DCI Total Ranking

Leo hoy al final de un largo artículo-entrevista en la página de Wizards, en la columna de Brian David-Marshall, The Week That Was, una brece reseña sobre lo que parece será un nuevo sistema de ranking que no sé hasta qué punto sustituira o se complementará con los anteriores.

Lo que parece ser, es que este nuevo rating, no será una media como el de Compuesto, sino que valorará todas las partidas de Magic que juegues. Este ranking será el que se use para repartir invitaciones al Pro Tour.

Like (DCI) Totally

The announcement that next year's Pro Tours would be utilizing a split format similar to the way Nationals and World Championships are run, led to a lot of excitement but more than a few questions about how ratings invites for a Pro Tour that featured Limited and Constructed would work. The 2009 Premier Event Invitation Policy document has finally been released—it should be up on the site the same day this column goes live, in fact—and it actually reveals some big changes for the way ratings invites will work over the next few years.

Wizards is introducing a new ELO rating called DCI Total that is the total of all the matches a player has participated in: Standard, Extended, Block Constructed, Vintage, Legacy, Sealed Deck, Booster Draft, 3-Person teams, and 2-Person teams. Unlike Composite rating, this is not an averaged rating. It is one rating for all your matches other than ones where you play with more than two players in a single game of Magic (multi-player and 2HG).

"The major impetus for this change is simplicity," said The Week That Was regular and author of the new policy document Scott Larabee. "Having a single rating is less complicated than having a bunch of different ratings. We believe that this will be THE rating that people care about. Note that players will still be able to see how they are rated in an individual format. For example, if a player only cares how they are rated in Constructed, they will still be able to see this. We also hope to soon offer the ability for a player to see just their rating in the individual formats (i.e. their rating in Standard only). This functionality is being investigated and will hopefully be available sometime in 2009."

"Having a single rating is less complicated than having a bunch of different ratings. We believe that this will be THE rating that people care about."–Scott Larabee

Why is this new rating relevant for the upcoming Pro Tour season? Well, it's going to be one of the ways that players can earn an invite in 2009. The top 100 DCI Total ranked players will be invited to each Pro Tour.

"We will also "grandfather" the previous ratings in 2009," explained Larabee, who was well aware that players may have been anticipating an invitation based on a high rating in one format or another. "The top 100 Constructed or Limited ranked players will be invited to the Pro Tour. Which of Constructed or Limited will be used for each Pro Tour will be based on the format of the PTQ round that feeds each Pro Tour. That means Limited for Pro Tour–Kyoto and Constructed for Honolulu and Austin.

"Our plan is that in 2010 we will only use the DCI Total rating," Larabee said. He estimated that the dual tracks of rating invitation in 2009 would yield about two to three dozen extra qualified players to each event next season.

Players can expect to see their DCI Total rating within the next month. It will be interesting to see if any new players—Vintage and Legacy players, even—will suddenly find themselves with a seat at the Pro Tour table.

"It could," Larabee answered when I asked him if that might happen. "The next logical question might be "Is that a good thing?" Answer: Sure."