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On March 29 2018 23:54 StylishVODs wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2018 23:13 Letmelose wrote:On March 29 2018 22:23 StylishVODs wrote:On March 29 2018 19:52 Letmelose wrote: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.
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. 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. 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. I understand many of your points and I do agree with a lot of it. As to the argument of "best seed of the Ro28" thing, well, somewhere you have to draw the line. In ASL the line is that the top 4 players get an advantage moving into the next tournament and that the winner gets a special advantage for the Ro16. So if the line is that top 4 players get an advantage, then obviously no advantage is given to the 5th player even if he did better than all the rest. It's just like in any sport where you can win Gold, Silver or Bronze. What about the 4th player, well though luck? Starting with relative performance on different stages in the tournament and having some sort of arbitrary advantage system would be going too far I think. But if a special advantage is to be given to anyone, the most reasonable option would be only to the past winner since that is the ultimate goal of all the participants. I agree that a seed, such as top 4 getting to the Ro16, is fine though and would also be enough. As it is right now, ASL is not a "true open championship". However, thats not to say that it's close at all to some show event merely due to this one advantage to the winner. An advantage like that is only likely to consistently have a strong effect on someone that consistently outperforms his peers. Thats why, for example, this advantage didn't help Shuttle enough to win the tournament twice. I think, maybe if anyone other than Flash won the ASL, this whole thing wouldn't be such an issue, just like when Shuttle got knocked out even after picking opponents in the Ro16. Right now, we can clearly see that almost no one wants to be in Flash's group because the majority of players consider him to be the best.
This whole thing is an issue from a competitive stand point, and it is actually honourable players such as Flash who are keeping the severe flaws of the system from being fully exposed. Flash has very little to do with this discussion in all actuality.
Say there comes a player who simply does not care about the repercussions of his actions (like Hydra in ABCMart MSL, who himself felt anger towards the drafting system back when he was an unseeded player), and sends his strongest rival away into an already stacked group to eliminate possible threats in advance without getting his hands bloody. Is that still a smart, tactical move that is totally within reason, or are we expecting a gentlemen's agreement between the players to not expose the huge flaws in the system?
It's a dumb system in my opinion, and it is one of the remnants of the old MBC Game StarLeague that I really don't miss. I mean, there are obviously bigger issues to deal with, but to pretend that the positives outweigh the possible negatives from a sheer competitive stand point is false from my point of view. Logistically and financially speaking, it exists for a reason, but there are cases of successful Brood War tournaments being held without this particular drafting system being implemented.
Like you said, the competitive edge the defending champion gets is only fool proof if he is of a certain caliber. There were multiple cases of defending champions in the MSL dropping out way early despite the rigged system. However, it does have a cascading effect on dominant players by making it way too easy to regain a seeding position, from which the cycle repeats. Further more, like I mentioned, it always lures players to abuse the system way beyond what is considered reasonable by most people, and that's something that shouldn't left to the decision of the players in my opinion. The system itself should make sense before the players leave things "open to interpretation".
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What I think needs to be said is that you can't support the favoritism of this system and at the same time complain that a lot of reasonably good players are forced to quit competitive SC because they don't have enough success due to the enormous pressure to make yourself a big name for a good sponsorship deal.
Keep in mind I'm not arguing certain players have too much success. I could care less about that, as long as it only depends on their individual performances. But that's the point - in reality it doesn't just depend on skill and luck but also on the fact that this system is inherently biased and unfair.
I never thought of this until this thread came up because I didn't follow SC for a while and I didn't notice this issue back then either. I consider myself wiser now and I'm convinced the system is bad for the competition. It's the same nonsense that's going on in chess, where the world champion gets the massive privilege of having the right to wait things out until his next challenger has been determined in a tough tournament, instead of having to go through the exact same elimination process as everyone else. It's even worse than this system here in SC, much worse. I'm disappointed that such favoritism is accepted by a large part of the community in both games.
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United States10232 Posts
I don't think it is a flaw in the system. If your goal is to win a tournament, why wouldn't you take every advantage you get, no matter how small? I don't understand this concept that comes from people who don't actually play in tournaments. If you're playing at a professional or semi-professional tournament, you take the advantage, end of story. In magic the gathering, if your opponent makes a mistake and the head judge comes over and asks if you want your opponent to take a game loss for their rules violation, 9/10 players will take the win. Why? Because you're playing for a tournament win and money. It's not even shady, it's not even scummy. It's how it's done, it's how to win tournaments.
And remember that sometimes, those who choose their groups have the fortunes go against them. Remember FlaSh in PDPOP MSL? When he drafted sSak, Classic, and Miso? And got smashed 0-2? Does it make the group to get out of easier? Yes. But it doesn't mean he's automatically out already.
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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?
What are you even talking about? People are narcissists for stating their opinions on an internet forum - what?
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On March 30 2018 06:50 FlaShFTW wrote:
I don't think it is a flaw in the system. If your goal is to win a tournament, why wouldn't you take every advantage you get, no matter how small? I don't understand this concept that comes from people who don't actually play in tournaments. If you're playing at a professional or semi-professional tournament, you take the advantage, end of story. In magic the gathering, if your opponent makes a mistake and the head judge comes over and asks if you want your opponent to take a game loss for their rules violation, 9/10 players will take the win. Why? Because you're playing for a tournament win and money. It's not even shady, it's not even scummy. It's how it's done, it's how to win tournaments.
And remember that sometimes, those who choose their groups have the fortunes go against them. Remember FlaSh in PDPOP MSL? When he drafted sSak, Classic, and Miso? And got smashed 0-2? Does it make the group to get out of easier? Yes. But it doesn't mean he's automatically out already.
I think you're missing the point. The issue isn't that the players are taking advantage of the system. The issue is that it's an unfair system in the first place, for no reason at that, except for having a session of friendly banter, which can also be had without any unfair advantages.
Why should such an advantage be given to those who placed high in a previous tournament? The only reason I can think of is to reward them with more than the bare victory and price money itself. The reward is extended to being able to target specific players to try to get them eliminated and avoid having to face them. Does that not sound messed up to you at all? Especially considering these tournaments don't come around so often anymore, there's no proleague, etc.? It reduces certain players' winrates and thus takes away opportunities to shine, without them being able to divert their energy to other big tournaments/leagues for more chances to compete. In the past it wasn't such a big deal because of the accessibility of broadcasted games, but things are very different now.
I would honestly recommend just removing all post-tournament advantages until hopefully the progaming scene livens up again.
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On March 30 2018 06:50 FlaShFTW wrote:
I don't think it is a flaw in the system. If your goal is to win a tournament, why wouldn't you take every advantage you get, no matter how small? I don't understand this concept that comes from people who don't actually play in tournaments. If you're playing at a professional or semi-professional tournament, you take the advantage, end of story. In magic the gathering, if your opponent makes a mistake and the head judge comes over and asks if you want your opponent to take a game loss for their rules violation, 9/10 players will take the win. Why? Because you're playing for a tournament win and money. It's not even shady, it's not even scummy. It's how it's done, it's how to win tournaments.
And remember that sometimes, those who choose their groups have the fortunes go against them. Remember FlaSh in PDPOP MSL? When he drafted sSak, Classic, and Miso? And got smashed 0-2? Does it make the group to get out of easier? Yes. But it doesn't mean he's automatically out already.
sSak (30th), Classic (25th), and MisO (31st) had a mean seeding of 28.67th place, which means that Group A of Pdpop MSL had the easiest group for a defending champion in terms of the average MSL seeding of the opponents, as far as I'm aware of. The fact that Flash still failed to progress from the group doesn't really change the fact that circumstances were artificially crafted in such a way to maximize his chance of progressing.
It is not just the fixing of the brackets involving the defending champions themselves that concerns me, it is also the fact that the current system allows the defending champion to basically screw over any major non-seed threat by sending him to the toughest possible group.
It is something that most famously happened in ABCMart MSL, where Hydra was nearly successful in eliminating his most threatening non-seed opponent in Flash by sending him to the group of death. Had Bisu not gone full retard and sealed the game after Flash was forced to cancel his proxy barracks in the elimination match, that is basically an amazing opportunity for Hydra to win two MSL titles in a row because Flash wouldn't have been there to stop him in the semi-finals. Yes, it is what you do to maximize your chances, but in my opinion such options shouldn't be dealt with by the players in the first place. You don't give players the chance to rig the brackets in their favour. Just because the results aren't set in stone doesn't pardon the ridiculous things that can happen due to this current drafting system. It is not Hydra's fault that the drafting system allowed him to do retarded things to maximize his chances of success, but that doesn't justify why the flawed system was allowed to be there in the first place.
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Group C looks crazy. Group of death right there. Picking Larva and Shuttle to get through that one.
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On March 30 2018 13:47 NoS-Craig wrote:
Group C looks crazy. Group of death right there. Picking Larva and Shuttle to get through that one.
I don't think Shuttle has a chance to get out of that group now that Sparkle will be replaced by Third World for that round... He would have had a rough time against those 3 zergs anyways and his Ro24 looked quite shaky. But that map change sealed the deal imho.
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On March 30 2018 13:58 Miragee wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2018 13:47 NoS-Craig wrote:
Group C looks crazy. Group of death right there. Picking Larva and Shuttle to get through that one. I don't think Shuttle has a chance to get out of that group now that Sparkle will be replaced by Third World for that round... He would have had a rough time against those 3 zergs anyways and his Ro24 looked quite shaky. But that map change sealed the deal imho.
True that Shuttle didnt look very sharp against Sky, but the guy is in good form at the moment. He also has to practice only one match up.
Wont be a walk in the park, but hes definately not out of it yet.
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Why is sparkle being replaced?
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ALLEYCAT BLUES50584 Posts
On March 30 2018 21:29 gk_ender wrote:
Why is sparkle being replaced?
its not being replaced, just put aside till the Ro8.
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On March 30 2018 12:10 Letmelose wrote:
It is something that most famously happened in ABCMart MSL, where Hydra was nearly successful in eliminating his most threatening non-seed opponent in Flash by sending him to the group of death.
That was one ridiculous group of death for sure. Jaedong, Flash, Bisu and Sea.
Makes this group C look like a breeze.
I'm not sure I could say group C is group of death here actually, unless you argue purely from a protoss perspective...
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If I was Flash, i would scare Mini the most.
Guy is in serious shape, he (finally) look good in all the match ups, maps and groups are also perfect for him.
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On March 31 2018 20:22 TornadoSteve wrote:
If I was Flash, i would scare Mini the most.
Guy is in serious shape, he (finally) look good in all the match ups, maps and groups are also perfect for him.
And he got _wrecked_ by Larva in a recent spon-match.
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On April 01 2018 08:13 Miragee wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2018 20:22 TornadoSteve wrote:
If I was Flash, i would scare Mini the most.
Guy is in serious shape, he (finally) look good in all the match ups, maps and groups are also perfect for him.
And he got _wrecked_ by Larva in a recent spon-match.
Right now he is ranked 4th in the world based of spon matches. Only Snow, Soulkey and Flash is above him.
http://sponbbang.com/bj/?month=2017-09&race=전체&map_id=0&order=ELO
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EPT
