Ambition - Behind the Scenes

On April 01 2008 01:31 Chill wrote:
The staff put a lot of thought into the format. I'll walk you through the thought process so hopefully you can agree with us that it will work out well.

Everyone agreed we want a lot of known names in the finals. They are consistent (that's why they are known) and will provide exciting games in the final rounds of the TSL. Our goal then became coming up with a format that rewarded consistency, while having a realistic time frame.

We also fought to make sure anyone can play. This is very important in the spirit of competition and legitimacy as a foreign league. Can you imagine the OSL being invite only? It cheapens competition by adding an arbitrary amount of invitations. In the end, we decided to search for a format that is open to everyone, but rewards consistent play. I think that's why the TSL is so exciting, it's not the same 16 players you see in every league. If some unknown players or underdogs scrape their way into the top 48, that's great! I'll be cheering for them.

In having a league that's open to everyone, there are only two formats to use: Tournament and ladder. Given that there's about 1000 people signed up in 24 hours for the ICC team, running a tournament would be a logistical nightmare. So we planned a ladder.

Here is why a ladder rewards the best players. Let's assume you are going to play infinite games with a 50% win percentage, which any number of unknown foreign players could do. Once you hit A-, you lose 130 points for every game you lose, while you gain 130 for playing on MotW. Weaker players with 50% win percentages will get stuck at this point. Even if they have a slightly higher win percentage, say 55%, they will be getting so few points that stronger players should be able to get passed them during the pivotal final week. This is also helped by the shorter time frame. If the ladder was 3 months, someone could grind to Olympic Rank 10 points at a time; however, with a 3 week time frame there just isn't enough time for weaker players to achieve a rank they don't deserve.

Next we needed to solve the problem of rewarding the #1 player, to prevent people getting to #32 and then stagnating. We played with the idea of seeding, but there wasn't enough reward to warrant grinding up the last 32 places. This is why the top 16 get a bye, it gives you a reason to continue climbing the ladder even once you've secured a qualifying position.

You'll notice everything is best of 3. LDT2 is double elimination. This stops one-build wonders and all-ins from being as effective. It rewards solid play. It allows strong players who have one weaker matchup to have a better chance of getting through.

And after all that, there will be 16 solid players in the TSL.