The Median

In this game, players will own characters placed on a 10-space conveyor belt. Each round, you will decide whether to push the conveyor belt one space to the left, the scoring zone will shrink, and players with characters in the scoring zone will earn increasing numbers of points. The goal is to end the game in fifth place.

Characters

Before the game begins every player will draft a character to control. (Characters are tradable, so you may not have the same character for the full game.) All characters have a power and a tiebreak value. The full list of powers and values is in the end of the ruleset.

In the first iteration every player will privately select the character they want to be. If no other player selects that character, the player receives that character and waits for the game to begin. If somebody else also chose the character you have chosen then nobody gets that character and everybody who chose that character will be prompted to select a different character from what they have selected last round. A full list of characters that haven’t been selected yet will be presented to the players after every round of picking. [1]

The time for the first pick is 24 hours. The time for all repicks is also 24 hours, but this will be cut short if all players without a character request so. When all of the characters are chosen, the game will begin at usual deadline. It is not revealed who got which character.

The whole game is played by the characters. You will submit on behalf of your character, so if you have 2 characters you will submit for both of them and if you have 0 characters then you do not submit anything.

Gameplay

All 9 characters will be put on a 10 tile conveyor belt, with character with the lowest tiebreak value on the leftmost tile and increasing in tiebreak value going to the right. At the end, there will be a dummy character (marked “X”).

The game is divided into 9 rounds. The points that players may gain in a round is equal to the round number.

All characters will submit whether they want to move the conveyor 1 space to the left, or not move it.

At the deadline, the scoring zone will shrink by 1 tile, starting from the left side. It will begin with all 10 tiles as the scoring zone, so round 1’s scoring zone will be 9 tiles long. Afterwards, character powers will trigger in order.

Then, for every character that has chosen to move the conveyor, it will move 1 space to the left, moving everyone on it 1 space. The leftmost player will be put on the rightmost tile of the conveyor.

All characters in the scoring zone will score the number of points equal to the number of the round (1 in the first round, 2 in the 2nd etc). Characters score points. Points are transferable; see the trading section for more details.

Most characters will have active powers that can be activated under certain conditions. The players may submit to use the power their character has along with their submission of whether to move the conveyor. These powers may affect the placement of the characters, the scoring of the players and even alter some of the rules of the game.

All powers are resolved before the conveyor movement in increasing tiebreak order

Round updates and game end

After every round an image will be posted with the current state of the conveyor belt and a ranking of all the players.

The image will contain all 9 characters on the conveyor belt and the current scoring zone.

The ranking panel will contain all 9 players sorted by their score. The scores themselves are not revealed.

The game will go on for 9 rounds. After 9 rounds the player that scored 5th will receive 2 Tokens of Life.

The players that scored 1st and 9th receive a ToD each and become joint losers. The winner will decide the EC out of the joint losers.

In case there is a tie at the end of the game for 1st, 5th, or 9th place, the tiebreak values of characters are considered. The player with the lowest sum of tiebreak values of the characters they hold will be considered to be in the contested place. [2, 3]

Edge Cases

[1] If after 5 rounds there are still players without a character selected then those players will receive a random one, omitting the one chosen in the last round.

[2] If tiebreak sums tie, then the player in the winning or losing position will be the one with the lowest tiebreak value at the start of the game.

[3] If a tie includes two contested places (for instance, if the bottom 5 scores are all the same), the lowest sum of tiebreak values will go into the losing position, and then the next lowest will go into the winning position. (If all scores tie, the lowest two sums of tiebreak values will lose, and the third lowest will win.) Continued ties will be broken as in [2].

Trading

• Characters are transferable. Those can be referred to by their name or by their tiebreak value.
• Points are transferable, but only between adjacent characters. Points are owned by players, but transferred by characters: when gifting or trading, you must state the sender character (one that you own) and the recipient character. If gifted, the recipient of the gift will not know how many points were gifted, or the owner of the character gifting the points.

If a player gifts away points, then the recipient of the gift will not know how many points were transferred. (It will be 1 or more points)

--

Round Processing Order:

Scoring zone reduced

Powers trigger in numerical order

Conveyor belt moves one space left for each character who decided to push

Owners of characters in the scoring zone gain points.

--

List of character powers

For all characters their tiebreak values will be listed first in {}, followed by their effect.

“± X points” means “X points if the holder is above the current median, and -X points if below”. These push you farther away from the median.

“∓ X points” is the opposite: -X points if above the current median, and X points if below. These push you closer to the median.

If you are currently the median player, neither ± or ∓ points have any effect.

Powers will activate before the movement phase for the round, in numerical order starting with the lowest.

Some powers give “penalty points”. These are points that cannot be given, traded away or changed due to other character powers. They can be positive or negative.

--

Powers

{1} Isolated: The holder of this character loses points equal to the round number when out of the scoring zone.

{2} Pickpocket: When you move from the effects of another character's power in a round, you steal 2 points from them and add them to your own. This can only trigger once per character in a round. Characters affected are informed that they have been stolen from. If the affected character doesn't have 2 points, no points are stolen, and both you and the affected character are informed of this.

{3} Reach: You may gift points to anyone, ignoring the adjacency rule.

{4} Charity: Along with your submission you may perform a forced gift of 1 point to another character. This doesn't require you to be adjacent to the other character. The affected character is informed they received a point. You may not target the same character for 2 rounds in a row.

{5} Lock: This character starts with 3 charges. You may spend a charge to use this power; your points will not change due to the effects of future powers or the scoring zone. (When someone receives this character, they will be notified of how many charges are remaining.)

{6} One: You may not trade, and you may not gift away this character. Every round, you gain ∓ 1 point.

{7} Force: You may submit 2 or 3 for the conveyor belt to be moved, instead of just 0 or 1. You gain 2± penalty points.

{8} Jump: Using this moves you to the farthest left spot. All other characters between your old spot and the furthest left spot shift right by one space. You gain 3 ± penalty points.

{9} Humble: When you are revealed in the rankings, you will appear 1 rank lower than you actually are. If you are the lowest rank, you will remain being displayed as the lowest rank.

{10} Exchange: If this character is out of the scoring zone then this character may swap any 2 characters that are currently in the scoring zone.

{11} Gravity: You may pull a character within 3 spaces to the space adjacent to you. (This does not wrap around the board.) If from the left side, they are pulled to the space on your left. If from the right side, they are pulled to the space on your right. Players in between will be shifted one space away from you. If the character you choose is no longer in range, nothing happens.

{12} Anchor: In the submission for a round, you may decide not to be shifted by the conveyor. Other players will jump over you. Cannot be used 2 rounds in a row.

{13} Twin: You also score if the dummy character (X) is in the scoring zone. (This does not stack: if both Dummy and X are in, you only score once for those characters.)

{14} Silence: Choose another character. Their power is ignored for the duration of the next round. You may not target the same character for 2 rounds in a row.

--

First Round Power Selection takes Place in 47.5 hours

@Contestant edit to {6} (one)

The reward for winning the MM is an item to be used in the next main Match: A Cardinal Card

If you don’t know how to submit for your power, ping a dealer