EPT
(all of the info in this post is thanks to Aficionado, coach of Team POS)
OGN has its Challenge League, Duel Tournament and Starleague. MBCGame has its Major and Minor leagues. So what does iTV have to compete against these famous and popular tournaments? iTV has the iTV Ranking League.
16 players compete in the iTV Ranking League. The League can be divided into 3 "phases": 2 group phases followed by a kind of sequential ladder. Because this final phase resembles a single pass of the "Bubble Sort" algorithm from bottom to top (computer science people will know what this is), and because I don't know what its proper name is, I will refer to it as the Bubble Sort ladder phase . If you have no idea what I just said, then never fear: all will be explained below .
Phase 1: Initial Groups
First, our 16 contestants are divided into 4 groups of 4. 4 matches are played as follows:
(a) P1 v P2
(b) P3 v P4
(c) loser(a) v loser(b)
(d) winner(a) v winner(b)
These 4 matches are used to generate a ranking of the 4 group players:
4th = loser(c)
3rd = winner(c)
2nd = loser(d)
1st = winner(d)
After this phase is complete, we have 4 groups of 4 sorted players.
Phase 2: Second Groups
Next, we take the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishers in each group and place them in new groups:
Group 1 = SUM(1st place of each group)
Group 2 = SUM(2nd place of each group)
Group 3 = SUM(3rd place of each group)
Group 4 = SUM(4th place of each group)
Now we have 4 new groups of 4. These players will now play 4 new series of matches, presumably in the same format as the previous group phase. After this phase is complete, these new groups will be sorted into ranks 1st-4th. The result of these two phases is that all 16 players have been sorted into 16 different ranks.
Phase 3: Bubble Sort ladder
Phases 1 and 2 have produced a ladder of 16 players on 16 different ranks. These ranks can be summarized as:
Rank # = result from phase 1; result from phase 2
01 = 1st; 1st
02 = 1st; 2nd
03 = 1st; 3rd
04 = 1st; 4th
05 = 2nd; 1st
06 = 2nd; 2nd
07 = 2nd; 3rd
08 = 2nd; 4th
09 = 3rd; 1st
10 = 3rd; 2nd
11 = 3rd; 3rd
12 = 3rd; 4th
13 = 4th; 1st
14 = 4th; 2nd
15 = 4th; 3rd
16 = 4th; 4th
At this point, the equivalent of one pass of the Bubble Sort algorithm is run on the rankings to shuffle the (theoretically) best player to the #1 spot. This player will then be the winner of the entire league. In other words, the games in this last phase will be played as follows:
16 v 15
winner of previous v 14
winner of previous v 13
winner of previous v 12
...
winner of previous v 3
winner of previous v 2
winner of previous v 1 => league champion
Some implications of this format:
- After reaching this final phase, the player who has achieved rank 1 needs to defeat only ONE other opponent in the finals to be the league champion.
- By contrast, the players ranked 15th and 16th must defeat FIFTEEN (15!) opponents in order to win the league.
- The 4 unfortunate players who placed 4th in the initial group phase (which has already been played) cannot end up any higher than 12th place for phase 3, meaning that they'll have a looong way to go if they want to be the league champion.
