Wow, this discussion really ballooned out from my original topic. To reassert my original position, I think it's fair if you run out of time you lose. The games can't go on forever and you know from the beginning that there is limited time.

My problem is when both players realize they can't win, I have 2:00 left and my opponent has 1:00 left, but I still lose because my opponent hits pass twice as fast as I do, or has a faster internet connection than I do. What I want is a button that automatically passes. It could even tick both timers equally. I think it's fair that games are decided by time. It's not fair when games are decided by who can click faster.

The game doesn't have to be completely stalled for this to happen. It could be that given 5 more minutes, I would win the game, but each player only has 1 minute left.

As for other suggestions: a shared timer is too easy to abuse. What if I'm ahead and just take the maximum time for all my actions to run out the clock? As for stalls, I think that whoever took the most time should lose. If both players play equally well, so that they each use all of their resources and stall out, why not reward the quicker thinker?

TLDR: I think it's fair if someone loses due to time. What I don't like is the minute or so of furiously clicking to out-time someone at the end of the game.

I think people seem to be making this way more complicated than it needs to be. if the goal is to make it more fair, how about this:

one person runs out of time: that person auto passes

one person runs out of time, then the other runs out of time:
1) person who controls more flux wells wins (i.e. they'd win eventually unless foul termite, corrupting flux, or vapor mahals.. computer can auto play out ten rounds behind the scenes to see if there's a winner and report the results if necessary)
2) if tied for flux wells, person with the most glory wins
3) if tied for flux wells and glory, person who ran out of time last wins

oh, looking back, this is pretty close to what altren said. in that case, I agree

I agree that funkiness with who wins when both have 20 glory should be dealt with as well. the only fair thing to do is award the win to the person who 'got there first'.

I think an auto-pass after timing out would work as well. That actually benefits the person who is ahead on board.

I think in the case of double 20s, the game should continue until one player ends a round with more glory than the other.

So to play with this whole concept, I built a deck whose sole purpose was to stall and delay to run their time down. I entered it into CG Prelim and made it to the semi's and was under 2 minutes on the opponent's clock away from getting into the finals with it. With a slightly tweaked deck and a little more creature control I think it could have gone to the finals...

So where does that leave us? Should this be a legit way to win leagues/tourneys? It seems rather silly to me but it is a valid deck and under current rules it is perfectly legal.

Here are my thoughts:

1. Players who run out of time lose.

I personally like this element and the game already has features to help players manage their time. The "autopass" and "autosubmit actions" options allow for VERY fast play. AutoPass if you're done for the round, or queue up moves while your opponent is moving. In most of my games, I think quite a bit early on, but then I start using the auto action queue when I know what I want to do.

While forcing a player to autopass if their time runs out is an interesting idea, I don't think it will be very enjoyable in application.... and it does add the potential for some painful delays if the player who has time remaining can't really do anything.

2. In the case of glory ties, play continues until a player ends the round with more glory.

I REALLY like this idea. Out of everything discussed in this thread, I hope this gets implemented. Although this has yet to happen to me, I think extending the game in the case of glory ties is by far the best, and fairest solution. If no one can break the tie, then time will eventually decide the outcome. If this style is good enough for tennis and volleyball, I think it will be good enough for us.

3. Draws should never happen.

They totally screw up tournament brackets, and we have ways of preventing them from happening... so let's avoid them.

4. Running out of cards should NEVER be used to determine the outcome of a game.

I'm very concerned that any change to this will inhibit limited play, where people often run decks with only 25 cards. If you were counting cards, a player could just keep discarding to the bottom of their deck so that they would never "run out". Furthermore, any deck with Vapor Mahal would be practically immune to this kind of loss.

5. Flux should NEVER directly be used to determine the outcome of a game.

...regardless of what kind of equation you try to plug it into. Simply put, you shouldn't be rewarded for the resources you didn't spend in your efforts to win. I don't see flux as a meaningful metric to offer any independent indication of success or failure, so it shouldn't be used to 'tip the scale' one way or another.

No, I didn't 'miss the point.' I know what the point is, I'm just saying that I think losing because of a time limit isn't fun and something should be done about it. At the very least, make timed games an option and not a requirement.

Ok, here's thing that looks absolutely clear and I don't see any minuses and looks like good solution for case when both players have 20+ glory:
1) One of players wins and game ends when he have 20 or more glory at start of round and he also have more glory than any other player. Otherwise game continues.
Please say if you see any disadvantages or have some better ideas or suggestions.

One thing that still open, because it takes so many different cases and I don't see simple and fair solution right now.
2) What to do when both players can't do anything to change game situation (for example both out of buildings)

Actually I don't see any problems here, and this case looks clear and fair right now without any changes.
3) Loosing by timeout.
You know, waiting for slow opponent isn't fun too. And it's absolutely fair that you can loose because you was out of time. And, as Sunyaku said there are things like autopass and actions queue that helps you to make half of your actions in 1-2 seconds per action.

P.S. By the way, I agree with all points Sunyaku mentioned