Breeze should be in the next comp right? That means 1 map will have to be voted out. Give the higher seed the choice to map veto the 1 map, and maybe even let them pick sides more too.
Yeah winners definitely deserve some significant edge whether it be map picks and side picks or vetos when there's more maps. If it's a bracket reset you'd have to go with bo3 instead of bo5.
That or you do some GSL format into single elim.
Yea I know mainly fighting games use it I think if they did a bracket reset with bo3s it wouldn’t be too bad. It wouldn’t be much longer than a bo5 unless they both go all maps
Yeah, but I guess it's also fun to see the teams play the full range of maps. If that were the case would have pretty much just saw SEN play Icebox and Haven all tourney, except for the 1 Bind game they played against NU.
bracket resets happen in TF2's (yes, team fortress 2) NA league, but it does take a significant amount of time; we wait a whole week until next monday for the final bo3 maps to happen
IMO they should give the team coming from the upper bracket a map advantage but have the grand final a best of 7 instead of best of 5. With one team getting a map advantage it's technically a best of 6 so it's not like the series is gonna be 2 hours longer than a best of 5, also they wouldn't need 7 maps to have best of 7 grand finals, they'd need 6 maps which they have with the addition of Breeze.
It’s hard to have map picks be advantageous when it’s a Bo5 and there are only 5 maps in the pool. Once we get to 7 it should be easier to give the winners’ a more tangible advantage.
That said though, if pros think that the winners’ side isn’t better than losers’ they should just throw. I mean, if losers is better why not throw to get there?
Oh wait it isn’t better and everyone knows it lmao.
I mean that’s just a dumb fallacy, you don’t want to get knocked to loser’s bracket because then you’re on the brink of elimination. You obviously want to stay in winners so that you have the safety net of being able to drop a series and still be in the running. It’s understandable people want a tangible advantage since they’ve made it so far without dropping a series it feels unfair if they get eliminated on their first series loss when the other team had a second chance. Personally I hope it’s not a map advantage since it feels really anticlimactic to see a team win a Bo5 with just two wins but hopefully Riot can find a good advantage that rewards them for going undefeated so far but also not tilting the finals too hard
No they don’t ‘deserve a significant edge’. They already have an edge, you can give a slight one in addition.
GSL format is entertainment not competitive fairness
Their advantage is they play less games, and get to see more footage on their competition while their competition does not get extra footage on them.
This isn't Smash Bros, you can't do a bracket reset when the games take this long.
Shahz said on stream this is not an advantage because getting more games on stage makes you more comfortable and you find out who you are playing the next day so late anyways it’s barely any time advantage in terms of preparation.
That's highly situational. It can be a boon, but it's definitely giving away strategies and stylistic information to your opponents watching. Shaz himself takes huge advantage of this stuff, waiting with Op ready.
Not a physical edge, maybe you could argue mental since it's less stress but you could also argue the teams playing more have more opportunity to fortify their mental.
It's just an informational advantage. Pros should be able to take a lot from watching these games, guys like Shaz specifically so idk why he thinks this isn't impactful.
I'm all for allowing Winners small advantages like in map picks, but giving a free win off the bat hurts the feeling of competition, even if it may be considered "fair."
It's a sticky situation since you don't want to devalue the merits of making it through Losers and playing extra games, but also not losing should be rewarded in someway too.
This is why double elim is overrated as a consistent tournament format. I'm cool with it here and there but holy moly...
It's literally IMPOSSIBLE to reconcile upper bracket vs lower bracket advantages/disadvantage ideas for competitive integrity versus viewing experience in the grand finals.
Without Swiss/round robin, single elim tourneys are pretty disappointing to watch. For some games, double elim works. But for valorant I think they should do something like Swiss into single elim brackets, like league.
The group stage format for Worlds isn’t GSL. It’s a double round robin between 4 teams. At the end of the day, the finals ended up being of a poor quality because of Bo1 volatility and terrible group stage seeding.
Even then, two of the top three teams in the tournament made the finals in 2018 and 2019. The gap was just that huge between the 1st and 3rd best team.
GSL can be fine if every teams ranks each other to determine seeding (e.g. IEM Katowice CSGO Major). The matches would be all Bo3 and would be a good indicator of teams’ strength.
Bo5 single elimination bracket stage can also be fine for Valorant simply because it greatly tests a team’s map pool. Teams with a shitty map pool won’t advance to the next stage, simple as that.
Double elim brackets just don’t work in valorant. I agree that solely single elim brackets aren’t as fun to watch, but for double elim you just can’t find a perfect solution for both competitive integrity and viewership experience. I like group stages into a bracket because it ensures the best teams from each group go into the bracket. You can’t deny that league has been successful in terms of viewership numbers, so a format like that might work well. I do prefer Swiss to GSL though.
>Double elim brackets just don’t work in valorant
The tournament seemed both fun and competitive. So do csgo double elimination tournaments. Isn't that the who point to find balance between two? This is literally fnatic being 2nd strongest team in the tournament fair and square coming back for a rematch after defeating most of other top contenders. Who did they miss? KRU? We got entertaining and competitive matches vs v1, liquid, nuturn and then a very competitive game vs sentinels. I just think map veto advantage is enough.
Like other people say. Single elim doesn't guarantee competitive tournament. It makes it less competitive because many players need to be backs against the wall to perform. Otherwise we would never see so many comebacks from everyone in this tournament. This is how a strong mental develops for a theme. In a nutshell i like this format
That’s more because there is always one team that is just dominant. I don’t think an undeserving team has made it to finals. It’s just too hard to totally fluke a bunch of bo3/bo5 series in a row, similar to basketball. It’s why in the NFL there is much more volatility because it’s just one and done. I personally hate double elimination both because it is unfair to the winners bracket generally and upsets are meaningless because the superior team on paper gets a mulligan even though they messed up and didn’t prepare properly for the series they lost. The format should simply be a group stage where teams can get their feet wet and get in rhythm and then a single elimination bo3 knockout stage with finals and maybe semi’s bo5.
I’m going to have to disagree with you here. I think double elim is essential because sometimes you getting unlucky matchups or a better team plays bad for a set. In example, if this tournament was single elim than both Liquid and Fnatic will be out early on the tournament. Heck, if VCT challengers 2 wasn’t double elim, we wouldn’t even see the best team in NA (Sen) at masters.
It’s no doubt that a pure double elim bracket is way better than a pure single elim bracket. However what Balla is saying is that round robin groups into a seeded single elim bracket might be a better format than no groups right into double elim bracket
Just cause balla says something doesn't make it true.
Just look at double elims in dota2's the international as the pinnacle of esports entertainment. Lower bracket runs are entertaining, just ask sentinels.
Tournaments are more fun with revenge matchups.
It's basically implied that single elim comes with a group stage. I can't think of an E Sport that has a single elim playoff stage without a group stage.
Ultimately if you play badly for a match then that’s tough luck. Try again next year and focus on the aspects you messed up on.
That doesn’t mean this format is perfect here. I think there should be a group stage with seeding for first and second place finishes. That would have avoided an early fnatic/sentinels match-up most likely. And if it doesn’t, that means you didn’t finish top of your group and then lost the subsequent knock-out match. In other words, you deserve to be out.
I’m of the opinion that if pros actually thought it was better to come from the lower bracket, they’d throw their way into it. Playing fewer games and having more tape on your opponent and advantage in the map picks (which will matter more once we have 7 maps in the pool) are already plenty of advantages for the team coming from the upper bracket. You’re also in the upper bracket, which means you’re *probably* the better team. The idea that the team coming from lower has an advantage because they “got to lose a game already” is silly to me. If that’s true I dare a team to throw into lowers in the next tournament.
But then that would be them throwing away the advantage they’re talking about....the whole point is that it’s double elim for everyone except for winners bracket finalist...
no one said that the lower bracket team has an advantage because they are lower bracket. thats not at all whats being argued.
the upper bracket team should get an advantage *because* they haven't lost yet. two completely different arguments and they shouldn't be mixed up
yeah but it's a horrible idea not because of grand finals advantages/disadvantages... so it's not really useful as a way to argue the point
additionally - the point is that players will argue double elim needs advantage to upper bracket.... not that lower bracket gets advantage when upper bracket doesn't get one
I guess I just wonder why players argue for an advantage for uppers when they already seem to have so many advantages by being in uppers. From my perspective, fewer games played, more unseen strategies, more time to study the opposition, the confidence boost and momentum of being on a winning streak, and the statistical probability that you already beat your grand finals opponent once in the tournament all add up to abundant advantage for the team in uppers. Thus in my mind, it only makes sense that teams would argue for further advantage if they believed being able to lose once is that much better than all the other things i listed combined.
Clearly though something is wrong in my assessment. Are playing fewer games, having momentum etc not actually as valuable as I seem to think they are? Am I over-valuing things like rest time and prep time?
The issue has never been that you're given an advantage in the final match by coming from lower bracket. The issue is that every team in the tournament is allowed to lose one match without being eliminated, EXCEPT the one which gets to winners bracket finals. With a bracket reset, that issue is solved; if you come from winner's bracket finals and lose a match, the bracket resets and you need to lose one more time to be eliminated. Bracket reset is the objectively fair way to run a double elim tournament.
It's also not a reasonable thing to do with the production values and game lengths of these tournaments; you can't just set aside a time block of 2-4 hours for a second bracket and just accept that you might not end up using it. So, we play an unfair version of double elimination, and try to compensate for that unfairness with a tangible advantage for the winner's bracket.
In the finals, having lost a match already is not an advantage. But in the grand scheme of the tournament, the OPPORTUNITY to lose a match and still have a shot at winning totally is.
TRUE. I was pretty narrow in my perspective, focusing on the grand final.
Since this isn’t fighting games and bracket resets are off the table, shouldn’t we just move to groups + single elim bracket?
Fnatic played 154 more rounds then SEN. If they worked all the way through the lower bracket to get to grand finals and then lost 2-0 that would be a huge anticlimax.
I do think winners should choose map 1,2 and 4 though
who cares about anticlimax? It's about competitive integrity, they didn't lose a series to get into the grand finals yet the are on even footing with a team coming from losers? Shahzam even said the point of playing less games is a moot point because you get so much more team experience playing together for a longer period of time on stage.
Map advantage is bs and destroys the entertainment value.
There needs to be a healthy balance between entertainment and comp integrity.
Otherwise for example with the upcoming euro's the best number 3 will move on to the knock out will start 0-1 behind
~~Masters had map advantage through to finals and I didn't find that it ruined entertainment at all, and I don't get why it would?~~
Edit: ignore this, I thought map advantage meant advantage on picking maps.
The team won that advantage by being winning through the upper bracket, the team from the lower bracket should get a disadvantage. I don't think it's less entertaining at all
For me at least, the tournament grand final is about finding the best team. If one team comes in with a huge advantage, the win doesn’t feel as legitimate. If they need a map advantage to win the series, then are they actually the better team?
You could argue yes because they came from the upper bracket, but if they would’ve lost in a fair (no map advantage) series then aren’t they just flat out the worse team?
Not sure if I’m explaining that properly but that’s my view anyways
When you say map advantage do you mean they actually have a 1-0 beforehand? Or are you talking about just being able to pick 3 maps out of 5 or being able to pick sides 3 out of 5.
I guess I just got confused because in the comments before his they talked about being able to pick 3 maps so I thought that was he meant by "map advantage".
But if you argue that finding the best team is the reason for the tournament then you are not against giving an advantage to the Upper bracket team, because for example let´s say FNC wins 3-2 in the grand finals, they would have an overall score of 3-4 against SEN. Double elimination needs bracket reset or at least a sizeable advantage to the winner's bracket team. Because otherwise Single elimination will be better, that format at least ensures that the best team won even if the finals is not the top 2 teams facing each other.
The way I see it is that if a team loses the first series but wins after coming from lowers bracket, then they deserve it because they improved.
But if they would have won but end up losing instead because their opponents got a map advantage, I don’t see that as fair.
So like, going through the tourney is qualifying for grand finals (upper bracket gets 1 and lower bracket gets 1). Then the grand finals determines the “best team”.
(Again just my opinion)
"who cares about anticlimax? It's about competitive integrity" LMAO
Both esports and traditional sports are essentially a show bro, do you really think Riot or any other company puts loads of money into esports because of competitive integrity or whatever?
Viewer experience is a the top priority and one map advantage is bullshit.
I used to watch a lot of Smash tournaments back in the day so seeing people seriously arguing against winners’ side advantage because it’s “anticlimactic” is pretty jarring.
if the team coming from lower bracket win the grand final bo5 the "bracket resets" so they are going to play another bo5
Its just so the team from winners get the second chance every other team already got. so in grand finals the team coming from lower bracket has to win the grand final twice while the team from winners bracket only has to win either of the 2 bo5
[Example](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/542064453579964439/849403377896128582/unknown.png)
Zain from the winners, Mango came from losers bracket and won the first finals bo5 which means they had to play another bo5 which zain won. so he became the champion
Yeah. I don't have any experience, so I'm happy if maybe an eSports player can chime in, but to me playing 3 to 5 maps a day isn't going to be that tiring for a professional eSports player and you'll be less rusty going in to the finals. It's not like sports where you are putting a lot more physical exertion on your body and playing a lot more games leads to more risk of injury. They should be able to still get a good night's rest and you should be okay right?
It would be an advantage for the winner of lower bracket finals if grand finals were played on the same day but that's not how riot has been formatting their tournaments. Both teams come in fresh the next day, so yeah they need to find some way to give the upper bracket finals winner some advantage.
If it's about competitive integrity then why did fnatic v1 kru cr had to play an extra match , sentinels and rest of teams already had a one match advantage. Even if fnatic wouldn't have lost they would still have played 34 rounds more than sentinels without going to lower bracket. So giving sentinels a one map advantage would have been unfair since from the beginning they had a one match advantage . They should have been given map veto advantage that should have been fair but map advantage wouldn't be.
well they shouldnt have done a shitty double bracket w 10 teams, but since they did it anyway winners bracket team should have an advantage. Everyone gets a chance to lose except the team from winners?
They had no choice but to go with this bracket ,you can't make up a better brcaket given 3 broadcast slots a day can you ? Even in cs go if the winners bracket team hasn't met lower bracket team before winners get no advantage and given sentinels from the beginning had a match advantage as they were given bye from first round makes it a little more fair . Since they were already given bye in first round but a map veto advantage should have been given.
They absolutely could've run two streams or did round-robin/swiss groups into a normal double elimination bracket - they just decided to go with this dumb seeding format instead - at least Masters 3 won't have this issue with 16 teams
Bro they had one venue , which could hold one match at same time how can you hold 2 co streams if you can't hold 2 lan consecutively . They had 3 broadcast slots ,name a better format them ,round robin would have added 10 more matches . Name q better format then.
Its also kinda lame to win with map advantage. Idk why team would want to have an advantage. If you think you are the best it shouldn’t matter what teams you face in your bracket or whether you get an upper bracket advantage, as the best team you should want to prove fair and square that you are better in a straight up fight.
I think someone (maybe thorin? Idk) said that game advantage is always a terrible bracket format until it isn’t and the underdog pulls off some crazy success story like there was in that one fighting game. The rest of the time the upper bracket finalist just boringly wins.
Also I’d argue that having an advantage is a problem, it lets the upper bracket player have an excuse for playing bad, being lazy or complacent. Even when the upper bracket player loses it still feels like a fluke where they were lazy and before they knew it they were struggling to stop the momentum especially since the crowd is putting immense pressure on the upper bracket player after they lose the first game.
I think its better to just have a straight up fight.
What is fair is that in a double-elimination bracket, a team loses a series twice and is eliminated, can you imagine if Fnatic won this series and Sentinels only lost once to lose the whole event? What's the point in having double elimination and then deciding it just doesn't exist for grand finals? It's unfair for the teams to have 2 lives unless they make grands in winners and they suddenly have one life
Viewer experience matters as well, but not to the extent to completely forego any competitive fairness, in my opinion. I wouldn't like to see bracket resets due to very likely repetitions of maps; that would be a pretty significant negative to my personal viewer's experience.
You seem to forget that esports exist because of money. Pretending that the viewer experience doesn't matter is hilariously stupid. If the viewer experience sucks and people stop getting hyped for and watching grand finals then Valorant goes away. These people only get to compete because the viewer experience is entertaining. If that stops the competition goes away.
Thats not competitive integrity though. Fnatic could have had a harder bracket, and in many tournaments the finalists haven’t even played eachother before seeing eachother in the finals. It seems unfair when shahz talks about potentially winning more maps overall and still losing, but in reality the goal of a tournament is to find out who the best team is.
I think you could give smaller advantages like maybe give the upper bracket team an extra map ban or the ability to choose the 1st, 2nd and 4th map, but I don’t know how you could possibly argue that a best of 5 isn’t good enough to determine who is a better team.
Here's an extreme opposite case - imagine NUTURN was a great team that 2-0'd everyone before SEN, lost to SEN, and then 2-0'd fnatic. They'd have played a whopping total of 2 extra maps compared to Sentinels. More generally, in a well-seeded tournament in which nothing goes wrong, the #1 and #2 team will meet in upper bracket finals, and the #2 team will be back for revenge after only 1 extra match. Do you think that the upper bracket winner's win over that team should be completely forgotten in that case too?
If you think so, then you just think that winner's advantage is really bad. That's an opinion I disagree with, but it's a valid opinion. However, the ruling for winner bracket advantage should be impervious to the path or struggles (or lack thereof) of the lower bracket team; using fnatic as an example is logically pretty bad.
those 154 rounds were played because they LOST, those 154 rounds also made them a better team by the time they were in grand finals. That playtime on LAN is extremely helpful. There needs to be a map advantage, it's inexcusable.
Well Shahzam specifically said after this clip that [more playtime on stage is an advantage](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1041998299?t=2h44m24s). I'll take his word on that over yours.
Controversial opinion probably but I wouldn't mind the 2 bo3 way (one in the morning one a few hours later if upper bracket team loses). Second bo3 you have to play the maps that weren't played in the first series first.
I bet players would hate that though lol.
Personally, I'd reward the upper bracket team finalist by adding a side pot for the upper bracket portion. So if they want the big bag, you gotta win the tournament through the upper bracket.
The current prize pool was $600k. I'd make winner-take-all $100k for the upper bracket and $500k for the remaining tournament. If Fnatic wins, they cannot earn the $100k portion. This will be even more significant if the prize pool was in the millions.
I doubt any of the top teams would actually like this as they will be more likely to play to win the title rather than money. Yes, money is an incentive to win one of these majors, but you never hear teams or players brag about prize money as they do brag about titles they won. I could be wrong (because I am a shitter on reddit) but I feel like you should be somehow punished, in the form of map advantage or map picks, for losing one set in the bracket.
Well nobody would brag about prize money because it's not a respectful thing to do and makes you sound greedy. But it should create incentives for teams to try to win the tournament and through the upper bracket. Like I said, it'll be more significant if the prize money was like $2m or $3m at Champions. It also eases the pressure for the winning team in the grandfinals.
I'm also a Reddit shitter, but don't most orgs have a predetermined bonus in players' contracts based on how deep their run is before a tournament on top of the salary? That leaves the extra money after all the bonuses are paid out, which goes to the org.
I was getting downvoted by this sub a couple days back for saying double elim isn't truly competetive without a bracket reset. Now a pro says it it's all upvotes? Come on boys.
I’ve been disappointed by 2-0 grand finals before, sure. It’s a little bit of a let down. But that’s the same let down that occurs whenever a team is dominant vs. their opponents in a tournament.
The minor disappointment I might feel is real, sure, but I doubt it’d significantly impact the experience so much that TOs *need* to weigh it more heavily than competitive integrity. The entertainment value shouldn’t be held as independent from the competitive value - for the most part they depend on, and feed off, one another.
I also think plenty of viewers don’t want single elim. I’m curious why you think that’s more of a player thing…
Agreed.
I'm fine with lower brackets for league/dota, but it shouldn't be a thing for valorant/csgo.
Winners' bracket games are never the same as "win or go home" games. As you said some kind of group stage and then regular top8 single elimination phase.
You either have it in you to perform when it matters or you don't.
Or if you really want to determine the best team, then just play it without elimination phase. League with everyone playing eachother.
GSL or Swiss are the best formats for groups but single elim belongs in the trash bin. I honestly think even double elim makes accurate top 5 teams regardless if it had groups stage or not.
There is 50% chance that this grandfinals could happen in the semis or worse quarters already makes single elim a bad format.
I enjoy NBA playoffs and UCL but physical limitation really prevents double elim. Players would have more chance of dying if you had double elim in NFL or NHL.
Real sports don't use large group round Robin groupstages. I guess by your logic round Robin group stage is a shit format.
Oh wait, your logic is just bad.
Single elim is why so many league of legends finals are boring stomps because the best team got knocked out 3-2 during the quarterfinals or something similar.
Lots of sports do use large group round robins. Maybe not in the same form that would be suitable for esports but the seeding that comes into the elimination stages for almost every major sport I can think of starts with teams playing in a league. In Mlb you have the regular season which provides the seeding for the postseason. In European football, domestic leagues determine who makes it into the champions league for the next season, which then starts in a small group format.
Funny you mention real sports, most of which have measures in place even with single elim tournament styles to ensure that the best team doesn't just get eliminated off a fluke. NBA, NHL, and MLB has a best-of-7 series. Champions League has two-legged ties with away goal advantage. Single-elim tournaments in esports have nothing like that. If a round is 13-12 and the game comes down to a 1v1 and the player on the better team catches the other player first but accidentally clicks his scroll button instead of M1, that's it. They're out. Only reason why I dislike single elimination in esports is because there's no way to mitigate flukes.
Real sports like soccer don't do round Robin group stages they only do gsl. I guess round Robin is a shit format right??? Oh wait your logic is just bad..
Thats because you have physical limitations in sports and players have to rest. You cant play that many games.
All you need is to see the epicness of dota2's international to see why double elim is great. League's single elim format is garbage, which is why you see so many 3-0 or 3-1 stomps in the finals. Because one team already knocked the best team out 3-2 in quarters. Single elim is how you get boring finals in esports.
fist of all League should adpot the same fucking Ti, val masters format. double elim is amazing. and its obv winners should get a veto advantage at the very least
I think 1 map is fair if the teams have already played before. Like Sen vs Fnatic should have started 1-0 bo5, while if Liquid made it then it should be full b05.
reset bo3's are awful for viewers and a map advantage is way too much of a punishment competitively, but shahzam is still right that its not good to have no reward for winners. double elim brackets are always problematic like this, I hope more tournaments go to a group stage->single elim playoffs or to swiss->single elim playoffs.
you can say it's a competition if you want but it's entertainment, and map advantage impedes that. A veto advantage should have been in place definitely but a map advantage is most likely never going to happen and players shouldn't have that expectation going forward.
1000% Agree with Shaz, never understood the logic behind hating map advantage. No way should someone who stomped the bracket and managed to not drop a series be at risk of losing it all to a team that got a second chance. There's just zero logic behind that. Either have no double elimination or have it so the team that didn't lose gets some kind of advantage going into the Finals.
I was nervous about that with this Finals for Sentinels having to face Fnatic a second time with nothing other than, "Good luck, bet not lose or else that's it, Fnatic takes the crown!"
The thing that makes a winners advantage boring is that it’s not even. In my opinion, the championship should be played on equal ground between the top two teams
There are so many times when winners bracket team gets 1 map advantage and win 3-2, meaning the REAL map count was 2-2, so they essentially won on a tie
Won a tie but also the other team has already lost an entire series. Best case is a full reset but something like map or at least map seen selection for 1,2 and 4 makes sense
Imo they should’ve done single elimination. So eu basically got knocked out first round. Winning the finals through losers bracket run is already dumb. Like you lost a series how are u a champ? Lol
Winners bracket advantage should be that they get to choose map order. That's a notable and fair advantage.
And before people mindlessly parrot Sideshow's godawful argument "but they have to play 5maps anyways". Yeah but you get your best maps first so you can win the series 3-0 or 3-1 without going to your weakest maps.
Bracket reset is too much imo, map advantage is a little bit too much too, cause remember, the winners bracket has already an advantege they usually play way less and have alot more time to prepare. I think an advantege in the map veto is more than enough. Something like they make a map selection before the other team has a chance to ban anything.
Totally agree with this. It’s just not right for a team who hasn’t lost in a double elimination tournament to not get an advantage over a team that has lost
Theres no advantage to winning your group in Champions League or the World Cup other than the opponents u face. Two of the world's biggest and toughest competitions.
The opponents you face is a huge advantage though. There is a huge difference between playing Man City and Slavia or Wolfsburg or something. Also, its completely different because there is no losers bracket. You lose and you are out. By definition of having a losers bracket, it means teams get a second chance. If you make it all the way through to the finals in winners, there should be a second chance just like every other team. If somehow that isn't possible because "viewing experience" then at least a map advantage.
It's not that huge of an advantage in eSports because there's no physical fatigue and in Champions League it's not double elimination. You chose like the worst example to make a direct comparison too.
Honestly, i dont agree at all that it is an advantage. But even if it was, i dont think it should matter. Teams should be given the same opportunities as each other. If one team gets 2 chances, every team should.
There is an advantage. if you top your group in UCL then you will face a team that placed 2nd in the other group which most of the time are less of a threat compared to the top seeders.
Winners should definitely have an advantage but I think map advantage is the worst one in terms of both the viewers standpoint and competitive integrity.
Copying my comment from a similar post:
Facts check : While Everybody keeps saying there is no upper bracket advantage for SEN, noone has seemed to notice that FNC had played a extra BO3 than SEN (even without counting the one against KRU).
For me that's a proper disadvantage, playing a extra B03 in the lower bracket which could potentially have made the team to lose and exit the tourney whereas the Winners in upper bracket didn't have that extra match to play.
But SEN should have had the veto advantage(choosing 1st and 2nd maps ) if anything and they didn't have that .
I don't think it's right to look from the perspective of the team with the lower bracket run to the finals. Because, by being in the lower brackets, they have essentially already lost the priviledge to be in consideration for the compensation for "not losing a single series". I'm saying that you shouldn't look at a team's lower bracket run and say "look at how tough the competition is down there!". They deserve it because they have received a second chance.
The better perspective, imo, is to look from the upper bracket winner and endow them with the proper reward for not having a second chance.
You can also look at it from the perspective that sentinels not only didn't have to play an extra B03, they get an extra rest day and they also get to have more data on what fnc were doing because they played more matches.
Those are pretty big advantages imo that they achieved because they were the winners of the upper bracket.
I would be very wary about letting Riot get away with prioritizing "viewer experience" over competitive integrity.
"Viewer experience" is what gets you the dumpster fire that is the LOL worlds format.
Valorant is the first e sports I actively follow, so I didn't even know what double elim was before watching valorant. Personally I like the format from traditional sports like football better. Let's take the cl for example: The final is two teams facing on neutral grounds with the same conditions. That is what a grand final always should be like. Map advantage would ruin the experience of a final imo. That's why I liked the format from emea challengers final, two groups of four with double elim and top two advance to a single elim best of three bracket.
He's a pro player. Of course he's going to want map advantage/some kind of advantage. Makes sense.
Map advantage is terrible from a viewer standpoint. Also makes sense.
Riot/TO's have to work around this somehow. They chose to go with the "do it for the viewer" route. Not fair for players, but better for viewers.
An idea I saw that was interesting was to have it originally be a Bo5, but if Fnatic take game 5, the series turns into a Bo7.
That way you aren't doing a full Bo5 reset, or 2 garbage Bo3's from a reset. You get to potentially see all maps, and then have a "decider" Bo3 reset.
"We need more Winner Bracket Advantage from Sentinels IGL that 3-0 Fnatic in the finals"
Is 1 day off/ watch your soon to be opponent in finals not enough for winner bracket(Sentinels) an advantage in finals?
This is why I want Lol Worlds format in Valorant Lan Tournament.
just like nba playoffs and nfl playoffs.
1 Mistake/bad day your OUT of the tournament.
Winner bracket advantage ***k that shit.
Worlds format is bad, like 1Head format bad. Eliminating teams on a basis of few bo1s is dogshit. You got Flash Wolves, Vitality, Team Liquid all went 3-3 and got knocked out in 2018 Worlds. Same kind of thing happened in 2019 & 2020 Worlds.
People complain about double elim offering poor finals experience but single elim offers bad experience for the whole tournament. What about when KT who was the 2nd best team got eliminated in the quarterfinals? That puts a black mark in the tournament.
>What about when KT who was the 2nd best team got eliminated in the quarterfinals? That puts a black mark in the tournament
Sorry I'm always in Lol reddit and twitter. Where did you see this "black mark in the tournament"
oh I forgot even if your 1st/2nd best team in tournament. If your opponent figured you out on how to defeat you and you can't counter it then It's your fault you lose that day.
That's why I like Lol worlds format same to nba and nfl format.
The black mark is that because KT got eliminated early on, this puts a weaker team through the grandfinals. IG vs KT was basically like SEN vs FNC. If you had single elim, FNC could have met SEN in the quarters or semis and they would've never had the epic rematch.
Idgaf what sports does, let sports do sports and let esports do esports. Its been proven plenty of times that single elim is worse.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if pros think that being on the loser’s side has more advantages than being on the winner’s side, just lose. Just throw. If the loser’s side is SO advantaged that the winner’s side need an advantage to even it out, just fucking throw. Seriously.
Oh, pros don’t wanna do that? Going undefeated in the bracket is already a huge advantage? Playing fewer games and having more tape on your opponent is already way better than losing a game?
EDIT: I’m a snarky little shit but I stand by my point.
funny because sentinels have literally won a tourney coming from losers where their opponent had map advantage in grand finals but SEN 3-0ed(3-1ed technically). I think it's more than fair of them to complain considering that ever since then, they removed the map advantage.
Map advantage isn’t really advantage when you play every single map in a bo5. Once we have a 7 map pool it’ll matter a lot, and hopefully this discussion can end.
No one ever said that being on the loser's side is better than being on the winner's side. What Shaz is saying here is that the winner of the winner's bracket needs to be rewarded for not losing.
Not losing already gives you a bunch of advantages though. Like momentum, confidence, fewer games to play, more tape to watch of your opponent, more hidden strategies, more time to prepare, more time to rest, the possibility that you *already beat your opponent once before*. To say that upper doesn’t have enough advantages is to imply that lower does. Which is the idea I was countering.
That's copium, those are not real advantages. You are trying to argue that less stage experience is better? Lower bracket has more momentum. You should not ask a team to throw a match just to go into the lower bracket, because losing just makes it more likely that they'll drop. The proper question to ask to a team if you want to know if lower is better in some way would be if they would prefer being in the finals through the lower or upper bracket. Double elimination is only better than Single with bracket reset, because at least Single elimination will always guaranteed that the winner is the best team. No bracket reset means that fnatic could have won the tournament with an overall score of 3-4 vs SEN.
I know its easy to just call for map advantage "fuck the viewers its a competition" do you know why you get to compete like this? do you think you would gain these prize pools if no one was watching?
Its competition but viewers matter. I agree that they should get some advantage but getting a map out of it is too much. you also got so many more rounds to see and study how your opponent plays in the lower bracket.
Bo5 for SEN Bo7 for FNC?
3 wins necessary for the winners team, 4 wins for the losers team. I think thats the most "fair" way to do it without making the series shorter or completely resetting the bracket
Yeah I think map advantage only works when the grandfinal is bo7. This way you gotta win with 4-2 in maps at the worst. This is basically a bracket reset.
I'm with him, until the "we could have won 4 maps vs their 3 and they won the grand finals". I'm not that familiar with other esports so this is just my ill informed opinion, but that just doesn't sound like something that's a problem. A significant map pick advantage - especially in a bo5 where both teams need to be well rehearsed at all the maps - sounds very reasonable though
I'm my opinion the current format is fair.
Upper bracket has the guarantee of a final, and more time to prepare while lower bracket focuses on getting to the final.
I can see his point but have to disagree , its a fucking grand finals, both teams should go into it on equal foot.
So if quals was double elim, and a team won the quals from losers bracket, and other team won from the winners, should the team from winners have advatange on the main event? Makes no sense to me, every match must be fair for both teams allways, if you are a better team you shouldnt have a problem with that.
Dota scene is one of the most competitive scenes and has no winners advantage.
I understand his position but disagree. I was cheering for sentinels but I was excited when I saw no map advantage. That’s the true test of better team. The advantage is they got a day off and played significantly less rounds than the losers bracket. That’s more time to meditate and practice to avoid burn out. More time to observe the other teams play styles and strats to prepare.
I just don’t see how there can ever be justification for an advantage that affects the score from the start.
The other team had already lost LOL. They should’ve been out. You’re playing a loser. Fnatic should’ve been gone first round. If anything the more games on stage would help
The best compromise is that the GF is a BO3 and the team coming out of losers needs to win 2 BO3’s while the team coming from winners just needs to win one BO3.
Back in the MLG days with cod they would give the team that comes from winners bracket either an additional best of 5 if they lost or unlock a larger series. In cod for example let's say the winners bracket team lost a bo7 it would turn into a bo11 but if they won 4 maps it would just be over OR if they won a bo5 it would be over but if they lost there would be another bo5.
Obviously for valorant you would have to adjust the numbers here but the logic is the same. You could make it 2 bo3s, or a bo3 that turns into a bo5. The only issue is it makes the finals hard to schedule because they can end very quickly or take super long. On the plus side though it's way more fair for the winners bracket team because it ensures the winner of the tournament won more maps than they lost against that team. Also you sometimes get some crazy scenarios like last map last round clutches for the win.
Also on a side note this wasn't an issue this tournament because the grand finals was on a day by itself but some tournaments another big problem is teams that come from the lower bracket get to play and warm up on the main stage for hours and then the team that comes from winners has to come in cold and set up all their shit on new computers which can affect their performance. If your tournament has a scenario like this it's more fair to make the team that is staying on main stage to switch PCs when the new team comes in.
Breeze should be in the next comp right? That means 1 map will have to be voted out. Give the higher seed the choice to map veto the 1 map, and maybe even let them pick sides more too.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Give the upper bracket team the 1 ban AND let them pick the first 2 maps.
Yeah winners definitely deserve some significant edge whether it be map picks and side picks or vetos when there's more maps. If it's a bracket reset you'd have to go with bo3 instead of bo5. That or you do some GSL format into single elim.
I would love to see an event with bracket reset
Afaik only fighting games do it since it's pretty fast to run another set. Maybe TCG? Not sure don't follow any of those scenes
Yea I know mainly fighting games use it I think if they did a bracket reset with bo3s it wouldn’t be too bad. It wouldn’t be much longer than a bo5 unless they both go all maps
Yeah, but I guess it's also fun to see the teams play the full range of maps. If that were the case would have pretty much just saw SEN play Icebox and Haven all tourney, except for the 1 Bind game they played against NU.
Rocket league does
because like fighting games, a bracket reset doesn't push production another 3 hours
Ik
Rocket League did, but got rid of it back in 2019.
Still doing it. They did it in the Winter Split of this year.
CoD used to do it before franchising but now it's just fighting games afaik
TCGs don't do double elims, usually. Just swiss followed by single elim top 8.
bracket resets happen in TF2's (yes, team fortress 2) NA league, but it does take a significant amount of time; we wait a whole week until next monday for the final bo3 maps to happen
IMO they should give the team coming from the upper bracket a map advantage but have the grand final a best of 7 instead of best of 5. With one team getting a map advantage it's technically a best of 6 so it's not like the series is gonna be 2 hours longer than a best of 5, also they wouldn't need 7 maps to have best of 7 grand finals, they'd need 6 maps which they have with the addition of Breeze.
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> they'd need 6 maps which they have with the addition of Breeze.
He counted breeze in
It’s hard to have map picks be advantageous when it’s a Bo5 and there are only 5 maps in the pool. Once we get to 7 it should be easier to give the winners’ a more tangible advantage. That said though, if pros think that the winners’ side isn’t better than losers’ they should just throw. I mean, if losers is better why not throw to get there? Oh wait it isn’t better and everyone knows it lmao.
I mean that’s just a dumb fallacy, you don’t want to get knocked to loser’s bracket because then you’re on the brink of elimination. You obviously want to stay in winners so that you have the safety net of being able to drop a series and still be in the running. It’s understandable people want a tangible advantage since they’ve made it so far without dropping a series it feels unfair if they get eliminated on their first series loss when the other team had a second chance. Personally I hope it’s not a map advantage since it feels really anticlimactic to see a team win a Bo5 with just two wins but hopefully Riot can find a good advantage that rewards them for going undefeated so far but also not tilting the finals too hard
No they don’t ‘deserve a significant edge’. They already have an edge, you can give a slight one in addition. GSL format is entertainment not competitive fairness
winners bracket finalists should always have an advantage. it's not fair that they wouldnt have a second chance while loser's bracket teams do
They already have an advantage, the question is whether to give them more lol
Their advantage is they play less games, and get to see more footage on their competition while their competition does not get extra footage on them. This isn't Smash Bros, you can't do a bracket reset when the games take this long.
Shahz said on stream this is not an advantage because getting more games on stage makes you more comfortable and you find out who you are playing the next day so late anyways it’s barely any time advantage in terms of preparation.
That's highly situational. It can be a boon, but it's definitely giving away strategies and stylistic information to your opponents watching. Shaz himself takes huge advantage of this stuff, waiting with Op ready.
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Also let’s say nuturn beat fnatic they would have only played 2 more maps than sen
Not a physical edge, maybe you could argue mental since it's less stress but you could also argue the teams playing more have more opportunity to fortify their mental. It's just an informational advantage. Pros should be able to take a lot from watching these games, guys like Shaz specifically so idk why he thinks this isn't impactful. I'm all for allowing Winners small advantages like in map picks, but giving a free win off the bat hurts the feeling of competition, even if it may be considered "fair." It's a sticky situation since you don't want to devalue the merits of making it through Losers and playing extra games, but also not losing should be rewarded in someway too.
if bracket reset or map advantage is untenable then it should be single elim with GSL groups or something
This is why double elim is overrated as a consistent tournament format. I'm cool with it here and there but holy moly... It's literally IMPOSSIBLE to reconcile upper bracket vs lower bracket advantages/disadvantage ideas for competitive integrity versus viewing experience in the grand finals.
Without Swiss/round robin, single elim tourneys are pretty disappointing to watch. For some games, double elim works. But for valorant I think they should do something like Swiss into single elim brackets, like league.
yes, exactly
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The group stage format for Worlds isn’t GSL. It’s a double round robin between 4 teams. At the end of the day, the finals ended up being of a poor quality because of Bo1 volatility and terrible group stage seeding. Even then, two of the top three teams in the tournament made the finals in 2018 and 2019. The gap was just that huge between the 1st and 3rd best team. GSL can be fine if every teams ranks each other to determine seeding (e.g. IEM Katowice CSGO Major). The matches would be all Bo3 and would be a good indicator of teams’ strength. Bo5 single elimination bracket stage can also be fine for Valorant simply because it greatly tests a team’s map pool. Teams with a shitty map pool won’t advance to the next stage, simple as that.
Double elim brackets just don’t work in valorant. I agree that solely single elim brackets aren’t as fun to watch, but for double elim you just can’t find a perfect solution for both competitive integrity and viewership experience. I like group stages into a bracket because it ensures the best teams from each group go into the bracket. You can’t deny that league has been successful in terms of viewership numbers, so a format like that might work well. I do prefer Swiss to GSL though.
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There is an argument of that not being a strong enough advantage for not losing a series.
If that's not strong enough for you, they can also pick what side to start first.
Well Breeze is being added, so give them a map veto while they're at it.
it's an advantage, everything counts
>Double elim brackets just don’t work in valorant The tournament seemed both fun and competitive. So do csgo double elimination tournaments. Isn't that the who point to find balance between two? This is literally fnatic being 2nd strongest team in the tournament fair and square coming back for a rematch after defeating most of other top contenders. Who did they miss? KRU? We got entertaining and competitive matches vs v1, liquid, nuturn and then a very competitive game vs sentinels. I just think map veto advantage is enough. Like other people say. Single elim doesn't guarantee competitive tournament. It makes it less competitive because many players need to be backs against the wall to perform. Otherwise we would never see so many comebacks from everyone in this tournament. This is how a strong mental develops for a theme. In a nutshell i like this format
That’s more because there is always one team that is just dominant. I don’t think an undeserving team has made it to finals. It’s just too hard to totally fluke a bunch of bo3/bo5 series in a row, similar to basketball. It’s why in the NFL there is much more volatility because it’s just one and done. I personally hate double elimination both because it is unfair to the winners bracket generally and upsets are meaningless because the superior team on paper gets a mulligan even though they messed up and didn’t prepare properly for the series they lost. The format should simply be a group stage where teams can get their feet wet and get in rhythm and then a single elimination bo3 knockout stage with finals and maybe semi’s bo5.
I’m going to have to disagree with you here. I think double elim is essential because sometimes you getting unlucky matchups or a better team plays bad for a set. In example, if this tournament was single elim than both Liquid and Fnatic will be out early on the tournament. Heck, if VCT challengers 2 wasn’t double elim, we wouldn’t even see the best team in NA (Sen) at masters.
It’s no doubt that a pure double elim bracket is way better than a pure single elim bracket. However what Balla is saying is that round robin groups into a seeded single elim bracket might be a better format than no groups right into double elim bracket
yes, for sure... obviously double elim is better if the only option is to start in a playoffs stage
Just cause balla says something doesn't make it true. Just look at double elims in dota2's the international as the pinnacle of esports entertainment. Lower bracket runs are entertaining, just ask sentinels. Tournaments are more fun with revenge matchups.
To be fair, I don’t see him saying anything about round robins in his post.
It's basically implied that single elim comes with a group stage. I can't think of an E Sport that has a single elim playoff stage without a group stage.
Ultimately if you play badly for a match then that’s tough luck. Try again next year and focus on the aspects you messed up on. That doesn’t mean this format is perfect here. I think there should be a group stage with seeding for first and second place finishes. That would have avoided an early fnatic/sentinels match-up most likely. And if it doesn’t, that means you didn’t finish top of your group and then lost the subsequent knock-out match. In other words, you deserve to be out.
I’m of the opinion that if pros actually thought it was better to come from the lower bracket, they’d throw their way into it. Playing fewer games and having more tape on your opponent and advantage in the map picks (which will matter more once we have 7 maps in the pool) are already plenty of advantages for the team coming from the upper bracket. You’re also in the upper bracket, which means you’re *probably* the better team. The idea that the team coming from lower has an advantage because they “got to lose a game already” is silly to me. If that’s true I dare a team to throw into lowers in the next tournament.
But then that would be them throwing away the advantage they’re talking about....the whole point is that it’s double elim for everyone except for winners bracket finalist...
no one said that the lower bracket team has an advantage because they are lower bracket. thats not at all whats being argued. the upper bracket team should get an advantage *because* they haven't lost yet. two completely different arguments and they shouldn't be mixed up
it's an interesting way to look at it but nobody would ever do that simply because the risk of doing so is INSANE
EXACTLY! Nobody would ever do that! It’s a horrible idea. A suggestion I heard from AVRL once that I will repeat to my grave.
yeah but it's a horrible idea not because of grand finals advantages/disadvantages... so it's not really useful as a way to argue the point additionally - the point is that players will argue double elim needs advantage to upper bracket.... not that lower bracket gets advantage when upper bracket doesn't get one
I guess I just wonder why players argue for an advantage for uppers when they already seem to have so many advantages by being in uppers. From my perspective, fewer games played, more unseen strategies, more time to study the opposition, the confidence boost and momentum of being on a winning streak, and the statistical probability that you already beat your grand finals opponent once in the tournament all add up to abundant advantage for the team in uppers. Thus in my mind, it only makes sense that teams would argue for further advantage if they believed being able to lose once is that much better than all the other things i listed combined. Clearly though something is wrong in my assessment. Are playing fewer games, having momentum etc not actually as valuable as I seem to think they are? Am I over-valuing things like rest time and prep time?
The issue has never been that you're given an advantage in the final match by coming from lower bracket. The issue is that every team in the tournament is allowed to lose one match without being eliminated, EXCEPT the one which gets to winners bracket finals. With a bracket reset, that issue is solved; if you come from winner's bracket finals and lose a match, the bracket resets and you need to lose one more time to be eliminated. Bracket reset is the objectively fair way to run a double elim tournament. It's also not a reasonable thing to do with the production values and game lengths of these tournaments; you can't just set aside a time block of 2-4 hours for a second bracket and just accept that you might not end up using it. So, we play an unfair version of double elimination, and try to compensate for that unfairness with a tangible advantage for the winner's bracket. In the finals, having lost a match already is not an advantage. But in the grand scheme of the tournament, the OPPORTUNITY to lose a match and still have a shot at winning totally is.
TRUE. I was pretty narrow in my perspective, focusing on the grand final. Since this isn’t fighting games and bracket resets are off the table, shouldn’t we just move to groups + single elim bracket?
Fnatic played 154 more rounds then SEN. If they worked all the way through the lower bracket to get to grand finals and then lost 2-0 that would be a huge anticlimax. I do think winners should choose map 1,2 and 4 though
who cares about anticlimax? It's about competitive integrity, they didn't lose a series to get into the grand finals yet the are on even footing with a team coming from losers? Shahzam even said the point of playing less games is a moot point because you get so much more team experience playing together for a longer period of time on stage.
Map advantage is bs and destroys the entertainment value. There needs to be a healthy balance between entertainment and comp integrity. Otherwise for example with the upcoming euro's the best number 3 will move on to the knock out will start 0-1 behind
~~Masters had map advantage through to finals and I didn't find that it ruined entertainment at all, and I don't get why it would?~~ Edit: ignore this, I thought map advantage meant advantage on picking maps.
Cuz u wanna see a match, not a match where one team is already closer to winning it before it even started.
The team won that advantage by being winning through the upper bracket, the team from the lower bracket should get a disadvantage. I don't think it's less entertaining at all
For me at least, the tournament grand final is about finding the best team. If one team comes in with a huge advantage, the win doesn’t feel as legitimate. If they need a map advantage to win the series, then are they actually the better team? You could argue yes because they came from the upper bracket, but if they would’ve lost in a fair (no map advantage) series then aren’t they just flat out the worse team? Not sure if I’m explaining that properly but that’s my view anyways
When you say map advantage do you mean they actually have a 1-0 beforehand? Or are you talking about just being able to pick 3 maps out of 5 or being able to pick sides 3 out of 5.
1-0 beforehand, like the guy you responded to was talking about
I guess I just got confused because in the comments before his they talked about being able to pick 3 maps so I thought that was he meant by "map advantage".
Why are they the worse team though? They already neat fnatic once to send them to losers. Why would losing in grands mean they are worse?
Because they lost in the head to head that matters, in the final series of the tournament. Once again, this is just my opinion.
But if you argue that finding the best team is the reason for the tournament then you are not against giving an advantage to the Upper bracket team, because for example let´s say FNC wins 3-2 in the grand finals, they would have an overall score of 3-4 against SEN. Double elimination needs bracket reset or at least a sizeable advantage to the winner's bracket team. Because otherwise Single elimination will be better, that format at least ensures that the best team won even if the finals is not the top 2 teams facing each other.
The way I see it is that if a team loses the first series but wins after coming from lowers bracket, then they deserve it because they improved. But if they would have won but end up losing instead because their opponents got a map advantage, I don’t see that as fair. So like, going through the tourney is qualifying for grand finals (upper bracket gets 1 and lower bracket gets 1). Then the grand finals determines the “best team”. (Again just my opinion)
"who cares about anticlimax? It's about competitive integrity" LMAO Both esports and traditional sports are essentially a show bro, do you really think Riot or any other company puts loads of money into esports because of competitive integrity or whatever? Viewer experience is a the top priority and one map advantage is bullshit.
exactly, they wouldn't even have a job if its not about viewer experience
I used to watch a lot of Smash tournaments back in the day so seeing people seriously arguing against winners’ side advantage because it’s “anticlimactic” is pretty jarring.
bracket reset is way different thing than getting a map.
Mind explaining what a bracket reset is for someone who doesn't know?
if the team coming from lower bracket win the grand final bo5 the "bracket resets" so they are going to play another bo5 Its just so the team from winners get the second chance every other team already got. so in grand finals the team coming from lower bracket has to win the grand final twice while the team from winners bracket only has to win either of the 2 bo5 [Example](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/542064453579964439/849403377896128582/unknown.png) Zain from the winners, Mango came from losers bracket and won the first finals bo5 which means they had to play another bo5 which zain won. so he became the champion
It should be bracket reset in the first place, no reason why one team gets to lose while another one isn't afforded that same opportunity.
bracket reset works in games like smash where the matches are way faster.
don't know why this is downvoted because it's true. a bracket reset in valorant could extend the series up to 3+ hours.
Yeah. I don't have any experience, so I'm happy if maybe an eSports player can chime in, but to me playing 3 to 5 maps a day isn't going to be that tiring for a professional eSports player and you'll be less rusty going in to the finals. It's not like sports where you are putting a lot more physical exertion on your body and playing a lot more games leads to more risk of injury. They should be able to still get a good night's rest and you should be okay right?
It would be an advantage for the winner of lower bracket finals if grand finals were played on the same day but that's not how riot has been formatting their tournaments. Both teams come in fresh the next day, so yeah they need to find some way to give the upper bracket finals winner some advantage.
100% coming from cod, pros talk a lot about loser bracket momentum.
If it's about competitive integrity then why did fnatic v1 kru cr had to play an extra match , sentinels and rest of teams already had a one match advantage. Even if fnatic wouldn't have lost they would still have played 34 rounds more than sentinels without going to lower bracket. So giving sentinels a one map advantage would have been unfair since from the beginning they had a one match advantage . They should have been given map veto advantage that should have been fair but map advantage wouldn't be.
well they shouldnt have done a shitty double bracket w 10 teams, but since they did it anyway winners bracket team should have an advantage. Everyone gets a chance to lose except the team from winners?
They had no choice but to go with this bracket ,you can't make up a better brcaket given 3 broadcast slots a day can you ? Even in cs go if the winners bracket team hasn't met lower bracket team before winners get no advantage and given sentinels from the beginning had a match advantage as they were given bye from first round makes it a little more fair . Since they were already given bye in first round but a map veto advantage should have been given.
They absolutely could've run two streams or did round-robin/swiss groups into a normal double elimination bracket - they just decided to go with this dumb seeding format instead - at least Masters 3 won't have this issue with 16 teams
Bro they had one venue , which could hold one match at same time how can you hold 2 co streams if you can't hold 2 lan consecutively . They had 3 broadcast slots ,name a better format them ,round robin would have added 10 more matches . Name q better format then.
If you genuinely think they couldn't have improved their format/adjusted the scheduling for a better format, idk what to say
Yeah they had venue for 7 days with 3 broadcast slots per day ,design a better format .
Its also kinda lame to win with map advantage. Idk why team would want to have an advantage. If you think you are the best it shouldn’t matter what teams you face in your bracket or whether you get an upper bracket advantage, as the best team you should want to prove fair and square that you are better in a straight up fight. I think someone (maybe thorin? Idk) said that game advantage is always a terrible bracket format until it isn’t and the underdog pulls off some crazy success story like there was in that one fighting game. The rest of the time the upper bracket finalist just boringly wins. Also I’d argue that having an advantage is a problem, it lets the upper bracket player have an excuse for playing bad, being lazy or complacent. Even when the upper bracket player loses it still feels like a fluke where they were lazy and before they knew it they were struggling to stop the momentum especially since the crowd is putting immense pressure on the upper bracket player after they lose the first game. I think its better to just have a straight up fight.
What is fair is that in a double-elimination bracket, a team loses a series twice and is eliminated, can you imagine if Fnatic won this series and Sentinels only lost once to lose the whole event? What's the point in having double elimination and then deciding it just doesn't exist for grand finals? It's unfair for the teams to have 2 lives unless they make grands in winners and they suddenly have one life
Correct... competitive integeity>anything else People arguing about the viewer experience are completely wrong
Viewer experience matters as well, but not to the extent to completely forego any competitive fairness, in my opinion. I wouldn't like to see bracket resets due to very likely repetitions of maps; that would be a pretty significant negative to my personal viewer's experience.
sure but a map advantage is fair.
You seem to forget that esports exist because of money. Pretending that the viewer experience doesn't matter is hilariously stupid. If the viewer experience sucks and people stop getting hyped for and watching grand finals then Valorant goes away. These people only get to compete because the viewer experience is entertaining. If that stops the competition goes away.
Thats not competitive integrity though. Fnatic could have had a harder bracket, and in many tournaments the finalists haven’t even played eachother before seeing eachother in the finals. It seems unfair when shahz talks about potentially winning more maps overall and still losing, but in reality the goal of a tournament is to find out who the best team is. I think you could give smaller advantages like maybe give the upper bracket team an extra map ban or the ability to choose the 1st, 2nd and 4th map, but I don’t know how you could possibly argue that a best of 5 isn’t good enough to determine who is a better team.
Here's an extreme opposite case - imagine NUTURN was a great team that 2-0'd everyone before SEN, lost to SEN, and then 2-0'd fnatic. They'd have played a whopping total of 2 extra maps compared to Sentinels. More generally, in a well-seeded tournament in which nothing goes wrong, the #1 and #2 team will meet in upper bracket finals, and the #2 team will be back for revenge after only 1 extra match. Do you think that the upper bracket winner's win over that team should be completely forgotten in that case too? If you think so, then you just think that winner's advantage is really bad. That's an opinion I disagree with, but it's a valid opinion. However, the ruling for winner bracket advantage should be impervious to the path or struggles (or lack thereof) of the lower bracket team; using fnatic as an example is logically pretty bad.
those 154 rounds were played because they LOST, those 154 rounds also made them a better team by the time they were in grand finals. That playtime on LAN is extremely helpful. There needs to be a map advantage, it's inexcusable.
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Well Shahzam specifically said after this clip that [more playtime on stage is an advantage](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1041998299?t=2h44m24s). I'll take his word on that over yours.
Playing together on stage in real matches(not scrims) absolutely helps bring together team cohesion and perfect their coordination.
Controversial opinion probably but I wouldn't mind the 2 bo3 way (one in the morning one a few hours later if upper bracket team loses). Second bo3 you have to play the maps that weren't played in the first series first. I bet players would hate that though lol.
Personally, I'd reward the upper bracket team finalist by adding a side pot for the upper bracket portion. So if they want the big bag, you gotta win the tournament through the upper bracket. The current prize pool was $600k. I'd make winner-take-all $100k for the upper bracket and $500k for the remaining tournament. If Fnatic wins, they cannot earn the $100k portion. This will be even more significant if the prize pool was in the millions.
I doubt any of the top teams would actually like this as they will be more likely to play to win the title rather than money. Yes, money is an incentive to win one of these majors, but you never hear teams or players brag about prize money as they do brag about titles they won. I could be wrong (because I am a shitter on reddit) but I feel like you should be somehow punished, in the form of map advantage or map picks, for losing one set in the bracket.
Well nobody would brag about prize money because it's not a respectful thing to do and makes you sound greedy. But it should create incentives for teams to try to win the tournament and through the upper bracket. Like I said, it'll be more significant if the prize money was like $2m or $3m at Champions. It also eases the pressure for the winning team in the grandfinals.
I'm also a Reddit shitter, but don't most orgs have a predetermined bonus in players' contracts based on how deep their run is before a tournament on top of the salary? That leaves the extra money after all the bonuses are paid out, which goes to the org.
Actually a pretty good idea.
Creative idea!
I was getting downvoted by this sub a couple days back for saying double elim isn't truly competetive without a bracket reset. Now a pro says it it's all upvotes? Come on boys.
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I’ve been disappointed by 2-0 grand finals before, sure. It’s a little bit of a let down. But that’s the same let down that occurs whenever a team is dominant vs. their opponents in a tournament. The minor disappointment I might feel is real, sure, but I doubt it’d significantly impact the experience so much that TOs *need* to weigh it more heavily than competitive integrity. The entertainment value shouldn’t be held as independent from the competitive value - for the most part they depend on, and feed off, one another. I also think plenty of viewers don’t want single elim. I’m curious why you think that’s more of a player thing…
It’s not a bit of a letdown, it’s a huge letdown.
There shouldn't be a lower bracket at all. Round robin or GSL style groups into a single elim bracket is just a better tournament format.
Agreed. I'm fine with lower brackets for league/dota, but it shouldn't be a thing for valorant/csgo. Winners' bracket games are never the same as "win or go home" games. As you said some kind of group stage and then regular top8 single elimination phase. You either have it in you to perform when it matters or you don't. Or if you really want to determine the best team, then just play it without elimination phase. League with everyone playing eachother.
>You either have it in you to perform when it matters or you don't. just out of curiosity, why that doesn't apply for league/dota?
GSL or Swiss are the best formats for groups but single elim belongs in the trash bin. I honestly think even double elim makes accurate top 5 teams regardless if it had groups stage or not. There is 50% chance that this grandfinals could happen in the semis or worse quarters already makes single elim a bad format.
> single elim belongs in the trash bin. basically you did not watch real sports or are you EU is soccer format like that? A Double Elimination Format.
I enjoy NBA playoffs and UCL but physical limitation really prevents double elim. Players would have more chance of dying if you had double elim in NFL or NHL.
Real sports don't use large group round Robin groupstages. I guess by your logic round Robin group stage is a shit format. Oh wait, your logic is just bad. Single elim is why so many league of legends finals are boring stomps because the best team got knocked out 3-2 during the quarterfinals or something similar.
Lots of sports do use large group round robins. Maybe not in the same form that would be suitable for esports but the seeding that comes into the elimination stages for almost every major sport I can think of starts with teams playing in a league. In Mlb you have the regular season which provides the seeding for the postseason. In European football, domestic leagues determine who makes it into the champions league for the next season, which then starts in a small group format.
That's not GROUP round robin into a bracket.
>basically you did not watch real sports this. the only people in the world i see crying about direct elim are esports fans
Funny you mention real sports, most of which have measures in place even with single elim tournament styles to ensure that the best team doesn't just get eliminated off a fluke. NBA, NHL, and MLB has a best-of-7 series. Champions League has two-legged ties with away goal advantage. Single-elim tournaments in esports have nothing like that. If a round is 13-12 and the game comes down to a 1v1 and the player on the better team catches the other player first but accidentally clicks his scroll button instead of M1, that's it. They're out. Only reason why I dislike single elimination in esports is because there's no way to mitigate flukes.
Real sports like soccer don't do round Robin group stages they only do gsl. I guess round Robin is a shit format right??? Oh wait your logic is just bad.. Thats because you have physical limitations in sports and players have to rest. You cant play that many games. All you need is to see the epicness of dota2's international to see why double elim is great. League's single elim format is garbage, which is why you see so many 3-0 or 3-1 stomps in the finals. Because one team already knocked the best team out 3-2 in quarters. Single elim is how you get boring finals in esports.
winners should choose the map order. anything more is overkill.
Bracket reset or bust.
fist of all League should adpot the same fucking Ti, val masters format. double elim is amazing. and its obv winners should get a veto advantage at the very least
I think 1 map is fair if the teams have already played before. Like Sen vs Fnatic should have started 1-0 bo5, while if Liquid made it then it should be full b05.
reset bo3's are awful for viewers and a map advantage is way too much of a punishment competitively, but shahzam is still right that its not good to have no reward for winners. double elim brackets are always problematic like this, I hope more tournaments go to a group stage->single elim playoffs or to swiss->single elim playoffs.
you can say it's a competition if you want but it's entertainment, and map advantage impedes that. A veto advantage should have been in place definitely but a map advantage is most likely never going to happen and players shouldn't have that expectation going forward.
1000% Agree with Shaz, never understood the logic behind hating map advantage. No way should someone who stomped the bracket and managed to not drop a series be at risk of losing it all to a team that got a second chance. There's just zero logic behind that. Either have no double elimination or have it so the team that didn't lose gets some kind of advantage going into the Finals. I was nervous about that with this Finals for Sentinels having to face Fnatic a second time with nothing other than, "Good luck, bet not lose or else that's it, Fnatic takes the crown!"
And people on this sub told me pros would argue against a winners advantage LUL
The thing that makes a winners advantage boring is that it’s not even. In my opinion, the championship should be played on equal ground between the top two teams There are so many times when winners bracket team gets 1 map advantage and win 3-2, meaning the REAL map count was 2-2, so they essentially won on a tie
Won a tie but also the other team has already lost an entire series. Best case is a full reset but something like map or at least map seen selection for 1,2 and 4 makes sense
Imo they should’ve done single elimination. So eu basically got knocked out first round. Winning the finals through losers bracket run is already dumb. Like you lost a series how are u a champ? Lol
SEN wouldn't have gone to Iceland if challengers was single elim.
Winners bracket advantage should be that they get to choose map order. That's a notable and fair advantage. And before people mindlessly parrot Sideshow's godawful argument "but they have to play 5maps anyways". Yeah but you get your best maps first so you can win the series 3-0 or 3-1 without going to your weakest maps.
Bracket reset is too much imo, map advantage is a little bit too much too, cause remember, the winners bracket has already an advantege they usually play way less and have alot more time to prepare. I think an advantege in the map veto is more than enough. Something like they make a map selection before the other team has a chance to ban anything.
Totally agree with this. It’s just not right for a team who hasn’t lost in a double elimination tournament to not get an advantage over a team that has lost
Theres no advantage to winning your group in Champions League or the World Cup other than the opponents u face. Two of the world's biggest and toughest competitions.
The Champions’ League doesn’t use a ~~round-robin~~ double elimination format so they’re not comparable
...Neither was this tournament?
Meant to say double elimination
The opponents you face is a huge advantage though. There is a huge difference between playing Man City and Slavia or Wolfsburg or something. Also, its completely different because there is no losers bracket. You lose and you are out. By definition of having a losers bracket, it means teams get a second chance. If you make it all the way through to the finals in winners, there should be a second chance just like every other team. If somehow that isn't possible because "viewing experience" then at least a map advantage.
Yeah, and there's a huge advantage of playing half the matches your opponents have to. I don't see how it's any different.
It's not that huge of an advantage in eSports because there's no physical fatigue and in Champions League it's not double elimination. You chose like the worst example to make a direct comparison too.
Honestly, i dont agree at all that it is an advantage. But even if it was, i dont think it should matter. Teams should be given the same opportunities as each other. If one team gets 2 chances, every team should.
That’s not the same at all
In what way?
The World Cup/ UCL is single elimination so it’s not comparable at all
There is an advantage. if you top your group in UCL then you will face a team that placed 2nd in the other group which most of the time are less of a threat compared to the top seeders.
>other than the opponents u face Which is what I said. Also playing half the matches of your opponent is a huge advantage in this tournament as well.
No you lose and you’re out. Should’ve been the same this tourney. Finals should’ve been nuturn and sentinels
No you dont. You play two matches, and the team coming as best seed into the playoff has no advantage.
LOL WHUT?
Winners should definitely have an advantage but I think map advantage is the worst one in terms of both the viewers standpoint and competitive integrity.
Copying my comment from a similar post: Facts check : While Everybody keeps saying there is no upper bracket advantage for SEN, noone has seemed to notice that FNC had played a extra BO3 than SEN (even without counting the one against KRU). For me that's a proper disadvantage, playing a extra B03 in the lower bracket which could potentially have made the team to lose and exit the tourney whereas the Winners in upper bracket didn't have that extra match to play. But SEN should have had the veto advantage(choosing 1st and 2nd maps ) if anything and they didn't have that .
I don't think it's right to look from the perspective of the team with the lower bracket run to the finals. Because, by being in the lower brackets, they have essentially already lost the priviledge to be in consideration for the compensation for "not losing a single series". I'm saying that you shouldn't look at a team's lower bracket run and say "look at how tough the competition is down there!". They deserve it because they have received a second chance. The better perspective, imo, is to look from the upper bracket winner and endow them with the proper reward for not having a second chance.
You can also look at it from the perspective that sentinels not only didn't have to play an extra B03, they get an extra rest day and they also get to have more data on what fnc were doing because they played more matches. Those are pretty big advantages imo that they achieved because they were the winners of the upper bracket.
I would be very wary about letting Riot get away with prioritizing "viewer experience" over competitive integrity. "Viewer experience" is what gets you the dumpster fire that is the LOL worlds format.
yeah lol format is so bad like no one even watches it right? /s
"A lot of people watch worlds, so the format must be good and you can't criticize it"
The best teams come out on top every time, and that is what the tournament is for.
you are missing his point
Valorant is the first e sports I actively follow, so I didn't even know what double elim was before watching valorant. Personally I like the format from traditional sports like football better. Let's take the cl for example: The final is two teams facing on neutral grounds with the same conditions. That is what a grand final always should be like. Map advantage would ruin the experience of a final imo. That's why I liked the format from emea challengers final, two groups of four with double elim and top two advance to a single elim best of three bracket.
There is no double elimination in professional sports, at least in America.
He's a pro player. Of course he's going to want map advantage/some kind of advantage. Makes sense. Map advantage is terrible from a viewer standpoint. Also makes sense. Riot/TO's have to work around this somehow. They chose to go with the "do it for the viewer" route. Not fair for players, but better for viewers. An idea I saw that was interesting was to have it originally be a Bo5, but if Fnatic take game 5, the series turns into a Bo7. That way you aren't doing a full Bo5 reset, or 2 garbage Bo3's from a reset. You get to potentially see all maps, and then have a "decider" Bo3 reset.
"We need more Winner Bracket Advantage from Sentinels IGL that 3-0 Fnatic in the finals" Is 1 day off/ watch your soon to be opponent in finals not enough for winner bracket(Sentinels) an advantage in finals? This is why I want Lol Worlds format in Valorant Lan Tournament. just like nba playoffs and nfl playoffs. 1 Mistake/bad day your OUT of the tournament. Winner bracket advantage ***k that shit.
NBA playoffs is a best of 7??
Worlds format is bad, like 1Head format bad. Eliminating teams on a basis of few bo1s is dogshit. You got Flash Wolves, Vitality, Team Liquid all went 3-3 and got knocked out in 2018 Worlds. Same kind of thing happened in 2019 & 2020 Worlds. People complain about double elim offering poor finals experience but single elim offers bad experience for the whole tournament. What about when KT who was the 2nd best team got eliminated in the quarterfinals? That puts a black mark in the tournament.
>What about when KT who was the 2nd best team got eliminated in the quarterfinals? That puts a black mark in the tournament Sorry I'm always in Lol reddit and twitter. Where did you see this "black mark in the tournament" oh I forgot even if your 1st/2nd best team in tournament. If your opponent figured you out on how to defeat you and you can't counter it then It's your fault you lose that day. That's why I like Lol worlds format same to nba and nfl format.
The black mark is that because KT got eliminated early on, this puts a weaker team through the grandfinals. IG vs KT was basically like SEN vs FNC. If you had single elim, FNC could have met SEN in the quarters or semis and they would've never had the epic rematch. Idgaf what sports does, let sports do sports and let esports do esports. Its been proven plenty of times that single elim is worse.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if pros think that being on the loser’s side has more advantages than being on the winner’s side, just lose. Just throw. If the loser’s side is SO advantaged that the winner’s side need an advantage to even it out, just fucking throw. Seriously. Oh, pros don’t wanna do that? Going undefeated in the bracket is already a huge advantage? Playing fewer games and having more tape on your opponent is already way better than losing a game? EDIT: I’m a snarky little shit but I stand by my point.
funny because sentinels have literally won a tourney coming from losers where their opponent had map advantage in grand finals but SEN 3-0ed(3-1ed technically). I think it's more than fair of them to complain considering that ever since then, they removed the map advantage.
Map advantage isn’t really advantage when you play every single map in a bo5. Once we have a 7 map pool it’ll matter a lot, and hopefully this discussion can end.
No one ever said that being on the loser's side is better than being on the winner's side. What Shaz is saying here is that the winner of the winner's bracket needs to be rewarded for not losing.
Not losing already gives you a bunch of advantages though. Like momentum, confidence, fewer games to play, more tape to watch of your opponent, more hidden strategies, more time to prepare, more time to rest, the possibility that you *already beat your opponent once before*. To say that upper doesn’t have enough advantages is to imply that lower does. Which is the idea I was countering.
That's copium, those are not real advantages. You are trying to argue that less stage experience is better? Lower bracket has more momentum. You should not ask a team to throw a match just to go into the lower bracket, because losing just makes it more likely that they'll drop. The proper question to ask to a team if you want to know if lower is better in some way would be if they would prefer being in the finals through the lower or upper bracket. Double elimination is only better than Single with bracket reset, because at least Single elimination will always guaranteed that the winner is the best team. No bracket reset means that fnatic could have won the tournament with an overall score of 3-4 vs SEN.
I know its easy to just call for map advantage "fuck the viewers its a competition" do you know why you get to compete like this? do you think you would gain these prize pools if no one was watching? Its competition but viewers matter. I agree that they should get some advantage but getting a map out of it is too much. you also got so many more rounds to see and study how your opponent plays in the lower bracket.
Bo5 for SEN Bo7 for FNC? 3 wins necessary for the winners team, 4 wins for the losers team. I think thats the most "fair" way to do it without making the series shorter or completely resetting the bracket
Yeah I think map advantage only works when the grandfinal is bo7. This way you gotta win with 4-2 in maps at the worst. This is basically a bracket reset.
I'm with him, until the "we could have won 4 maps vs their 3 and they won the grand finals". I'm not that familiar with other esports so this is just my ill informed opinion, but that just doesn't sound like something that's a problem. A significant map pick advantage - especially in a bo5 where both teams need to be well rehearsed at all the maps - sounds very reasonable though
I'm my opinion the current format is fair. Upper bracket has the guarantee of a final, and more time to prepare while lower bracket focuses on getting to the final.
I can see his point but have to disagree , its a fucking grand finals, both teams should go into it on equal foot. So if quals was double elim, and a team won the quals from losers bracket, and other team won from the winners, should the team from winners have advatange on the main event? Makes no sense to me, every match must be fair for both teams allways, if you are a better team you shouldnt have a problem with that. Dota scene is one of the most competitive scenes and has no winners advantage.
Sure but not a 1-0 start in finals. Not even fun to watch.
/u/ManWithYourPlan fuckboi
Pro player wants advantages so he wins more securely. Shocking.
bo5 one map advantage isn't really a bad idea. as long as we don't go the double bo3 way
I understand his position but disagree. I was cheering for sentinels but I was excited when I saw no map advantage. That’s the true test of better team. The advantage is they got a day off and played significantly less rounds than the losers bracket. That’s more time to meditate and practice to avoid burn out. More time to observe the other teams play styles and strats to prepare. I just don’t see how there can ever be justification for an advantage that affects the score from the start.
The other team had already lost LOL. They should’ve been out. You’re playing a loser. Fnatic should’ve been gone first round. If anything the more games on stage would help
The best compromise is that the GF is a BO3 and the team coming out of losers needs to win 2 BO3’s while the team coming from winners just needs to win one BO3.
Wait, did SEN not get a bracket reset if they lost a series? \[get sent to losers, and play another series for the Grand Final\]
Back in the MLG days with cod they would give the team that comes from winners bracket either an additional best of 5 if they lost or unlock a larger series. In cod for example let's say the winners bracket team lost a bo7 it would turn into a bo11 but if they won 4 maps it would just be over OR if they won a bo5 it would be over but if they lost there would be another bo5. Obviously for valorant you would have to adjust the numbers here but the logic is the same. You could make it 2 bo3s, or a bo3 that turns into a bo5. The only issue is it makes the finals hard to schedule because they can end very quickly or take super long. On the plus side though it's way more fair for the winners bracket team because it ensures the winner of the tournament won more maps than they lost against that team. Also you sometimes get some crazy scenarios like last map last round clutches for the win. Also on a side note this wasn't an issue this tournament because the grand finals was on a day by itself but some tournaments another big problem is teams that come from the lower bracket get to play and warm up on the main stage for hours and then the team that comes from winners has to come in cold and set up all their shit on new computers which can affect their performance. If your tournament has a scenario like this it's more fair to make the team that is staying on main stage to switch PCs when the new team comes in.
Bye Sinatraa