KOTD4 drafts and bans discussion

[MAE_ME]

Hello guys how are you hope you are well.

I wanted to discuss with you the draft and bans system in KOTD4 from my perspective and I want to know what do you think too. In KOTD4 the system got in BO5 match 3 bans, and in BO7 it was 2 bans which is a weird decission imo becasue a draft with more civs should have more bans not less. In general I am not a fan of only 2 bans especially there are many unbalanced match ups and many unbalanced civs in the game so 3 bans or even 4 should be minimum. I feel that in a draft for BO7 match should have like 3 bans at least and even 4, but surprisingly it was only 2 bans for BO7 and the 3 bans were for BO5 and only 1 ban for BO9! The bans are good in tournaments becasue it give more balanced matches and fair play to provide the broken or unbalanced or strong civs that make the play one sided with no fun, and it gives more variety and more diversity to see more civs instead of seeing the same civs in same drafts almost every game.

So what do you think?

 

[Pevio]

What's your logic for having more bans for longer series? Is it that in a BO9, the third best civ could play against the 20th best civ? I'm guessing they didn't want much more than half the civs to be picked/banned, and doing it the way they did allows all the drafts to go roughly the same depth.

 

[ltm]

I don't think pure Arabia really needs a lot of bans, because it's overall fairly balanced. It's not like you can really outdraft or pick accordingly anyway, i mean you can guess but it's not like there suddenly is a water map, Arena etc where draft gets super important.

In shorter series it was just so it wasn't exactly the same civs every single match, but for longer ones i think there also just should be most of the strongest civs played so personally i liked the KOTD system.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Hello guys how are you hope you are well.

I wanted to discuss with you the draft and bans system in KOTD4 from my perspective and I want to know what do you think too. In KOTD4 the system got in BO5 match 3 bans, and in BO7 it was 2 bans which is a weird decission imo becasue a draft with more civs should have more bans not less. In general I am not a fan of only 2 bans especially there are many unbalanced match ups and many unbalanced civs in the game so 3 bans or even 4 should be minimum. I feel that in a draft for BO7 match should have like 3 bans at least and even 4, but surprisingly it was only 2 bans for BO7 and the 3 bans were for BO5 and only 1 ban for BO9! The bans are good in tournaments becasue it give more balanced matches and fair play to provide the broken or unbalanced or strong civs that make the play one sided with no fun, and it gives more variety and more diversity to see more civs instead of seeing the same civs in same drafts almost every game.

So what do you think?

The best part of this is that you spammed Nili's chat for like 20 minutes and no one agreed with you to the point where someone said "just go argue on AoeZone"
And that's exactly what you did 11

 

[MAE_ME]

The best part of this is that you spammed Nili's chat for like 20 minutes and no one agreed with you to the point where someone said "just go argue on AoeZone"
And that's exactly what

The best part of this is that you spammed Nili's chat for like 20 minutes and no one agreed with you to the point where someone said "just go argue on AoeZone"
And that's exactly what you did 11

Because it is better! I mean this site for discussion and I really wanted to see what people think, but seems nothing changed from Nili's chat.

 

[MAE_ME]

What's your logic for having more bans for longer series? Is it that in a BO9, the third best civ could play against the 20th best civ? I'm guessing they didn't want much more than half the civs to be picked/banned, and doing it the way they did allows all the drafts to go roughly the same depth.

I don't see you logic neither. So your logic they don't want to pick more civs?! How do you see it a logic to give 3 bans in BO5 and only 1 in BO9?! More civs means more unbalanced matchs which means more bans are needed not less.

 

[MAE_ME]

I don't think pure Arabia really needs a lot of bans, because it's overall fairly balanced. It's not like you can really outdraft or pick accordingly anyway, i mean you can guess but it's not like there suddenly is a water map, Arena etc where draft gets super important.

In shorter series it was just so it wasn't exactly the same civs every single match, but for longer ones i think there also just should be most of the strongest civs played so personally i liked the KOTD system.

Having 1 map in the tournament doesn't mean it is balanced which it is your argument here, and you based this because in your opinion all civs are balanced on Arabia which is ironically not.

 

[ltm]

Having 1 map in the tournament doesn't mean it is balanced which it is your argument here, and you based this because in your opinion all civs are balanced on Arabia which is ironically not.

Having one map and it being Arabia makes draft less important than a mixed maps tournament yeah. Only one map also means that picking is a lot more down to pure chance qnd there goes less strategy and planning into it. And yes i'd argue Arabia is quite well balanced overall despite all the talk about this or that being OP. KOTD provided a lot of amazing games and i don't think it was a civ win fest or boring or anything that would justify broad criticism of the drafting. For me it was completely fine, there was some variety as well.

Also, i think even if some civs are crazy good i as a viewer still want to see them being played in a tournament like this. That's down to personal preference of course, but i don't want someone being forced into playing Burmese, Turks, Goths or whatever bottom of the barrel civs in a final because there are 10+ bans.

 

[MAE_ME]

but i don't want someone being forced into playing Burmese, Turks, Goths or whatever bottom of the barrel civs in a final because there are 10+ bans.

No one talked about having 10 bans nor 5, I am saying having 3 bans for BO5 and only 1 in BO9 doesn't make sense, because a draft with more civs should have more bans not less this is the logical thing here. In the other hand you talked about variety and I wonder about what variety are you talking about with seeing the same civs in every damn draft in every game?!

overall despite all the talk about this or that being OP. KOTD provided a lot of amazing games and i don't think it was a civ win fest or boring or anything that would justify broad criticism of the drafting

Yeah especially 99% of the games were archers play in feudal because the pros themselvs know how pathetic is scout play especially with few quick walls here and there. Castle age is good but feudal was not amazing imo. On the other hand about the balance thing, KOTD showed to all very well how LOTW civs are so broken especially Sicilians, add to them the unbalanced 3 mesos, Chinese, Lithuans and Franks despite what those civs winrate have.

 

[The_Philos]

I think the false assumption is that more bans equals to more balanced match-ups. There is always a Civ, which can have an edge over the other.
And this tournament proved that only having a 'strong' civ doesn't automatically gives you a free-win. I like the fact that they decided to reduce the bans for later stages, because I want to see the best players play the best civs and I assume that was the intention.

 

[ltm]

No one talked about having 10 bans nor 5, I am saying having 3 bans for BO5 and only 1 in BO9 doesn't make sense, because a draft with more civs should have more bans not less this is the logical thing here. In the other hand you talked about variety and I wonder about what variety are you talking about with seeing the same civs in every damn draft in every game?!


Yeah especially 99% of the games were archers play in feudal because the pros themselvs know how pathetic is scout play especially with few quick walls here and there. Castle age is good but feudal was not amazing imo. On the other hand about the balance thing, KOTD showed to all very well how LOTW civs are so broken especially Sicilians, add to them the unbalanced 3 mesos, Chinese, Lithuans and Franks despite what those civs winrate have.

I guess the logic was that lower number of games = same civs, so let's say BO5 whereas a longer series naturally has more civs anyway. Debatable how logically that is, but i'd say important part is that it's more about viewing and showing different civs and not as much about balance.

For the general balance: draft doesn't change anything about Scouts being bad or whatever, so i don't see why that is relevant to this question. If Drush/M@A + Archer/Skirm is best then more bans wouldn't change anything about that.

And if you call the 3 Eagle civs + Burgundians, Sicilians, Lithuanians, Chinese and Franks all OP then imo that proves there is good balance. Because thats already 8 civs, and there are also Britons who a lot of people probably would see on the same level and i guess there is still an argument to be made for Vikings being top tier as well. And it's not like the other civs that got drafted frequently like Indians with crazy winrate, Huns, Byz, Khmer, Berbers etc played at a huge disadvantage even compared to the best civs power wise.

I'd say that's fairly balanced yeah, and there was some variety in civ choices even though of course it was mostly the same (as in every tournament ever pretty much). Can't expect different strats, picks, units every game in an Ara only event so imo that was as good as it gets considering the map. Honestly some more closed map generation might've been better but i guess Memb being excited about Feudal war and open maps that was what he wanted the map to be like and again i don't see how more civ bans would've changed much about it because that's more about the map. If a civ is bad because there is a 70% chance the TC is in a wide open crater with only 1 woodline then no amount of bans makes it good.

Let's take the final, and ban Aztecs from Vinch and idk Lith from Viper, i don't see how that would suddenly improve the event. With BO9 they had to draft a lot of civs anyway.

 

[dodageka]

In my opinion, with the current balance we have for 1v1 Arabia, the longer the series goes the fewer we should have. I feel that at the top of the pack civs are fairly balanced, but once you go down the curve imbalances become stronger. I would argue that the relative difference between civ 3 (best civ in the BO9 final) and civ 22 (worst civ in the BO9 final) is smaller than for example difference between civ 9 (in the hypothetical case of 4 bans) and civ 28.

Also, I feel on Arabia only relative strength of civs depends much more on the match-up than anything else, and with no real logic behind which civ to play when the bans imo dont really remove imbalance but rather serve two other purposes: 1) increase civ variety 2) allow players to not have to play against some civs. With longer series we get more variety anyways, and as the tournament progresses it can also be expected that players are comfortable playing against every civ (thats what final rounds are for).

So overall, in this specific context I think that longer series need fewer bans - I think 4 bans for BO5, 2 for BO7 and no bans for BO9 would have fine as well.

In mixed maps and if the balance structure was different a different number of bans might be more appropriate.

 

[Chainsaw]

Yeah especially 99% of the games were archers play in feudal because the pros themselvs know how pathetic is scout play especially with few quick walls here and there.

That's either hyperbole with no ground in truth or statistically inaccurate. If you wanna make this argument, you need to provide a sample and explanation for choosing that sample, e.g. what units did all players use in feudal from group stage onward? That still doesn't take into account civ strengths or strategies a player feels comfortable with.

Viper did 2 militia drush a few times yesterday, but explained in the interview that he talked to his teammates and one of the ways to counter vinchester's drush was to do the same. This also plays a role in why a certain unit might be chosen over another.