> > I am more worried about the single death bringer tactic.

I am, too. Actually, I lost to it last night, although if I had predicted that my opponent would pull that one me (I should have), I'd have at least figured out the correct character to target. But I agree that in general it's a bad idea for the optimal strategy to be the blind luck of guessing who the big guy will be.

So, I have ruminated a bit and came up with the following damage chart:

http://www.rinkworks.com/monster/damage.shtml

This chart regrettably makes it harder to calculate damage in one's head, but it does three things: (1) Reduces the effectiveness of very strong attack power, thereby encouraging more even distribution of attack power; (2) Reduces the effectiveness of very strong defense power, *hopefully* encouraging the more even distribution of defense power; (3) shifts the scale just slightly so that fewer 0/1-damage battles occur.

Consider this post an open call for analysis and discussion of this proposal. In particular, does anybody see any potential problems with the idea?

> I think we should also take a look at the significant number of top-150 players that have already been eliminated after two rounds.

Dominating sleeper players should disappear in future tournaments thanks to the unused wealth cap I'll implement, and that probably translates to more Top-150 players surviving, since they're the ones that get matched up with the sleepers.

However, I noticed that of the five players that took on the strategy of losing all matches and spending all gold for elimination round #1, only one of them survived round 2 (kiwi). As for kiwi, he'll continue to be paired up with the strongest players from here on out, because no matter how many times he wins, he's unlikely to catch up with the other non-eliminated opponents, and therefore remain at the bottom of the seeding order. If he wins, he'll certainly have earned it.