EPTIf the final round of the tournament could be played in a bubble format, where the results of the group stage determine the position of the players, I would think this format is better
Is the EWC format unreasonable?
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serralbest
38 Posts
If the final round of the tournament could be played in a bubble format, where the results of the group stage determine the position of the players, I would think this format is better | ||
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ShowTheLights
Korea (South)1665 Posts
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kajtarp
Hungary454 Posts
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Zaros
United Kingdom3692 Posts
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Devangel
Russian Federation61 Posts
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DisReSpeCTsc2
United States44 Posts
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Mizenhauer
United States1754 Posts
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Agh
United States891 Posts
The only real crazy statistic is that herO will have had to play 11 series total if he goes on to win. | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1158 Posts
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angryground
51 Posts
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Nakajin
Canada8978 Posts
 Talk about missing your moment... In short, no the format is not reasonable, for three reasons. 1. Way too complicated. There's nothing remotely intuitive in the format, you basically cannot decipher who will play who next without Liquipedia. It just creates confusion all around and reduces excitement. 2. The format works to reduce the stakes. Many matches have little or no bearing on the unfolding of the tournament (most of the group matches), and players who have already lost multiple matches are still in the running for the trophy, which begs the question of why viewers were supposed to get invested in those matches in the first place. Losing a match should mean an elimination from the tournament in most cases, and if not at least a major setback in your chance to get the trophy. That's how you create drama and memorable matches, no one will remember group stage matches in a couple of days because they were mostly meaningless. 3. In relation with the second point, the format is skewed to favor the favorites and create the most predictable end results. By giving players second and third chances, you erase statistical anomalies and allow the best players to dodge their bad matchups. For example, if we had a more cutthroat tournament format, we could have the overwhelming favorite (Serral) out as he's drawn a bad matchup in Clem, same for Maru. It would have been an exciting, controversial and most of all memorable turn of events. Instead, they are both still there, with Serral just a match away from the grand final. Meanwhile, underdogs get close to nothing for their good work. Astrea put on a great pvt performance to pull off the upset against Gumiho, but the tournament format is set up to negate his win. There was essentially no chance Astrea was ever pulling 3 major upsets in a row, meaning he fell to the knockout stage all the same, and to make things worse he didn't even get to parade the pelt of Gumiho, seeing as the terran was still in the lower bracket. Now he's out of the tournament and got the same prize money as if he had gone 0-3. There's other stuff I'd like to touch on, but TLDR, a world championship format should look as close to this as possible: + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/N1VVK1MT6KOR1383849557438.jpg) (ps; I'm aware I've somewhat deviated from the OP question. Regarding it, it is kind of dumb that there's no knockout bracket seeding in relation to group stage performance, but I do prefer it as it at least creates a little bit of chance of a surprising and meaningful upset. However, the solution IMO was just to not have a group stage.) | ||
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Balnazza
Germany973 Posts
But as I said, without staggering according to the results of the first round, the first round became useless for anyone except three players (Maru skipped one Bo3, woohoo...), which is silly. Considering that the format was Bo5 before, it creates strategy-problems aswell: Do players fire through their arsenal in Round 1? Or do players like Classic or Coffee keep their strategies hidden, since it is more important to get deep into the Knockout Bracket? I would love to hear the reasoning for this format, because at EWC in general, we don't see particularly crazy formats all around...though there is definetly a theme that they try to have as many different formats as possible. Or maybe they didn't know how to fill all five days with games, considering that SC2 games are generally quicker compared to CS2 or LoL games, but they needed to fill the schedule nevertheless? | ||
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mintyminmus
Australia127 Posts
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Mizenhauer
United States1754 Posts
On August 17 2024 20:51 Nakajin wrote: My mushy principles mean I'm reduced to following ESWC only through the TL thread, but I am a bit disappointed in myself that I have a 90% done article about tournament formats sleeping on my computer for two months Talk about missing your moment... In short, no the format is not reasonable, for three reasons. 1. Way too complicated. There's nothing remotely intuitive in the format, you basically cannot decipher who will play who next without Liquipedia. It just creates confusion all around and reduces excitement. 2. The format works to reduce the stakes. Many matches have little or no bearing on the unfolding of the tournament (most of the group matches), and players who have already lost multiple matches are still in the running for the trophy, which begs the question of why viewers were supposed to get invested in those matches in the first place. Losing a match should mean an elimination from the tournament in most cases, and if not at least a major setback in your chance to get the trophy. That's how you create drama and memorable matches, no one will remember group stage matches in a couple of days because they were mostly meaningless. 3. In relation with the second point, the format is skewed to favor the favorites and create the most predictable end results. By giving players second and third chances, you erase statistical anomalies and allow the best players to dodge their bad matchups. For example, if we had a more cutthroat tournament format, we could have the overwhelming favorite (Serral) out as he's drawn a bad matchup in Clem, same for Maru. It would have been an exciting, controversial and most of all memorable turn of events. Instead, they are both still there, with Serral just a match away from the grand final. Meanwhile, underdogs get close to nothing for their good work. Astrea put on a great pvt performance to pull off the upset against Gumiho, but the tournament format is set up to negate his win. There was essentially no chance Astrea was ever pulling 3 major upsets in a row, meaning he fell to the knockout stage all the same, and to make things worse he didn't even get to parade the pelt of Gumiho, seeing as the terran was still in the lower bracket. Now he's out of the tournament and got the same prize money as if he had gone 0-3. There's other stuff I'd like to touch on, but TLDR, a world championship format should look as close to this as possible: + Show Spoiler + (ps; I'm aware I've somewhat deviated from the OP question. Regarding it, it is kind of dumb that there's no knockout bracket seeding in relation to group stage performance, but I do prefer it as it at least creates a little bit of chance of a surprising and meaningful upset. However, the solution IMO was just to not have a group stage.) Who would have thought that a bracket is the best way to format 1v1 competition after decades of use in popular sports. | ||
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland4028 Posts
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Nakajin
Canada8978 Posts
On August 17 2024 21:55 Mizenhauer wrote: Who would have thought that a bracket is the best way to format 1v1 competition after decades of use in popular sports. Not SC2 organizers apparently. Just in the 23-24 season, there have been 9 different formats for premier tournaments, and only a single tournament used a simple bracket Everyone wants to reinvent the wheel. | ||
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Brutaxilos
United States2621 Posts
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encyclopedia
3 Posts
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Mizenhauer
United States1754 Posts
On August 17 2024 22:17 Nakajin wrote: Not SC2 organizers apparently. Just in the 23-24 season, there have been 9 different formats for premier tournaments, and only a single tournament used a simple bracket Everyone wants to reinvent the wheel. A note worth adding. As a fan of college wrestling (aka I'm very used to their format for tournaments), I appreciate that, should you lose in the winner's bracket, that the highest you can place is third (by winning the losers bracket). Instead, first and second place are determined solely on advancing through the winner's bracket). I find it extremely problematic once you try to devise a system where the loser's bracket gives you a way to make it back to the finals because you have to differentiate the winner of the winner's bracket vs the loser's finals winner since the upper bracket player is undefeated. And, that's probably the easiest problem to solve. | ||
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encyclopedia
3 Posts
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