Wingspan Tournament Format

Wingspan 2023 BPA PBeM Tournament Format

GM: Chris Wildes (chriswildes@gmail.com)

Assistant GMs: Marcy Morelli and Connie Vogelmann

Boardgame Players Association:

All players must have at least a PBEM-level membership at the time of tournament start.   The cost of this membership is $10 and you can apply for membership on their website: http://www.boardgamers.org/. You can still register for this tournament at any time.

Approximate Schedule:

  • Registration will be open via email (chriswildes@gmail.com) until April 1, 2023 at 11:59pm EDT
  • Games will start roughly one week later (estimate April 10) pending BPA membership confirmation.
  • Round limits will be flexible, although players will be penalized for slow play.  I am hoping rounds will go no longer than 8 weeks.
  • The first round will consist of 4 simultaneous games for all players, approximately April 2022 to May 2023.
  • The second round will consist of 4 simultaneous games for all qualified players, approximately June 2023 to July 2023.
  • The third round for the top four qualifiers from Round 2, approximately August 2023 to September 2023.
  • These schedule estimates are conservative, I expect the rounds will be completed more quickly in practice.

NOTE:  A minimum of 24 players are required for this to be run as a BPA sponsored tournament.

Website:

We will be using Board Game Arena for game play: https://boardgamearena.com/. Players must register on Board Game Arena and notify the GM of their usernames.

Wingspan is a Premium game on BGA which requires a Premium account to create a table for the game. Players with non-Premium accounts may join the tournament, but if a table has only non-Premium users, either a) one player will need to upgrade their account, or b) the game will count as a loss for all players. I will attempt to ensure that all tables have at least one premium player as much as possible.

We will be using the following game setup options:

  • Green Goal Board
  • Include Language-Dependent Bonus Cards
  • Remove the Power 4 bird cards (Chihuahuan Raven, Common Raven, Franklin’s Gull, and Killdeer)

The site allows most actions to be undone after clicking, but any action that reveals new information cannot be taken back. I recommend playing a one or more games before the tournament starts to get familiar with the interface. If there is a difference between how something works in the online implementation, and how it is typically implemented in person, we must abide by the online implementation.

The unfortunate nature of online board games is that sometimes mistakes are made that would not be made in person, but cannot be taken back. There is no way of resetting or rolling back a move once it has been committed.

Players should try to check the site at least once daily when not on vacation.

Reporting Games:

We will use a Google Sheet for reporting game results.

Rounds:

Players will play 4 simultaneous games during the first and second rounds.    Players will score points for each game according to the following formula:

  • 1st place finish: 1000 points plus (your score/second place score)
  • 2nd place finish: 100 points plus (your score/winning score)
  • 3rd place finish: 10 points plus (your score/winning score)
  • 4th place finish: 1 point plus (your score/winning score)

I will avoid pairing family members together as much as possible.

Ties within games will be broken by the following:

  1. The player with the most remaining food.
  2. The player with the most unplayed bird cards in hand.
  3. The player with the most played bird cards.
  4. The player with the most points from bonus cards.
  5. The player going later in the turn order in the first turn.

Players will be ranked accordingly and the field will be cut after each round.

If there are 39 or fewer total players, the semifinal will cut to the top 13 players of the first round field (rounded down). If there are more than 39 players, the semifinal will cut to the top 1/3 of the first round field (rounded up).

If there are more than 48 participants, the final round will consist of 4 simultaneous games for the top 7 players from the semifinal round. Otherwise, the final round will be one final game for the top 4 players from the semifinal. 

After the final round players will be ranked to award laurels to the top six finishers. If the final round consists of one game, final placement for non-finalists (5th and 6th) will be determined by finishing position in the semifinal.

Round Length:

A four player game of Wingspan consists of roughly 104 turns.  Assuming 2-3 actions a day, the round length should be about 6 weeks.

If players will be on vacation without internet access, they must let the GM know and post a message within all their current games.  If you plan to take more than one week of vacation, please clear that with the GM before starting.

Slow Play:

If a player has not taken a turn after 72 hours (without alerting the GM that they will be on vacation/unable to play), there will be an escalating series of penalties for the slow player.  This will be triggered either by opponents in that game alerting the GM to the situation, or at the discretion of the GM if egregious slow play is occurring.

The penalty levels will be:

Level 0: First Warning
Level 1: Second Warning
Level 2: Loss of 10 points from your round score
Level 3: Loss of 100 points from your round score
Level 4: Loss of 1000 points from you round score

Repeated infractions after reaching Level 4 will result in the same penalty. At the start of a new round, any advancing players who have earned a penalty in the previous round will be reset to Level 1.

Drop Outs:

Players are expected to complete all games they are invited to.

If a player drops out DURING a game (or doesn’t take a move for at least 1 week with no vacation or other notice), the GM and assistant GMs will consult and decide whether to adjudicate the game or restart the game without the player. This player may also be barred from playing in events run by me in the future.

Any player may drop from the event between rounds. If an advancing player drops before the start of the next round, their spot will fall to the next player in the standings.