximum number of registrations would be tuned to the duration of the tournament, giving ample time for players to meet.
Tournament details in the client, in an official webpage or possibly integrated with an existing specialized tournament website.
Finals during the weekend, streamed live (with delay).
The new tournament cycle starts right after and the GU team takes a week to check for fraud and distribute prizes.
Observer mode as described above, enabling anyone to watch the matches later and content creators to stream live or make videos.
The toolset could also include features that facilitate tournament organization for 3rd parties.
To support the tournament costs, the client could show sponsor ads at the start and the end of each match. If there aren't any external sponsors, Immutable X could just use this as an opportunity to promote their other games.
