On Conceding

A couple weeks ago Keith Christiansen played Tom Guan in the semi final of a warmachine weekend qualifier. Tom had already qualified but Keith had not only not qualified but had missed out on a ticket to the now sold out event. So he could not play in the last chance qualifier or any of the other events. Tom decided to concede and Keith ended up winning the final. This led to a rather toxic discussion on the Muse boards and I want a place where I can organise my thoughts on the issue because it is kind of complicated.

So there are two main ideas that are guiding my thoughts on this matter. 1. If I don't want to play a game I shouldn't have to play a game, whether that's because I have a pounding headache or because I don't want to dream crush a friend, if I don't want to play I shouldn't have to and even more importantly I don't want people looking over my shoulder telling me that I'm not playing my hardest. 2. Conceding is not something that should be encouraged because it's not a good look for other players in the comp especially if it is done to advantage another player. We should be trying to discourage it.

I'm going to veer off into a related topic as I have never really made an effort to qualify for the super series (Australia's Warmachine Weekend), I just play in as many events as I can. I do however have a history of helping out some players during games. So for example I once played a tournament game against a new player I liked. I had just met him but we were having an enjoyable chat about the game prior to the match. I was winning and he decided to go for the assassination. Had a shot with his Banshee and missed, then moved Ossyan into the wrong position to try and shoot as well. He didn't have LOS because of a forest but there was another knocked down model he could have shot through had he walked a couple inches the other direction. I told him about that and he moved Ossyan to the new position, hit and killed Styker (in fairness it was a Mage Hunter Assassin that killed Stryker but he would have missed without the DEF debuff). I was 100% happy with the outcome, it was a fun game and I think I taught a new player something. Here is the thing - I won't do that for everyone. If you shit me, I'm not giving you anything, in fact I'm going to be very tight on the rules. Or if I just don't know you, I'm less likely to help you out, particularly in a tournament game.

So I do arbitrarily advantage players I like and lets face it if I was in the same situation as Tom Guan I would not have wanted to win that match, I probably would have done a similar thing. Is that bad? Am I wrong? I don't know. As far as how I would handle it as a TO, I don't want to see it but I also don't want to interfere in games and I don't want to tell people how to play. I said on the muse thread that I would not penalise anyone for conceding but that I would throw one of my shoes at them. I stand by this.