mlg tourney design, one big "extended series" ?

firstly, its hard to actually "lose" once you make it to the top once. what i mean by this is that players seeded into the top 16 are given a free ride to the finals. as far as i can work out, even coming last in your group is a top 32 finish, meaning with just 1 or 2 wins total, against weaker opponents than you faced in your group, you can once again be seeded direct to pool play next time.

now to me having an overall score of 2-4 just isn't good enough to justify top 16, when there are players eliminated from the whole thing on scores of 10-2 or better.

just look over to the GSL, code A has been lumped with praise at the rapid improvement in the player base. why? because its so damn hard to compete there. the bottom finishers have to re-qualify for the whole GSL all over again from "code B". where as the cosy code s is criticized for its lack of new blood, and relatively bad players are able to stay in code s because no matter how bad they do, they then get TWO chances in the up and down matches to stay up. mlg is using a similar system that rewards has beens by taking longer to punish them for falling behind the pack, only needing a few wins or maybe even just 1 to stay near the top.

Secondly, and a little similarly, the bracket design doesnt reward skill. when the logic behind defending players with poor results is based on consistency being so hard to achieve in sc2, why are people consistently beating a variation of weak (likely all in/cheese) and strong (long macro games or crisp timings) being thrown out in to the cold of the open bracket next time?

Another problem i have with the whole design is that its needlessly complicated and rushed. the bracket is designed to stop the big names falling out early, which leads to this stupid layout that people struggle to understand. The point isnt even whether you understand it, the point is that its just another hurdle stopping people enjoying the game as a spectator sport. Pool play could be eliminated all together and just have a few qualifiers enter in to a final bracket along with the top 16/32. this is how it functions in sports like tennis and snooker except they hold the qualifiers before the cameras show up.

mlg should consider playing out the event over the whole week, now im all for more content but the fact is i think everyone would prefer there to be time for a best of 7 for every top end game, rather than a best of 3 for top end players, and low end players alike. this combination of being limited on time at the weekend event and wanting to let the best players play a longer series (more entertainment, the better play is more likely to win, more mind games/strategy) means that they should be hosting the "open bracket" the weekend before, purely online. have an admin spectate the game to check for cheating and make the replay available shortly after.

Another advantage of this layout is that it allows hype to build up for a whole week around the tournement. for their current setup mlg cant release any bracket info until the day it all happens, incase people dont show up. now with only the final 32 remaining being decided partly over the whole week before, it gives you time to build hype, release informantion, get interviews and weed out people who you couldnt be sure would actually show up to a lan.