I played my first (and second, third, and fourth) melee at worlds - and had a blast. I really hope to see melee continue as a supported format, and, ideally, as a competitive format. I'd like to avoid discussing the collusion/dqs/etc that happened, and just discuss alternate melee formats that might work.

The current approach attempts to discourage overt collusion by rulings and disqualifications, in an attempt to maintain the fundamental "Everyone should try to win" spirit of the game. After all, in the Game of Thrones, you win or… However, winning isn't the only beneficial outcome - you can have a friend win, you can place second, you can prevent someone you dislike from winning, you can place just high enough to guarantee making the cut. All of these drastically change the dynamic of the game. The game is supposed to be full of backstabbing and collusion, and collusion is difficult to prove and essentially impossible to eradicate with the current rules. If you allow it to run rampant, you're at least internally consistent - but this greatly favours larger metas who are more likely to affect the outcome of several games. Collusion doesn't sound all that bad until people are colluding towards different goals - qualifying for the next round isn't the same as winning, winning isn't the same as placing, helping your friend qualify (and so on).

So I mostly just wanted to take this thread to discuss possible changes to the Melee format that might leave it a more competitive format.

I've heard the "No placement - winner takes all" suggestion thrown around, in which there is no advantage to place anything but first. While this can still lead to king-making and shutting out a player you dislike, there's certainly a lot less room for negotiating your way into a beneficial finish that isn't first place. It sounds like a scoring nightmare for the current swiss-round pairing (and overall championship), but that's a whole other issue.

I've heard the "No table-talk" variant, which might well eliminate collusion at the table itself, but doesn't eliminate pre-table collusion in any way, and (I think) would lead to some awfully dull melee games…

I'd love to hear some other possibilities people have cooked up. 

A variant that occurred to me would be to have "Builder" and "Ranger" awards: each player sits down at the table and gives the deck they've built to the player to their right. If you (as a player) claims 15 power before all others, you win first. If the deck you built claims 15 power before all others, you win second. There's guaranteed collusion involved here, but it's predictable; you would rather win or, failing that, let the person to your right win - but the person to your left would rather win or have you win.
 

Honestly atm I have nothing to commit to this topic other than I absolutely LOVE the Builder/Ranger idea.  Take out the "overall champ" reward of melee/joust and have a reward for Top Builder (created the deck with the most wins) and reward for Top Ranger (actually achieved the most wins).

Hmm…  actually that would cause the player that built the deck more likely to let the player to their right go ahead and win challenges against them.   What if the decks were switched between tables, and then you don't know who's deck you are playing and they can't have any sway over your ability to win?

 I think this guy posted in the wrong forum:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=137&efcid=4&efidt=745520

 I think you could do a lot to make melee more interesting - but that comes from someone who finds it awful in its current format.

1) No table-talk. Sorry but having to watch one person tell the other what to do because they aren't smart enough to figure it out is boring and non-competitive. I had a chance to win a game once and one of my opponents saw a way to stop me and walked the other two people through a multi step effort to accomplish to goal. It was lame

2) Partners: Get randomly assigned a partner when you sit down…you win or lose as a team. You could even maintain 1,2,3,4th where 2nd goes to the partner of the guy who just won. It would require a new rule where you can't attack your partner and likely more changes with the roles

3) New roles. How about something that grossly changes the roles. Something that make it so that if the person you support wins, you get second…or just wild changes like that.

4) Fixed deck melee: No unique deck construction. Choose from a pre determined list of decks (or draw for decks at the table even)…and have your ability to negotiate/play be the key driver.

You know, the fixed deck format doesn't actually sound all that bad.

 One of this weeks podcasts (2c1c i think) mentioned a "Silent Sisters" melee where chatter was kept to a minimum and no table talk. Supposedly was fun, and made support and opposition from titles more meaningful. Think I'll try it.

Grimwalker said:

That was 2 Guys 1 Throne.

 one game in my melee group we wanted to experiment with less defined alliances so all table talk about the gamr itself was banned and rach pkayer got a pen and paper. each round each player could send one note or raven to any other player but the other player but no other talk about the game  . not saying its a fix but it was definitly a fun variant for added paranoia