EPT
Welcome to MBGamenet! After their last try at innovation, an outdoor finals, failed miserably, MBCGame has decided to return to the easy path they've visited often: copying Ongamenet. Definitely not a bad thing for the fans, since Ongamenet's style is not bad at all.
Inexplicably, the quality of games in a Starcraft league are actually better as the channel is less known. Despite this fact, Ongamenet has managed to lead in the rating while broadcasting games that absolutely blow. Now sporting that OGN polish, MBCGame looks to attract more casual fans.
First off we have a name change. No longer the KPGA Tour, it's the MBCGame Starleague. I suppose they didn't have to go THAT far, but it's up to them if they want to bury their pride. On top of that, they moved the location. And guess where it is! The Coex Mall, where you can find the MegaWebStation, home of the Ongamenet Starleague. MBCGamenet it is -_-.
Maps
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Wow, some interesting decisions here. A modified version of Gauntlet?! And the most "pure" island that's been seen in 2 years! Add Dark Sauron and Jim Raynor's Memory J to the mix, and you get a big heap of imbalance trying to cancel each other out. Plains to Hill has finally been retired, may it rest in peace (and be resurrected later).
They also decided to throw in OGN's method of determining groups, with the players selecting their opponents in turn. However, MBCGame's remaining ounce of individuality makes this a little different.
Format
The single big difference is that the MBCGame Starleague is run as a 16 man double elimination tournament. Rather simple in itself, but it makes the process of the players making the brackets slightly more complicated than having 4 separate groups.
For those of you who forgot what double elim is... It's like a regular tournament, except you are knocked out when you lose twice. When you lose once, you go down to the loser's bracket, which is occupied by other losers. If you lose there, you're out. If you win while you are in the loser's bracket, you go on to fight someone from the winner's bracket that has suffered a loss. This continues until there is 1 player with no losses, and a player with one loss coming up from the loser's bracket. Since I think everyone knows this concept, I'll leave those of you who can't figure it out to ask your friends.
The 4 seeded players (Yellow, Nada, Boxer, and Chojja in this case) are placed 4 spaces apart from each other on the bracket. This leaves 3 empty spaces until the next seeded player, and the seed + the 3 next players are a "group" during the selection process.
The #1 seed picks his opponent, then the #2 seed, and so forth. After the #4 seed picks, the player picked by the #1 seed picks the next player in the 'group'. The 2nd round of picking is quite interesting, because there's no being sure that the selecting player will actually play the selected player. Assuming you beat your initial opponent, you'd want to pick someone you can beat, but is still good enough to defeated his own opponent and get to you. The 3rd round of picking becomes straightforward again, with the selecting and selected players assured to have a match.
Though I'm not exactly sure, I think that the semi-finals will be best 2 of 3, with the player coming from the winner's bracket having a 1 game advantage. The finals will be best 3 of 5, with the player from the winner's bracket having a 1 game advantage.
Here are the initial brackets for this tournament.
CLICK. The numbers below the player display in what order they picked. 1~4 are the seeded players. The player they selected is the player below himself.
There were some interesting picks, such as the same race picks Gorush -> Jju, and Kos -> Sync. Rage -> Zeus is also interesting, though they might not even play each other. Traditionally, toss users have steered clear of each other. Nazgul suggested that perhaps Rage is trying to luck his way to luck his way into a win, in the unpredictable matchup of PvP.
Very few surprises, you might say all of the players selected players that would improve their chances to win, unlike the zany OGN group selection. Having the current top 4 progamers seeded prevented any daring challenger from trying to take a shot at them.
At opposite ends of the brackets, a Boxer vs Yellow or Nada vs Chojja rematch seem very possible. Or what about Yellow vs Nada, or Boxer vs Chojja? Those would be rematches as well, ones from semi finals. It's nearly assured these guys are going to meet at important spots in the tournament, and I hope they give us a good show.
It was interesting to see Xellos picked last. His past OGN appearances also have had him being picked very close to last. He's very good, and his performance in various Team Leagues has been impressive lately. Personally I say he's the #5 candidate to win this tournament.
It was also interesting to see Breeze[Akuta] selected second to last. Normally the zerg players eat up the toss players right away, and even some of the terran players prefer T v P to T v Z. All of those who were seeking to exploit toss weakness went for the other players first, leaving Breeze alone at the end.
Liquibetting for MBCGame will start in earnest now, look forward to a preview on next week's matches any time soon!
