Open Tournament Feedback

[Mirvana]

You don't *NEED* a 6 point game to get a win, it just guarantees one. If you tie with an NPC (points and captures), you still get 1st place prizes and achievement progress (I tie-won my first Open victory). Also it may be some background balancing for NPCs, but of the times I've seen any of them have +3/4 Captures in their first round, I often see them Lose/Draw Round2 so that my Round3 opponent usually only has +2 Captures on average.

I'm pretty sure packs are tied to your points. I've gotten a couple platinum packs, but only from 6pt games. Seems you always get gold at 5-4, and I even got silvers for 3pts.
I'm pretty sure the prize table is something like:
(Updating this as I go with rewards I've consistently seen at these point totals)
All "Gold" tiers appear to have a slim chance to award 1 Platinum instead.
6 - 2-3 Gold
5 - 2-3 Gold
4 - 1-2 Gold
3 - 2 Silver or 1 Gold
2 - 1-2 Silver or 2 Bronze
1 - 1-2 Bronze
0 - 1 Bronze

A few general Triad tips that may up folks' win-rate (**This is mostly for playing against NPCs since they have a common pattern in their AI, and humans can always play better/worse**).
#1 - If you're going second, always try to capture the first card your opponent plays. This immediately puts them behind, which they'll have to trade captures to get back to just a Draw. If you're trading and they ever miss/can't get a capture, you can easily hit the 6:4 minimum for a win. It's also good to always try to capture like-with-like or with weaker cards if able on earlier turns (ex. Capture Opponent's 2* with your 1*).
#2 - If you go first, play defensively and lead with a strong card if you have to (You wanna avoid the NPC doing #1 to you). And even if they do drop a big card, they'll likely have to expose a weak side which you can hopefully safely capture to be right back at parity or even get a double capture.
#3 - If a capture requires exposing weaker sides of a card, try to use a card you can expose two weaker sides. If the opponent captures the card, you can recapture it on its 2nd weak side.
#4 - 99.9% of the time, if you can capture two cards at once, do it. That .1% you shouldn't is if doing so sets up your opponent to potentially also capture two or more (ie, dont capture say a 7/6 corner if it leaves a 4/3 corner behind).
#5 - Remember in Plus/Same, those rules apply even if only 1 card you touch sides with isn't currently your color. Don't miss out on free captures/Combos because you already "have" some of the cards you play next to.
#6 - Try to cover all four sides with your picks. For each of the four directions, try to have at least 2 cards with a 6/7+ side so you have more options to capture/block with. Also try to pick cards that can re-capture your own cards if Opponent takes them. Cards with three 8+ sides (ex Odin, Ardbert, Shiva, Onion Knight) are often stronger picks than cards with two A sides because they can capture/block more angles.
#7 - A draft deck ALWAYS contains exactly a 1*, 2*, 3*, 4*, and 5* card. Even without the All/Three Open rule in effect, you can can get an idea of what cards your opponent still has left by just looking at what they've already played. This can let you know if a specific play is actually safe or not based on what sides you'll be leaving open. No 1* or 2* has any side higher than 7 (and very few 1* have that 7-side), no 3* has any side higher than 8, and only 5* have A-sides. So if Opponent still has their 5*, you may have to burn your 5* to safely block. But if they only have their weaker cards left, you can more safely leave medium-strength sides exposed (They may not actually be able to beat that 5 with their 2*).