This article is part of a cooperation between ESL and TeamLiquid.net for the IEM World Championship event coming up in Katowice. ESL has provided images, information and financial support for us to produce this article and others.
Most tournaments in StarCraft II that include a group stage in their format have relied almost exclusively on one single system: the GSL-style format of two opening matches, a winners' and losers' match, and a deciding fifth series between the two players left standing. But that has not always been the case. IEM tournaments regularly featured Round Robin groups until 2013. Dreamhack employed them as well—the last time they did so was at their LotV Championship in 2015, but have since also made the switch to the GSL format for all their tournaments.
Round Robin groups were always a rather romantic concept. Every player in the group has to face all the others, and then the best advance. But what sounds fair and exciting for viewers on paper often didn’t quite play out that way as fundamental flaws in the system appeared. With no clear bracket structure for players to advance through, odd ties occurred. Ironically, it was the GSL that witnessed the most tiebreakers, in its Up/Down tournament and wildcard groups to decide last-minute spots.
An unexpectedly long day at the office for Wolf.
But arguably the most memorable and eye-opening moment happened when LucifroN, in a three-way tie with YugiOh and Strelok, drew the short straw—literally. With two rounds of tiebreakers unsuccessfully played and with the entire tournament on hold, admins decided to solve the issue with a draw, and LucifroN lost.
I wasn't joking.
Needless to say, the decision to largely abandon Round Robin came after much dissent from players who bemoaned the volatile nature of the format, as well as the different and often confusing ways tournament organizers called upon to circumvent the glaring flaws in the format. Head-to-head, map score, tiebreakers. Add to that the possibility of some players having to play meaningless series while others’ tournament lives depended on the result. I very much understand why players would prefer the very straight-forward GSL format. There’s only one series to worry about at a time, you either win or lose, and then you’re either eliminated or get another chance. No need to bite your nails over the outcome of any other match in your group. Cut and dry. And yet, IEM made the decision to bring back Round Robin groups for their World Championship in Katowice in last year. And it was received positively by both spectators and players. What did they change?
I think the biggest issue with the format was always players having to play games that didn’t matter to them. If someone was already eliminated, they have little incentive to perform to the best of their abilities, even though their opponent’s fate could still be clear. IEM have counteracted that possibility by spreading their prize pool very intelligently. Not only is there a difference in prize money earned between all the different group finishers, IEM also award 200$ for each map win in the group stage. Even after being eliminated early in the groups, I doubt any player would frown at the opportunity to squeeze additional money out of their remaining matches. By putting additional emphasis on every single map, IEM have quite elegantly turned one of the system’s weaknesses into a strength—every game now matters.
It certainly helps that last year’s Katowice group stage featured a number of extremely exciting games—from Serral’s narrow victory over Zest to aLive playing one of the best tournaments of his life, and uThermal beating INnoVation.
But therein lies the beauty of Round Robin. Where the GSL format sometimes leaves us with the most exciting potential match-up not happening, Round Robin ensures they all happen. So when the Open Bracket of this year’s IEM Katowice finishes on February the 27th and its survivors are seeded into these four groups, you need not worry that any potentially awesome match could elude you. You will see them all. And that is only fitting for a tournament as stacked as IEM Katowice.
While the advantages of GSL’s system are easily pointed out and it is deservedly the most popular group stage format, Round Robin is often overlooked. The International, one of esports' biggest tournaments has for years used it successfully, and I for one am glad that it has seemingly also found its place in StarCraft II tournaments again.
It certainly helps that last year’s Katowice group stage featured a number of extremely exciting games—from Serral’s narrow victory over Zest to aLive playing one of the best tournaments of his Life, and uThermal beating INnoVation.
Is Life being TLPD'd on purpose ? Round Robin is always fun, if only because it offers variety in tournament formats. I'll never forget that Paralyze/Cure/Dream tiebreaker day (and how mad I was that Dream lost ).
I always disliked the GSL style groups. They give more hype matches (due to the rematch aspect), and greater upset potential. But round robin (although not perfect) is much better
I prefer round robin to gsl style as well, mostly because we don't see it as often and i like that every player has to play vs every other opponent. Ofc there are problems, but i think you can minimize it through some options like giving money for each win or using the round robin purely for seeding into a big bracket. In general i would hope that tournament organizers experiment a bit with different formats to see what works.
I'll never forget when NaNiwa pulled probes against Nestea in the 2011 GSL Blizzard cup. They were both already out so the match wasn't going to affect the outcome. Round robin as a format doesn't make sense to me exactly because of the risk of playing pointless matches. Still, I can understand some people wanting to see matchups that wouldn't happen otherwise.
The very problem of possible odd-number-way-ties makes this format really risky for weekend tourneys. I agree it can be fun, but it is also really demanding on the production. If the only interface between the system and the viewers is a confused Wolf, who can't grasp the branching tree even after several years of casting it, it takes some dedication to follow ...
We discussed extensively that a 4-player RR group can actually be played in such a manner that nobody knowingly plays a meaningless match, but any larger group makes it impossible and let's be honest, 200$ is much less of a motivation than advancing a step in IEM WC. At >4 players it gets hard to follow anyway, so I would probably be in favor of using a modified Swiss or multiple-elimination system. Nobody is gonna understand it, but it really doesn't make that much of a difference at that point.
I think it's fine to have round robin for 6+ players groups, but it's really a pain to have round robin with 4 players groups (for all the reasons already shown in this piece). I wouldn't ever come back to having round robin in tournaments with 4 players groups like Dreamhack or GSL
On February 14 2018 00:28 deacon.frost wrote: While Yugioh running around and screaming from the excitement is a great memory, losing in this way has to hurt much. I don't like RR.
For anyone interested in seeing Yugioh's reaction: + Show Spoiler +
Round robin sure has flaws, like pointless matches or un-even stakes (one guaranteed to go through, other not), but they are mostly okay if the group has 6 players or more like in IEM Katowice. Most people only remember the horror stories from DH or early GSL groups which had 4 players. Remember in DH Winter 2010 when Naama, Socke and Bischu were tied and when the ties continued, they had a coin toss, and Bischu dropped while Socke and Naama continued, and the latter later won the tournament. Bischu got another tournament made just for him after the event though, DH's Coin toss tournament.
On February 14 2018 05:16 opisska wrote: Why do you guys think that 4-player groups are especially bad? The possibility to create a 3-way exists in any group size.
Sure, the possibility exists. But with bigger groups, more players influence the score and therefore there's more chances to avoid a complete tie. In smaller groups (4 or even 3 like the Code A tiebreaker in the article) ties happen pretty quick between players that are about evenly matched.
If was in my hand To solve the threeway tie i would have schedule FFA among all 3 of them. The Winer advances and the other 2 face each other in a 1v1.
Yeah the FFA its unfair and 2 players can ally against the third but its more fair than a Draw.
I would have loved to follow the scene when that triple tie happend.
Nice! I got into SC2 fairly late and haven't yet seen a round robin format.
It sounds more appealing overall for sure as a spectator to see such a variety of matchups and theoretically should reward the most well rounded player.
Another big problem of round robin is that you have an uncertain narrative until the very end of the group, where everyone is like "well, this match COULD matter for player A if x and x happen" and it's very hard to build hype as there are few matches that are either elimination matches or guaranteed advancement matches. Everything relies on conditionals of what happens in other matches, which makes it hard to follow as a viewer.
Round robin format is standard for so many sports. The regular season is a big round robin and then the top advance to playoffs. SSL used that last year, in both of their leagues. I see several advantages to this system in a long running competition. 1) I think that the system is more reflective of skill. More games vs more players will give everyone a bigger opportunity to show their worth. There are no "unlucky brackets". 2) You, as a spectator, will be able to cheer for the players for a long time instead of seeing your favourite getting knocked out on the first day, like + Show Spoiler +
INnoVation in the GSL.
3) The players will have a more steady income, especially if they a) get money for showing up to play and b) get money for each game won.
This article didn't talk about long seasonal play. The focus was shorter tournaments. I don't see as many advantages in smaller groups at weekend tournaments. In small groups there is a higher chance for ties and the advantage for the higher skilled players is smaller.
I am all for variety in how tournaments are played, but I would be most happy to see round robin beeing used in seasonal play. SSL, please!
On February 14 2018 07:15 Fango wrote: Can you not just use h2h score to determine who passes after map score?
People do that, but any group of an odd amount of player can have h2hs cyclically, that's what creates the ties.
Yeah ties still happen, but it's less likely if you prioritise 2h2 over map score.
A lot of people here might not be familiar with it, but the Swiss system that big csgo tournaments use is really good. You have all 15 teams in one group and they play eachother based of their map scores until 8 advance to playoffs.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/bird_blue_16.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Olli/dreamcuredraw.png)
LucifroN, in a three-way tie with 
YugiOh and ![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Olli/lucifrondraw.png)
Zest to 
).
