Hi community,
I have the feeling that the actual Seasonal Ladder Season LXIVTemplate: Small Earth Auto DistStarted on 5/18/2025 is more luck based.
Why? because it is a small map with auto distribution with a few really good positions to start (think of SA or Australia, in combination Europe of NA could be a great start, but also a few terrible locations like in Asia)

I was wondering what do you think? Let me know in this forum reply.
Also is it meant for a Ladder to have any luck in it, even with auto distribution?

The first 1v1 ladder games were 18% Weighted Random (16% Weighted Random and 0% Weighted Random after that). While 0% Straight Round with cyclic move order (or even No-luck cyclic) was more accepted, especially after coins were introduced, luck based templates in the seasonal ladder have absolutely been there. If you take it to extremes, top players were often dependent on first or second pick on several templates. Luck is inevitable; the question is how much you allow.

I guarantee you the top players on this seasonal ladder at the end of the season will be the same players who are on top of other Seasonal ladders or on top of the SEAD QM rating leaderboard (FleXUS, Light, AI, Buns, etc.)

The template does suck, but it is absolutely not luck. I don’t understand it either but you can’t argue with these guys’ win rates. Feel free to play one of Light’s coin games on this template if you want to lose a few hundred coins.

Edited 2025-06-03 21:23:31

Part of the skill though is to make a proper move within a <= 1 minute timeframe. So some players won't find that move within this timeframe but when you give them enough time, they will find it. This in turn then makes the template again more luck based than it is in quickmatch. E.g. when it comes to your initial moves after picks then there are only a limited number of roughly 30 outcomes with me merging certain outcomes together since they are equivalent. So the good players know how to play each of their 30 possible hands given to them however when also others figure out how to play their hands, it again becomes luck based.

Edited 2025-06-04 09:19:33

TBH I don't see the issue with SEAD becoming seasonal ladder template. Is it luck based? I think so, since I think the luck affects like 15-20% of the games there, which would be enough for me to classify as such. But since the season is 20 games, and luck is expected to affect both positively and negatively, as TGL said the top names will be similar, most likely.
In a sense it is how top backgammon/poker players are consistent.