Open letter to FFG Organized Play about intentional draws

Hello Organized Play,

As the 2015 and 2014 French national champion I would like to protest against the new Intentional Draw rule for X-Wing competition. X-Wing is not Magic the Gathering where draws are relatively common and difficult to police, in fact draws are a very rare occurrence. In 30+ tournaments over the last 2 years I have only seen a handful of draws and only 1 occurred during the final round of swiss due to player collusion (it was pretty obvious).

In my opinion (and that of most French players I've talked to) Intentional Draws make the game less competitive and more easily gameable, rewarding not playing and increasing collusion risk between players. From a competitive stand point, intentional draws make the early rounds of swiss more important which increases the luck factor as early rounds have more random pairings. They also reduce the number of players competing for the cut in the last rounds of the tournament which reduces the overall enjoyment. For most tournament players I know, more games with an interesting stake equals more fun which is the main reason we go to tournaments instead of playing casually.

If you really worry about stealthy intentional draws, I think it would be much better to remove the incentives to draw in the last round of swiss. For exemple you could just adjust scoring rules in the last turn of swiss to give a modified win to the player with initiative in case of a draw (like in elimination rounds). This would remove any incentive for players to intentionally draw to manipulate scoring in the last round of swiss.

Best Regards,

Icareane