Playoffs for regional tournaments changed from single elimination to double elimination.
ESL Asia region seeds at DreamHack Atlanta increased from 1 to 2. Global/Combined Ranking seeds reduced from 3 to 2.
New map pick/ban order to accommodate nine maps in pool (details).
Minor adjustments to ESL Masters Championship format (DreamHack Atlanta)

Nakajin

Canada8989 Posts

October 07 2023 00:41 GMT

I get why they do it, but round-robin into double elimination is pretty much the least likely format to give us a surprising results. I really wish ESL would roll the dices and go for a 32 man single elim bracket or something.

Azzur

Australia6260 Posts

October 07 2023 04:40 GMT

I personally prefer the better players winning - don't generally like weaker players playing well for one series and creating a sensation.

JJH777

United States4416 Posts

October 07 2023 04:56 GMT

Still too much of an advantage for people who qualify through regionals rather than the open bracket imo. They goal of a tournament should be to crown the best player there. Even if someone from the open bracket is the best player at Atlanta they will have an extremely low chance of winning the event. Having to play through the open bracket is already a big penalty I really don't understand why there was a necessity to make that penalty bigger.

Philippe

354 Posts

October 07 2023 05:58 GMT

On October 07 2023 13:56 JJH777 wrote:
Still too much of an advantage for people who qualify through regionals rather than the open bracket imo. They goal of a tournament should be to crown the best player there. Even if someone from the open bracket is the best player at Atlanta they will have an extremely low chance of winning the event. Having to play through the open bracket is already a big penalty I really don't understand why there was a necessity to make that penalty bigger.

Which is likely why upgrading the advantages of qualifying through a regional event, because having to go through the open bracket means there were insufficient results for a direct spot.

Either some of the ESL employees, or the ESL owners, don't like surprises that much. Double elimination system for the regionals gives higher chances the better players being there.

ejozl

Denmark3489 Posts

October 07 2023 12:37 GMT

On October 07 2023 13:40 Azzur wrote:
I personally prefer the better players winning - don't generally like weaker players playing well for one series and creating a sensation.

It still has to be fun to watch though, you could make everyone play bo69's, but it would get dull very quickly.

Vindicare605

United States16121 Posts

October 07 2023 16:51 GMT

On October 07 2023 09:41 Nakajin wrote:
I get why they do it, but round-robin into double elimination is pretty much the least likely format to give us a surprising results. I really wish ESL would roll the dices and go for a 32 man single elim bracket or something.

Which is exactly why they did it.

ESL doesn't want another Oliveira run. If they did, they wouldn't have made a change like this.

Philippe

354 Posts

October 07 2023 19:13 GMT

On October 08 2023 01:51 Vindicare605 wrote:

Show nested quote +

Which is exactly why they did it.

ESL doesn't want another Oliveira run. If they did, they wouldn't have made a change like this.

Head honchos are probably not unhappy to see Oliveira win given how the Chinese sponsors are still forking money for not so small events...

My guess on who they don't really want.to see : the likes of Astrea, Scarlett, Special, Trigger, Gerald. More globally, those below the absolute elite and/or not bringing audience or money. Gotta look at how G8 spots were decided for instance.

argonautdice

Canada2719 Posts

October 07 2023 19:14 GMT

ESL Asia region seeds at DreamHack Atlanta increased from 1 to 2. Global/Combined Ranking seeds reduced from 3 to 2.

Nice, that was the biggest complaint I had with the first season.

WombaT

Northern Ireland26625 Posts

October 08 2023 03:52 GMT

#10

Yeah in earlier epochs of SC2 you saw a lot more huge open bracket runs, I guess tournaments were structured a bit differently and the globalised system and circuit we have now wasn’t a thing.

In those events the open bracket was really just a preliminary stage of a tournament bracket. Now it’s come out of an open bracket into the next stages often with some disadvantage to boot and in combination with the extra games people just tend not to be able to perform the feat.

Something I really do wish would be somewhat looked at. I’d love some more miracle runs myself, but I am mean does it even make economic sense to almost any pro, unless they’re nearby to even both trying and travelling over these days?

tedster

984 Posts

October 12 2023 01:51 GMT

#11

The only way you get those miracle open bracket runs with a mature ecosystem like this is if you make the cutoffs for qualification to group stages/later rounds overly prohibitive to ensure that top players get shunted to the open brackets.

Needless to say that this makes both players and fans extremely mad to see favorites get eliminated super early because of overly stacked open brackets so it's not a good solution for virtually anyone outside of intentionally gimmicky tournaments or tournaments with very small, very high-level player pools.

Philippe

354 Posts

October 12 2023 02:18 GMT

#12

On October 12 2023 10:51 tedster wrote:
The only way you get those miracle open bracket runs with a mature ecosystem like this is if you make the cutoffs for qualification to group stages/later rounds overly prohibitive to ensure that top players get shunted to the open brackets.

Needless to say that this makes both players and fans extremely mad to see favorites get eliminated super early because of overly stacked open brackets so it's not a good solution for virtually anyone outside of intentionally gimmicky tournaments or tournaments with very small, very high-level player pools.

+ many of the sponsors making organizers understand this would be a very, very bad idea to do so ...

tedster

984 Posts

October 12 2023 16:02 GMT

#13

Well, sponsors typically have no idea what's going on in an esports tournament and certainly very little concept of how tournament structure or even tournament results really impact viewership and visibility. Obviously it's good for them when a superstar player wins it all but that's about the most you can expect them to understand and even that is rarely their concern.

Tournament organizers with any experience understand these things and are highly aware of the kinds of tradeoffs that go into different tournament structures. Optimizing for viewership is definitely something TOs pay attention to and there's a a clear tradeoff between making miracle runs possible while also trying to give your best players ample opportunities to play later into a tournament.

Balnazza

Germany1281 Posts

October 16 2023 01:45 GMT

#14

Probably a bit off-topic, but while we are at the discussion of format:
Can we please on Liquipedia remove that passive-agressive "notice" that the tournament is using the "wrong format"? I know atleast one admin on SC2-Liquipedia is super-adamant about it being pseudo-swiss and just triple-elim, but it really reads so weird, like one of the biggest tournaments is somehow whacky...

There is no notice like that on the CS-Liquipedia and the LoL-Liquipedia entry for Worlds (who also uses this format now) also works perfectly fine without the constant reminder that it is not "pRoPeR sWiSs"...no one cares...