ASL5 Ro16 Group Selection Ceremony - Page 6

On March 29 2018 03:50 tanngard wrote:
Yeah I'm really fed up with this group selection thingy. It's unserious. Players should speak through their games only. And why should a reigning champion have these kinds of favours?

On March 29 2018 05:07 BigFan wrote:

It's meant to be a fun environment where the players bargain and try and get the best group. As to why, umm because he's the reigning champion? If Sea, shine or hero won against Flash, they would've had that same benefit instead. The group selection ceremony is one of the funniest parts of ASL where the players can let loose and just be themselves.

On March 29 2018 06:46 tanngard wrote:

The competion should be fair and only be about actual execution of skill concerning the game in question. This would be the same criteria i would ask for any tournament in any given sport. That's just my position.

On March 29 2018 07:41 Dazed. wrote:
?? They've had this showy aspect for years and years and years. 2 post/nobodies bitchy because someone decided to be silly? If you dont like it, dont watch it. Like how in the fuck are you narcissistic enough to imagine your concern over someone being silly matters? To anyone?

~~~~~

I heard sparkles not being used in the next round? What is the map selection, anyone know?

On March 29 2018 06:46 tanngard wrote:

The competion should be fair and only be about actual execution of skill concerning the game in question. This would be the same criteria i would ask for any tournament in any given sport. That's just my position.

On March 29 2018 10:07 Miragee wrote:


Sparkle is going to be replaced by Third World...

On March 29 2018 18:33 StylishVODs wrote:
Well, one can also argue that Flash earned his competitive advantage of getting to choose two players in his group because he won the whole thing. Winning the ASL simply rewards you with money and this group selection advantage.
The result will be that a reigning champion have less change of being knocked out early in the next championship.

When Flash won his first ASL, the other reigning champion had the same advantage but in the end, you have to be able to win your games vs anyone to win the whole thing with any consistency.

I like it this way, it usually means that whoever won last time has a better chance of getting to the Bo5, and usually the audience want to see a reigning champion in a best of 5. The complete opposite would be to let the reigning champion qualify just like anyone else and potentially get knocked out before the round of 24. I dont think people would want that right? So it all comes down to balancing, and currently top 4 have an advantage of being in Ro16 and the winner has extra advantage of choosing his group.

On March 29 2018 03:51 Alpha-NP- wrote:
That game of Sea against Pusan was crazy. Mass Wraiths against Corsairs into Valkyries dominating Corsairs.

On March 29 2018 19:52 Letmelose wrote:


I personally don't see a huge problem with treating every tournament as its own entity, and treating every player as an equal and throwing them to the wolves by subjecting everbody to the same cut throat competition as the rest of the competitive field. Fan favourites get knocked out early all the time, and the whims of the audience shouldn't dictate how the tournament is run ideally speaking, in my opinion.

In my mind, ASL should be an open tournament, not an open qualifier to determine the challenger to the defending champion. Of course, AfreecaTV has a business to run, and it is in their best interests to somewhat rig the tournament to entice the audience with blockbuster best-of-five match-ups. Skilled players already have an advantage in terms of their gaming ability, and they shouldn't need the spoon feeding of the tournament organizers. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially since it could be done by the power of the players themselves instead of the tournament organizers joining the fray as if they were part of the competitive experience.

It somewhat cheapens the experience for me, like when MBC Game studios literally rearranged the entire tournament format to maximize the potential of a Flash versus Jaedong finals, which they got three times in a row (something that would have never happened without the help of the tournament organizers). Sure the two players were totally awesome and were probably deserving of those finals appearances at the time, but you knew deep inside what that format was catered for exactly. Those tournaments had more of a forced show-match nature than conventional tournaments where the luck of the draw could strike literally anyone down.

The defending champions already skip the qualification stages as well as the round of 28, that's something I've come to accept, but I always hated the idea of the defending champion personally hand selecting two of his most preferred round of 16 opponents, because you only need to place above two players to advance to the round of 8. If that is not rigging the brackets, I don't know what is.

For example, I personally don't enjoy the fact that Soulkey was eliminated early on, and feel that he is deserving of a higher placement if his skills were indicative of his results. However, I would be furious if Soulkey was artificially given the opportunity to hand select two of his opponents to battle for a spot in the final 16, instead of being allocated at random in alignment with his seeding.

Winning a championship should be rewarded with being recognized as the best performing player for that particular tournament. Minimizing the chance of an early upset, a huge luxury that is given to nobody else, is too much of a competitive advantage in my opinion. It is like the government taxing the upper class less for being so rich.

On March 29 2018 22:23 StylishVODs wrote:


One important factor here is that you actually have to win the whole thing, from scratch, to get this advantage. So arbitrarily giving SoulKey a favorable Ro16 spot is not exactly the same as him having to win the whole thing from scratch first and then be rewarded with that advantage.

It basically comes down to personal preference as a viewer. For me personally I have no problem with this because I feel that it is "earned" as you win the tournament and I would rather the top players qualify for rounds of Bo5. In a way, it sort of resembles a situation where a champion defends his title. For others, they feel the victory by its own is reward enough (and prize pool of course) and that anyone, to be able to win the whole thing, should compete on even terms. This can be argued back and forth about what is even terms and what is earned and so forth.

To this discussion, however, we can't ignore seeing it from a business perspective like you said. It's perfectly reasonable for a tournament to have these rules based on fan popularity.

On another note though, I could argue that having every player qualify from scratch for each tournament would lead to more new players having a better chance at reaching high into the tournament and thus drawing new blood to the scene, increasing the player pool and audience pool that way in the long run. So also from a business perspective it could be argued both ways.

Given reasonable arguments for both positions, I wouldn't hold a choice one way or the other against the tournament organizers here.

On March 29 2018 23:13 Letmelose wrote:


Well, I specifically mentioned Soulkey since he came second in the Wildcard Tournament for the 4th seed, which technically means that Soulkey was the highest seeded player (5th seed) from the previous season of the ASL out of all the players who competed in the round of 28.

Should he be given the special treatment since he "earned" his highest seed coming into the round of 28? What if he personally selected PuSan and Rush as his preferred opponent of his choice for the round of 28 as the highest seed for that bracket stage? Since a lot of people want to see him compete in the round of 16, shouldn't he be given the preferential treatment as the highest seed out of all the competitors in the round of 28, just as the defending champion is given the preferential treatment within the round of 16?

From a business perspective, it is a sound choice. However, it is a business choice that somewhat cheapens the magnitude of a defending champion winning the league multiple times by extending a helping hand that goes beyond mere seeding. The combination of being seeded mid-way into a bracket and basically rigging the brackets to theoretically provide the best chance of advancing possible (the defending champion doesn't even have to pick the two worst players out of the final 16, he can just select the two who would have the worst match-up against him directly) for the defending champion is a competitive advantage that in my eyes have cheapened the competitive integrity of the ASL that followed the trend from MBC Game StarLeague who always tried their hardest to create franchise stars within their own leagues such as sAviOr.

I personally think it is a reasonable choice to make from a business perspective, but this particular drafting system does not properly align with the idea of a true open championship in my opinion, and merges with the identity of a championship defense and other more show-match type events. Seeding is fine, but allowing players to rig their own brackets is not a privilege that should be welcomed in a supposed open tournament.