MLG's unusual double elimination + extended series - Page 5

On October 17 2010 09:03 dcemuser wrote:


Right, it is a hypothetical countercase. If a player only had the mental fortitude/willpower remaining to win only 3 games after coming from the loser's bracket (although SeleCT didn't have the energy left to win 1, arguably, poor guy), but not enough to win 4, then playing a Bo7 with a 2-1 disadvantage could be favorable to a double Bo3 situation because you require less wins to advance (needing 4 in double Bo3s).

I know that is heavily oversimpilifying things and that a direct comparison can't be made because of other factors (e.g. losers bracket player may be more confident not coming into a game with a visible disadvantage), but I thought it was worth pointing out.

That one specific example aside, I think the rule is very poor, especially in the non-finals rounds. Tyler had a significant advantage over SeleCT even though they both lost, which doesn't seem very fair to me.

On October 17 2010 07:40 Pyrthas wrote:
Here are the three possible cases for the grand finals as I understand the rules (I could be misunderstanding them):

• WB player and LB player have not played earlier. Then WB player needs to win one bo3 and LB player has to win two bo3s (per rule 7). This is the standard double-elimination rule.
  
• WB player beat LB player 2-0 earlier in the tournament. Then WB player needs to win 2 games and LB player needs to win 4 games. (This makes it slightly harder for the LB player to win than in the first case, as has been explained before in this thread.)
  
• WB player beat LB player 2-1 earlier in the tournament. Then WB player needs to win 2 games and LB player needs to win 3 games. (This makes it much easier for the LB player to win than in the first case, for obvious reasons.)

Put another way: If the WB player beat the LB player 2-1 earlier in the tournament, the WB player has a significantly smaller advantage than he or she would have in a standard double-elimination tournament. (And if the WB player beat the LB player 2-0, he or she has a slightly larger advantage.)

On October 17 2010 09:09 Senx wrote:
An MLG SC2 event will never be won by anyone coming from LB.. its far too exhausting and too much of an uphill battle with these stupid rules.

Then you're gonna say.. "well they're obviously not good enough to win the event if they get knocked down to LB." Whos to say that? You don't know what happend in those games. Besides, why the fuck would you even have a LB if the player who gets out of WB has the finals to lose, not to win beacuse of the numerous advantages he gets coming into the grand final.

It creates an extremely uninteresting final like we saw today and at MLG Raleigh.

I hope they learn..

On October 17 2010 09:14 Belac wrote:


The Extended Series Rules played no part in the finals today. The only way they mattered was that Select had to play and extended series against Tyler, which he won.

On October 17 2010 09:19 Senx wrote:


exactly, which is why he (select) said he was too tired to play the finals after the exhausting LB play.

So yes it actually did play a big part in the finals.

On October 17 2010 09:11 Tachion wrote:
What do people think about IEM's group stages where the people with the best records move on, vs the MLG tournament with a losers bracket?
the KOTB tournament used IEM's group stages format, and in those, Tester beat Idra 2-0. Idra advanced anyway, and came back to beat Tester in the finals 3-2. Does this seem fair to people? Or would you rather have it in MLG's format, where if Idra had come back to the finals, Tester would have won with his advantage from a previous set?

I'm a bit undecided. I like it when the finals have more games to play, and it seems silly if Idra had knocked select out 2-0, and then he comes back out through the losers bracket to beat Idra 2-0 or something in a Bo3 finals. That does nothing to really prove who the better player is. So on one hand it's good if a previous record carries over, but then you end up with a finals with only 2 games? It's so anti-climatic. I'm not sure where the middle ground is.

On October 17 2010 09:09 Senx wrote:
An MLG SC2 event will never be won by anyone coming from LB.. its far too exhausting and too much of an uphill battle with these stupid rules.

Then you're gonna say.. "well they're obviously not good enough to win the event if they get knocked down to LB." Whos to say that? You don't know what happend in those games. Besides, why the fuck would you even have a LB if the player who gets out of WB has the finals to lose, not to win beacuse of the numerous advantages he gets coming into the grand final.

It creates an extremely uninteresting final like we saw today and at MLG Raleigh.

I hope they learn..

On October 17 2010 09:33 taLbuk wrote:
also do you understand the concept of logistics?

On October 17 2010 09:09 Senx wrote:
An MLG SC2 event will never be won by anyone coming from LB.. its far too exhausting and too much of an uphill battle with these stupid rules.

Then you're gonna say.. "well they're obviously not good enough to win the event if they get knocked down to LB." Whos to say that? You don't know what happend in those games. Besides, why the fuck would you even have a LB if the player who gets out of WB has the finals to lose, not to win beacuse of the numerous advantages he gets coming into the grand final.

It creates an extremely uninteresting final like we saw today and at MLG Raleigh.

I hope they learn..

On October 17 2010 09:54 xtfftc wrote:
I think that the system is fine but the grand final should be a simple bo5/bo7 - and that's it. Sure, one other player has beaten everyone he met and the one that comes from losers' bracket has lost to someone. However, the one from losers' bracket is, naturally, extremely exhausted, which is a punishment enough for losing a game.

On October 17 2010 09:56 RedHelix wrote:



I can't agree with this, if you look at huge tournaments like the GSL, nobody says "oh that player got knocked out by cheese, we should give him a second chance" if you got knocked to losers you lost one way or another, by definition you should be on the losers bracket, also these special rules make it so that every loss counts and you really need to treat every game as seriously as possible, on paper its a good system imo, the problem arises on starcraft being an incredibly taxing game since series have the potential to last hours and on that note I do agree with you.

Perhaps if the games were spaced out so the LB semi's and grand finals would be on sunday it would work out much better but of course nobody will want that and the community will ultimately complain again.

On October 17 2010 07:57 travis wrote:

i go 8-2 in a tournament losing to you in the first round (0-2)

you go 8-2, losing in the 2nd round (0-2)

we play each other in the losers bracket
we've both gone 8-2

hell, you lost to someone ive beaten a million times and im sure i would have beaten if i had played

but now we play each other and you are 2 games ahead

this is fair HOW? we've both done EQUALLY WELL in the tournament. and if i had played someone that just got eliminated from the winners bracket, who got farther than you did, who was 9-2 up to this point(having a better record than you), i would be on equal footing rather than 2 games behind


no, no it isn't fair. this isn't "a series of grudgematches". this is a tournament where the goal should be to reduce variance as much as possible and find the player that is most capable of winning the tournament.