Swap 61

In this Main Match, swap walls skillfully to lengthen the distance between pairs of nodes.

Designer(s): pseudonam	Match Type: MM (for 9~10 players)
Featured in: The Genius: Variations on a Theme

MM4: Swap 61

This game is played on a hexhex5 grid. The grid has 52 walls and 9 nodes, which will be randomized when the game begins.

Each player owns the 5 walls of their color. There are also 2 wild walls which are collectively owned by every player.

There is a 24-hour pregame, but players can submit during the pregame. In the pregame, players will receive 4 Tokens. In each of the five following rounds, players will receive 9 Tokens. Tokens disappear between rounds.

Players can use their tokens in order to attempt to swap tiles bordering the same edge. At least one of the two tiles bordering the edge must be a wall they own (or a wild wall). Note that multiple players can add tokens to the same edge: all tokens will be combined.

Players can use tokens on any number of edges they like. Please format your submissions like in the following example:

```

[Tile] [Adjacent tile] [Number of tokens]

A2 A3 5

B4 C5 3

A1 B1 1

```

Swaps occur from most tokens placed on them to least tokens.

Swaps will then be checked for validity from most to least. Swaps with the same number of tokens are checked for validity at the same time. If a swap is valid, then it goes through; otherwise, it doesn’t.

The conditions for validity are as follows:

1) At least four tokens have been spent for the swap. 2) Both adjacent tiles have not already been successfully swapped with any other tile. 3) Both tiles do not appear in any other swap with an equal number of tokens that satisfies the two prior conditions.

Also, there is a randomized list of players. In the nth round, players' paths will borrow walls of players n spaces above and n spaces below them, looping around. The list will be provided once the pregame begins. Borrowed walls do not count as your own, but only affect pathing (described later).

In each round (not the pregame), six nodes will be activated, forming three pairs. The pairs of nodes will be revealed one round ahead of time. It will be known that the three nodes left out of the pair will always be paired in the next round, but no other information will be given.

Then, for each pair of nodes, players earn points equal to the lowest number of spaces it takes to get from one node to the other without entering any of the following:

a wall they own

a wall they borrowed

a wild wall that was not successfully swapped in the current round

any of the other seven nodes not in the pair

If this is impossible, players earn 0 points for that pair.

The grid (and player scores) will be revealed at the end of the round, but nothing else will.

Variations

Round 1: Theme (no variation)

Round 2: Corner Connection

The corners of the grid are now portal spaces. Pairs of nodes can now connect through any of the six corners of the grid, provided they are accessible (not occupied by an illegal tile).

Round 3: Node Network

All nine nodes are active but aren’t paired. Instead, for each node, players score the distance from each node to the closest adjacent node.

Round 4: Ultimate Seat Exchange

Condition 1 now requires only one token to be spent for the swap to occur. Furthermore, nodes can now connect through any of the four types of invalid tiles, but those tiles count as three spaces as opposed to one. As a reminder, the shortest path will be chosen.

Player list:

(For example, in Round 1, Fruit would borrow Jackson and Allanzo's walls, and in Round 2, Fruit would borrow Amaranth's and Roar's walls.)

Starting grid:

Swap 61

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