Hello, everybody. It's that time again. Time to explain a brand new MLG format to the TL community.
As most of you know, MLG Providence is the MLG National Championship. The prize pool is $120,000, much larger than previous MLGs. MLG has decided to use a format for Providence that rewards continued attendance of MLG events.
Here's the gist of the format: there are two categories of players. There are 16 seeds who are placed directly into the Championship Bracket. And there is a 256-man Open Bracket for the general public. The Open Bracket is going to be a real slog; there will almost certainly be a huge amount of top talent flying to Rhode Island for this tournament.
Four players from the Open Bracket are placed into the Championship Winners' bracket. Twelve are placed into the Championship Losers' Bracket.
I think that's enough prologue before I present the first diagram.
click to enlarge
As you can see, the higher your seed, the more advantageous your position. The #1-#4 seeds are in a remarkably good position; if they win at least one Bo3, they make it into the top 8, and thus the prize money.
Well, how are seeds determined? Seeds are determined by MLG Circuit Rank Points. To quote the MLG rules:
Registered Players will be seeded for each Event using the following criteria in this order: Starcraft 2 Pro Status Rankings, Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Rank Points, and Starcraft 2 Online Qualifier Rank Points.
Starcraft 2 Pro Status is itself determined by pro circuit rank points, so the Pro Circuit Rank Points are the real key here. There is a list of players sorted by MLG rank points here.
For those who don't want to click the link, the top 16 players, and therefore the ones who will be receiving a seed in Providence, are the following.
Rain and Incontrol are tied in rank points, but Rain gets the spot. I'll explain why at the end of this post.
So a filled-in bracket for MLG Providence would look like this (EDIT: wren points out below that this is what the bracket would look like only if all 16 seeded players were attending):
click to enlarge
Note that Idra is probably not so happy that he got the #1 seed. Also, note that having a seed is very useful; the top 4 seeds only have to win 4 Bo3s, total, to win the whole thing. A player from the Open Bracket would have to play 13-19. This fits with the overall design philosophy of rewarding multiple MLG trips.
Anyway, that about covers it. If you have any questions I'll try to answer them in the post below.
Disclaimer: nothing in this thread is confirmed by MLG.
Incontrol is tied with Rain for the 16th spot in raking points. But Rain gets the seed. Why?
First, we need to look at how players are ranked.
Registered Players will be seeded for each Event using the following criteria in this order: Starcraft 2 Pro Status Rankings, Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Rank Points, and Starcraft 2 Online Qualifier Rank Points.
So players are ranked by Pro Status Rankings, primarily. What the heck are Pro Status Rankings?
The top 16 Players, determined by Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Rank Points immediately following each Pro Circuit Competition, starting after Columbus, will earn Pro Status. Ties will be broken by each Player’s Ranking in the most recent Event. If Event Rankings are used to break a tie, the best Event performance will win the tiebreaker.
So there you have it. Incontrol and Rain are tied for Pro Status, and the tiebreaker is who did better in the most recent event. Since Orlando is the most recent event, and Rain did better than Incontrol in Orlando, Rain gets the seed.
Important to remember that none of the players are confirmed that they're attending. 29 days before the tournament is the deadline for confirming attendance, so there's time for the specifics to change.
So if one of the Koreans does not attend, then what happens? Incontrol is seeded?
Edit: I ask because you said "only these players" get seeds, you meant the top 16 right? Or did you mean that only those named players are guaranteed seeds?
On October 17 2011 12:24 SimDawg wrote: So if one of the Koreans does not attend, then what happens? Incontrol is seeded?
Edit: I ask because you said "only these players" get seeds, you meant the top 16 right? Or did you mean that only those named players are guaranteed seeds?
wow the top half of the winners bracket is so stacked....all the best koreans are on the top half. Lots of top players gonna be eliminated from that part of the bracket.
On October 17 2011 12:24 SimDawg wrote: So if one of the Koreans does not attend, then what happens? Incontrol is seeded?
Edit: I ask because you said "only these players" get seeds, you meant the top 16 right? Or did you mean that only those named players are guaranteed seeds?
If there is a player who declines his invitation, he is removed and everyone below moves up a spot.
If the drop-out happens after the placement deadline, they use what's called a Replacement Player (see Tyler for Orlando). Next player on the rankings moves up to seed 16, but is placed in the drop-out's spot.
Not entirely relevant, do results at Providence affect how players start next season? Like, will placing first here or in points get you seeded in pool play next season even though points are supposedly reset?
On October 17 2011 12:37 ThaZenith wrote: Not entirely relevant, do results at Providence affect how players start next season? Like, will placing first here or in points get you seeded in pool play next season even though points are supposedly reset?
That's something MLG will decide before the start of next season.
Holy crap, the higher seeded players get an insane advantage. It makes sense to be rewarded for consistency by MLG but damn, that just a bit much almost. Also I'm glad Rain got the 16th seed, although I'd prefer MVP since he actually won an event
MVP only played in one event and is therefore not in the top 16 points wise.
My question, do we know the BoX format here? Is just like all the other MLG events where it's Bo3 all the way through, except for extended series? I would assume it's that way.
I'm a little disappointed in the loss of pool play. It creates interesting series of games between top players, when the games are important but there is no elimination threat.
So according to this format, the top 4 seeds basically don't even get to play until most likely late Saturday when the games from the Open bracket finish up and the champ/losers champ brackets are completed.
As a fan, the pool play "exhibitions" are a great source of entertainment and a highlight of MLG tournaments. For example we'd get to see for sure at least 5 Idra matches in pool play, whereas in this bracket we might be waiting around a day or so to see him drop two matches and be out of the tournament.
While understandably the format is different because it is championships, I feel like pool play shoulda stayed in the format.
Weird I remember MLG saying all champions would be invited for providence. No mvp seeded means he probably won't come which is ridiculous. Though maybe he still will for a chance at 50k but that's so many games to play compared to top 4.
On October 17 2011 12:13 Wren wrote: Important to remember that none of the players are confirmed that they're attending. 29 days before the tournament is the deadline for confirming attendance, so there's time for the specifics to change.
Very true, but.... very unlikely someone wouldn't show up. Unless a Code S run is occupying their time (not sure about dates for providence or Code S) or a health issue comes up I don't see a single person skipping out on this. Why come to all the $5k tournaments and skip the $50k tournament? Doesn't make sense.
Motbob I'm just curious: Order is determined by "Starcraft 2 Pro Status Rankings, Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Rank Points, and Starcraft 2 Online Qualifier Rank Points."
Does this mean that order is first determined by pro status rankings, then by pro circuit rank points, and then by online qualifier rank points?
Then pro status rankings is defined as "The top 16 Players, determined by Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Rank Points immediately following each Pro Circuit Competition" plus the tiebreaker rule for recent performance.
This is really confusing to me. They incorporate the pro circuit rank points into the definition of pro status rankings, yet say pro circuit rankings are how order is determined, with pro circuit rank points as the tiebreaker if pro status rankings are equal.
The way I understand it
1) Points determine seed, if there's a tie. 2) Recent performance controls, if there's a tie. 3) Online points control.
However, because of the way they define all the terms, I feel I'm missing a nuance and its really bothering me.
The #1 seed literally has the 3 worst players behind him. Bomber/MC/Rain is by far far far far more difficult than what any of the other top seeds have.
The higher seeded players are heavily rewarded but they start the tournament playing some really really tough opponents. Only one person can make it to the finals through the winner's bracket. I like it.
On October 17 2011 12:52 -_- wrote: Motbob I'm just curious: Order is determined by "Starcraft 2 Pro Status Rankings, Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Rank Points, and Starcraft 2 Online Qualifier Rank Points."
Does this mean that order is first determined by pro status rankings, then by pro circuit rank points, and then by online qualifier rank points?
Then pro status rankings is defined as "The top 16 Players, determined by Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Rank Points immediately following each Pro Circuit Competition" plus the tiebreaker rule for recent performance.
This is really confusing to me. They incorporate the pro circuit rank points into the definition of pro status rankings, yet say pro circuit rankings are how order is determined, with pro circuit rank points as the tiebreaker if pro status rankings.
The way I understand it
1) Points determine seed, if there's a tie. 2) Recent performance controls, if there's a tie. 3) Online points control.
However, because of the way they define all the terms, I feel I'm missing a nuance and its really bothering me.
mmm I think the idea is that the top 16 players have "pro status", but people below the top 16 also need to be ranked. For example, in the open bracket for Providence, people are ranked from 1-256. No one has pro status, since everyone with pro status is seeded, so the ranking passes down to Rank Points and Online Points if necessary.
On October 17 2011 12:52 DoomsVille wrote: Lolololol Poor IdrA.
The #1 seed literally has the 3 worst players behind him. Bomber/MC/Rain is by far far far far more difficult than what any of the other top seeds have.
Even so he only has to play the one who makes it through. So it could be...who knows, just as examples Bomber, where as other top 4 seeds will have DRG, Boxer, and Puma respectively. That's not as terrible a comparison.
So bad that they are still using the double elimination format + extended series for the main event The finals are always an anticlimax where it is almost impossible for the player coming from the loser brackets to win if they two players have faced each other earlier. Just look at the Huk vs MC finals at Orlando. :/
On October 17 2011 12:52 -_- wrote: Motbob I'm just curious: Order is determined by "Starcraft 2 Pro Status Rankings, Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Rank Points, and Starcraft 2 Online Qualifier Rank Points."
Does this mean that order is first determined by pro status rankings, then by pro circuit rank points, and then by online qualifier rank points?
Then pro status rankings is defined as "The top 16 Players, determined by Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Rank Points immediately following each Pro Circuit Competition" plus the tiebreaker rule for recent performance.
This is really confusing to me. They incorporate the pro circuit rank points into the definition of pro status rankings, yet say pro circuit rankings are how order is determined, with pro circuit rank points as the tiebreaker if pro status rankings.
The way I understand it
1) Points determine seed, if there's a tie. 2) Recent performance controls, if there's a tie. 3) Online points control.
However, because of the way they define all the terms, I feel I'm missing a nuance and its really bothering me.
mmm I think the idea is that the top 16 players have "pro status", but people below the top 16 also need to be ranked. For example, in the open bracket for Providence, people are ranked from 1-256. No one has pro status, since everyone with pro status is seeded, so the ranking passes down to Rank Points and Online Points if necessary.
So is it still pool play like do you have to play in the tourney for ur spot to be seeded within your pool or are you just stuck in the bracket from previous ranking? Also will this result in less over all games or will of the open bracket games be commentated?
It's about time Incontrol was taken out of the pool. It's a testament to the terrible-ness of the MLG system that he remained in for so long after winning literally no series. Can't wait for Providence.
On October 17 2011 12:57 DrainX wrote: So bad that they are still using the double elimination format + extended series for the main event The finals are always an anticlimax where it is almost impossible for the player coming from the loser brackets to win if they two players have faced each other earlier. Just look at the Huk vs MC finals at Orlando. :/
Staying away from whether i am for or against extended series etc; i really thought MLG would do something to fix the anticlimactic situation with all of their finals. Anything short of an astounding miracle, and the finals are relegated to boredom.
One Bo3 to cash in for the top 4 seeds - that is impressive; granted it won't be the easiest of games, but their schedule is a lot more forgiving.
On October 17 2011 12:52 DoomsVille wrote: Lolololol Poor IdrA.
The #1 seed literally has the 3 worst players behind him. Bomber/MC/Rain is by far far far far more difficult than what any of the other top seeds have.
Even so he only has to play the one who makes it through. So it could be...who knows, just as examples Bomber, where as other top 4 seeds will have DRG, Boxer, and Puma respectively. That's not as terrible a comparison.
Yeah, too bad the best one making it through is likely to destroy idra. I'd much rather have skipped this MLG like naniwa (I think he was the #1 seed prior to the event) and be #3 now and have the easy line if you can call it that. I feel like his line or huks has the "weakest" players. None of these players are weak obviously, but I'd rather play Select or Kiwikaki before DRG or Bomber any day if I was hoping to win fifty grand.
Plus if Idra loses then he'll likely be playing one of those powerhouses in the losers bracket unless they shift them around in the lower bracket.
On October 17 2011 12:59 CajunMan wrote: So is it still pool play like do you have to play in the tourney for ur spot to be seeded within your pool or are you just stuck in the bracket from previous ranking? Also will this result in less over all games or will of the open bracket games be commentated?
On October 17 2011 12:59 CajunMan wrote: So is it still pool play like do you have to play in the tourney for ur spot to be seeded within your pool or are you just stuck in the bracket from previous ranking? Also will this result in less over all games or will of the open bracket games be commentated?
The open bracket has to finish (top 4 get into the upper bracket) before the upper bracket can be started so I'd assume they'll be commentating games from the open bracket. If they aren't they probably can't broadcast anything on the first day unless they do some showmatchs to replace the pool play which won't be at this MLG.
On October 17 2011 12:59 CajunMan wrote: So is it still pool play like do you have to play in the tourney for ur spot to be seeded within your pool or are you just stuck in the bracket from previous ranking? Also will this result in less over all games or will of the open bracket games be commentated?
MVP only played in one event and is therefore not in the top 16 points wise.
My question, do we know the BoX format here? Is just like all the other MLG events where it's Bo3 all the way through, except for extended series? I would assume it's that way.
Wait, so winning one event isn't worth more points than someone that went 0-6'd in like 6 events consecutively? My mind just imploded!
I want to point out a rather obvious weakness in this format, compared to previous MLGs, in terms of viewership:
Less group play means less games to watch from top players.
Imagine if you were an IdrA fan, for example, and you wanted to watch IdrA play. Providence's format ensures that you won't see him play until probably the second or third day of the event - after the rest of the player base has been slogging it out for days.
Moreover, you might only see two, or even one, Bo3 from your favorite player. The LB match might not even be cast, but even if it is, it's a minimum of two Bo3s compared to the half a dozen Bo3s you'll get from a normal MLG.
It also ensures that we'll have to watch nearly the entire OB before the championship bracket even starts. This means a possibility of bad games (as you can't guarantee the quality of the OB) all the way through the mid-tournament, until we reach the last few rounds of the OB. It also means a minimal number of games from the players in the championship bracket - who are probably the players the audience want to watch the most.
Thus, while I feel that this format is great for the seeded players (though not necessarily for the #1 seed, if it is really going to be that stacked at the top half of the bracket), I do not envision it being as good for the viewers, and am interested in how MLG is going to handle viewership for Providence.
MVP only played in one event and is therefore not in the top 16 points wise.
My question, do we know the BoX format here? Is just like all the other MLG events where it's Bo3 all the way through, except for extended series? I would assume it's that way.
Wait, so winning one event isn't worth more points than someone that went 0-6'd in like 6 events consecutively? My mind just imploded!
Someone in pools who were to go 0-6 at all 5 events this year would get 300 points. The winner of an event gets 1200 points. So, no.
I love the advantage given to the higher seeded players. Given the prize pool structure, and how MLG puts all their eggs into the providence basket, its only makes perfect sense to me to reward the fuck out of those who continually put up results over the season.
On October 17 2011 12:21 CEPEHDREI wrote: so everything is still bo3? come on MLG y u no learning?
the bomber/mc/idra bracket gonna be fun.
Do people still not get this?
In a double elim tournament (which MLG is pretty much the only one) it would be unfair for the grand finals to have more games to win a set then the rest of the tournament for the person coming from the losers bracket.
If it's extended, how can you extended a previous bo3 into bo5/bo7? You can't.
If they haven't met up, the winner bracket champion only has to win one bo5/bo7, only 1-2 extra games. The loser bracket champion would have to win TWO sets of these. That's a huge amount of games they have to win, plus there are obvious time constraints.
MVP only played in one event and is therefore not in the top 16 points wise.
My question, do we know the BoX format here? Is just like all the other MLG events where it's Bo3 all the way through, except for extended series? I would assume it's that way.
Wait, so winning one event isn't worth more points than someone that went 0-6'd in like 6 events consecutively? My mind just imploded!
It's primarily his 4th place finish in Dallas that has held him in pool play.
MVP only played in one event and is therefore not in the top 16 points wise.
My question, do we know the BoX format here? Is just like all the other MLG events where it's Bo3 all the way through, except for extended series? I would assume it's that way.
Wait, so winning one event isn't worth more points than someone that went 0-6'd in like 6 events consecutively? My mind just imploded!
Remember Incontrol did get 4th in the very first event (dallas). So that's why he is so high. 4th place = 800 points, 1st place = 1200 points. Incontrol only has 1270 points because he got 4x really bad places for another 470 points.
On October 17 2011 13:12 Denizen[9] wrote: Why isnt mvp in top 16
Cause he only won 1 event and while some of the others didn't win 1, they attended more often and placed relatively well more consistently. Remember it works this way because MLG wants to encourage repeat performance, not just one great one.
On October 17 2011 13:05 Datum wrote: Wait... so IdrA will most likely have to play MC again? Holy shit, what awful luck for him (even though everyone else seems to be able to crush MC)
I don't think this is likely at all to be honest. I think Bomber can beat MC no problem, and you have to assume whoever comes out of the open bracket will be a major threat as well and could easily get to Idra too.
I'd predict seeing Idra/Bomber before Idra/MC. Either way, I don't like making the comment, "bet Idra didn't want the #1 seed now.." It is random who you end up with, so you always want to be the #1 seed if possible sometimes luck doesn't always work out but still. Plus if he beats MC, the theory is his next round should be an easier game than if he was the #2 seed. Either way, a tournament like this when you are down to the final 8 or so players they are all hard games.
I like the way this tournament format looks. Some massive talent in the top 16. The open bracket will probably once again become even stronger considering the nice up in the prize pool. Very excited for this to begin.
Oh man MVP must be pissed right now. I'm sure the only reason he went to that sole MLG and won it is so he could qualify for Providence as a top seed, otherwise the 5k$ prizepool is laughable for a player of his stature. Now he doesn't even get top 16 due to poor point system (imo).
I don't like this format very much. It is good that repeated good performances in MLGs are rewarded, but it also makes it nearly impossible for anyone else to win.
On October 17 2011 13:22 King.Crimson wrote: Oh man MVP must be pissed right now. I'm sure the only reason he went to that sole MLG and won it is so he could qualify for Providence as a top seed, otherwise the 5k$ prizepool is laughable for a player of his stature. Now he doesn't even get top 16 due to poor point system (imo).
I doubt thats the only reason he went.
I think it has much more to do with the fact that his entire trip was paid for and he wasn't in the GSL anymore. Why the hell wouldn't he go, see some of his fans and maybe win some money?
On October 17 2011 13:23 Torte de Lini wrote: Don't the players in Pool Play still maintain an advantage in ranking because they skip open bracket from the previous MLGs?
Liquipedia seriously has the answer to almost every question related to MLG Providence you could possibly have.
On October 17 2011 13:22 King.Crimson wrote: Oh man MVP must be pissed right now. I'm sure the only reason he went to that sole MLG and won it is so he could qualify for Providence as a top seed, otherwise the 5k$ prizepool is laughable for a player of his stature. Now he doesn't even get top 16 due to poor point system (imo).
I doubt this. He was invited, his expenses were payed for by MLG, he got to attend a tournament in another country for free and won the top prize. Just because he's won a lot of money doesn't mean attending a $5k top prize tourney for free is laughable. Not to mention exposure for himself and his team. I'm also sure he could figure out pretty easily he couldn't get seeded into the finals only attending once. ALSO he got first place which means MLG invited him back for a second one and he declined so he had the chance to return for free which would have basically guaranteed him a spot in the finals top-16 so I doubt he's "pissed right now"
On October 17 2011 13:12 Denizen[9] wrote: Why isnt mvp in top 16
Cause he only won 1 event and while some of the others didn't win 1, they attended more often and placed relatively well more consistently. Remember it works this way because MLG wants to encourage repeat performance, not just one great one.
This fits with the usual MO of MLG events: a really goddamn confusing bracket. Can't we just have like a normal top 32 elimination bracket or something like the GSL that makes sense to me?
And this deal with the points seems to say that it's more important to MLG to make sure that people who show up all the time play in the later rounds instead of people who perform really well. Especially since the level of talent in the whole top 16 and the players we would expect to play in the open bracket will both be very high, so I don't see a need to make some people in the open bracket play 10 extra matches to have a chance of winning the tournament.
It's a kooky bracket to round off a kooky year for MLG. I have loved/hated their open -> pool play system this season and think from an entertainment point of view the main season bracket totally works even though the seeding was too static.
There's not going to be a lot to see of the top ranked players because this bracket is substituting out pool play, that exists to keep the main stage content high from day one, for direct seeding. Seeds 1-4 won't even make an appearance on stream until Sunday. That's going to make for a different experience both at home and at the venue this time around. I hope it's not going to lead to a total anti climax of an event - as most MLG Grand Finals have been so far.
I will be very surprised if one of the top four seeds doesn't take top prize. IdrA, HuK, Naniwa or MMA have only to win four (or five) Bo3s to take $50,000 - let that sink in.
bittersweet for mvp not being able to get top 16. he would've been guaranteed top 16 if he just came once more, but he couldn't because he was too busy being the best player in the world and completely owning gsl.
The question I have is that it seems that Providence will also be awarding points to players. Is that true or did I hallucinate? Was it just true in last years? If it is true, will the $50k prize be awarded to whoever has the most MLG Points from the season? Or, are they just planning on using the points for seeding next year (or thinking about it)?
On October 17 2011 13:23 Torte de Lini wrote: Don't the players in Pool Play still maintain an advantage in ranking because they skip open bracket from the previous MLGs?
Well, being in the pool guarantees a finish of at least 24th. That, plus the exponential point distribution means that it's difficult to fall out of the pools.
So since ranked players are seeded, I guess this means the first day of Providence would be streaming the 256 open bracket players. Any idea on which matches they are going to stream or at least how they are going to prioritize which match to stream?
On October 17 2011 13:23 Torte de Lini wrote: Don't the players in Pool Play still maintain an advantage in ranking because they skip open bracket from the previous MLGs?
Well, being in the pool guarantees a finish of at least 24th. That, plus the exponential point distribution means that it's difficult to fall out of the pools.
Question: What is the format for the Open Bracket Tournament?
As of now, you have the top 8 from the Open Bracket get seeded into the different Loser Champ bracket slots, and then the bottom 8 from the Open Bracket playing each other... but if the Open Bracket Tournament is played until you get top 4, won't the bottom 8 already be playing each other? So does this mean that the Open Bracket Tournament is basically the same set-up and blood bath as other MLG tournaments?
On October 17 2011 13:53 asaed wrote: Question: What is the format for the Open Bracket Tournament?
As of now, you have the top 8 from the Open Bracket get seeded into the different Loser Champ bracket slots, and then the bottom 8 from the Open Bracket playing each other... but if the Open Bracket Tournament is played until you get top 4, won't the bottom 8 already be playing each other? So does this mean that the Open Bracket Tournament is basically the same set-up and blood bath as other MLG tournaments?
Yeah, it's just a double-elimination bloodbath. Fun times.
It will be very difficult for anybody to make it through the open brackets - but I suppose this tournament is designed to reward those who have performed well in previous tournaments. To be perfectly honest though, I would rather prefer more evenly distributed prize pools at tournaments rather than a series of smaller tournaments and then one mega-large one.
I think this format is a little too favorable towards the higher seeds. Basically, for an open bracket player to win the tournament, they have to win 5x the amount of games that the number 1 seeds have to win. I just seems unfair to me, especially since many of the seeded players are definetly weaker than some of the open bracket players who will be attending. I can't understand at all why Idra would be unhappy about the number 1 seed. Perhaps he wants to be automatically in the finals??
Top 16 for #MLG Providence: Naniwa HuK Idra MMA KiwiKaki Slush Ret Bomber Sjow Select DRG MC Haypro Boxer Rain Puma.
I really hope they all go. Incontrol would be the next and frankly he just doesn't deserve to be up there with the rest of these players and be guaranteed such a spot.
This format is even more ridiculously stacked than the other ones. I don't mind giving advantage to top ranking players, but this is crazy. Meh, it will hopefully make more sense next year.
MVP only played in one event and is therefore not in the top 16 points wise.
My question, do we know the BoX format here? Is just like all the other MLG events where it's Bo3 all the way through, except for extended series? I would assume it's that way.
Wait, so winning one event isn't worth more points than someone that went 0-6'd in like 6 events consecutively? My mind just imploded!
Someone in pools who were to go 0-6 at all 5 events this year would get 300 points. The winner of an event gets 1200 points. So, no.
That is pretty ridicuoulus. Basically, if your one of original people in pool play, and you show up to every event, no matter how badly you do, you are guarenteed to keep your spot... -_-
Excellent, thank you for putting all the info together. MLG's double elimination bracket system can be really hard to understand, but I find that I really like it. It's fair and makes for interesting match-ups.
On October 17 2011 12:11 motbob wrote: Note that Idra is probably not so happy that he got the #1 seed..
This confused me for a second until I saw MC and MMA right behind Idra. But Idra would have to face them at some point, and to be fair Idra will be fresh while doing so I think his seed has gotta look pretty good to him.
Does anyone have the info on what prize placements coincide with which positions on the bracket? I.E. is finishing in the L.B final second place or third? Is winner's bracket finals 3rd or 5th, etc?
It paid off to be Slush to attend every mlg event and do well. It make sense, since it's (League) and not a tournament. It should reward and count for all past event from this years.
i like the format. it's different and it sure has its merits. There are many people probably better than code A/S but are not in the respective tourneys. But by virtue of getting there in the first place means you do have some skills. I like points/league as it rewards consistency (even if it means consistent attendance -> respectable placing -> good shit).
it makes sense that top seeds are rewarded but this is way too much reward for showing up and gaining points. and oh so confusing. hopefully things will change next year as promised
Not only is the top half of the bracket stacked, but the #1 seed from the Open Tournament is seeded into the top half, as well. If IMMVP attends, that could very plausibly be him. Looks like a bad situation for Idra. Naniwa looks like he got the easiest bracket of the top 4 seeds.
But I also think Boxer will have a good chance to beat Select, Slush and Naniwa, and perhaps make the improbable run into the semifinals. But it depends on who gets the #3 seed from the Open.
There is such a small chance that MVP would actually come anyways. Around MLG Providence he will be heavy into GSL focus mode. That should be roughly when the RO8 starts. So yea... he'll be busy with that since we all know no ones going to eliminate him lol
I'm surprised none of the people who are saying iNcontrol doesn't deserve that 16th seed aren't getting temp banned.
Anyways...good format. Reward those who actually attend and place well. Top 4 definitely have less games to play, but their opponents are going to be some of the toughest ones. Also, MVP not being in top16 after winning ONE competition is a little ridiculous but I guess that's the system. Hopefully MLG fixes it for next year. Good competition, can't wait for Providence.
edit: I see that they are still going to invite people from GSL. Can MLG invite MVP again? or is it a one time thing? Hopefully NesTea gets invited. Clide would be huge too.
I think MVP would have attended if he was seeded because 50k first is more than about 42k first of gsl this time. He wouldn't come for 5k, but 50k? Have to be nuts not to attend for that kind of money.
On October 17 2011 14:29 DoomsVille wrote: Why is everyone stuck on MVP?
There is such a small chance that MVP would actually come anyways. Around MLG Providence he will be heavy into GSL focus mode. That should be roughly when the RO8 starts. So yea... he'll be busy with that since we all know no ones going to eliminate him lol
You do know that MLG Providence has a larger prize pool than the GSL, plus it is probably easier to win, right?
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
well the top players earned it throughout the season. Its the national championship for the whole season, so why should the season not matter that much? I think its just about right
On October 17 2011 14:15 yawnoC wrote: So if iNcontrol would have finished 26th instead of 27th he would have made it into the Championship Bracket. That is crazy.
Polt saved a 100 page ragefest. He truly is the hero we need. Also this format means for the first few days we'll see new faces on the main stage instead of Idra and Huk twelve times.
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
That is the point. The circuit events were meant to put on a great show for the fans all year long and the championship is designed to reward those players who performed best throughout the whole circuit. It is not an isolated event like a Dreamhack.
For people concerned that we won't see big names until the very end: consider that MLG Orlando is probably the most stacked event outside of Code S and that's just because people were trying to get points to better place themselves for this event. Providence itself is likely going to be stacked with world class talent from start to finish.
MVP only played in one event and is therefore not in the top 16 points wise.
My question, do we know the BoX format here? Is just like all the other MLG events where it's Bo3 all the way through, except for extended series? I would assume it's that way.
Wait, so winning one event isn't worth more points than someone that went 0-6'd in like 6 events consecutively? My mind just imploded!
Someone in pools who were to go 0-6 at all 5 events this year would get 300 points. The winner of an event gets 1200 points. So, no.
That is pretty ridicuoulus. Basically, if your one of original people in pool play, and you show up to every event, no matter how badly you do, you are guarenteed to keep your spot... -_-
Umm no. If you do as horrible every event you won't be top 16 at the end. Hell if you go 0-6 in the first event you will fall out of pool play.
The reason incontrol is still in pool play is his 4th place at dallas. If he finished 20+ at dallas like the rest of his results, he wouldn't be close to pool play.
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
That is the point. The circuit events were meant to put on a great show for the fans all year long and the championship is designed to reward those players who performed best throughout the whole circuit. It is not an isolated event like a Dreamhack.
If the same 16 people got into top 16 at all 5 events and it was a certain distribution, it would actually be possible for someone to win 2 events (and not attend the other 3) and still not get into top 16 for the 6th event.
Top 16 get a total of 9360 points. If that was given to the same 16 players for 5 events, they would have a total of 46800 points (total in top 68 is 54578 right now). Since someone else won 2 events, they'd lose 2400 points, but they'd get the 420 points from two 17th place finishes, meaning they'd be at 2801.25 points average, well above the guy that came in and won 2 events but didn't come for the rest.
On October 17 2011 14:46 tuho12345 wrote: If MVP and Nestea wanna make some cash, then just go to the open bracket. EZPZ for them anyway.
Which ever isn't still in contention for the GSL November, expect them to be there, I'd think, lol. (Though I think MVP will be paid to come back out by MLG. Nestea would have to come on his own.)
On October 17 2011 14:46 tuho12345 wrote: If MVP and Nestea wanna make some cash, then just go to the open bracket. EZPZ for them anyway.
The issue is that you have to have serious endurance to do that. Playing through so many sets against good players will definitely be a bit tiring for either of those players and might throw off their performance. We've only ever really seen Nestea play in sets of 2-5 games with significant preparation in between.
On October 17 2011 14:46 DarkRise wrote: wtf so Seed 1 has the most difficult bracket lol Seed 3 has it easy lol
It appears to be that way, but there was no intentional theorycrafting of how it could have been avoided. It just naturally will be hardest for 1 of the 4, and it's unfortunate that #1 (we can even call it Group A), has it hardest, and it's even more unfortunate that that person is infact IdrA, who we all know struggles the most against MC.
On October 17 2011 14:46 DarkRise wrote: wtf so Seed 1 has the most difficult bracket lol Seed 3 has it easy lol
Maybe, but they only have to play whoever comes out of it. Since the seeding for Koreans that haven't been there is random, we could end up with someone like FXOLucky on an insane run, he could be in any of the brackets.
Or like Polt.
While Idra doesn't have the bracket some others do, DRG is probably the scariest one that'll be seeded #5 and below, at least by this month's skill level.
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
makes attending MLG regular season events and earning more points much more important.
And encourages the highest level play through every single event, since doing your best every single time, even if you can't win it, will matter later.
I like the format overall. (obviously some things can be fixed, like only Bo3's, wtf...) Next year I expect fewer complaints, with bigger prize pools more koreans will come = higher level play = less slackers in pool = even more epic play.
On October 17 2011 14:46 DarkRise wrote: wtf so Seed 1 has the most difficult bracket lol Seed 3 has it easy lol
The seeding seems to have been done correctly, so it should be correct.
yeh but its so eff up lol I don't like the point system coz most Koreans didn't attend all MLG so the points were skewed.
Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's not right.
Sure, it would be fun to see Huk vs Idra, Boxer vs Idra, Zenio vs Idra, MC vs Idra and several other rivalries in every single tournament all the time, but that's not how the tournament works.
On October 17 2011 15:01 Lobo2me wrote: Sure, it would be fun to see Huk vs Idra, Boxer vs Idra, Zenio vs Idra, MC vs Idra and several other rivalries in every single tournament all the time, but that's not how the tournament works.
IdrA does have a lot of rivalries, doesn't he? >.>
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
makes attending MLG regular season events and earning more points much more important.
Yeah but the MLG format's still messed up. The true MLG tournie is pool play to take the top spot within that pool, followed by a Ro4 tournie. The Loser's Bracket and Championship bracket outside of the top seeds, all of it's a waste of time. The MLG format's meant to exhaust anyone who misses a single step in the open tourney and pool play whilst providing insane advantages to the top seeds.
You can argue that taking 1st in pool play's balanced, which it arguably is. But let's eliminate the pretense that anyone has a fucking chance outside of the top 4 from the Pools cause no one does.
MMA vs Huk or if MC beats idra, then MC vs Huk or MMA vs MC or something like that, most likely
yeah im confused why MVP is not on there? MMA was only in like 2 MLGs right and won 1 only and got 2nd i guess MLG really wants to reward consistent showing over result o.o
Edit: Oops I forgot about bomber and DRG and possibly someone insane from the open bracket
Meh, glad to see incontrol isn't on there though.
GL HF! hopefully the most epic MLG yet? (lol let's see it be MVP vs MMA or MVP vs DRG or MMA vs DRG grand finals, MVP coming from open bracket xD)
Damn, so brutal. I would think top 16 would get paid at the very least.
I think that would be a bit unfair since this is a "bonus" after all, they shouldn't get free money just because they were top 16. If you know what i mean? But win one and they get 3000, shit thats so much.
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
makes attending MLG regular season events and earning more points much more important.
Yeah but the MLG format's still messed up. The true MLG tournie is pool play to take the top spot within that pool, followed by a Ro4 tournie. The Loser's Bracket and Championship bracket outside of the top seeds, all of it's a waste of time. The MLG format's meant to exhaust anyone who misses a single step in the open tourney and pool play whilst providing insane advantages to the top seeds.
You can argue that taking 1st in pool play's balanced, which it arguably is. But let's eliminate the pretense that anyone has a fucking chance outside of the top 4 from the Pools cause no one does.
Has the winner of each pool group gone on to win every MLG?
On October 17 2011 15:56 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: MMA vs Huk or if MC beats idra, then MC vs Huk or MMA vs MC or something like that, most likely
yeah im confused why MVP is not on there? MMA was only in like 2 MLGs right and won 1 only and got 2nd i guess MLG really wants to reward consistent showing over result o.o
Edit: Oops I forgot about bomber and DRG and possibly someone insane from the open bracket
Meh, glad to see incontrol isn't on there though.
GL HF! hopefully the most epic MLG yet? (lol let's see it be MVP vs MMA or MVP vs DRG or MMA vs DRG grand finals, MVP coming from open bracket xD)
Damn, so brutal. I would think top 16 would get paid at the very least.
I think that would be a bit unfair since this is a "bonus" after all, they shouldn't get free money just because they were top 16. If you know what i mean? But win one and they get 3000, shit thats so much.
Someday i will find out what kind of drugs they took when designing/deciding on MLG's tournament and pointsystem (and to invite Koreans whiteout also changing the point system)..
And from that day on my eyes shall shine and glidder and sparkly flowers shall follow me around wherever I go (or something like that) .
Everyone talking about how stacked the top16 currently is... but imagine how stacked the open bracket will be just cause of the prize pool, never mind the fact its MLG...
On October 17 2011 16:06 Velr wrote: Someday i will find out what kind of drugs they took when designing/deciding on MLG's tournament and pointsystem (and to invite Koreans whiteout also changing the point system)..
And from that day on my eyes shall shine and glidder and sparkly flowers shall follow me around wherever I go (or something like that) .
I can't wait to find out what kind of drugs you're on.
So the top 4 players only need to win 4 series in a row to win the entire tourney? I knew it would help to have done well in previous tournaments, but that is a pretty sick advantage, especially considering some open bracket players would probably have to win nearly 20 in a row for the same title.
I mean, this bracketing just seems like the regular MLGs, except with pool play removed. So instead of pitting the top16 seeded against eachother for spots further in the bracket, they are just automatically decided by previous performance.
This seems kind of a recurring problem with all of MLG's bracketing practices, extremely bottom heavy overall. By that I mean, the worse you are playing, the more games you have to play to prove yourself. I can understand the concept behind it, but has just seemed excessively light on the top tier players with the extended series advantages, the previous MLG's constant 2-game-long grand finals, and now a plausible 4 series MLG championship.
edit: Why is it that when MLG wants series and events to be more epic/important, they start taking games away and handing out advantages? This seems so counter-intuitive to me, lol. I mean, I'd still prefer this to GSL's system (we can see what that lead to), but I feel like there has to be a better way of doing things.
Havent been a fan of the previous advantages pool play give people (and even more so how hard it is to drop out of pool status), but this is gonna be even worse. If I was some high level EU/NA player not on the top16 list I could definitely see myself not going. There really no chance at all for anyone except possibly a VERY high level Korean (I could think of maybe 2-4 people or so) to have a solid chance to place in a top spot from the open bracket.
MLG keeps going on about how previous high placings should give an advantage and how they want the same players to return over and over again, thats just hurting them in my opinion. Isnt it more exciting to see new and fresh players be able to go on amazing win streaks and place high even though its their first MLG? Isnt it more exciting to see the best players compete for the highest spots, rather than the ones who has attended most stops that year. GSL, DreamHack, IEM, nobody else does anything which even resembles this kind of advantage.
Ugh. So now we have another king-of-the-hill style bracket for the championship winners bracket as well as the champ losers bracket. Sure its the easiest bracket to make but I really don't like how it works.
Your link states that they have their travel expenses covered, not that they are seeded in the top 16. There is no pool play and thus no "invite spot". These four either are seeded like is explained in the OP or can play through the open bracket.
On October 17 2011 15:56 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: MMA vs Huk or if MC beats idra, then MC vs Huk or MMA vs MC or something like that, most likely
yeah im confused why MVP is not on there? MMA was only in like 2 MLGs right and won 1 only and got 2nd i guess MLG really wants to reward consistent showing over result o.o
Edit: Oops I forgot about bomber and DRG and possibly someone insane from the open bracket
Meh, glad to see incontrol isn't on there though.
GL HF! hopefully the most epic MLG yet? (lol let's see it be MVP vs MMA or MVP vs DRG or MMA vs DRG grand finals, MVP coming from open bracket xD)
On October 17 2011 15:48 AdreN- wrote:
On October 17 2011 13:22 Ansalem wrote:
On October 17 2011 13:21 jjhchsc2 wrote: whats the prize distribution?
Damn, so brutal. I would think top 16 would get paid at the very least.
I think that would be a bit unfair since this is a "bonus" after all, they shouldn't get free money just because they were top 16. If you know what i mean? But win one and they get 3000, shit thats so much.
D; looks like Nestea won't be coming to this one yet again. Arrrghhh
I doubt MVP is going to want to play a shit ton of games either only to then face the likes of MC, MMA, huk, idra, Bomber, puma etc at the end of the road. Although there is quite a lot of money for first, and sure to be a huge audience so maybe it will attract him.
On October 17 2011 12:47 oneofthem wrote: the spread for 1 2 3 is 200 points. give 1 an extra 300 points or so will get mvp his seed and everyone can be happy
except rain who would be kicked out of it. Rules are rules dude -_- You can't bend them to please the crowd
2. Top seeds don't get rewarded with an easier side of the bracket, since not everyone(koreans in particular) attends all MLG events to reflect their capabilities. The best player in the world can attend twice and be up against the no. 1 MLG seed.
So what do the most dedicated MLG players get? They get to sit on their ass and wait for their series against a GSL legend. And if they lose that match, they're one series away from elimination.
How does the Blizzcon winner fit into all of this? Will he get one of the OWB spots?
We are also incredibly happy to announce that MLG will be inviting the Blizzcon 2011 Champion to compete in the National Championship at MLG Providence, and we will be covering all of their expenses.
On October 17 2011 16:50 ReketSomething wrote: WTF. They made this even more favored towards seeded players. Why is mlg so evil to freshies...
No shit this is the Championship. If the players who gained all those points during the regular events didn't gain an advantage it would be messed up, and would make those regular events meaningless.
Would be tough on Mvp and his severe wrist problems to have to play 13-19 intense games or whatever, in a very short time. I hope he competes anyway!
I've just loved MLG and it's tournament format. It's not perfect I know, nor fair to players who can't make every tournament. but as a viewer it's really exciting for me to see who's going to make heroic runs from the open bracket etc. Providence should be absolutely amazing, would love to be there!
Damn this tourney is gonna be stacked! From that bracket (if they all show) and everyone in that Open Bracket.
I'm guessing that if any 1 of these people don't show then incontrol gets in? But I don't know why any of those top 16 wouldn't show.. Maybe a Korean might not if they have some Code S/A stuff is going on that they MUST attend.
On October 17 2011 16:50 ReketSomething wrote: WTF. They made this even more favored towards seeded players. Why is mlg so evil to freshies...
Remember the NASL where basically every match in the entire tournament before the finals was meaningless and the grandfinals were the real deal? MLG is preventing that, and this is good. Puma winning the NASL was, as exciting as the series vs MC was, a joke. Top seeded players having a big adventage is perfectly reasonable.
On October 17 2011 16:50 ReketSomething wrote: WTF. They made this even more favored towards seeded players. Why is mlg so evil to freshies...
Remember the NASL where basically every match in the entire tournament before the finals was meaningless and the grandfinals were the real deal? MLG is preventing that, and this is good. Puma winning the NASL was, as exciting as the series vs MC was, a joke. Top seeded players having a big adventage is perfectly reasonable.
puma had to go through more players and he had to win them all. MC actually dropped sets in pool play, and it's obvious that Puma had the harder road to the grand finals. How is every match before meaningless? If you don't place top 16 in in the pools you don't get to go to the grand finals period. The order in which you place didn't really matter, that's all, but the difference between being first place and 16th and being forced to win 4 more series is just dumb.
Also consider the fact that in no way shape or form are the rankings indicative of higher quality players, just those who have attended more MLGs.
On October 17 2011 17:08 Alpina wrote: Wow can't believe player who won whole event won't be seeded because someone got more points...
So someone like Haypro who made like 15th place 4 times is more important than gold medal?
I can't believe people are qqing over this. The thing is a culmination of a CIRCUIT and as such if you can only turn up to one event it is perfectly fine that you don't get seeded
I mean MLG doesn't have a great format, but it is MILES ahead of every other tournament
On October 17 2011 17:08 Alpina wrote: Wow can't believe player who won whole event won't be seeded because someone got more points...
So someone like Haypro who made like 15th place 4 times is more important than gold medal?
The whole objective of the regular events was to gain points, If MVP attended Orlando he would have top 16 seed for providence.
Yes, but it's not really fair because getting 1st place is much much harder than going to all MLGs and doing mediocre results. 1st place winners should get more points so they are guaranteed to be seeded imo.
On October 17 2011 17:08 Alpina wrote: Wow can't believe player who won whole event won't be seeded because someone got more points...
So someone like Haypro who made like 15th place 4 times is more important than gold medal?
The whole objective of the regular events was to gain points, If MVP attended Orlando he would have top 16 seed for providence.
Yes, but it's not really fair because getting 1st place is much much harder than going to all MLGs and doing mediocre results. 1st place winners should get more points so they are guaranteed to be seeded imo.
It could be a rule for MLG 2012, where winners of MLGs get automatically seeded to the final, but honestly, for this circuit, it's not that big of a deal. MVP could easily go through the open bracket as well and then plough through the losers from the seeded group.
I wish these major events like MLG IPL IEM and GSL worked more like the Grand Slams in Tennis. ELO/ranking based seeding to determine the bracket (ie first vs last), plus qualifying tournaments for the rest of the spots.
Of course that would require a very organized body that creates and tracks rankings very well as well as sanctions events and tournaments that would count towards those rankings. And such a system would also be complicated by the korean/foreign divide if they were not weighted appropriately or counted separately. Still, I'd love to see the major tourneys working together and coexisting in the same way the Grand Slams do, and setting up something like this would work very well for that.
Rofl, hilarious how a player will get rewarded less for attending an MLG and completely destroy everyone, than for attending multiple MLGs and get manhandled in every single one of them.
Still mind boggling how a player like MVP can be below ranking points than a player like iNcontroL, jesus.
MVP only played in one event and is therefore not in the top 16 points wise.
My question, do we know the BoX format here? Is just like all the other MLG events where it's Bo3 all the way through, except for extended series? I would assume it's that way.
Wait, so winning one event isn't worth more points than someone that went 0-6'd in like 6 events consecutively? My mind just imploded!
Remember Incontrol did get 4th in the very first event (dallas). So that's why he is so high. 4th place = 800 points, 1st place = 1200 points. Incontrol only has 1270 points because he got 4x really bad places for another 470 points.
The fact that '4x really bad places' are worth 470 points is just further evidence why this system is fundamentally flawed.
MLG has become quite a bad tournament competitively since this point system came in, I do hope IPL keeps on with what they do as its format is much more merit based.
Is it just me, or is this even worse than the normal pool system... This gives open bracket players even less chance. I know it's a championship and all... but we all know is based on a flawed system. No one deserves 8+ BYEs in any tournement (16 players)... it's an absurt advantage. They should be happy with a 3 or 4 round advantage.
I don't care that this system will result in more entertaining games.
I really don't like the way this shapes up, not only do we see less games from the higher seeds but people can win a weekend championship in 5 series? I know it's the culmination of the years work to get there, but it will feel a little underwhelming if someone from those seeds just pops up, wins their series, and clears off with the win xD
On October 17 2011 17:08 Alpina wrote: Wow can't believe player who won whole event won't be seeded because someone got more points...
So someone like Haypro who made like 15th place 4 times is more important than gold medal?
I can't believe people are qqing over this. The thing is a culmination of a CIRCUIT and as such if you can only turn up to one event it is perfectly fine that you don't get seeded
I mean MLG doesn't have a great format, but it is MILES ahead of every other tournament
Agree. It makes the regular events important which should be good for us fans since we probably get to see more top players attending because of it.
About their bracket formats in general, the multiple elimination combined with group play format(regular mlg's) can be confusing. But single elimination means top players will randomly get knocked out after getting to play for 20 mins which it not fun for the fans and probably most importantly the sponsors. As in the sponsors that make it possible for all these people to be "professional players". No one in the last MLG went through it undefeated which means that every single player this MLG could have gotten knocked out in their first game with a different format and single elimination for example.
Hahaha Idra has to face the winner of #8 MC and #9 Bomber. Wow that is a tough draw to have as your first Bo3 opponent. Greg can't ever seem to dodge MC in big tourneys.
I'm about to vomit. Poor Idra. Plays incredible, earns the #1 spot like nobody else and gets a ridiculously stacked bracket while the others are partially very lackluster. Ah well, he beat bomber, he can do it again.
This probably means there will be only single elimination open bracked Initial seeding will matter soooo much, let's hope for some reasonable distribution of top players.
I don't like this whole format either, the advantage top ranked players get is too big and we get to see only few games of them. 50k for few bo3s, someone could get really happy.
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
makes attending MLG regular season events and earning more points much more important.
Yeah but the MLG format's still messed up. The true MLG tournie is pool play to take the top spot within that pool, followed by a Ro4 tournie. The Loser's Bracket and Championship bracket outside of the top seeds, all of it's a waste of time. The MLG format's meant to exhaust anyone who misses a single step in the open tourney and pool play whilst providing insane advantages to the top seeds.
You can argue that taking 1st in pool play's balanced, which it arguably is. But let's eliminate the pretense that anyone has a fucking chance outside of the top 4 from the Pools cause no one does.
Has the winner of each pool group gone on to win every MLG?
Remember that finishing first in the group is guaranteed to give 6th as worst. Event: Player first in groups (finishing rank in bracket) Dallas: Naniwa (1st), Kiwikaki (2nd), Select (3rd), Incontrol (4th) Colombus: MMA (1st), Losira (2nd), Idra (4th), Naniwa (6th) Anaheim: MVP (1st), Boxer (3rd), DRG (5th), Rain (6th) Raleigh: Bomber (1st), Coca (2nd), DRG (3rd), Puma (5th) Orlando: Huk (1st), TheStC (3rd), Marineking (5th), Bomber (6th)
So from that we can see, only 6 players over 5 events managed to break into the finishing top 4, and thus change the top 4 that were at the start of championship sunday (that were the top in each group).
Out of the 6 players that got into top 4 that didn't get first in their groups, 4 were 2nd in their groups (MC, MMA, Ganzi, Idra), and 2 were 3rd in their groups (NaDa, MC).
On October 17 2011 12:49 theherder2 wrote: I'm a little disappointed in the loss of pool play. It creates interesting series of games between top players, when the games are important but there is no elimination threat.
So according to this format, the top 4 seeds basically don't even get to play until most likely late Saturday when the games from the Open bracket finish up and the champ/losers champ brackets are completed.
As a fan, the pool play "exhibitions" are a great source of entertainment and a highlight of MLG tournaments. For example we'd get to see for sure at least 5 Idra matches in pool play, whereas in this bracket we might be waiting around a day or so to see him drop two matches and be out of the tournament.
While understandably the format is different because it is championships, I feel like pool play shoulda stayed in the format.
I agree with this, less games and no pool play is just bad solution. Watching pool play is like 70% of MLG entertainment.
On October 17 2011 17:45 Sighstorm wrote: Is it just me, or is this even worse than the normal pool system... This gives open bracket players even less chance. I know it's a championship and all... but we all know is based on a flawed system. No one deserves 8+ BYEs in any tournement (16 players)... it's an absurt advantage. They should be happy with a 3 or 4 round advantage.
I don't care that this system will result in more entertaining games.
OSL has a system that gives a lot of byes to high finishers in the previous tournament.
OSL first has a 192 man 24 group qualifier, where a player has to win 3 series to advance. Winners from two groups play each other to meet a 5th-16th place from previous OSL, so that's 2 more byes.
So players that finished 5th to 16th in the previous tournament get 4 byes, and players that finished 1st-4th get 5 byes. At that point they're down to 16 players and continue with group stage and single elim.
4-5 byes from getting top 16 in previous tournament, where 5th-16th need to win one BO3 to get into another RO16, and the 1st-4th are guaranteed top 16.
With MLG the winner of a tournament can get 28th in the next. The event in Providence is also to finish off 5 "qualifying" events, so getting 8 byes for playing well in 5 events doesn't seem too far off compared to getting 5 byes for getting top 4 in one event.
On October 17 2011 17:45 Sighstorm wrote: Is it just me, or is this even worse than the normal pool system... This gives open bracket players even less chance. I know it's a championship and all... but we all know is based on a flawed system. No one deserves 8+ BYEs in any tournement (16 players)... it's an absurt advantage. They should be happy with a 3 or 4 round advantage.
I don't care that this system will result in more entertaining games.
OSL has a system that gives a lot of byes to high finishers in the previous tournament.
OSL first has a 192 man 24 group qualifier, where a player has to win 3 series to advance. Winners from two groups play each other to meet a 5th-16th place from previous OSL, so that's 2 more byes.
So players that finished 5th to 16th in the previous tournament get 4 byes, and players that finished 1st-4th get 5 byes. At that point they're down to 16 players and continue with group stage and single elim.
4-5 byes from getting top 16 in previous tournament, where 5th-16th need to win one BO3 to get into another RO16, and the 1st-4th are guaranteed top 16.
With MLG the winner of a tournament can get 28th in the next. The event in Providence is also to finish off 5 "qualifying" events, so getting 8 byes for playing well in 5 events doesn't seem too far off compared to getting 5 byes for getting top 4 in one event.
yeah... i'm not even going to bother trying to talk sense into the community with this one. almost every single tournament in SC2 has not had the kind of investment MLG has had in terms of one event intending to build your prestige for the next one in a very direct and tangible way. most people watch MLGs thinking it's just one tournament after another. no, sorry, those are the baby tournaments so to speak, and winning those let you wear the daddy pants.
it's unfortunate that MLG has kind of had to learn the hard way on a lot of their tournament structuring, it's probably not the best since in the end it was adopted from its use in Halo/console FPS and it never had experience in RTS tournaments... but to act like MLG is not going to be a circuit with a championship event at the end, and that they won't give special treatment for those who excelled during the circuit, is pretty ignorant of the entire concept of a circuit.
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
makes attending MLG regular season events and earning more points much more important.
Yeah but the MLG format's still messed up. The true MLG tournie is pool play to take the top spot within that pool, followed by a Ro4 tournie. The Loser's Bracket and Championship bracket outside of the top seeds, all of it's a waste of time. The MLG format's meant to exhaust anyone who misses a single step in the open tourney and pool play whilst providing insane advantages to the top seeds.
You can argue that taking 1st in pool play's balanced, which it arguably is. But let's eliminate the pretense that anyone has a fucking chance outside of the top 4 from the Pools cause no one does.
Has the winner of each pool group gone on to win every MLG?
Remember that finishing first in the group is guaranteed to give 6th as worst. Event: Player first in groups (finishing rank in bracket) Dallas: Naniwa (1st), Kiwikaki (2nd), Select (3rd), Incontrol (4th) Colombus: MMA (1st), Losira (2nd), Idra (4th), Naniwa (6th) Anaheim: MVP (1st), Boxer (3rd), DRG (5th), Rain (6th) Raleigh: Bomber (1st), Coca (2nd), DRG (3rd), Puma (5th) Orlando: Huk (1st), TheStC (3rd), Marineking (5th), Bomber (6th)
So from that we can see, only 6 players over 5 events managed to break into the finishing top 4, and thus change the top 4 that were at the start of championship sunday (that were the top in each group).
Out of the 6 players that got into top 4 that didn't get first in their groups, 4 were 2nd in their groups (MC, MMA, Ganzi, Idra), and 2 were 3rd in their groups (NaDa, MC).
And it does get pretty ridiculous considering the groups can be pretty close.
Group D in orlando had 3 players at 4-1. Bomber won the group based on maps since he only lost 1-2 to Sase. Had Sase won 2-0 instead (or some other map points changed) the group would have been entirely different.
The difference in their roads from there on is insane. Bomber lost his next two games (he had to loose two games to be eliminated from here) and got 6th. Sase lost his next game and was eliminated immediately in 13-16th place.
I'm not saying they got the same caliber opponents, but the advantage Bomber got from single map wins is insane!
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
makes attending MLG regular season events and earning more points much more important.
Yeah but the MLG format's still messed up. The true MLG tournie is pool play to take the top spot within that pool, followed by a Ro4 tournie. The Loser's Bracket and Championship bracket outside of the top seeds, all of it's a waste of time. The MLG format's meant to exhaust anyone who misses a single step in the open tourney and pool play whilst providing insane advantages to the top seeds.
You can argue that taking 1st in pool play's balanced, which it arguably is. But let's eliminate the pretense that anyone has a fucking chance outside of the top 4 from the Pools cause no one does.
Has the winner of each pool group gone on to win every MLG?
Remember that finishing first in the group is guaranteed to give 6th as worst. Event: Player first in groups (finishing rank in bracket) Dallas: Naniwa (1st), Kiwikaki (2nd), Select (3rd), Incontrol (4th) Colombus: MMA (1st), Losira (2nd), Idra (4th), Naniwa (6th) Anaheim: MVP (1st), Boxer (3rd), DRG (5th), Rain (6th) Raleigh: Bomber (1st), Coca (2nd), DRG (3rd), Puma (5th) Orlando: Huk (1st), TheStC (3rd), Marineking (5th), Bomber (6th)
So from that we can see, only 6 players over 5 events managed to break into the finishing top 4, and thus change the top 4 that were at the start of championship sunday (that were the top in each group).
Out of the 6 players that got into top 4 that didn't get first in their groups, 4 were 2nd in their groups (MC, MMA, Ganzi, Idra), and 2 were 3rd in their groups (NaDa, MC).
And it does get pretty ridiculous considering the groups can be pretty close.
Group D in orlando had 3 players at 4-1. Bomber won the group based on maps since he only lost 1-2 to Sase. Had Sase won 2-0 instead (or some other map points changed) the group would have been entirely different.
The difference in their roads from there on is insane. Bomber lost his next two games (he had to loose two games to be eliminated from here) and got 6th. Sase lost his next game and was eliminated immediately in 13-16th place.
I'm not saying they got the same caliber opponents, but the advantage Bomber got from single map wins is insane!
I think in that specific case if Sase would had won 2-0, it would have been Bomber, Puma and Sase at 4-1 in the group. Each of them won against the other 2-0, so the tie would have been solved by map wins. There Bomber would have been 8-2 (instead of 9-2), Puma would have been 8-3, and Sase would be 8-3. Since Puma won over Sase, I don't think the 2-1 or 2-0 between Sase and Bomber made a difference at all.
Of course previous games did make a difference, Puma and Sase got 2nd/3rd because they only won 2-1 against Sheth, where Bomber won 2-0. So all games do count, just like it did in IEM Guangzhou where Idra got out of group (and then went on to win the tournament) only because he lost 1-2 to Jinro instead of 0-2. If he had lost 0-2 it would have gone into tiebreakers between Jinro, Idra and Jim.
On October 17 2011 18:15 chocopaw wrote: I'm about to vomit. Poor Idra. Plays incredible, earns the #1 spot like nobody else and gets a ridiculously stacked bracket while the others are partially very lackluster. Ah well, he beat bomber, he can do it again.
Yeah, poor Idra. All that work, and all he gets for it is $3,300 and a guaranteed position of 12th or higher in a 272-man, $100,000 tournament, thanks to the nine byes he receives instead of having to play nine BO3s against world-class players. Poor guy. The system is broken.
Or, alternatively - congratulations Idra on your #1 seed, on your superb play at Orlando, and thank you MLG for running such an exciting tournament. I will be glued to my computer screen for the whole of Providence. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's an alternative perspective, you understand.
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
makes attending MLG regular season events and earning more points much more important.
Yeah but the MLG format's still messed up. The true MLG tournie is pool play to take the top spot within that pool, followed by a Ro4 tournie. The Loser's Bracket and Championship bracket outside of the top seeds, all of it's a waste of time. The MLG format's meant to exhaust anyone who misses a single step in the open tourney and pool play whilst providing insane advantages to the top seeds.
You can argue that taking 1st in pool play's balanced, which it arguably is. But let's eliminate the pretense that anyone has a fucking chance outside of the top 4 from the Pools cause no one does.
Has the winner of each pool group gone on to win every MLG?
Remember that finishing first in the group is guaranteed to give 6th as worst. Event: Player first in groups (finishing rank in bracket) Dallas: Naniwa (1st), Kiwikaki (2nd), Select (3rd), Incontrol (4th) Colombus: MMA (1st), Losira (2nd), Idra (4th), Naniwa (6th) Anaheim: MVP (1st), Boxer (3rd), DRG (5th), Rain (6th) Raleigh: Bomber (1st), Coca (2nd), DRG (3rd), Puma (5th) Orlando: Huk (1st), TheStC (3rd), Marineking (5th), Bomber (6th)
So from that we can see, only 6 players over 5 events managed to break into the finishing top 4, and thus change the top 4 that were at the start of championship sunday (that were the top in each group).
Out of the 6 players that got into top 4 that didn't get first in their groups, 4 were 2nd in their groups (MC, MMA, Ganzi, Idra), and 2 were 3rd in their groups (NaDa, MC).
And it does get pretty ridiculous considering the groups can be pretty close.
Group D in orlando had 3 players at 4-1. Bomber won the group based on maps since he only lost 1-2 to Sase. Had Sase won 2-0 instead (or some other map points changed) the group would have been entirely different.
The difference in their roads from there on is insane. Bomber lost his next two games (he had to loose two games to be eliminated from here) and got 6th. Sase lost his next game and was eliminated immediately in 13-16th place.
I'm not saying they got the same caliber opponents, but the advantage Bomber got from single map wins is insane!
I think in that specific case if Sase would had won 2-0, it would have been Bomber, Puma and Sase at 4-1 in the group. Each of them won against the other 2-0, so the tie would have been solved by map wins. There Bomber would have been 8-2 (instead of 9-2), Puma would have been 8-3, and Sase would be 8-3. Since Puma won over Sase, I don't think the 2-1 or 2-0 between Sase and Bomber made a difference at all.
Of course previous games did make a difference, Puma and Sase got 2nd/3rd because they only won 2-1 against Sheth, where Bomber won 2-0. So all games do count, just like it did in IEM Guangzhou where Idra got out of group (and then went on to win the tournament) only because he lost 1-2 to Jinro instead of 0-2. If he had lost 0-2 it would have gone into tiebreakers between Jinro, Idra and Jim.
You are right, another map win/loss would have been needed to change that group.
However that was not entirely my point, my point was pretty much that tiny differences can give huge advantages in the current system since winning your group is pretty much the only realistic way of winning the tournament.
Seeding in these VERY advanced positions is imho just bad... It just allows for "lucky groups" and "groups of death" having a huge influence on the outcome of a tournament..
I think the "best" format for such a tournament would be:
Online Qualifiers These could be held regionally like IEM or IPL3 style....
Day 1+2(?): 2. Group Stage (people that qualified + seeds from previous MLG's). Add an extra round for the X "best" losers of each group (this counteracts the "group of death" syndrome a little).
The system is still a nutjob, but at least this is more straight forward and better than the pool play shenenigans. This time it is a real Double-Elimination tournament for everyone, just with ridiculous seeding (The first four seeds get seeded into the Top12, just thinking about this I cannot stop laughing).
I honestly feel that mlg is hurting itself by the way they distribute price money and how the ranking system is designed. The non Amercian player have to make a huge investment to particapte in an mlg event (Not sure if this is the case for the invited korean players, but there are only 4 each mlg event). If they do not place 3rd or better they pay for the trip and in many cases they start in the openbracket where failing is huge possibility since you have to play a lot and in many cases you face opponents who are tougher than 50% of the pool. The problem is when you don't particapte in the "crappy" mlg events you have such a huge road ahead of you that succeeding in the "really huge" mlg event is so unlikely that your "Risk vs Reward" is garbage on average and if you drain money from the players they will stop coming. Which leads to a crappy openbracket where some koreans (the really good one like MVP) will play against some local masterplayer who just particapte for the fun of it or a looking for the breakthrough. I think this will make much of the event really crappy to watch. I think it's even worse than IPL 3 pool play because boring is worse than meaningless. The last day will not be effected by this because there you will always have pure talent facing pure talent and maybe one to two people who are not top notch.
I think 16 seeded player aren't just to much for a game like starcraft two where things change so quickly in a year and to believe that 129-256 players will attend seems also a little far fatched. If the price pool gets distributed more evenly and it's easier to get to a money spot, from the open bracket, more of the better player will attend and mlg will sell more of their extra tickets, because every player has somekind of follower base that is willing to pay to see him.
Mlg sure has the community intereseted as hell, but i'm not sure if that is enough to keep players taking the risk over and over again.
On October 17 2011 19:42 Malinor wrote: The system is still a nutjob, but at least this is more straight forward and better than the pool play shenenigans. This time it is a real Double-Elimination tournament for everyone, just with ridiculous seeding (The first four seeds get seeded into the Top12, just thinking about this I cannot stop laughing).
OSL has top 4 from previous tournament seed into top16 of a 208 man tournament. MLG has top 4 from 5 previous tournaments seed into top12 of a 272-276 (not sure) man tournament. OSL has top 5-16 from previous tournament seed into top32 of a 208 man tournament. MLG has top 16 from previous tournament(s) seed into top28 of a 276 man tournament.
On October 17 2011 17:43 AnalThermometer wrote: MLG has become quite a bad tournament competitively since this point system came in, I do hope IPL keeps on with what they do as its format is much more merit based.
well as long as they eliminate giving a quarter of their field byes and a free $1k + expenses on name value, maybe
WAY too much advantage to the top seeds! The championship pools were already so advantageous but thats ridiculous. And because of that the top seeds are likely going to stay the top seeds because they're starting so far ahead.
On October 17 2011 20:02 Tzeval wrote: I honestly feel that mlg is hurting itself by the way they distribute price money and how the ranking system is designed. The non Amercian player have to make a huge investment to particapte in an mlg event (Not sure if this is the case for the invited korean players, but there are only 4 each mlg event). If they do not place 3rd or better they pay for the trip and in many cases they start in the openbracket where failing is huge possibility since you have to play a lot and in many cases you face opponents who are tougher than 50% of the pool. The problem is when you don't particapte in the "crappy" mlg events you have such a huge road ahead of you that succeeding in the "really huge" mlg event is so unlikely that your "Risk vs Reward" is garbage on average and if you drain money from the players they will stop coming.
What you call a problem is likely what most see as a good thing. Why wouldn't MLG(and sc2 fans) want as many top players as possibly to come to their events for example?
Also, until tournament payouts increase by like x50-100, tournament earnings wont support a large professional scene. For how many players would the last MLG's price pool even cover travel and living expenses for the tournament, 2-4? And if that would be the main income, those 2-4 players that wouldn't spend more than they earned going to MLG would still have to have normal jobs etc and shouldn't be called "pro gamers" to begin with. Simply put, there wouldn't be much of a professional scene at the moment if the main income was price money so basing things on a price money perspective seems somewhat irrelevant.
MLG had the best tournament system before all these pools, so in 2010. That tournament system, only without extended series would be THE best. Maybe i would add BO5 for semifinals and BO7 for finals with 1-0 advantage for player that comes from winner bracket. Basically, i would make it a big open bracket (ofcourse top seeds would avoid each other until later stages).
On October 17 2011 17:45 Sighstorm wrote: Is it just me, or is this even worse than the normal pool system... This gives open bracket players even less chance. I know it's a championship and all... but we all know is based on a flawed system. No one deserves 8+ BYEs in any tournement (16 players)... it's an absurt advantage. They should be happy with a 3 or 4 round advantage.
I don't care that this system will result in more entertaining games.
OSL has a system that gives a lot of byes to high finishers in the previous tournament.
OSL first has a 192 man 24 group qualifier, where a player has to win 3 series to advance. Winners from two groups play each other to meet a 5th-16th place from previous OSL, so that's 2 more byes.
So players that finished 5th to 16th in the previous tournament get 4 byes, and players that finished 1st-4th get 5 byes. At that point they're down to 16 players and continue with group stage and single elim.
4-5 byes from getting top 16 in previous tournament, where 5th-16th need to win one BO3 to get into another RO16, and the 1st-4th are guaranteed top 16.
With MLG the winner of a tournament can get 28th in the next. The event in Providence is also to finish off 5 "qualifying" events, so getting 8 byes for playing well in 5 events doesn't seem too far off compared to getting 5 byes for getting top 4 in one event.
yeah... i'm not even going to bother trying to talk sense into the community with this one. almost every single tournament in SC2 has not had the kind of investment MLG has had in terms of one event intending to build your prestige for the next one in a very direct and tangible way. most people watch MLGs thinking it's just one tournament after another. no, sorry, those are the baby tournaments so to speak, and winning those let you wear the daddy pants.
it's unfortunate that MLG has kind of had to learn the hard way on a lot of their tournament structuring, it's probably not the best since in the end it was adopted from its use in Halo/console FPS and it never had experience in RTS tournaments... but to act like MLG is not going to be a circuit with a championship event at the end, and that they won't give special treatment for those who excelled during the circuit, is pretty ignorant of the entire concept of a circuit.
The fact that it's common in SC events, doesn't mean i have to like it. I do support giving players an advantage based on previous results, but 8 to 12 byes is a lot imho. (I come from a different competative community that had a max of 3 byes, which i think is on the low side.) The biggest problem i have about the MLG system is that someone who just misses the boat and is not in the top 16 will have to go through the entire bracket. I'd personnaly like a smoother distribution better (now you get either 0 or 8-12).
It is my personal opinion, but the current system doesn't make sense because: 1- The game is too young. Player skill is not yet consistant enough for such a big reward. 2- There are too few events, so players who've shown that they are no longer able to compete at the top level in other events still get invited and still get a ton of new ranking points even if they don't perform well. 3- The event is less attractive for players from overseas.
On October 17 2011 19:42 Malinor wrote: The system is still a nutjob, but at least this is more straight forward and better than the pool play shenenigans. This time it is a real Double-Elimination tournament for everyone, just with ridiculous seeding (The first four seeds get seeded into the Top12, just thinking about this I cannot stop laughing).
OSL has top 4 from previous tournament seed into top16 of a 208 man tournament. MLG has top 4 from 5 previous tournaments seed into top12 of a 272-276 (not sure) man tournament. OSL has top 5-16 from previous tournament seed into top32 of a 208 man tournament. MLG has top 16 from previous tournament(s) seed into top28 of a 276 man tournament.
What exactly are you trying to tell me? As if I ever talked about the OSL or said that the OSL format was good.
Besides that, the OSL starts with the Ro16, everything else is the qualifying process. You can maybe construct a similarity between MLG and OSL if you consider the Open Bracket not part of the main tournament but only the qualification process for the real tournament (Pool Play plus Championships-Bracket). But still I am not so sure if comparing a three-month league to a one week-end tournament is the best idea.
I doubt it that MVP and Nestea will come presuming that they don't heavily schedule their games in code s away from the days providence is played on. As you do get almost same amount of money if you win the GSL and have to play way less games to actually get there. Even loosing some practice days for the next round to come for the open bracket would probably be too much if they get RO8 in GSL.
hahaha oh wow you cannot be serious, two thirds of the field are arbitrary invites and then multiple group stages where you can advance with a losing record? no thanks
On October 17 2011 12:43 Scrandom wrote: Holy crap, the higher seeded players get an insane advantage. It makes sense to be rewarded for consistency by MLG but damn, that just a bit much almost. Also I'm glad Rain got the 16th seed, although I'd prefer MVP since he actually won an event
I think the benefits of getting a high seed are offset nicely with how much work it takes to get a high seed.
I dont mean in this season, because the circumstances didnt give koreans/open bracket players a fair chance from the first point-giving event, but the general principal moving onwards seems good.
This new system ads to one big problem that MLG already had. Possibility of bad viewing experience.
We all want fun games, awesome experiences and interactions from the players. The way things are we already have the problem of anti climatic games. This has not been fixed. But now we have another problem, that top players, the ones people want the most to see play, play less.
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
makes attending MLG regular season events and earning more points much more important.
Yeah but the MLG format's still messed up. The true MLG tournie is pool play to take the top spot within that pool, followed by a Ro4 tournie. The Loser's Bracket and Championship bracket outside of the top seeds, all of it's a waste of time. The MLG format's meant to exhaust anyone who misses a single step in the open tourney and pool play whilst providing insane advantages to the top seeds.
You can argue that taking 1st in pool play's balanced, which it arguably is. But let's eliminate the pretense that anyone has a fucking chance outside of the top 4 from the Pools cause no one does.
Has the winner of each pool group gone on to win every MLG?
Remember that finishing first in the group is guaranteed to give 6th as worst. Event: Player first in groups (finishing rank in bracket) Dallas: Naniwa (1st), Kiwikaki (2nd), Select (3rd), Incontrol (4th) Colombus: MMA (1st), Losira (2nd), Idra (4th), Naniwa (6th) Anaheim: MVP (1st), Boxer (3rd), DRG (5th), Rain (6th) Raleigh: Bomber (1st), Coca (2nd), DRG (3rd), Puma (5th) Orlando: Huk (1st), TheStC (3rd), Marineking (5th), Bomber (6th)
So from that we can see, only 6 players over 5 events managed to break into the finishing top 4, and thus change the top 4 that were at the start of championship sunday (that were the top in each group).
Out of the 6 players that got into top 4 that didn't get first in their groups, 4 were 2nd in their groups (MC, MMA, Ganzi, Idra), and 2 were 3rd in their groups (NaDa, MC).
It's worth noting that 4 of those group champions were from the Open Bracket (Finishes: 3,5,5,6). So while invited pool players have an advantage, it's not quite as horrific.
I understand rewarding the people who have come to MLG consistently but the advantage the top 4 get is absolutely insane. They only have to play 3 best of 3's to make it to the final. . . Then the person from the losers bracket can potentially play like 8-10 best of 3s and that is not even considering the open bracket.
It is possible to have someone who has played 3 best of 3's playing in the final against someone who has played like 15+ matches that weekend(come from open bracket then drop to the loser's bracket first round, have fun with that).
Looks like NaNiwa benefited from not going to Orlando, the #3-bracket with Boxer, Select and Slush is one I'd easily prefer over the #1-bracket with Rain, Bomber and MC, and would Nani have participated on Orlando he most probably would have stayed at #1 in the rankings
On October 18 2011 00:59 Jakkerr wrote: What an awful format.
Winning 4 Bo3's to win the entire tournament makes no sense.
Be one of the best 4 players over 5 tournaments, over the whole year, then win 4 Bo3s against what will likely be the strongest player pool assembled yet in sc2 to win a tournament.
On October 18 2011 00:55 Sanitys wrote: I understand rewarding the people who have come to MLG consistently but the advantage the top 4 get is absolutely insane. They only have to play 3 best of 3's to make it to the final. . . Then the person from the losers bracket can potentially play like 8-10 best of 3s and that is not even considering the open bracket.
It is possible to have someone who has played 3 best of 3's playing in the final against someone who has played like 15+ matches that weekend(come from open bracket then drop to the loser's bracket first round, have fun with that).
It's not just going to MLG consistently, it's consistently placing well in MLG. Top 4 over the whole season is pretty insane, and after watching MLG Orlando you can't say that IdrA or HuK don't deserve every bit of it for the amount of work they put into it.
On October 18 2011 01:10 Fangzhou wrote: Wait does this mean there will be no korean invites???/
Well, sort of. MLG is paying for transportation for MMA, MVP, Bomber, and MC to Providence. However, they will be seeded solely according to rank points. MMA - 4 MC - 8 Bomber - 9 Mvp - 19 (3rd Open Bracket Seed, makes him the favorite to get the OWB #3 seed (Naniwa's row).)
On October 18 2011 01:33 Workforce wrote: The advantage given to the highest seeds are just ridiculous. wow.
I think it rewards players for coming to the events though the prizes for MLG are relatively small, there needs to be some benefit to those who come regularly (and regularly generate money for MLG)
On October 18 2011 01:33 Workforce wrote: The advantage given to the highest seeds are just ridiculous. wow.
I think it rewards players for coming to the events though the prizes for MLG are relatively small, there needs to be some benefit to those who come regularly (and regularly generate money for MLG)
yeah maybe thats kinda ok but its soooooooo american favored since no european non TL member even attended to more than 3 mlgs since its just not worth it because they have no chance at all of qualifiying for providence with a good raking since they would need to win but with mvp and the other koreans its just not worth trying
I dont like this format either...the concept of someone winning MLg due to winning like 4 bo3s is dramatically worse than the old system. In fact it really discourages me from watching, because to be honest, how will the top seeds NOT win? People from the open bracket will be dead tired [and inferior], so they wont pose a threat. People at the lower end basically the same thing. Only the top seeds and perhaps a few middle seeds have a realistic chance at the MLG, its just not...interesting at all. -_-
On October 18 2011 00:59 Jakkerr wrote: What an awful format.
Winning 4 Bo3's to win the entire tournament makes no sense.
Be one of the best 4 players over 5 tournaments, over the whole year, then win 4 Bo3s against what will likely be the strongest player pool assembled yet in sc2 to win a tournament.
Seems pretty fair.
No...it doesnt. Which is why were pointing it out as ridiculous.
On October 18 2011 01:25 sVnteen wrote: why isnt tlo in there? on their orlando leaderboard it says that he was 9th seed and now he is not even in it anymore? i mean wtf that makes no sense
He was 9th only among the players who went to Orlando. He was 15th overall then and is currently 20th.
i agree with seeding, but the way this seeding works is ridiculous. its good that the top seeds are rewarded, but this reward is just overwhelmingly advantageous
Where is MVP? Didn't he win one of these MLGs? Like the whole thing? I know he's only attended one, but he can't help it if he's always preparing for the GSL finals and shit. With this whole GSL/MLG partnership, it actually seems like he's getting punished for being good at this game.
On October 18 2011 01:33 Workforce wrote: The advantage given to the highest seeds are just ridiculous. wow.
I think it rewards players for coming to the events though the prizes for MLG are relatively small, there needs to be some benefit to those who come regularly (and regularly generate money for MLG)
I don't have a problem with giving an advantage as long as it is reasonable. This is just way over top in my opinion.
On October 18 2011 00:59 Jakkerr wrote: What an awful format.
Winning 4 Bo3's to win the entire tournament makes no sense.
Be one of the best 4 players over 5 tournaments, over the whole year, then win 4 Bo3s against what will likely be the strongest player pool assembled yet in sc2 to win a tournament.
Seems pretty fair.
No...it doesnt. Which is why were pointing it out as ridiculous.
MLG 2011 Pro Circuit is ONE tournament, Providence is the championship event for it. Look at cumulative efforts for the whole year before critiquing the system that makes it happen.
I dont like this format at all, players that are seeded in pool have way way easier job than people in open bracket, HuK won 9 bo3 in Orlando to win it, and for example SaSe who is imo equally good would have to win 16 bo3 to win it, and worst part of it is that most of those game would take place in sunday.
We could see that MC after 6x bo3 with Rain, Ret, Puma, MKP, Idra, StC all was played during 7h most of them was 2-1 and he was just tired in finals, and HuK played 2 bo3 during this 7h.
Long story short, format heavily favor seeded people.
I really like the way the tournament has a losers bracket I like how one bad match doesnt totally screw you (obviously it semi-screws you). Its nice that people can fight their way back. I would really like it if the final 4 rounds were not BO3 though (or the extended bullsh...)
I would love it if MLG fully supplied housing for any players who wish to come. Obviously htey dont need to be extravagant, but it would be nice if the players had their transportation and rooms taken care of. Even if it was just a gymnasium with a bunch of cots on it or something.
Obviously the players who are rollign in money would be able to buy a nice hotel, but this would help even the non-pro GM players who drive for 5 hours to come to this event.
You try and give players reward for going to all MLG's and doing well, and by doing so, the tournament will be worse and suffer for it. Winning 4 Bo3's to take the entire championship is ridiculous. Awful tournament format. Would not be surprised if MVP declines to come back to focus on GSL Ro8.
wow.. just skimmed through most of this. The very fact that a map has to be created and there are 13 pages of people with questions.. just goes to show that this system is flawed.
The fact that incontrol has a 8-25 record in all MLG events and was just now removed from group play is concerning and shows that those that continue to do well have a very small chance of 'earning' a good seed for the finals.
I would also think that the finals would be based on a mathematical breakdown of points earned from all of the events. It appears that that is not actually the case here. I would love to meet the person who thought this process up. There are actually much easier to understand and competitive ways to lay this out that are also more in line with real world sports.
however.. it will be a killer finals no matter how you slice it.
On October 18 2011 01:56 Micket wrote: You try and give players reward for going to all MLG's and doing well, and by doing so, the tournament will be worse and suffer for it. Winning 4 Bo3's to take the entire championship is ridiculous. Awful tournament format. Would not be surprised if MVP declines to come back to focus on GSL Ro8.
I really doubt he'll show up. Combine all the factors of GSL, his CTS problems, IM's financial capabilities, and no seeding, means there's little incentive for him to show up. Yeah the prize money is great, but will that be enough?
Also, I get that MLG's system was created to reward frequent attendees, but not giving automatic seeding to former champions (in the relevant MLGs) is stupidly crazy.
On October 18 2011 00:59 Jakkerr wrote: What an awful format.
Winning 4 Bo3's to win the entire tournament makes no sense.
Be one of the best 4 players over 5 tournaments, over the whole year, then win 4 Bo3s against what will likely be the strongest player pool assembled yet in sc2 to win a tournament.
Seems pretty fair.
Nope, sorry but even Sundance has acknowledged that their ranking system is awful, and that they're planning to address this for the next season.
i don't understand why they don't have regular pool play for the top seeds again. like have 1-4 play each other to legitimize the ranking for the brackets. or like talismania said, seed the entire tourney, including open bracket. and if mlg wants regular participation, they should close off the providence open bracket to only those who have participated at least once in the current year. that way, they have have nestea come and kill it all in 1 tourney.
how does the MLG invitational work? i mean if whitera takes the european one, will he have a spot in the tuornament or just a paid trip to fight in the open brackets?
Wow the top side is stacked, DRG/Bomber/MC arguably top 3 in each of their races..IdrA being top 3 foreign zerg arguably. And OWB seed #1 the hardest..
What better do they have to do? Grind out ladder games?
If a tournament setting (with a huge prize pool) isnt a great place to train, I dont know what is
Well MC would beg to differ. He specifically decided to cut down on tournaments to train a while back b/c it was detrimental to his training and skills. Heck, Tastosis has harped on this point a lot.
Such a strange format... :-/ I can't say I'm a fan at all. I get it, they worked hard to get the good seeding, but it also is highly dependent on how often you can come, which gives a disadvantage to many players. I also don't like how some people need to just win a few matches, while others have to go through an impossible marathon of players...
I was really hoping that it would just be a regular 32 man bracket (with a losers bracket) with the top 32 players or something like that. It would allow players like KawaiiRice or ViBe who have been fighting all season long to finally be in a fair position in one of the tournaments after getting far each time. Such a shame for them imo.
Oh well, thanks for posting it clearly.
Edit:
On October 18 2011 02:26 Elean wrote: Well, another stupid format. The advantage of the seeded players is way too much. MLG is definately the worst among top tournaments.
Ya you put it more bluntly than I did, and I have to agree with you.
On October 18 2011 01:47 Bulkers wrote: I dont like this format at all, players that are seeded in pool have way way easier job than people in open bracket, HuK won 9 bo3 in Orlando to win it, and for example SaSe who is imo equally good would have to win 16 bo3 to win it, and worst part of it is that most of those game would take place in sunday.
We could see that MC after 6x bo3 with Rain, Ret, Puma, MKP, Idra, StC all was played during 7h most of them was 2-1 and he was just tired in finals, and HuK played 2 bo3 during this 7h.
Long story short, format heavily favor seeded people.
the seeded players SHOULD have an easier time (in theory, take IdrA for ex) into making it to the finals since they have proven themselves to be the top players compared to the open bracket players.
Also, this is a National Championship, a culmination of the results of the other tourneys and therefore doesn't need pool play, it should be a tourney with the best of the best.
Seeds should just be spread out so they are more likely to face each other in a later round. The way this is done is just really ridiculous and takes some of the legitimacy out of being the champion. Don't know what else to say other than this is completely unfair to anyone who doesn't have a seed.
Sadly I think this is just a horrible format. I mean 4 bo3 for the top 4 seeds. If one of them wins it will feel weird since it wont be that epic to win such a tourney by going up in 4 matches.
I think MLG is killing this. They are more interested in trying to get players to their tourneys instead of actually making a fair and epic tourney. By having this format they are more likelly to just boost lesser skilled players who dont have much other stuff to do.
It just dont feel as epic when all players are not playing equal amount of games.
Imagine this format in an OSL or MSL. Would just feel kinda silly if Flash or JAedong won OSL by playing 4 games.
On October 18 2011 01:47 Bulkers wrote: I dont like this format at all, players that are seeded in pool have way way easier job than people in open bracket, HuK won 9 bo3 in Orlando to win it, and for example SaSe who is imo equally good would have to win 16 bo3 to win it, and worst part of it is that most of those game would take place in sunday.
We could see that MC after 6x bo3 with Rain, Ret, Puma, MKP, Idra, StC all was played during 7h most of them was 2-1 and he was just tired in finals, and HuK played 2 bo3 during this 7h.
Long story short, format heavily favor seeded people.
the seeded players SHOULD have an easier time (in theory, take IdrA for ex) into making it to the finals since they have proven themselves to be the top players compared to the open bracket players.
Also, this is a National Championship, a culmination of the results of the other tourneys and therefore doesn't need pool play, it should be a tourney with the best of the best.
I'm sorry, but this is just really bad logic. They should have an easier time by merit of play, not unfair advantages.
motbob DO pay attention to players who won 1st-3rd place and dont throw them into open bracket.(It touched mainly koreans who only were invited once and still took gold silve or bronze place). plz
On October 18 2011 01:47 Bulkers wrote: I dont like this format at all, players that are seeded in pool have way way easier job than people in open bracket, HuK won 9 bo3 in Orlando to win it, and for example SaSe who is imo equally good would have to win 16 bo3 to win it, and worst part of it is that most of those game would take place in sunday.
We could see that MC after 6x bo3 with Rain, Ret, Puma, MKP, Idra, StC all was played during 7h most of them was 2-1 and he was just tired in finals, and HuK played 2 bo3 during this 7h.
Long story short, format heavily favor seeded people.
the seeded players SHOULD have an easier time (in theory, take IdrA for ex) into making it to the finals since they have proven themselves to be the top players compared to the open bracket players.
Also, this is a National Championship, a culmination of the results of the other tourneys and therefore doesn't need pool play, it should be a tourney with the best of the best.
This is just plain wrong, sorry but it is. Take Incontrol for example. I know he is not top seeded but if 1 player cant make it he is top 16. Do you really think he is proven more top player then say Sase, Thorzain, Dimaga, Hero and so on, you get my point? Incontrol is rewarded for attending every MLG and because he did one good round before Koreans were in it.
YOu could argue the same for Naniwa really since he won 1 MLG without koreans and havent really played many other then that, but at least he won it.
This format just favour those who played alot of MLGs. Incontrol for example is 1-20 in his last 2 but if 1 player cant make it he will be seeded. How is that fair towards all those players who actually hare top players?
On October 18 2011 02:40 acrimoneyius wrote: Seeds should just be spread out so they are more likely to face each other in a later round. The way this is done is just really ridiculous and takes some of the legitimacy out of being the champion. Don't know what else to say other than this is completely unfair to anyone who doesn't have a seed.
Precisely. I don't know who comes up with these inane systems. If they were seeded one round ahead, then fine, but not this far.
On October 18 2011 02:41 purpose wrote:Imagine this format in an OSL or MSL. Would just feel kinda silly if Flash or JAedong won OSL by playing 4 games.
OSL has a ton of byes for high finishers in previous seasons. If you were top16 in previous OSL, you don't have to play in the 192 man qualifier where you need to win 3 series to advance. You don't have to play against those players until they've played another series against each other, reducing the 192 to 12. And if you were top4 in previous OSL, you get another bye, because you go directly into the group stages.
So unless I'm wrong, top4 from previous OSL have to win group stages and 3 series (equal to 4 series) to win another OSL, same as MLG.
Dont the GSL Invites who won get free invites into the champ bracket, eg MMA Bomber and Mvp, with 2 being in it its just MVP really which i care about, and also im extremely happy that rain gets the 16th instead of incontrol
On October 18 2011 02:41 purpose wrote:Imagine this format in an OSL or MSL. Would just feel kinda silly if Flash or JAedong won OSL by playing 4 games.
OSL has a ton of byes for high finishers in previous seasons. If you were top16 in previous OSL, you don't have to play in the 192 man qualifier where you need to win 3 series to advance. You don't have to play against those players until they've played another series against each other, reducing the 192 to 12. And if you were top4 in previous OSL, you get another bye, because you go directly into the group stages.
So unless I'm wrong, top4 from previous OSL have to win group stages and 3 series (equal to 4 series) to win another OSL, same as MLG.
The difference is in OSL, the other players just have to win one more series than a ro4 finisher. In this, they have to win 3 series more I think which is 2x as much as the highest seed.
On October 18 2011 02:41 purpose wrote:Imagine this format in an OSL or MSL. Would just feel kinda silly if Flash or JAedong won OSL by playing 4 games.
OSL has a ton of byes for high finishers in previous seasons. If you were top16 in previous OSL, you don't have to play in the 192 man qualifier where you need to win 3 series to advance. You don't have to play against those players until they've played another series against each other, reducing the 192 to 12. And if you were top4 in previous OSL, you get another bye, because you go directly into the group stages.
So unless I'm wrong, top4 from previous OSL have to win group stages and 3 series (equal to 4 series) to win another OSL, same as MLG.
Except you're missing that at a certain point in the OSL EVERYONE has a chance to play the same amount of games. It starts in the Group Stages where immediately the highest seeds have to prove themselves and they along with the other 12 are all on even ground. There have been plenty of OSL's where the Top 4 seeds don't even make it out of the Group Stage and into the Elimination Stage. At NO POINT are more than 4 people(Top 4 Seeds) on even ground at MLG. It's a huge joke.
This is soooooooo much worse than pool play, it even favors seeds more. Because in other way, they would still have to play 5 games in a group to decide their championship seeding, was alot more fair...
I don't know how this is a improvement from the previous format. A shame if this goes forward.
On October 18 2011 02:41 purpose wrote:Imagine this format in an OSL or MSL. Would just feel kinda silly if Flash or JAedong won OSL by playing 4 games.
OSL has a ton of byes for high finishers in previous seasons. If you were top16 in previous OSL, you don't have to play in the 192 man qualifier where you need to win 3 series to advance. You don't have to play against those players until they've played another series against each other, reducing the 192 to 12. And if you were top4 in previous OSL, you get another bye, because you go directly into the group stages.
So unless I'm wrong, top4 from previous OSL have to win group stages and 3 series (equal to 4 series) to win another OSL, same as MLG.
The difference is in OSL, the other players just have to win one more series than a ro4 finisher. In this, they have to win 3 series more I think which is 2x as much as the highest seed.
Ok, you're arguing some seeds compared to other seeds, I thought the argument was about seeded players compared to the lowest tier (open bracket players). In OSL it's up to 192 players battling until there's only 12 left, then you insert rank 5-16 from last OSL to reduce it to half, and then you insert rank 1-4 from last OSL to make it 16 players. MLG has a slightly bigger open brackets and insert players 4 and 4 at a time, but they both give huge advantages for doing well in previous tournament(s).
On October 18 2011 02:41 purpose wrote:Imagine this format in an OSL or MSL. Would just feel kinda silly if Flash or JAedong won OSL by playing 4 games.
OSL has a ton of byes for high finishers in previous seasons. If you were top16 in previous OSL, you don't have to play in the 192 man qualifier where you need to win 3 series to advance. You don't have to play against those players until they've played another series against each other, reducing the 192 to 12. And if you were top4 in previous OSL, you get another bye, because you go directly into the group stages.
So unless I'm wrong, top4 from previous OSL have to win group stages and 3 series (equal to 4 series) to win another OSL, same as MLG.
Except you're missing that at a certain point in the OSL EVERYONE has a chance to play the same amount of games. It starts in the Group Stages where immediately the highest seeds have to prove themselves and they along with the other 12 are all on even ground. There have been plenty of OSL's where the Top 4 seeds don't even make it out of the Group Stage and into the Elimination Stage. At NO POINT are more than 4 people(Top 4 Seeds) on even ground at MLG. It's a huge joke.
On top of that, the OSL is a three months long event. You don't have to play 15 Bo3s or more during a 3-day event (The first qualifier is three Bo3s in one day, if you are an unseeded B-teamer, after that it is mostly one series per week). Seriously, this MLG-OSL comparison is just not working.
Edit: I see your main-point is the seeding advantage. Still, as a Top4-OSL player you have to do exactly the same as the other 12 qualified players (and everything beforehand is not even considered the OSL, but the qualifiers). In MLG, already the 13th seed has way more work cut out for him (at least 3 more series, beware dropping one series early, then everything becomes impossible in the lower bracket).
On October 18 2011 02:41 purpose wrote:Imagine this format in an OSL or MSL. Would just feel kinda silly if Flash or JAedong won OSL by playing 4 games.
OSL has a ton of byes for high finishers in previous seasons. If you were top16 in previous OSL, you don't have to play in the 192 man qualifier where you need to win 3 series to advance. You don't have to play against those players until they've played another series against each other, reducing the 192 to 12. And if you were top4 in previous OSL, you get another bye, because you go directly into the group stages.
So unless I'm wrong, top4 from previous OSL have to win group stages and 3 series (equal to 4 series) to win another OSL, same as MLG.
Except you're missing that at a certain point in the OSL EVERYONE has a chance to play the same amount of games. It starts in the Group Stages where immediately the highest seeds have to prove themselves and they along with the other 12 are all on even ground. There have been plenty of OSL's where the Top 4 seeds don't even make it out of the Group Stage and into the Elimination Stage. At NO POINT are more than 4 people(Top 4 Seeds) on even ground at MLG. It's a huge joke.
And that certain point is round 6. The qualifiers for OSL are harder than any Open bracket in MLG, because to get there you have to have a pro gaming license. When you get to OSL group stages all players are equal (except for higher seeds having more power in group selection, which GSL does too). But to get to group stages if you didn't have a seed, you need to play as many games as you have games ahead of you.
Since MLG is already changing the format up for sure next year, doesn't that already imply that they understand that the current format is flawed? They probably can't undo the current format without going through way too much trouble.
There's not a real debate here.
I guess you can all keep circlejerking in this thread though.
On October 18 2011 02:23 darlhet wrote: how does the MLG invitational work? i mean if whitera takes the european one, will he have a spot in the tuornament or just a paid trip to fight in the open brackets?
He'd get flown to Providence, but play the other 2 region winners and the Blizzcon champ for an additional $3,000 prize. He'd be free to play the Open Bracket, if he choses, but would only be middling-high seed in his bracket.
I really wish they had pool play. I don't like that you get a massive advantage for starcraft skill you had 2-6 months ago affecting a tournament in such a massive way now (seed 1-4 have to play 3 less bo3's than seed 12-16...). Especially considering it costs a ton just to get to an MLG so it's not even reliable (not everybody goes to every MLG). I understand pool play sort of does that as well, but at least if you do poorly in pool play (your sc2 skill has dropped considerably) you will be seeded much lower, even if in points you should be seeded #1.
Honestly I'd just prefer a straight up bracket (everybody in ro32) with the top 16 auto-qualifying for it and 17-32 being from the open tournament.
On October 18 2011 03:28 how2TL wrote: Since MLG is already changing the format up for sure next year, doesn't that already imply that they understand that the current format is flawed? They probably can't undo the current format without going through way too much trouble.
There's not a real debate here.
I guess you can all keep circlejerking in this thread though.
Also, note that having a seed is very useful; the top 4 seeds only have to win 4 Bo3s, total, to win the whole thing. A player from the Open Bracket would have to play 13-19. This fits with the overall design philosophy of rewarding multiple MLG trips.
Awful format. Not only inherently unfair but also injects alot of randomness in the draws. And to top that of its bo3 finals.
Also, note that having a seed is very useful; the top 4 seeds only have to win 4 Bo3s, total, to win the whole thing. A player from the Open Bracket would have to play 13-19. This fits with the overall design philosophy of rewarding multiple MLG trips.
Awful format. Not only inherently unfair but also injects alot of randomness in the draws. And to top that of its bo3 finals.
The bracket layout makes sense..
A best of 3 finals is ridiculous though..Is this correct or some sort of error?
Also, note that having a seed is very useful; the top 4 seeds only have to win 4 Bo3s, total, to win the whole thing. A player from the Open Bracket would have to play 13-19. This fits with the overall design philosophy of rewarding multiple MLG trips.
Awful format. Not only inherently unfair but also injects alot of randomness in the draws. And to top that of its bo3 finals.
The bracket layout makes sense..
A best of 3 finals is ridiculous though..Is this correct or some sort of error?
They can't have a greater than Bo3 finals because of the Extended Series rule. Without it you can easily make a Bo5 Semi's and a Bo7 Finals with the Winner's Group Finalist starting up 1-0 or just playing a straight up Bo7 and if the Loser wins, play another Bo3 or Bo5.
The whole MLG system is pretty ridiculous. The fact that incontrol was almost seeded into the top 16 is just absurd. Incontrol is a great guy - i am a fan of him, this is not to bash incontrol, i am just using him as an example to show how flawed the MLG format system is.
In the last 4 MLG events (the ones since korean invites): Columbus: 2-3 in groups, lost 1st round in LB Anaheim: 0-5 in groups, won 1 game and lost the next in LB Raleigh: 0-5 in groups, won 1 game and lost the next in LB Orlando: 0-5 in groups, lost 1st round in LB Overall record: 4 wins 22 losses
Just because he got 4th place in Dallas, he has had enough points i guess to keep getting him seeded in, even though he continually went 0-5 in groups. Because of how high pool players get seeded in, he kept finishing around 20th place, so he gets around 100 points each time even though he went 1-6 at the tournament. It is insane how hard it is to fall out of the seedings...
And then then there are so many good up and coming players that were not dominating the scene at the beginning of the game or were not able to attend some of the early MLGs, and so now they have to fight through an extremely difficult open bracket because so many high talent people are stuck down there.
On October 17 2011 14:12 ThyHate wrote: what is wrong with MLG and their tourneys formats -_- This is just an INSANE advantage for the seeds..
makes attending MLG regular season events and earning more points much more important.
Yeah but the MLG format's still messed up. The true MLG tournie is pool play to take the top spot within that pool, followed by a Ro4 tournie. The Loser's Bracket and Championship bracket outside of the top seeds, all of it's a waste of time. The MLG format's meant to exhaust anyone who misses a single step in the open tourney and pool play whilst providing insane advantages to the top seeds.
You can argue that taking 1st in pool play's balanced, which it arguably is. But let's eliminate the pretense that anyone has a fucking chance outside of the top 4 from the Pools cause no one does.
Has the winner of each pool group gone on to win every MLG?
Remember that finishing first in the group is guaranteed to give 6th as worst. Event: Player first in groups (finishing rank in bracket) Dallas: Naniwa (1st), Kiwikaki (2nd), Select (3rd), Incontrol (4th) Colombus: MMA (1st), Losira (2nd), Idra (4th), Naniwa (6th) Anaheim: MVP (1st), Boxer (3rd), DRG (5th), Rain (6th) Raleigh: Bomber (1st), Coca (2nd), DRG (3rd), Puma (5th) Orlando: Huk (1st), TheStC (3rd), Marineking (5th), Bomber (6th)
So from that we can see, only 6 players over 5 events managed to break into the finishing top 4, and thus change the top 4 that were at the start of championship sunday (that were the top in each group).
Out of the 6 players that got into top 4 that didn't get first in their groups, 4 were 2nd in their groups (MC, MMA, Ganzi, Idra), and 2 were 3rd in their groups (NaDa, MC).
It's worth noting that 4 of those group champions were from the Open Bracket (Finishes: 3,5,5,6). So while invited pool players have an advantage, it's not quite as horrific.
Forgot Naniwa in Dallas, who was champion out of the Open Bracket.
On October 18 2011 04:22 tentoff wrote: The whole MLG system is pretty ridiculous. The fact that incontrol was almost seeded into the top 16 is just absurd. Incontrol is a great guy - i am a fan of him, this is not to bash incontrol, i am just using him as an example to show how flawed the MLG format system is.
In the last 4 MLG events (the ones since korean invites): Columbus: 2-3 in groups, lost 1st round in LB Anaheim: 0-5 in groups, won 1 game and lost the next in LB Raleigh: 0-5 in groups, won 1 game and lost the next in LB Orlando: 0-5 in groups, lost 1st round in LB Overall record: 4 wins 22 losses
Just because he got 4th place in Dallas, he has had enough points i guess to keep getting him seeded in, even though he continually went 0-5 in groups. Because of how high pool players get seeded in, he kept finishing around 20th place, so he gets around 100 points each time even though he went 1-6 at the tournament. It is insane how hard it is to fall out of the seedings...
And then then there are so many good up and coming players that were not dominating the scene at the beginning of the game or were not able to attend some of the early MLGs, and so now they have to fight through an extremely difficult open bracket because so many high talent people are stuck down there.
Gotta agree with you. Also, I'm pretty sure theres going to be atleast 1 player who can't show up, thus probably giving incontrol the spot. I'm not bashing on him, but his performance is really not worthy for a seed. The next player after him is Sheth, who is a little more consistent that Incontrol, but the player after that is MVP. Its ridiculous how a 1st place finish from the best terran in the world doesn't even get a seed, and incontrol could quite possibly.
Basically, all of the koreans who only attended 1 MLG will not get seeded in here, as 1 MLG= max of 1200 points, and 16th place is currently tied at 1270. This list includes, MVP, Losira, Coca, theSTC, ganzi, nada, marineking, and some others.
I must be the only person in the world who seems to like the MLG format somewhat. It's the only tournament I don't get incredibly bored watching because it is so unique. I do agree that the MLG format needs some work, but I still feel they should continue to revise and work off of the tiered elimination format.
Perhaps a larger tier size would alleviate some of the issues of being seeded extremely deep into a tournament to the point of it being unfair. I still feel that MLG has a point in rewarding people for attending multiple circuit events (hell, it's cash in their pocket after all) and this is their way of doing so. It comes greatly at the expense of open bracket players, true... but open bracket players are more than capable of winning a tournament against the odds, look at PuMa at NASL 1, or NaNiwa at MLG Dallas.
One thing that for sure needs to be worked out for next year's circuit is players consistently being seeded despite poor performances in the group stage. iNcontroL, Machine, etc. are prime examples of this, and I'm not bagging on em for being bad, because they're better than I could ever be; however, the fact that it's even a question whether iNcontroL will get seeded into Providence after going 2-3 then 0-5 repeatedly in group stages since Koreans were invited is absolutely ridiculous. Perhaps MLG could implement something GSL-esque about group stage seeding, like placing last disqualifies a player from being group-seeded in the next circuit event or something. top placement (1-4) probably needs to be rewarded more strongly in Ranking Points, too, so that there is less of a question whether or not the X number of players that do earn seeded placement in the National Championships really do deserve it upon merit of their skills or if they just went to every event and mopped up points for 32nd to 16th place.
This is one of the biggest problems with a 'raw' points system... especially in the case of MLG. I understand they want to reward players for attending.. but penalizing players/teams that do not have the $$/time to attend more then a single/two events is just absurd. Raw points only works in NASCAR and there it has its flaws. The best system is a relative tournament results system. This system is relative to the results you have in the events you attend. By simply putting some variables in place to ensure repeat attendance (ie: must attend 2 events to qualify for finals - regardless of your finish).. you can ensure a more fair system.
I will post a link (need to upload it again)... to my GPS (Global Points System). This system uses 'Tier' levels to define the 'weight' of events/tournaments and applies the weighted points to each. From there.. a player/team earns points and a GPS Rank% based on their finish against only the other players in the events they attend. This system is a mix of my ( http://www.esportrank.com player rankings) and PGA Golf Rankings. Due to the nature of eSports (with the lack of real league structure).. we more closely represent Golf in terms of competitive structure.
For example..
Idra competes in 5 'A Tier' and 3 "B Tier" events and finishes on average of 6th place in each (with 2 championship wins in the B Tier events)
MC competes in 4 'A Tier' events and finishes with 3 Championships and a 6th place finish.
Using the MLG model and the model of many other eSport organizations.. that use only a 'raw' number system (ie: 1st = 1600 points, 2nd = 1000 points, 3rd = 600, etc...) Idra would be a much higher ranking player (based on points total).. compared to MC..
However, a relative ranking system would look at only how the players did 'relative' to their specific events. Even if those 2 players never played in the same events. As long at the 'Tier Levels' were defined, there can be a correlation.
Look at it.. MC won 3 of this 4 events.. all A Tier events.. but because he did not 'attend' as many as Idra.. he is ranked lower.
This is a very flawed approach and one that has continued to hinder eSports growth.
Ill get the link to my GPS Ranking system up later tonight.
On October 18 2011 07:35 csn_JohnClark wrote: This is one of the biggest problems with a 'raw' points system... especially in the case of MLG. I understand they want to reward players for attending.. but penalizing players/teams that do not have the $$/time to attend more then a single/two events is just absurd. Raw points only works in NASCAR and there it has its flaws. The best system is a relative tournament results system. This system is relative to the results you have in the events you attend. By simply putting some variables in place to ensure repeat attendance (ie: must attend 2 events to qualify for finals - regardless of your finish).. you can ensure a more fair system.
I will post a link (need to upload it again)... to my GPS (Global Points System). This system uses 'Tier' levels to define the 'weight' of events/tournaments and applies the weighted points to each. From there.. a player/team earns points and a GPS Rank% based on their finish against only the other players in the events they attend. This system is a mix of my ( http://www.esportrank.com player rankings) and PGA Golf Rankings. Due to the nature of eSports (with the lack of real league structure).. we more closely represent Golf in terms of competitive structure.
For example..
Idra competes in 5 'A Tier' and 3 "B Tier" events and finishes on average of 6th place in each (with 2 championship wins in the B Tier events)
MC competes in 4 'A Tier' events and finishes with 3 Championships and a 6th place finish.
Using the MLG model and the model of many other eSport organizations.. that use only a 'raw' number system (ie: 1st = 1600 points, 2nd = 1000 points, 3rd = 600, etc...) Idra would be a much higher ranking player (based on points total).. compared to MC..
However, a relative ranking system would look at only how the players did 'relative' to their specific events. Even if those 2 players never played in the same events. As long at the 'Tier Levels' were defined, there can be a correlation.
Look at it.. MC won 3 of this 4 events.. all A Tier events.. but because he did not 'attend' as many as Idra.. he is ranked lower.
This is a very flawed approach and one that has continued to hinder eSports growth.
Ill get the link to my GPS Ranking system up later tonight.
My 3 cents...
Cute idea, but (like any power ranking) not useful as seeding for any tournament. Results entirely outside the tournament's scope cannot and should not affect a player's position in that tournament. For example, your system would give HuK a boost for winning Dreamhack Summer, but that cannot and should not be used to seed him at MLG, GSL, HSC, or ANY non-Dreamhack tournament.
That was an example used to rank players not just in 'all' events.. but also JUST MLG Events.. sorry I did not clarify that. It most certainly can be used to rank players in only MLG event. I currently use this very system for my Poker League. With up to 20 players total.. but only around 12-14 on a weekly basis.. this system works perfectly. You must compete in at least 4 of the 10 poker tournaments to have your rank% qualify you or the Finals.
There is no flaw in the system as long as there are certain requirements set in place from the start. (ie. X number of tournaments to qualify, x number of total players required, etc...)
Very interesting. So results from Dallas (and to a lesser extent, Columbus) would be discounted because of the relatively weaker player pool?
EDIT: looking at it again, it seems fairly subjective again, assuming that event tier is the only criteria. Wouldn't you be better served by a ELO-ish power ranking limited to MLG competition?
It's too late to reform atm, but the format does need some changes before next season because atm, the prize pool is too top heavy and seeds are soooo heavily favoured. I understand the need to have seeds play fewer series, but when open bracket players have gone through 5 Bo3's that day, only to run into a top tier player, it really doesn't give much chance.
no.. ELO is not the answer for eSports in terms of 'tournaments'. ELO is best used to rank players in an overall match results system. The www.esportranks.com system that a friend and myself created is a combination of ELO + GPS. The reason that 'Tier levels' are defined for event is as you said.. the level of skill involved. For MLG events however.. its most likely that they would all rank as an A Tier event.. even with the first 2 events being weaker in overall skill. It is possible to 'weigh' them differently/lower if you wish.. and I may prefer that.. but because the format and skill is still very high at all of the MLG events.. it may just be nit-picking a bit too much.
Yes..there is a human element to the GPS and esportRanks.com systems.. but only in terms of the weight of an event. This system can be very restrictive though and should be.. to remove 'bias' from the equation. Defining 'Tier Levels' should also involve more math then just 'guessing or voting'.
On October 18 2011 09:06 motbob wrote: Rain was asked during an interview: If you could tell one person anything, what would it be? And why?
"To MLG Committee: Please change the Providence brackets."
HAHAHA
He really did get the short end of the stick, having to fight through Bomber, MC and IdrA if he wants to make it. Beastly T, P and then Z all with good vs.Terran skills.
Well the good news is that because the loser's championship bracket doesn't close up until near the end, the chances of an extended series before the semis are zero.
lol.... MLG doesnt reward multiple mlg trips it rewards top 16 at the very first mlg and then riding the ridiculous amount of pool play points all the way to the grand finals. fail
On October 17 2011 12:57 DrainX wrote: So bad that they are still using the double elimination format + extended series for the main event The finals are always an anticlimax where it is almost impossible for the player coming from the loser brackets to win if they two players have faced each other earlier. Just look at the Huk vs MC finals at Orlando. :/
Or the player that won the first time is the better player so it is normal he wins again.
On October 17 2011 12:57 DrainX wrote: So bad that they are still using the double elimination format + extended series for the main event The finals are always an anticlimax where it is almost impossible for the player coming from the loser brackets to win if they two players have faced each other earlier. Just look at the Huk vs MC finals at Orlando. :/
Or the player that won the first time is the better player so it is normal he wins again.
Don't want to turn this into another extended series debate, but that's part of the point; if the player has demonstrated himself to be superior, starting with a lead makes the series even more anticlimactic.
I really hope all of the players show up! Since (I think) this will not be conflicting with GSL, and the prize pool is so large, I think all the Koreans will come. Seeds won't be passing to the top 25-30 anymore, that's for sure.
On October 17 2011 13:11 Goibon wrote: I love the advantage given to the higher seeded players. Given the prize pool structure, and how MLG puts all their eggs into the providence basket, its only makes perfect sense to me to reward the fuck out of those who continually put up results over the season.
I just pray we get a true Bo7 finals.
Yeah it really makes true and total sense when an MLG champion isn't in the top 16.
Kind of gross, especially considering how they already know the players. MLG hasn't manipulated their brackets EVER EVER EVER (Sometimes to the dismay of fans, "Wtf 5 protoss in Group D") but their consistency in non-manipulation is their strength.
Their original way of seeding into groups (which is an applicable way of seeding the championship bracket) isn't even bad. Being in a championship bracket is strong no matter what, 1st and 2nd could definitely face each eventually (not like in regular Pool play where 1st and 2nd in pool play sometimes never meet). Forcing it to their liking just seems "non-MLG".
I was just wondering if this was somehow figured out by motbob or... not.
On October 17 2011 12:57 DrainX wrote: So bad that they are still using the double elimination format + extended series for the main event The finals are always an anticlimax where it is almost impossible for the player coming from the loser brackets to win if they two players have faced each other earlier. Just look at the Huk vs MC finals at Orlando. :/
Or the player that won the first time is the better player so it is normal he wins again.
That's faulty logic. Stephano beat stc 3-1, then stc beat Stephano 2-0. Idra beat Boxer 2-0, then if not for extended series Boxer would've won 2-1
On October 17 2011 12:57 DrainX wrote: So bad that they are still using the double elimination format + extended series for the main event The finals are always an anticlimax where it is almost impossible for the player coming from the loser brackets to win if they two players have faced each other earlier. Just look at the Huk vs MC finals at Orlando. :/
Or the player that won the first time is the better player so it is normal he wins again.
That's faulty logic. Stephano beat stc 3-1, then stc beat Stephano 2-0. Idra beat Boxer 2-0, then if not for extended series Boxer would've won 2-1
not really faulty logic wouldnt you say if you beat someone 2-0 you are the favored to beat him again 1 hour later? its of course not always true but in most cases it is and if you go about it from a logic point of view its of course logic to think that the player who won a few hours earlier should win again
On October 17 2011 12:57 DrainX wrote: So bad that they are still using the double elimination format + extended series for the main event The finals are always an anticlimax where it is almost impossible for the player coming from the loser brackets to win if they two players have faced each other earlier. Just look at the Huk vs MC finals at Orlando. :/
Or the player that won the first time is the better player so it is normal he wins again.
That's faulty logic. Stephano beat stc 3-1, then stc beat Stephano 2-0. Idra beat Boxer 2-0, then if not for extended series Boxer would've won 2-1
not really faulty logic wouldnt you say if you beat someone 2-0 you are the favored to beat him again 1 hour later? its of course not always true but in most cases it is and if you go about it from a logic point of view its of course logic to think that the player who won a few hours earlier should win again
I think it's been proven wrong many times. If the two players are close in skill then the first result doesn't mean much, it just means one player won. There have been lots of examples where one player would've won if not for extended series, Boxer vs IdrA, ThorZaIN vs MC, TLO vs Incontrol, Hero vs DRG etc.
Kind of gross, especially considering how they already know the players. MLG hasn't manipulated their brackets EVER EVER EVER (Sometimes to the dismay of fans, "Wtf 5 protoss in Group D") but their consistency in non-manipulation is their strength.
Their original way of seeding into groups (which is an applicable way of seeding the championship bracket) isn't even bad. Being in a championship bracket is strong no matter what, 1st and 2nd could definitely face each eventually (not like in regular Pool play where 1st and 2nd in pool play sometimes never meet). Forcing it to their liking just seems "non-MLG".
I was just wondering if this was somehow figured out by motbob or... not.
The original way of seeding the groups is A gets 1-8-9-16, B gets 2-7-10-15, C gets 3-6-11-14, D gets 4-5-12-13. In the Championship Bracket sees A1 play D1 and B1 play C1 in the upper bracket semis.
Theoretically, the top seed should win their group, so seed 1 plays seed 4, seed 2 plays seed 3 in the semis. Assuming the same theory applies to the Providence bracket, this is absolutely no different - #1 should win Row 1 to play #4 who won Row 2, and #3 will win Row 3 and play #2 who won Row 4.
There was no "forcing" it or "manipulating" going on at all.
This is a really, really good way of thinking about it, if people don't understand how the championship bracket was set up (MLG always snakes the rows like this).
Garbage format, even worse then the one they use for regular tourneys. The advantage from a high seed is simply insane. You only need to win a few series to win the whole damn thing, and only win one to get a super high finish. People who aren't seeded might just as well not bother showing up, given the amount of games they have to grind out just to get a shot a money finish.
Besides, it means far fewer games from the higher seeds who also happen to be fan favorites, so you screw the viewers as well.
On October 18 2011 21:39 Lann555 wrote: Besides, it means far fewer games from the higher seeds who also happen to be fan favorites, so you screw the viewers as well.
Just want to quote this because it's a really good point that I hadn't even thought about. One of the best parts of MLG is the sheer volume of games from pool play and multiple streams, but if all our favorite players only get a few matches in, what's the point?
Although yes Idra is in a much tougher bracket, he still only has to beat just one player from his bracket and he'll move on to play the winner of the other bracket. It's not like he has #16 seed.
On October 18 2011 17:17 Hnnngg wrote: What I want to know is how motbob mixed up the seeds.
It goes (according the image): 16-9-8-1 13-12-5-4 14-11-6-3 15-10-7-2
Maybe I'm bad at patterns, but that just doesn't make any sense.
This the regular way to do the seeds, 1 got the "easiest" opponents, #4 the hardest.
Correct. Assuming favorites always win, the highest seed gets the lowest seed for every round (adding the competitors' seed numbers should give you the same value for each match in a round).
This is a different system than what they did to put pool players into the championship brackets in the last 5 events, but makes more sense given the lack of pool play. It's not entirely a guess, however, because they used they same system for the Open Brackets.
Assuming IdrA loses both his opening match, his lower bracket match, and then goes on to bomb his placement matches and takes twelfth, mathematically the worst I believe he can finish is 6th. MMA has to finish 3rd to his 12th to overtake him, while Kiwikaki has to finish 2nd. SLush can also overcome IdrA with a 2nd place finish, but then Kiwikaki either has to win, or does not overtake. Ret has the same scenario. Then, from MC to SeleCT, all of them must win to overtake IdrA in the rankings. Given that only one person can win, only one can finish second, and then only MMA can finish third, that leaves only Huk and Naniwa left to be in spots to overtake him (and as long as they finish 11th and 10th, respectively, they do).
Winning his opening match guarantees him 6th place points minimum, which will leave only MMA, NaNiWa and Huk mathematically capable of overtaking him (and only MMA if he wins) and guarantee him a 4th place finish in the final ranks.
A top 4 finish gives him a guaranteed minimum of 3rd place in the final ranks.
Other than that, he has to outplace Huk straight up to finish ahead of him in the ranks, and he has to either finish higher than Naniwa from 1st to 8th, or one place behind him from 9th-12th (Naniwa 9th being the highest place NaNiWa achieves) to beat out Naniwa in the final rankings.
On October 17 2011 13:11 Goibon wrote: I love the advantage given to the higher seeded players. Given the prize pool structure, and how MLG puts all their eggs into the providence basket, its only makes perfect sense to me to reward the fuck out of those who continually put up results over the season.
I just pray we get a true Bo7 finals.
Yeah it really makes true and total sense when an MLG champion isn't in the top 16.
Think of the MLG Pro Circuit like the NASCAR Cup season, and Providence is the entire Chase for the Cup in one event.
Players may win events, like racers will win races. That doesn't guarantee them a spot in the Championship Bracket or the Chase. Consistent performance throughout the season guarantees the spot, while wins boost your placement.
On October 19 2011 23:44 vx70GTOJudgexv wrote: Assuming IdrA loses both his opening match, his lower bracket match, and then goes on to bomb his placement matches and takes twelfth, mathematically the worst I believe he can finish is 6th. MMA has to finish 3rd to his 12th to overtake him, while Kiwikaki has to finish 2nd. SLush can also overcome IdrA with a 2nd place finish, but then Kiwikaki either has to win, or does not overtake. Ret has the same scenario. Then, from MC to SeleCT, all of them must win to overtake IdrA in the rankings. Given that only one person can win, only one can finish second, and then only MMA can finish third, that leaves only Huk and Naniwa left to be in spots to overtake him (and as long as they finish 11th and 10th, respectively, they do).
Winning his opening match guarantees him 6th place points minimum, which will leave only MMA, NaNiWa and Huk mathematically capable of overtaking him (and only MMA if he wins) and guarantee him a 4th place finish in the final ranks.
A top 4 finish gives him a guaranteed minimum of 3rd place in the final ranks.
Other than that, he has to outplace Huk straight up to finish ahead of him in the ranks, and he has to either finish higher than Naniwa from 1st to 8th, or one place behind him from 9th-12th (Naniwa 9th being the highest place NaNiWa achieves) to beat out Naniwa in the final rankings.
On October 17 2011 13:11 Goibon wrote: I love the advantage given to the higher seeded players. Given the prize pool structure, and how MLG puts all their eggs into the providence basket, its only makes perfect sense to me to reward the fuck out of those who continually put up results over the season.
I just pray we get a true Bo7 finals.
Yeah it really makes true and total sense when an MLG champion isn't in the top 16.
Think of the MLG Pro Circuit like the NASCAR Cup season, and Providence is the entire Chase for the Cup in one event.
Players may win events, like racers will win races. That doesn't guarantee them a spot in the Championship Bracket or the Chase. Consistent performance throughout the season guarantees the spot, while wins boost your placement.
Either you or me are confused as to the points system. As far as I know, your final points placing is completely irrelevant. The points you accumulate in the season leading up to Providence determine your seeding in it but that is all. The prize money is distributed based on your placing in this tournament, getting points for your placing is pointless because it is the final event in the season right?
Seems really counter intuitive that the most important event with regards to seeding will not have pool play to determine the seeds into the championship bracket.
Some people may not like this format, but it makes sense the way it's handled. If they gave no advantage to the top 16, then this isn't a Pro Circuit. It's just individual tournaments that don't mean anything in the long run. Players go to MLG events not just for the money but to get points for seeding when the big tournament(Providence in this case) comes around.
Not only does the money motivate players to train hard for these events, the points motivate as well so they have a better chance in the Nationals. Like I said, it makes sense. And it's really not as bad as some of you are making it out to be.
poor idra...he has to face the likes of bomber/MC in ro1 and has to weedle through korean after korean regardless of whether he wins or loses -.-.....This is something I look forward to watching
For everyone upset about MVP not being seeded (like the previous poster), you have to remember he chose not to come back for the MLG after the one he won. Bomber came instead. MVP chose to focus on GSL which was his choice, but MMA and Bomber both came back after winning and because of that they are seeded in this tournament. It makes sense that MVP isn't seeded into the tournament.
On a slightly different note, I don't know the politics of MLG/GSL, but I suspect Nestea was offered a spot as a Korean invite and turned it down. This a pure guess on my part, but the MLG people have said they wanted the previous winner, a zerg, a terran, and protoss. I'd be shocked if they didn't offer the zerg spot to Nestea at least once.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/motbob/Providence3.png)
IdrA
HuK
MMA![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/motbob/Providence_full.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nY2om.jpg)
