A way to help smooth out "group of death" situations at Worlds
Howdy folks!
Earlier I commented in another thread that was discussing the Worlds Groups about one possible format change that I had thought about, that I felt like could have some benefits. It really blew up and I got a lot of positive comments and pm’s encouraging an actual topic about it, so figured I’d make one here.
THE PROPOSAL:
· We continue to have Groups the same way we do now, with four groups, each of which will end up containing 4 teams. Each group plays a double round robin, for a total of 6 BO1s.
· At the end of the double round robin, the team with the highest score (1st) in each group moves on, giving us the first 4 of the 8 teams that will end up in the Quarterfinals. The team with the lowest score (4th) in the group is eliminated.
· However, instead of 2nd also automatically moving on to Quarterfinals, and 3rd automatically being eliminated, each group will be paired with another group, probably by random draw, after the group stage is completed. Within this pairing, the 2nd place team from each group will play the 3rd place team from the partnered group in a Bo3 or Bo5 series. The winner of each series moves on to Quarterfinals, making up the remaining 4 quarterfinalists, and the losers go home.
For clarity’s sake, I’m also going to post an example in the comments below.
THE BENEFITS:
· Reduces the impact of “group of death” or “group of life” scenarios. Because you eventually face some degree of cross-group competition, being the 3rd best team in a group with 2 powerhouses isn’t automatic elimination if you’re actually like the 3rd best team in the whole tournament. Similarly, you can’t be like the 11th best team and skate into quarterfinals just because of a good draw, because a strong 3 seed still has a good chance to knock you out.
· Most “good” teams should get at least one Best Of series before being eliminated. I can’t offer anything to those who finish in 4th with 0 wins in the Bo1 format, but for teams who get cheesed, or have a bad read on the meta on day 1, or otherwise drop one game, this gives them a chance at redemption in a Best Of series, which I think we as a community have collectively agreed is the best gauge of a teams skill compared to best of 1s.
· Finally, it adds some additional stakes to specific placings. Getting 1st place in the group is now much more valuable since it grants the bye. Additionally, when a team loses 1 or 2 games, all hope is not lost, and there’s still a clear incentive to fight to finish 3rd instead of 4th since it gives that one more shot.
THE DRAWBACKS:
· Adds more games to what is already a long tournament. Best case scenario, it adds a week to the tournament (3 days of prep and then 4 game days, or 5 days of prep and two games days with two series a day).
· Doesn’t make 2nd/3rd feel super different. I disagree – I think that having to play for your life against a stronger team is a pretty good reason to avoid 3rd – but a few folks did suggest this so for sake of fairness I’ll include this as a potential flaw for discussion.
- Still probably not enough to help TSM get out of Groups
Anyways, just an idea! Curious to nnow what people think, or what I've forgotten that makes the whole thing come crumbling down. Havent looked yet at how this could have affected past years but might when I'm home from work just to see if anything interesting stands out.
Posted Sep 24, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC
So, to provide an example for clarity, we'll use this years Group A and B to illustrate the concept.
Let's say that we end up with UOL in Group A and Damwon in Group B as the 4th teams. Lets say that after group stage, rankings are as follows:
Group A: G2 (1), GRF (2), C9 (3), UOL (4)
Group B: FPX (1), DWG (2), JT (3), GAM (4)
FPX and G2 move on to Quarterfinals. UOL and GAM are eliminated. GRF, C9, DWG and JT move into our "purgatory".
Wed have a draw to pair up groups. For simolicities sake, let's say that A and B end up paired up.
GRF would play JT in a Bo3 or Bo5 to determine who moves on. DWG would play C9.
In theory, this ensures that only the best teams actually move forward. So if C9 is better than DWG and just got a tougher group, they get their chance to prove it.
you're not wrong, but it's super easy to propose ideas to "make worlds more fair": just add more games somewhere.
i think the current format sucks, and i think worlds should have more games. but there's a million ways like yours to stick in more games. i'd be most impressed by a post on why your format is superior to other ways of adding more games like double elimination or double round robin with larger groups
I dislike double elimination, but even ignoring that, double elimination does not solve the problem of more than two teams that deserve to get out in the same group (like RNG, SKT, FNC), as double elimination only applies to the knockout phase.
sure, and this suggestion doesn't solve the problem of the two best teams in the tournament falling on the same side of the playoff bracket and meeting in semifinals.
unless some redditor has a perfect genius idea never conceived before by any tournament official in the history of the world, no proposal is going to solve ALL the problems of a tournament. so you can't knock double elim for leaving a problem unsolved
if you can't be in top 2 in your group, you dont deserve to go through and fight for the title. It's simple, if you are the best, you would be able to be among top 2 teams.
If you are all about winning, then you wont complain, only ones who complain are ones that don't have winning mentality. Being 2nd or 9th, is the same for big teams. If you cant win against RNG or SKT in a group stage, you not gonna win against them in knockout stage either.
[deleted]
you will never get exact ranking for, like, best being 1st, 2nd best being 2nd, 3rd best being 3...etc
It doesnt matter if JT gets to quarterfinals and SKT goes out in the group. SKT's goal is not quarterfinals, SKTs goal is to win competition. If the can't beat FNC and RNG and qualify to next stage, then they are not worth of winning competition. Thus, the dont care weather they are 2nd or 9th, Faker would still cry the same.
So no, it doesn't matter for big teams. Only small teams think in those terms. If you can't be in top 2 in your group after 6 games, you are not worthy of being a champion, thats it.
I completely disagree. Let me ask you: in a LoL game is the stronger team ALWAYS going to win? No, the edge the stronger team has is a bigger chance at winning. Winning mentality or not if are the strongest team in the tournament (lets say SKT just to make an example) all you have is more probability to win and advance to the next phase. If you draw a ribbon with "weak" teams you get to advance >90% of the times, while if you draw a really strong group your chances might be ~80%, that means that even if you ARE the strongest team in the tournament (meaning that you had the best chance at winning) 1 out of 5 times you will not get out of the group. The numbers might be far off the real chances but the concept stands true, in a group with SKT RNG FNC we will lose a team that on paper had something like 10/15% chance of winning the all thing while out of some other group someone with 3% might get through because they had better luck drawing.
That is completely false way to look at things, then we should just flip a coin in everything and not play anything at all. This is not statistics competition...
Luck factor is irrelevant as it will always be there, unless there is OMG - FNC base attack style of game, then no team is luckier or unluckier. As we can find many situations in a match where both teams were either lucky or unlucky.
It's how you play with what you got, sure you got tough group, but if you want to win, and you think you are the best, then tough group won't stop you form advancing. If you are good enough to win the whole thing, then you will advance to knockout, if not, then you will not.
It's irrelevant that some weaker teams are gonna be in Quarters, you anyhow couldn't win it, becuase you couldn't beat other 2 rivals anyhow. (in 6 games span)
Faker, Uzi, Rekkles, will be equally dissapointed if they lose finals or they go out in the groups. Their goal is not to just play at worlds knockout stage, their goal is only winning it. Everything else is failure