We already have a Melee Circuit

So once again the idea of a Melee circuit came up, for about the ten millionth time, because it would be awesome if it was a thing.

What if I told you we already have a Melee circuit? That we already have a very easy way to calculate standings (not rankings, standings, there's a difference), we have an all-star weekend like most sports, we even have a championship event already lined up.

Well, it turns out that we do. See, the way that all the nationals and major tournaments are laid out throughout the year, it adds up to be about one major per month. What I have done is I went through the bracket and assigned points to every person who finished in the Top 32. I modeled it off of the way racing tends to do things, with positions scoring points and so on.

• 1st- 50
• 2nd- 45
• 3rd- 40
• 4th- 35
• 5th- 30
• 7th- 20
• 9th- 10
• 13th- 8
• 17th- 5
• 25th- 2

I included only 10 events from this year, 2 of which have yet to happen (Syndicate and TBH6). Those events were:

• Genesis
• Beast VI
• Pound VI
• Get On My Level
• CEO
• EVO
• Super SmashCon
• Shine
• Syndicate
• The Big House 6

Why did I pick these tournaments? Well, honestly, it was mostly just instinct, but looking back, each one of these had over 400 entrants and a substantial (No, I don't have a perfect definition for that word) number of MIOM Top 100 players. I'm open to ideas for other tournaments to be included (Smash 'N' Splash and Heir 3 are the only other ones that had over 400 entrants, but the "top player" registration was pretty low), but the way it works out now, there's one major per month, from January to October, except that March didn't have one and August had 2. Note that Syndicate can easily be removed if it doesn't live up to the expectations I have for it.

With this kind of spacing in the schedule, it would be possible for players to have a life outside of traveling every weekend or two for the circuit (though they could still go to large regional tournaments to support the scene). Plus, having an established circuit would actually help to boost viewing numbers for majors, because regions would know not to put on a large tournament on the same weekend as one of those ten majors.

Now, the championship I was talking about earlier. We already have a championship tournament all set up and perfect to end the circuit- the Battle of the 5 Gods. It's perfect- invitation only, only the top 20 players, all streamed, all sets best of 5, plus the amazing production quality for the stream made it feel like an intense tournament. I propose that 5 Gods get moved to December, to be a championship tournament and wrap up the year. Only those in the Top 20 in the standings are invited to enter, which puts a lot more in the line for each tournament along the way. Those Top 20 are decided by the points method that I outlined earlier, and winning a major is an automatic entry.

What incentive to top players have to keep entering majors after winning one of them? Easy- seeding. Players are seeded by their scores in the standings. For example, the way the scores stand right now, Armada, despite being widely regarded as a Top 2 player, would be the 4th seed in the tournament. Leffen, even though he's one of the Big 6, would be a 10th seed. PPMD, despite being one of the 5 gods, wouldn't make the cut, due to inactivity.

I'm going to take a second and remind everyone that these are standings not rankings, meaning that just because Swedish Delight is higher on the standings than Wizzrobe or S2J, it does not mean that Swedish is better than them in some fashion. But because this is a circuit, and all that's being evaluated is consistency and placings, Swedish is higher than them.

The All-Star weekend I mentioned earlier should be fairly apparent to people now- Summit. Why? Because while Summit does have a tournament and money on the line, it's run much less as an intensive championship and much more as a weekend for top players to hang out, have fun, and stream some Melee together. The only format change I would propose to Summit to fit in with the circuit is to require that to be eligible for the vote, players must be in the Top 40 in standings, or have finished the previous season in the Top 40.

Here is the current standings after Shine.

Now, there's only one thing missing from all this to make it all happen. If only we had some organization that was recognized throughout the community as being leaders, that had a member that could keep track of all the scores and other statistics, and could be there to offer whatever support a tournament needed. In other words, MIOM and Tafo.

Just to reiterate, this only requires minor changes to 2 tournaments- moving Bo5G and changing how qualification for the Summit vote works (arguably, making the voting process better). Each tournament would still be able to be run autonomously, and because each tournament already uses the same rulesets, it would be consistent throughout them all. The floating discussion would become slightly more important, though.

Open to suggestions and criticisms, but I think it's time we build the circuit the way we've always done it- start from the bottom and built it upwards.