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Today, we’re doing a special edition of #AskDuelCircle as we prepare for the release of our first biggest tournament of the year, 1v1 Luau. It’s all about gamemodes this week.
Lately there hasn’t been many new gamemodes, is that changing?
Aww yiss, we recently created one of the most extensive gamemodes in our 4-year history a few months ago. We’re extremely excited to see how it turns out on gameday. Personally, I thought we would run out of ideas since we continued to create crazier gamemodes year after year. Let’s just say that without leaking anything, the Luau finals should blow your mind. Expect the unexpected especially because we’re madmen.
Currently, the way our tournaments are formatted, gamemodes are reserved strictly for the semi-finals and finals to make things more challenging for the players. This also allows for metas to form within each best-of-three series which wouldn’t really be possible in a best-of-one winner take all match earlier in the tournament. We value quality over quantity which means that even though we’re creating fewer gamemodes than before, we’re making sure that these are top-notch.
Mike @MikeFirehammer – Lead Organizer
Can you show us a scrapped gamemode that the team has worked on?
Puppetmaster was a gamemode created back when Clash itself was created in 2015.
This was one of the first gamemodes ever created. The intent was simple, support your minion as much as possible and get the kill. The problem with this gamemode though is the reliance on the minion AI. Through testing, matches would last extremely long and no kill occurred whatsoever. Relying on an RNG heavy gamemode simply wasn’t feasible, which is why we scrapped it after testing.
Ryan @Thetechboy – Lead Technician
What is your favorite gamemode of all time?
Mike: I’d personally have to go with Color Me Rad. This was one of our craziest rulesets that we have ever created. Although a simple concept, many players had creative ways to fulfill the requirements. At times players would use minions such as Ice Guardian and Forrest Sprite which acted as a long-term investment. Learn more about Color Me Rad here with our Behind the Scenes article from Clash ’18.
Ryan: Mander Roulette (formally known as Polarian Roulette from the first Clash in 2015) was really unique. Although the gamemode hasn’t changed much over the years, we’ve made innovative improvements with the program behind the gamemode. Back in 2015, Sloth made a nifty Java program that our referees could download and use to pick a random spell. Nowadays, with the use of ManderBot (learn more here) viewers have been able to track spell types through Twitch and our team has been able to independently verify spell types through Discord.
Mike @MikeFirehammer – Lead Organizer / Ryan @Thetechboy – Lead Technician
Never do Maximum Disrespect again. I hate the heavily RNG based gamemodes that aren’t skill based.
For those who may not remember what Maximum Disrespect was…
We don’t plan on bringing Maximum Disrespect back into our tournaments. It’s officially dead. When this gamemode was created, I wasn’t even involved with DuelCircle. This gamemode was introduced in the first clash tournament in 2015. In Clash 2015, I was a participant but unfortunately, I didn’t reach the semifinals when this gamemode had been introduced. Originally the intent was play in a calculated fashion.
The problem with this gamemode is that everyone got disqualified. I honestly can’t remember a time in recent history where someone legitimately was able to defeat their opponent using a wand hit. We kept trying to justify this gamemode but we simply can’t. Our focus is to provide a challenge, not try to see who gets disqualified first because of a bad gamemode.
Mike @MikeFirehammer – Lead Organizer
Thanks for reading this rendition of #AskDuelCircle. Have a question? Tweet at us or email us using #AskDuelCircle. Please feel free to hit us up in the comments. The organizational team and content team will do their best to engage in a conversation with you. We want this to feel like it’s offering a deeper insight into our work. Check out the last #AskDuelCircle here.