[TSL 9] Qualifiers - Page 3

On July 14 2022 02:12 Elentos wrote:
Getting to switch races between games is absolute bullshit. People veto maps based on matchups.

On July 14 2022 02:46 tigera6 wrote:
Wait, so Reynor started as Toss in the first match, lost, then switched back to Zerg to win the match. Then now hes switching back to Toss again? I am all for player creativity and freedom, but this is just a waste of time to be honest. There is absolutely no stake in all of this, and I am supised ESL has no rules about switching race mid-series like this.

On July 14 2022 06:34 yubo56 wrote:

Waste of time since the player basically can offrace with no stakes. It's a lose-lose for the other player: either they lose against somebody else's off race, or they win and have to deal with the switcher's main race anyway, which negates all their effort in the first game. There is no real stake in the first game against an off racer: even though the match up was close in the first game, the match itself is not.

I think that's the main sentiment. I think it also feels a bit disrespectful: "play against my offrace, and only if you do reasonably then I'll play you with my main" as if their opponents don't deserve to play against their main races. Fairest thing would probably be to declare race for the entire series, then do vetos. Then there are stakes to off racing in a match, rather than just being able to fall back on your main.

I think it's good entertainment to see off race from time to time, But it would be good if it came from a place of real "you can't beat my offrace" confidence, rather than a "I can always just play seriously starting next game" sentiment. It's like a sports team starting the match with half their players, then only putting in the other half if they're losing.

Edit: But my main gripe is with the rules; it's a little bit rude to play this way, but the onus is ultimately on organizers to have good rules that keep everybody's best interests in mind. I do hope we still see off race games from pros, especially good ones, but I just don't think it should be at the expense of underdogs, who are already in a tough spot.

On July 14 2022 08:23 angry_maia wrote:


I don't quite agree that there aren't stakes -- there's literal money on the line and these are professional players. If serral decided to just 12 pool every game because he wants to show off his micro, that's his prerogative, however "disrespectful" it may be. And sure, while beating him won't feel that impressive (because you just held a cheese nothing more), at the end of the day you win and he loses.

I think the most compelling arguments against race switching mid series are

1. maps are picked / vetoed based on a given matchup
2. this can lead to an unstable equilibrium -- if two race switchers just can't agree on which race they wanna play (i.e. for every possible match up at least one player wants to switch) then it's unclear how to actually decide who gets what race.

Besides that... I say let them knock themselves out. Reynor actually came close to not qualifying for TSL which seems a good enough "punishment" to me.

So yeah, while I dont mind the off-racing if it actually IMPROVE your chance of winning, we gotta set some limit so that everyone not gonna start off-racing between games and make it longer while the quality isnt as good.

On July 14 2022 14:06 serendipitous wrote:
Frankly I think the off racing is a lot of fun. The only reason I watched TSL qualis was to see Maru and Reynor offracing

On July 14 2022 12:53 angry_maia wrote:


I see so this is the core of your argument? Basically you think that if people keep offracing game quality will go down and that's just bad? Sorry just clarifying.

On July 14 2022 16:11 tigera6 wrote:

Yeah, I totally support off-racing if that give you a competitive advantage. Ultimately, if Reynor can play Protoss against Serral and Maru main-race, that would be amazing. But I dont like off-racing when players evidently cant provide as good quality games, only to walk back to their main race after being down 1-2 games in the series.
As for the rule, if off-racing is allowed between maps within a match, then players need to declare the race for each of the map they pick before the match begin.

On July 14 2022 14:58 buzz_bender wrote:


I don't think anyone is saying that the players cannot play off-race. It's just that picking an off-race *after* map vetoes is not strictly fair, and the fact that you get to pick a race after each map is also the other rule that people are not happy about. I assume that they would rather the players announce the race that they would play, and only allow that one race throughout the series.