EDIT: Double post

I think you will find that, with any proposed system, peoples' play will adapt to fit it. I am very familiar with chess and go timing systems ... and I still prefer the "request more time" option because it will tend to keep games fastest. as an opponent, you can't really *plan* for that extra time ... I might be planning to go play tennis when our game ends. or I might be bored and see very clearly that I have already won.

I would estimate that I lose one in about 100 (winnable) games due to timing out. this ratio used to be much higher ... but I have learned to manage the clock better. I would encourage you to investigate auto-submit (as Sunyaku suggested) and to play more games with an even shorter time limit. I replace the timer controls on all custom games with 20m/60s just to keep in the habit of playing quickly. and it has helped me a lot.

I notice that I'm (slowly) becoming a faster player, but I think this is a case where we should listen to Psyclone partially because he is a new player. I remember time being a lot more frustrating than I experience it today, and I think his solution would address that.

Extra time as an option would be a flaw in game design IMHO, since it opens up a new possibility for a player to behave "illegitimately", as seen by some other players. Moral opinions on sportsmanship will be formed, and make some people upset when other people don't follow them. (I saw this a lot when I played online Blood Bowl.) Now, of course, a sensible player would not care much about such things, but we want the not so sensible ones to play this game too.

I think you're inadvertently making my point here. Until you become an experienced player, the timer is a much larger issue. While your personal ratio might be that good, I usually see 1 or 2 games per EC coming down to the timer. There's only a max of 16 EC games.

Also, keep in mind that constructed games should inherently be faster because people are more familiar with their decks/cards and because they are much, much stronger than the average limited deck.

I think the problem is much broader than you realize. Of all my games that are decided by a time out, I'm winning half of them and losing half of them and I am almost always within a minute or two of my opponents timer. If I was the one who was always behind on the timer, then that would be a different story.

Everybody will become faster as they learn the game, especially once you have all the cards memorized. You can't take the stance that "the timer isn't an issue for the more experienced players, so just learn to play faster." That's a bad way to attract newer players.


I actually create custom sealed games with 25m/40s timers. The 60s per move isn't an issue, it's the overall time. Playing a 20m/2m or 20m/40s timer has little to no effect on my pace of play.


Yes, I see the exact same problem with extra time. I think you're inviting a lot of drama with extra time as well.

I think people are looking at incremental time as added time, instead of variable time. You can use incremental time to make speed games, such as 5m/30s. Incremental will help to keep the pace of play up, without ruining those long, hard-fought games.