Going back to tournament formats I would like to see. I would like to see tournaments set up for two days of mayhem. A first day of games acting as qualifiers and placement followed by a brutal second day of single elimation games.Scores etc are kept to place the top players into the games for the following day. A simple bracket format, you win and move on works great. The problem I find is that point system tournaments come down to designing lists to simply blow your opponent out of the water. These lists are not necessarily winning lists, but designed to take advantage of strengths and hope you dont run into your rock vs paper. For example, put two excellent lists with excellent generals head to head. Hopefully we have a tough battle that is close and devastatingly painful for both players. In most tournaments, both of these players would knock each other out of placing well in the tournament. However, these are fun to watch, and fun to play, and what we all hope happens. Tournaments designed for fluff play, or designed for players lucky enough to play weaker opponents are not what we want.
This is why I've come down to having a qualifier or placement day at the tables. Its the guarentee youll get this many games in for coming down to participate and sets up the single elimation bracket. Day one is where seperate awards, for painting, sportsmanship etc can be given. However, the real battle starts day 2. A single elimination bracketed tournament, with the sole purpose of pitting the two top armies up against each other in hard fought rough battle that everyone would be interested in coming back to watch.