The MVP

🌺 Main Match 8: The MVP 🌺

Be the most valuable player for your team by being the most useful.

Work with your team and place higher bids than the other team to claim cards and make winning combinations. However, contribute more for your team, as only the MVP in the winning team gets the Token of Life.

RULES

You are divided into two teams of three: red and green, based on your meadow color. However, this is an individual game. While one team will win over the other, ultimately you want to be the winner of your team to be the overall winner of the MM.

🀄 This game uses 24 cards, in 4 suits of 6 ranks: apples 🍎, lemons 🍋, pears 🍐, and grapes 🍇, each having ranks 1-6. The following shows some examples of how the cards will look like:

At the start of the game, the cards are randomly placed into the following hexagonal pattern. Note that lower cards cover higher cards.

Cards can be exposed, nearly exposed, or unexposed, depending on their placement in the pattern:

• A card is exposed if it is uncovered, at the bottom of the pattern.
• A card is nearly exposed if, after removing all currently exposed cards, the card becomes exposed.
• A card is unexposed if neither of the above apply.

Only exposed and nearly exposed cards are revealed. The other cards are hidden. Throughout the game, exposed cards will be removed from the pattern, thus making other cards more exposed; an unexposed card that becomes exposed or nearly exposed will be revealed accordingly.

🎭 At the beginning of the game, cards U, V, W, X are exposed. Cards P, Q, R, S, T are nearly exposed. The other cards are unexposed. Cards P-X will be revealed at the beginning of the game. If card U is removed from the pattern, card P becomes exposed and card J becomes nearly exposed; as such, card J will be revealed. On the other hand, removing card W by itself does not cause any card to be exposed, although future removals may expose more cards.

💎 It is possible to spend garnets to learn about unexposed cards. You may pay 1 garnet to learn about the identity of any card in the pattern. You may pay 2 garnets to learn about the location of any specific card. You can obtain information this way any number of times, even in a single round. This information will be given to you privately at the end of the round. Be careful, as cards will be revealed throughout the game; it's possible to waste a purchase if you happen to get information about a card that is revealed in the same round. You will not get a refund.

🀄 At the start of the game, you begin with 30 chips. You will use chips to bid. Chips are not tradable.

💎 You may purchase chips using garnets, at 1 garnet for 1 chip.

The game is divided into rounds until the game-end condition is reached.

🧠 On your turn, you may submit any number of bids. A bid is to a card that is either exposed or nearly exposed; you may not bid for unexposed cards. You bid using chips that you currently have. You may bid any amount on a card, even if you cannot beat the current bid on it.

Note that some bids may carry over from previous rounds. If you have a standing bid on a card, bidding on that card means you are adding to your currently standing bid.

At the end of the round, all bids for a card are counted. Each team's bids are added together, then these sums are compared.

📍 If one team has a higher bid than the other, and the card is exposed, the card is now flagged by a team. This does not yet mean the team claims the card, and the card is not yet removed from the pattern. The bids placed by the flagging team stay on the card, while the bids made by the opposing team are returned to the corresponding players.

📍 If the same team flags a card for two rounds in a row, the team pays their bids for the card and claims it. The card is removed from the pattern and some cards may become newly exposed. (The flagging has to be two rounds in a row; if the opposing team flags the card in the meantime, it breaks the streak.)

📍 If, by removing a card, a nearly exposed card becomes fully exposed, it is immediately subjected to the above. Thus, a team may immediately flag a newly exposed card by having already placed bids there. (But it is impossible for them to claim the card in the same round. A nearly exposed card cannot be flagged, so this round will only be the first round the team flags; they need to flag it next round as well.)

📍 If two teams have the same total bid on a card, its flag status doesn't change. If it hasn't been flagged at all (because there was no bid or the bids were tied before this), it remains unflagged; otherwise, it remains flagged by one team (and thus they claim the card). Bids on the card remain on the card (unless the card goes claimed by a team; then they pay their bid and the other team takes back their bids).

📍 A nearly exposed card that does not get exposed this round will not be flagged by either team. Bids made on that card remain on the card, even if one team is losing; the card needs to become exposed in order for losing bids to be returned.

The following table summarizes what happens; here, "Team A" is simply one of the teams taken as a variable, and "Team B" is the opposing team.

📡 In addition, if a card is flagged/claimed by a team, their bid total is revealed at the end of the round. In the other cases (a card is nearly exposed but not yet exposed, or a card has tied bids and it isn't flagged by either team), no bid total is revealed.

In addition to cards being claimed by teams, cards are also controlled by individual players. When a card is claimed by a team, its controller is the individual player in that team that places the highest bid. If there is a tie for highest, nobody controls the card.

📡 Whenever a card is claimed by your team, you know whether you control the card or not. However, if you don't control the card, you don't know who among the other two players in your team controls it, if any. And if the card is claimed by the opposing team, you don't know who controls it.

👑 The game ends once all cards are claimed from the pattern. All unused chips are worth nothing. The game also ends if no player bids anything and there is no card claimed in the same round (indicating a stalemate); all remaining cards in the pattern go unclaimed.

👑 There is also an additional game-end measure. In Round 13, you cannot bid for nearly exposed cards; you can only bid for exposed cards. After that round, the game ends; all remaining cards in the pattern go unclaimed.

📡 At the end of the game, the controller of each card is revealed.

At the end of the game, cards claimed by a team form various combinations that are worth points:

• Sets: Three or more cards of the same rank (number) form a set. A 3-card set is worth 1 point per card (for a total of 3 points). A 4-card set is worth 3 points per card (for a total of 12 points).
• Runs: Three or more cards of the same suit (fruit) and consecutive ranks form a run. A run of 3, 4, 5, 6 cards is worth 1, 1, 2, 4 points per card respectively (for a total of 3, 4, 10, 24 points).

Sets and runs are taken "maximally", that is, the largest possible. For example, a 4-card run does not also make two 3-card runs.

The following tables summarize the above (pts = points per card, tot = total points for the set/run):

Set Pts Tot Run Pts Tot

------------ -------------

3 1 3 3 1 3

4 3 12 4 1 4

x x x 5 2 10

x x x 6 4 24

A team's score is simply the sum of all scores of card combinations, formed among cards claimed by that team.

💎 Each player gets 1 garnet for every 5 points their team scores.

Besides team scores, players also have individual scores. For each card in a scoring combination, its controller scores points for it equal to the above. For example, if a 4-card set has two cards controlled by the same player, that player scores 3 points for each of those two cards, for a total of 6 points. Note that a card can be in a set and in a run at the same time; its controller scores for both.

👑 The team with the highest score becomes the winning team. In the winning team, the players with the highest individual score win. If multiple players win, each winning player receives one Token of Life; if there is a solo win, they receive two Tokens of Life. In the losing team, the player with the lowest individual score becomes the Elimination Candidate. As usual, if there are multiple losers, the winners vote among them.

👑 If the teams are tied, the winner and the Elimination Candidate is taken from all players. If this would cause 4 or more Tokens of Life to be distributed, all of them are nullified.

ADMINISTRATION

📌 🀄 Player items

Each player has chips used for bidding; each player starts with 30 chips and can buy more using garnets. Chips are not tradable.

The game uses cards. While cards can be claimed by teams and controlled by players, they are not actual objects and are also not tradable.

📌 ⏰ Timing

Each round lasts for approximately 24 hours, except for the first round that lasts for approximately 48 hours. The deadline of every round is at 3pm UTC ( your local time); allow a few minutes for updating.

📌 🧠 Submission

Your submission consists of any number of bids. Each bid consists of a card that is either exposed or nearly exposed, and a positive integer number of chips. (Bidding zero is simply not bidding.)

If you fail to make a submission, you are assumed to not make any bid.

You may also purchase information:

• If you want to know the identity of a card, state which card you want to know by its letter.
• If you want to know the location of a card, state which card you want to know by its suit/rank.

You may also purchase chips; simply state so.

📌 📡 Information

This game has the following pieces of information, along with how and when they are revealed to the players, if at all. If a piece of information is not in this list, it is likely not known to anyone, but feel free to clarify.

🔺 Publicly announced, at the start of every round

• Cards claimed by each team.
• The pattern of cards, as well as the identities of exposed and nearly exposed cards.
• For each exposed card, which team flags it if any, and how many chips are bid in total by the flagging team.

🔻 Explicitly only known to you, at the start of every round

• How many chips you have bid for each card.
• How many chips you have left.
• For each claimed card, whether you are its controller or not.
• If you buy information, you will get the information at the end of the round you buy it (thus at the start of the next round).

🔺 Publicly announced, at the end of the game

• The controller of each card.
• Therefore, the team scores and the individual scores.

📌 💎 ORG items

You can gain ORG currency in this way:

• You get 1 garnet for every 5 points your team scores.

You can spend garnets in these ways:

• You can buy information: 1 garnet for the identity of a card in the pattern, or 2 garnets for the location of a specific card.
• You can buy chips: 1 garnet for 1 chip.