It's been said many times; it's a terrible rule and needs to go. It ruins the spectacle and doesn't make logically sense either.
Matchups, round importance, fatigue, number of games played in between - none of those important factors are taken into account.

You can take it to absurdity to drive home the point. Imagine in the world cup finals Spain and USA are in the same group.
USA beat Spain 3-0 but they both go through as 1st and 2nd.
Then they meet again in the grand final.... based on MLG logic you should start the world cup final with USA 3 goals up because of what happened in the group phase.

DigitalDevil

219 Posts

March 26 2012 00:32 GMT

#1142

Why not just keep it simple with double elimination? If a player loses a second best of 3, even if it is to a player that he previously had beaten, he still lost a second series, while his opponent has not lost a second series yet. It sounds pretty fair to me. How exactly does the extended series make it any more fair? Both players each lost a series before and it just so happened that one of them lost to the other. Regardless of who lost to whom, they both lost one series, so as far as results are concerned, they are equal in standing and should face off with equal circumstances.

I just don't see what the extended series offers to the player or to spectators. With double elimination, players that are ahead in a series want to win so they will play their best and not risk throwing games. Players that are behind in a series still have a chance to win so there is no reason to give up. Spectators can always expect a series to start off with no handicap for any particular player and that the winner of any series is ideally the player who played better THAT series, not because he played better in some PREVIOUS series.

SwansGoMoo

United States145 Posts

March 26 2012 00:37 GMT

#1143

Extended series is overkill. The winner of the previous series already has a massive psychological advantage going into the second. They don't need extra advantage.

Disengaged

United States6994 Posts

March 26 2012 00:37 GMT

#1144

Here are my thoughts.

http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=5658677

m0ck

4194 Posts

March 26 2012 00:38 GMT

#1145

The 'fairness' of the extended series is irrelevant in the context of a tournament structure that puts so much weight on finishing first in groups and which pits opponents who've met earlier in the tournament so quickly against each other. But really the question MLG should be asking themselves is: Is our perception of fairness more important than the excitement of the tournament?

RmoteCntrld

United States596 Posts

March 26 2012 00:38 GMT

#1146

Heres the problem i see with extended series:

Player A beats Player B

Player B drops to lower bracket

Player A loses to Player C

Player A drops to lower bracket

Player A faces Player B again

Player A gets an extra 2 games to survive in the tourny.

It completely undermines the theory of double elim if some players are theoretically getting a 3rd chance to advance.

honed

Canada482 Posts

March 26 2012 00:38 GMT

#1147

fuck this rule.

SnipedSoul

Canada2158 Posts

March 26 2012 00:38 GMT

#1148

Get rid of extended series. The person coming from the winner's bracket plays fewer games, that should be reward enough.

Maybe let the WB player choose the first map or something.

SnuggleZhenya

596 Posts

March 26 2012 00:41 GMT

#1149

On March 26 2012 09:38 RmoteCntrld wrote:
Heres the problem i see with extended series:

Player A beats Player B

Player B drops to lower bracket

Player A loses to Player C

Player A drops to lower bracket

Player A faces Player B again

Player A gets an extra 2 games to survive in the tourny.

It completely undermines the theory of double elim if some players are theoretically getting a 3rd chance to advance.

This is the real problem as far as I am concerned. Its not so much that it is unfair to the player who lost the first series but that it is to all the players who happen to be playing someone they haven't faced yet. And if it is the finals, and one player has therefore not lost a series yet by definition, then they can play a second Best of X. Simple!

supsun

United Kingdom343 Posts

March 26 2012 03:29 GMT

#1150

an extended series is fair to people who deserve to win on pure skill and is unfair to those who got to the finals based off LuK

OpticalPhonon

Canada72 Posts

March 26 2012 03:54 GMT

#1151

On March 26 2012 12:29 supsun wrote:
an extended series is fair to people who deserve to win on pure skill and is unfair to those who got to the finals based off LuK

Are you from an alternate reality where there is no extended series rule and HuK, getting very lucky because of that, got to the finals at Columbus?

Pros

219 Posts

March 26 2012 03:56 GMT

#1152

Extended series is so that players take every match seriously because if they meet up later in the tournament they dont want to be down 2-0 or 2-1 already... it prevents a naniwa probe rush situation

babysimba

10466 Posts

March 26 2012 04:02 GMT

#1153

It's not really an unfair advantage for the winner. Everyone knows the format and rules of the tourny beforehand. However, it is not really a good rule, for both the players and the spectators =/

KevinBacon

Portugal48 Posts

March 26 2012 04:26 GMT

#1154

On March 26 2012 12:56 Pros wrote:
Extended series is so that players take every match seriously because if they meet up later in the tournament they dont want to be down 2-0 or 2-1 already... it prevents a naniwa probe rush situation

I don't think you are aware of how the mlg group stage actually works.

mrafaeldie12

Brazil537 Posts

March 26 2012 04:29 GMT

#1155

I know they have HUGE time constraints, but come on, a Bo7 is much better than a half assed already 2-1 final, it takes so much from the experience to already know who is going to win based on Winner's bracket final .

gladsheim

Australia676 Posts

March 26 2012 04:32 GMT

#1156

people just want to see more games played, it is fair.

kamkerx

United States264 Posts

March 26 2012 04:35 GMT

#1157

fair is pretty objective but all i know is that it changes the stakes and makes things interesting

SnowSC2

United States678 Posts

March 26 2012 04:36 GMT

#1158

You should probably understand the format before claiming that its extended series that gives matches meaning early on..

Pros

219 Posts

March 26 2012 04:46 GMT

#1159

On March 26 2012 13:36 SnowSC2 wrote:

Show nested quote +

You should problem understand the format before claiming that its extended series that gives matches meaning early on..

On top of that... if a player is guarenteed last in his group and is playing some person and he can't possibly move up he still has good incentive to try his/her hardest to win

-orb-

United States5770 Posts

March 26 2012 05:25 GMT

#1160

The way I see it there are only a couple things really holding MLG back, and there are seemingly no reasons whatsoever for these things:

1: Extended series - a rule that should be removed because the vast majority of the community is against it, regardless of whether or not it is fair. The rule itself is not important at all. If almost your entire audience is petitioning and asking for something to be changed that costs no money to be changed, you have to be insane not to change it.
2: Map pool - unfortunately every single MLG to date has been quite far behind the curve with updating their map pool. This has been a consistent issue that they do not seem to care about improving upon. They require 3rd party map makers to submit thousands upon thousands of replays worth of statistics to prove a map is usable, yet implement truly horrendous Blizzard maps that literally have had no testing whatsoever. Almost every single other SC2 tournament in the world has a better map pool. Remember how long it took maps like steppes to be removed? Shattered temple? Now we still are dealing with Dual Sight and Metal? Where is Cloud Kingdom? Ohana? Metropolis?
3: Short series - Everything being bo3 all the way until the finals isn't ideal. We would see better games and more consistency/fairness with bo5s starting from the championship bracket, but I understand this issue is harder to objectively look at and fix because of time constraints running a tournament on a single weekend.

I really love MLG, so I hope it doesn't sound like I'm bashing them, but I want them to be the best tournament they can be. It's hard to support an organization that sees requests from the vast majority of the community and ignores them without any reasoning other than "it's the rule other games use."

Please MLG, evolve into the best foreign tournament! You have it in your ability!