EPTExamples - I see Ret qualify as the #1 seed to the first season of NASL, because of how their finals bracket is designed, he ends up against Puma in the first round and is eliminated in about 10 minutes.
Huk flies halfway round the world for the recently finished event in Finland, draws a PvP specialist in the first round, is done really quickly.
BratOK plays Stephano at Assembly, they've shown the bracket in advance and they play stupid games to try to lose as they both want to avoid Sen in the knockout stages.
IPL group stages are beyond meaningless and just exist to create content.
Because of the group format in IEM China, Idra is able to advance from the group despite having a losing record, and goes on to win the tournament. By the same token, in IEM's Cologne leg, using the exact same format, Sangho has a winning record in the groups and is eliminated.
Fuck knows what they're trying to to with the GSL. The old system was awful, the new system isn't much better and seems to have been created with the sole reason to give as many opportunities as possible to get Terran players out of code S, but at the same time there's so many opportunities for them to stay in after fucking it up.
Ironically I think MLG with it's much maligned open bracket of death and over-protection of pool players is currently the best, and they're addressing problems as well, but it still won't be perfect.
It's really easy to see why these things happen - people watch something like the World Cup or something similar, which has groups into knockout stages, and think that's the best thing to do for ESPORTS. Well it isn't, and they only have it that way for logistical reasons which are nowhere near as complicated for SC2. It's quite simple to work out systems that are better for the players, better for the spectators, better for everyone.
Let's take some examples, spoilered to prevent text walls:
ASUS Invitational
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They have six hours scheduled on each of two days, with a bunch of meaningless showmatches on a third day. That's an awful, awful lot of time for an 8 man tournament, but they run it as a straight knockout?
They're sponsored by a computer manufacturer. Ask them to lend you two extra PC's, add on an extra hour of play. Do that, and by running two series at once, you have enough time to allow for a best of three round robin! You can see everyone play everyone! You don't even need to bring in any extra casters - it's bnet 0.2, just phone up MrBitter (or anyone) and while TB/Apollo are casting one game, someone else can cast the other, they don't even need to be in the same venue! Or the same country! Then on the spare day when you're just having showmatches, bin those and have a semi-finals/final between the top four!
They're sponsored by a computer manufacturer. Ask them to lend you two extra PC's, add on an extra hour of play. Do that, and by running two series at once, you have enough time to allow for a best of three round robin! You can see everyone play everyone! You don't even need to bring in any extra casters - it's bnet 0.2, just phone up MrBitter (or anyone) and while TB/Apollo are casting one game, someone else can cast the other, they don't even need to be in the same venue! Or the same country! Then on the spare day when you're just having showmatches, bin those and have a semi-finals/final between the top four!
NASL
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So you have a long series of games in a group stage, but then everyone that qualifies, including a wildcard, then starts at the same spot? What the hell is that about?
So what you do, is instead of having 5 groups of 8, you have 4 groups of 10 (if you want to keep 40 players, or cut it down to 32 with groups of 8), then:
- your group winners get a direct seed into the quarter finals
- your group runners up get a seed into what would be the round of 12
- your playoff system can stay, and the four winners from that can join four people from an open bracket into the last 16
You then actually reward people who won their groups by having them avoid a couple of rounds of the knockout stages and have them lock up more prize money for doing well! It makes your league stage more meaningful! You also allow more people to come in from nowhere and compete!
So what you do, is instead of having 5 groups of 8, you have 4 groups of 10 (if you want to keep 40 players, or cut it down to 32 with groups of 8), then:
- your group winners get a direct seed into the quarter finals
- your group runners up get a seed into what would be the round of 12
- your playoff system can stay, and the four winners from that can join four people from an open bracket into the last 16
You then actually reward people who won their groups by having them avoid a couple of rounds of the knockout stages and have them lock up more prize money for doing well! It makes your league stage more meaningful! You also allow more people to come in from nowhere and compete!
Any larger tournament (say ~64 players) that currently uses groups => straight knockout
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Switch to a swiss system to seed people for a knockout. Seriously. I'd estimate that most LANs have roughly 1 PC for every 4 players in the event? Can easily convert that to a swiss format if you have that many, and it is as nowhere near as complicated logistically as people think (see spoilered bit below). Play until you can order players with some level of accuracy, then if it's a 64 man event, do the following:
- Bottom 40 play off in round 1 - work it so that the highest 20 players in this each face one of the lower 20.
- Those 20 winners then met by ranks 13-24 in round 2 (can again split it off so those that join at this stage don't meet each other in this round)
- Those 16 winners are then met by ranks 5-12 in round 3
- Those 12 winners are then met by ranks 1-4 in a last 16 and you have a straight knockout from there
This avoids groups of death entirely, and you can use a similar format quite easily for larger events. The only real problem is that during the initial ranking stage, you'd need to just use a bo1 in each match, but the main criticisms against that are tempered by the fact that nobody is actually knocked out at any stage, and no one game is so critical that it requires a best of three or longer.
+ Show Spoiler [so sixfour, how do you do it logistica…] +
- Bottom 40 play off in round 1 - work it so that the highest 20 players in this each face one of the lower 20.
- Those 20 winners then met by ranks 13-24 in round 2 (can again split it off so those that join at this stage don't meet each other in this round)
- Those 16 winners are then met by ranks 5-12 in round 3
- Those 12 winners are then met by ranks 1-4 in a last 16 and you have a straight knockout from there
This avoids groups of death entirely, and you can use a similar format quite easily for larger events. The only real problem is that during the initial ranking stage, you'd need to just use a bo1 in each match, but the main criticisms against that are tempered by the fact that nobody is actually knocked out at any stage, and no one game is so critical that it requires a best of three or longer.
+ Show Spoiler [so sixfour, how do you do it logistica…] +
Working on a 64 man example with resources of 1 PC per 4 runners, so 16 available - on day 1, split everyone into 4 pools of roughly even strength. For each pool randomly draw the first game, then have an auto-matchmaking system (similar to how the gigabyte/craftcups do) to put together people with the same record for future games.
In each pool, you'll then have 1 player who is 4-0, 4 who are 3-1, etc etc. When they're all done, take one player with the same record out of each of the pools, have them match up in a group of 4, have the winner play winner, loser play loser. So by the end of the day everyone's played 6 maps, but against 6 different people.
Day 2 you'd start drawing round by round, but then start to filter people off at the bottom when it's clear they can't hit the top 24, top 12 etc. Probably need people to play about 4 maps to sort the majority of it out, maybe another couple once you're sorting out the very top and you know who'd start in rounds 1/2, which you can start later that day. Day 3, you clean up the knockout stages.
In each pool, you'll then have 1 player who is 4-0, 4 who are 3-1, etc etc. When they're all done, take one player with the same record out of each of the pools, have them match up in a group of 4, have the winner play winner, loser play loser. So by the end of the day everyone's played 6 maps, but against 6 different people.
Day 2 you'd start drawing round by round, but then start to filter people off at the bottom when it's clear they can't hit the top 24, top 12 etc. Probably need people to play about 4 maps to sort the majority of it out, maybe another couple once you're sorting out the very top and you know who'd start in rounds 1/2, which you can start later that day. Day 3, you clean up the knockout stages.
In general
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Can we not at least try to prevent so much downtime? Today we had two hours scheduled for a best of 5 third place match. While if it's a TvZ that goes the distance with macro games, you might need all that time, if it's a non-terran mirror that's 3-0, it won't. Instead of saying "3rd place at 2pm, final at 4pm", why not say "3rd place at 2pm, final not before 3:20pm" similar to what they do in something like boxing? You still book the venue for as long as you need, but they anticipate not for the worst case scenario of every fight going the distance, but something in between that and lots of short knockouts. It's not exactly the same situation, but if you were going to start at 4 anticipating a long match before the final, YOU STILL CAN, but if it's shorter, we don't have an hour-plus wait for a game.
A friend from another forum was recently playing in the Bermuda Bowl, the team world championships of contract bridge. There, they have just short of a couple of dozen teams, they have an all-play-all and then the top 8 advance to the quarter-finals. What they do then is genius, and I'm surprised it is not used more often. People were bitching about Idra having a really tough bracket at Providence - if they incorporated what they do in this tournament into the upcoming MLG, there would not be this problem because, and it's such genius I'm going to have to spoiler it so as to not blow your minds without warning:
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Isn't that beautiful? Idra would then have probably one of Boxer/Select/Slush rather than Korean/Korean/Korean.
Can we not have slightly larger map pools (say add two maps to what they are currently) and then automatically remove two for each matchup before players veto? Watching the ASUS thing that's just been done, I found it silly that XNC was auto-vetoed by every zerg. So add a couple of maps, and then for, say, TvZ, automatically remove XNC and Metal. For PvP remove Taldarim. You can all think of your own examples.
A friend from another forum was recently playing in the Bermuda Bowl, the team world championships of contract bridge. There, they have just short of a couple of dozen teams, they have an all-play-all and then the top 8 advance to the quarter-finals. What they do then is genius, and I'm surprised it is not used more often. People were bitching about Idra having a really tough bracket at Providence - if they incorporated what they do in this tournament into the upcoming MLG, there would not be this problem because, and it's such genius I'm going to have to spoiler it so as to not blow your minds without warning:
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The number 1 overall seed PICKS THEIR OPPONENT from the bottom four. Then #2 picks and so on until #4 gets whoever is left.
Isn't that beautiful? Idra would then have probably one of Boxer/Select/Slush rather than Korean/Korean/Korean.
Can we not have slightly larger map pools (say add two maps to what they are currently) and then automatically remove two for each matchup before players veto? Watching the ASUS thing that's just been done, I found it silly that XNC was auto-vetoed by every zerg. So add a couple of maps, and then for, say, TvZ, automatically remove XNC and Metal. For PvP remove Taldarim. You can all think of your own examples.
Meh, that's a lot of words to just say that tournament structures suck. If you actually read all that, you need some sort of medal. I just get easily frustrated I guess.
