There is a big MLG event coming up in 2 weeks time. They recently announced the format for the SC2 tournament and I found it to be intriguing. They have 256 competitors so my first instinct would be that they'd just play a big seeded double elimination bracket. But it turns out that would be _far_ too simplistic. Instead they're running 4 brackets and a round robin pool section with people entering at various times.
To start with the 32 people who played in the winter arena get byes. The top 16 from the winter arena get to bypass the first 6 rounds and start in the pool section. The bottom 16 get to bypass the first 4 rounds and will only need to win 2 matches to make it to the pool section. The remaining 224 players play a double elimination bracket with the 16 people with byes slotting in during round 5. Eventually you stop the open winners bracket when there are 8 people left and send them into pool play. Similarly with the open losers bracket you get down to 8 people and then stop.
Pool play now has 24 people which are broken down into 4 groups of 6. Each group plays a round robin and then they get ranked 1 through 6. There are 4 groups so you have 4 #1s, 4 #2s, etc... Advance the #1s to the championship winner's bracket semifinals. These people have to win only 3 more matches to win the event. Then build out a championship losers bracket with the 8 prior losers playing in 4 matches in round 1. The winner of those matches play the #6s. The winner of those matches play the #5s. The winner of those matches play the #4s. And so on and so on with the #1 losers dropping down as appropriate to fit the bracket. Winner of that bracket plays the winner of the championship bracket in a best of 5 or best of 9 for all the marbles.
What I find interesting about this is that someone can lose in pool play, still end up #1, and win the winner's bracket with a loss on their record. That's not something that could happen in a straight double elimination. It also means there will be a lot of matches amongst the 'name' players. Top 16 from the winter arena along with 8 more who play well at the start of the weekend each play 5 matches with no chance of elimination. The winter arena was great but there were only 2 Idra matches, for example. He's not guaranteed to make pool play but he only needs 2 wins to make it there. Then they're all guaranteed at least one more match in the loser's bracket so the top names all get 6 matches streamed. This has to be a good deal for MLG and for fans.
It's interesting that anyone could have signed up for the open bracket if they were willing to buy a pass. Show up, go on a run, win some cash. The thought is alluring, much like the Magic Pro Tour used to be. Clearly not something I could do, but intriguing nonetheless. Of course they have pretty bad odds of making it very far. After winning 4 matches against other open players they'd then have to beat two of the winter arena competitors to make it into pool play. And there's no bomb draws or mana screw to save you in StarCraft II!
They also posted rewards for finishing well at the event. Top 8 get byes into the spring arena #1 and the 9th through 80th players get to play in the qualifiers for it. Which gets me thinking about how hard it is for someone to fall out of the events. Everyone at the winter arena gets a good number of byes. By the time they could get into the loser's bracket 182 people will have been eliminated. They're guaranteed to be in the top 74! So going to the winter arena and then showing up at the championship is enough to get you on the fast track to qualifying for the spring arena... I think this is a good thing since it allows people to get to know the same players and develop people to cheer for.
On the flip side, one good event is good enough to get rolling. This is particularly useful considering a lot of the best players live on the other side of the world and don't make it over to MLG events all that often. Come over once, do well, and you're on the fast track to getting free flights back. Seems pretty sweet!
I recall at the last major MLG NesTea was coming in through the open bracket and his first round opponent was blackcat08. Sorry, blackcat 08.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing was that the next match up in the bracket was two other no-names, which meant if somehow blackcat08 did manage to beat NesTea (say NesTea had a stroke), then their next opponent would be Doug from up the street.
Generally, though, MLGs have a ton of big matches. By round three there was barely anyone I hadn't heard of.