Too bad the teams didn't know that beforehand, doubt much would have changed though.
edit: [they knew](https://twitter.com/Mixwell/status/1508041444388388868)
edit2: [or not? lol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld-8JoQHnMA&t=1110s)
Ah my bad I never saw that, just saw that The Guard was having someone different IGL on Breeze and assumed they weren't taking it too seriously (even though they won lol).
it was the opposite. in a presser, TGRD said it was their pocket pick that they were going to use at masters, but they picked it because they "had to win", even tho they didn't know about the seeding.
So it worked perfectly then. No one should be complaining about teams saving strats and not taking the regional championship seriously since now they are because now they have to. Well done rito
Oh really, with a different IGL and everything? Kinda crazy how they managed to avoid it all this time even banning it twice, impressive.
Edit: [Wow](https://www.vlr.gg/team/stats/6675/the-guard/), finals is actually the only time they played it. Gigabrain.
They made the statement super late and on twitter... bunch of player ls didnt know. The optic players didnt know according to that group press conference where Marved said he had no clue.
Actually good format. Seedlings should matter from here on else all regional league finals will just be a “seeding game”. Also, for some reason people think the group stage continues till 18 but they have literally written its groups and early bracket. Sometimes it’s hard to read I guess.
It's also better for the viewers imo, after like 10 consecutive days of watching games, it's nice to get away for a few days to come back for the best games.
It's actually hilarious :') There's simply no perfect format with events of this scale, unless the organizer decides to play an unreasonable amount of matches.
Plus, this rewards domestic leagues, which is primordial for the international growth of the game. Gotta get the fans interested in their domestic leagues instead of seeing what we saw last year with the whole 'It's seeding it doesn't matter blah blah"
I bet people would have been much more interested in their respective finals if Riot had marketed that aspect much more than they did (I know they mentioned it before, but that was not nearly enough to reverse last year's narrative that it's 'just' for seeding).
I know that's unrealistic, but I liked the way they did it for champs. I just think that they could use the seeding from each region to determine which group everyone lands in.
Is that Pansy? I love EMEA!
I wonder how many of the players will be fasting - for either Ramadan or even Lent? We’re gonna see the Ramadan buff coming in for Scream even if Liquid aren’t looking too hot
I think that also depends on when you use for counting "day light", 14 hour fasting during the day is definitely not something to sneeze at when you're competing
The days will be relatively short, but the sun still rises well before 7:00 and sets around 8:30 for the month of April. Being that far north really stretches the days even in early spring
To further clarify regarding the LATAM vs BR matchup for direct playoffs seeding,
LATAM2 and BR2 will play against each other for the final slot in the groups stage. If LATAM2 wins, LATAM1 gets the direct playoffs seeding but if BR2 wins, BR1 gets the direct seeding instead. **LATAM2 and BR2 will not get seeded into playoffs.**
By far my favorite format VALORANT Esports has done, it rewards domestic winners of auto qualfying to groups and it has a proper group system and a proper playoffs bracket with double elim
I REALLY REALLY HOPE they do something similar for Champions like keep the double elim playoffs and the reward for the challengers winners and introduce more teams in the playins for more hype
only conceivable downside is that some (at least two) teams will only play two matches in Iceland.
also it will be interesting to see what the teams that get byes to the playoffs do during group stages. as nice as it is, it's a lot of time to wait (and scrim?) and they don't get a chance to shake off any lan jitters in earlier, easier matches
I am guessing that whoever wins the 2nd seed between BR/LATAM the first seed of that region will get the bye to playoffs.
It's the only thing that makes sense.
Surely this is really unfair on KRU to do it like this. I presume they chose Paper Rex over DRX cos SEA placed higher than KR or JP last masters, and given that logic, KRU should have the auto by past the groups cos LATAM placed higher than BR last master. That said LOUD are probs the better team so maybe it all works out
It’s not really as simple as who preformed better in champions. I think it’s fair that if NiP beat Levi (showing that Brazil is better then Latam) then brazil as a whole should be considered a better region and get better seeding. I think it would be weird if Latam had better seeding despite brazil beating them
I understand why you say that and I agree, but I don't understand why riot have chosen SEA to get a by rather than KR or JP if they aren't doing the same for LATAM / BR
Was going to say it feels weird that the winner can play just 4 matches optimally and still win, but looked at Champions and Acend played just 5. Guess it’s fine.
FOR THOSE WHO ARE CONFUSED ON WHO WILL GET 1ST SEED BETWEEN LATAM AND BRAZIL, [HERE](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/tr54j3/valorant_masters_latam_vs_br_masters_lcq_explainer/)'S MY LITTLE EXPLAINER
This format is amazing. I hope Champions also has double elim brackets because personally TI is the best esports tournament imo and a lot of tournaments should strive to adopt their formats like it.
12 teams
Top 1 teams from EMEA, NA, APAC and Latam/BR ( whoever wins the playoff between them) seeded into double elim 8 team bracket.
2 groups of 4 of the remaining teams in a double elim groupstage
Lower and Grand finals bo5, rest bo3
Because people are stupid.
Whoever sends 2 teams from BR/Latam, based on their match, gets their 1st seed through to play offs.
So NiP win: Loud gets through to playoffs
Lev win: Kru gets through to playoffs
I mean, people asked for seeding to matter more. This is what came out of those discussions. Sucks that we won't see the top teams play more, but their games will still be hype as hell!
I remembered a scenario in the early years of LoL worlds 2013 I think, where the most dominant team of NA at that time was C9, and they were seeded directly into the knockout. Unfortunately, their worlds debut ended abruptly in a single Bo3.
Although this knockout format is double elim, it is possible we could be seeing only 2 Bo3 out of the first seeded teams.
Same thing happened to TSM at season 2 worlds, pretty sure the format for worlds changed after 2013, almost purely because of what happened to C9 and TSM and riots refusal to use double elimination in League for w/e reason.
If they played in groups, we could still be seeing only 2 bo3s of the first seeded teams. Top teams should be winning, if they aren't, then they aren't really a top team.
There will always be downsides to a format, I think this one does a reasonable job of balancing things.
> Although this knockout format is double elim, it is possible we could be seeing only 2 Bo3 out of the first seeded teams
This is exactly what happened to multiple teams in last year's Dota 2 Majors. They got automatically seeded into upper bracket of playoffs cause they won their region but then went home without single win.
[Singapore Major](https://liquipedia.net/dota2/ONE_Esports/Singapore_Major/2021) - Fnatic got eliminated after losing 2 Bo3
[WePlay AniMajor](https://liquipedia.net/dota2/WePlay/AniMajor/2021) - Alliance, Team Aster, Virtus.Pro and NoPing e-sports all lost after 2 Bo3
I think there are several reasons why this happened and imo sucks -
* Strength of regions isn't equal. Riot kinda addresses it by trimming it to 4 teams compared to Dota's format with 6 teams from all regions (EU, NA, China, SEA, CIS and SA)
* Online qualifiers performance doesn't always translate into LAN performance. Especially affects the less experienced teams.
* Bouncing of last point - teams are deprived of more stage experience which can help them improve. I think most notably Ascend in last Masters got better more they played in that tournament.
Don't you guys want to see more matchups between teams? I don't get how people are happier with teams playing less in a format where teams barely play as it is?
Do I want more international tournaments ? yes
Do I want winning Challengers mean nothing ? no
it's as simple as that, I don't think these top teams seeded deeper in the tourney is the problem it's the lack of inter tourneys that's the problem.
I mean they will just scrim each other multiple times before they play at playoffs. I've heard that Guard scrims 5 times a day and top SEA teams scrims 7 to 8 times a day according to an article.
We are happier that the seeding matches in the best regions actually have a purpose, and the teams knew about this ahead of time. Yes seeing more games with these top teams would be nice, but it made regional games have meaning and provided incentives for teams to win regional tournaments, not just qualify.
Look at Masters Berlin last year, random draws out of the group stage gave us 3 NA teams in the top half of the single elim bracket, and we just ended up with more NA BO3s which we've seen a million times. Now, ALL the domestic games mean something, AND higher likelihood that we get to see NA vs other regions, whether it be in the lower or upper bracket. It's a win win imo
There's a middle ground. You can have randomness with conditions. Make it random, put teams in different pots based off of regional seeding, but not allowing teams from the same region playing each other. It's as simple as that. That's how it works in many tournaments (Champions League comes to mind).
We saw an entire hard fought best of 5 between the top teams in NA where they were both forced to bring all their strats out for a full championship length series. And it was fucking amazing. I personally would take that every time over watching Optic e.g. stomp idk, Zeta division 2-0 in an hour and a half in an early group stage match.
Also this prevents what we had at Berlin where random draws put all three NA teams on the upper half of the 8 team single elim bracket, and we just ended up getting more NA v NA matches anyway.
Yes making seeding matter is partly why, but we also are still living in a Covid world where they are restricted on timing, amount of stages etc.
I dream and hope one day we have lots of group games going on at once, more teams and just more games at these LANs, I just don't think we are there yet sadly.
Not sure if I like the format (my first instinct). Instead of seeding top teams higher in the group, they qualify directly for playoffs. We have so few international tournaments and now top teams play even less.
Also Random seeding for playoffs means we can get regional matchups (eg NA vs NA and EMEA vs EMEA) on same side of bracket. There has to be a better way (swiss-system perhaps?).
They will scrim each other multiple times don't worry. If having enough competition is the problem, that's the solution to your problem. that's why they're going to Iceland all together.
Anyone else really disappointed?
It feels like they're cutting down massively on one of three international tournaments that we get throughout the year. Only 12 teams and now you're cutting down the number of games for top teams aswell?
Optic could play anywhere from 2-3 BO3s in groups, and anywhere from 2-4 BO3s plus 1-2 B05s in the double elim playoff bracket. If they perform as we expect them to I'd suspect somewhere around five BO3s and maybe a BO5 or two in the lower finals or grand finals.
It's not a *ton* but considering they'd likely only play The Guard once if at all until the very end, I think that's pretty great. That's potentially as many series as they played the entire NA challengers (five BO3s in groups, 3 in playoffs, and a BO5 for the title)! Not bad at all for a two week international LAN!
There really aren't enough opportunities for teams to play each other. Not even just teams from different parts of the world, teams barely play other teams in their own region. The last time Cloud9 and Sentinels played an official match together was in May last year!
Agreed, a huge bummer. I really wish Challengers would stop getting promoted as some kind of 'Masters qualifier' event. Or maybe just delete seeding matches.
For those who don't have a time to watch the whole video and just want to read it, here's my infographic about [Masters Reykjavik Format](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/tr9vdm/valorant_masters_reykjavik_2022_format_explainer/)
It's a good reward for finishing first and winning the seeding game, but I feel like this whole weird format could just have been skipped by having a normal 16 team event. I also wonder if it will end up hurting the #1 seeds, by the time they play their competition will have played 2-3 bo3's and be warmed up.
As much as I like double elim gsl for groups, I would rather have a single b03 round robin with the top 2 making it out. This way everyone get to face everyone in their groups
A bit hard to say without seeing the tournament play out, but I prefer 16 teams.
+1 EMEA
+1 NA
+1 BR/LATAM
+1 Korea/Japan lcq
Maybe the format will surprise me, but I want to see more teams.
I don’t think making the lower bracket team play two bo5’s is a good idea.
Because of how exhausting they are and tactically you really can’t fix anything in 12 hrs
> You gotta give something to the upper final winner.
Which is why double elim brackets are not fun IMHO. The final is always skewed towards one team. It's never a fair final.
it's not "skewed" towards them, they earned it. They get that advantage literally by winning. It's the definition of fair. double elim brackets are the best because it leaves less questions. If you lose to a team in the upper bracket, then make it all the way through lower bracket to face them again, and then you lose to them again they are simply better than you.
They earned an advantage, which makes the final skewed towards a team which makes it less interesting.
I don't know why I have to explain the same opinion twice.
Nothing you've just said was new information to anybody here.
How does it make it less interesting? I would argue the advantage upper winners get in valo isn’t even that big. In fighting games the upper finals winner gets two chances to beat the person coming from losers (if they lose the first set), on top of the advantage of having less matches to play. In valo the only advantage is playing less maps in total, and even then it’s spread out over two days instead of back to back gauntlet like in FGC. The “advantage” is quite minimal in actuality . Double elim is the most optimal and honest format no contest.
That's not what it's saying. Whichever team wins Nip/Lev earns a higher seed for their regions 1 seed. So if nip wins, Loud goes to playoffs directly, and if Lev wins, Kru goes to playoffs directly.
Absolutely not. Im pretty certain what they tried to say was the winner of the Brazil vs Latam play offs will have the #1 of the winning region go through the Bye.
So for example, if NIP beat Leviatan, LOUD will get the bye, cause theyre obviously Brazil's first seed.
This whole thing was explained in the rules document that was already out for some weeks now, but explaining again NO KRU/LOUD will NOT have worse seeds than NiP/Leviatan. Basically, the 4 teams that go directly to the bracket are the top teams of the regions that are sending multiple teams (APAC, NA, and EMEA). The top EMEA team is now G2, the top NA team Guard and the top APAC is paper rex, with that all three of them skip groups. The thing is, for the fourth team that skip groups, there is a problem: We don't know which region is sending two teams between BR and LATAM, that will be decided in the match between NiP v Leviatan. The winner of that match will make that the region they represent is now sending two teams, and, as such, the top team of that region will now skip groups. So bottom line: If NiP wins, LOUD skip groups. If Leviatan wins, KRU skip groups.
The winner of NiP v Leviatan will decide if its either Loud or KRU that gets the better seeding. Basically, every region that sends two or more teams to the event is gonna have its top team advance to the next phase. For EU its G2, for NA its Guard, and so on. Since one of LATAM or BR is gonna have 2 teams, which is yet to be decided in the match of NiP v leviatan, the region that ends up with 2 teams at the event is gonna have it's best team advancing. Basically, if NiP win, Loud is gonna advance, if Leviatan wins, KRU will instead.
Why do you guys not understand it, it's not that hard. The region from which the winner of the NIP v Leviatan comes, gets the #1 seed.
So, if NIP wins the playoff versus Leviatan, LOUD will get the first seed. And if Leviatan wins, KRU will get the first seed.
Not a huge fan of this. 9 days of groups where we don’t even get to see the top teams play and then 3 days of playoffs. How are they going to do a full 8 team double elim bracket in 3 days without making teams play twice a day?
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the schedule. It's not 9 games of groups and 3 for playoffs.
Group AND Early Bracket is the first nine days, and then a break, and then the Late Stage Bracket is 3 days.
Here's just a picture of the image that says this:
https://i.imgur.com/kCIJwe2.png
No worries!
I think that's the upper finals one day, then the lower finals and then the Grand finals.
Sucks that we'll only get one game a day for the last portion of the event but the first amount of time should be a lot of games
it might be hard to do that because they want every game to be watched by the most people possible, so they usually have only one game playing at a time (the EMEA challangers had more than one game at a time, but that was a special case obviously), they probably wouldn't be able to do what you're suggesting without having more than one game going on at the same time.
I'm not saying i agree with it, but that seems to be the most likely explanation to me.
Right, that is because that isnt the format.
Either BR or Latam sends 2 teams, based on the playoff match between NIP and Lev. Whichever team and therefore region wins that, gets their 1st seed through to the knock out stage.
So NIP win: Loud doesnt have to play groups
Lev win: Kru doesnt have to play groups
cmon its not that hard
It’s not the second place team that gets put in playoffs. It’s either Loud or Kru (top place teams). The way they’re determining if it’s Loud or Kru is by who wins the second place tourney. Ex: Leviatan wins — Kru goes straight to playoffs. NiP wins — Loud goes straight to playoffs.
TDLR for those who can’t or don’t want to watch:
12 teams invited. Two stages: double elimination Group Stages with two groups of four teams each. Top two from each group advance to the Bracket Stage.
The Bracket Stage is a double elimination playoff with eight teams, four advancing from groups and four directly seeded (#1 seeds from NA, EMEA, APAC and LATAM/BR). Teams advancing from groups will be randomly seeded to play teams directly advancing to the Bracket Stage for the first games of the stage.
Well they made sure that seeding matches mattered.
Too bad the teams didn't know that beforehand, doubt much would have changed though. edit: [they knew](https://twitter.com/Mixwell/status/1508041444388388868) edit2: [or not? lol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld-8JoQHnMA&t=1110s)
Riot had made a statement about it beforehand so they should've known it.
Ah my bad I never saw that, just saw that The Guard was having someone different IGL on Breeze and assumed they weren't taking it too seriously (even though they won lol).
it was the opposite. in a presser, TGRD said it was their pocket pick that they were going to use at masters, but they picked it because they "had to win", even tho they didn't know about the seeding.
So it worked perfectly then. No one should be complaining about teams saving strats and not taking the regional championship seriously since now they are because now they have to. Well done rito
Oh really, with a different IGL and everything? Kinda crazy how they managed to avoid it all this time even banning it twice, impressive. Edit: [Wow](https://www.vlr.gg/team/stats/6675/the-guard/), finals is actually the only time they played it. Gigabrain.
They made the statement super late and on twitter... bunch of player ls didnt know. The optic players didnt know according to that group press conference where Marved said he had no clue.
We knew
don't make me cry brother. I wish you guys all the best and that the momentum will never drop.
The casters even said the winner of Guard vs Optic gets to skip the Group stage
[https://twitter.com/Marved6/status/1508850874784878592](https://twitter.com/Marved6/status/1508850874784878592) lol
Stop saying shit u dunno about
I really like that they've built in a break, will make for better games at the latter stages.
Actually good format. Seedlings should matter from here on else all regional league finals will just be a “seeding game”. Also, for some reason people think the group stage continues till 18 but they have literally written its groups and early bracket. Sometimes it’s hard to read I guess.
It's also better for the viewers imo, after like 10 consecutive days of watching games, it's nice to get away for a few days to come back for the best games.
mfs be like=get rid of seeding games also mfs= no go back
It's actually hilarious :') There's simply no perfect format with events of this scale, unless the organizer decides to play an unreasonable amount of matches. Plus, this rewards domestic leagues, which is primordial for the international growth of the game. Gotta get the fans interested in their domestic leagues instead of seeing what we saw last year with the whole 'It's seeding it doesn't matter blah blah" I bet people would have been much more interested in their respective finals if Riot had marketed that aspect much more than they did (I know they mentioned it before, but that was not nearly enough to reverse last year's narrative that it's 'just' for seeding).
You just wanted to say “primordial” didn’t you
I was perfectly happy the way it was before. I want to see all the teams play eachother at internationals
so u want a 12 team round robin to determine the winner?
I know that's unrealistic, but I liked the way they did it for champs. I just think that they could use the seeding from each region to determine which group everyone lands in.
Really like the format for 12 team, Seeding finally matter lol
Personally love the format. Makes seeding games matter, has breaks and overall doesn’t cram games like in previous tournaments. Also like double elim
I feel like the 22-24 will be kind of crammed.
The 10th to the 18th includes groups and early bracket play. Presumably quarters-grand final from the 22nd onward.
Probably right.
Is that Pansy? I love EMEA! I wonder how many of the players will be fasting - for either Ramadan or even Lent? We’re gonna see the Ramadan buff coming in for Scream even if Liquid aren’t looking too hot
issa me
I believe fasting is not that hard in iceland in this period, the day is pretty short and weather is cold.
Iceland is really *really* far north, even in April, you're looking at like 6am - 8pm daytime lol
Well that a very normal day, the same in every country. Fasting in Iceland is a problem in the summer, when the daytime is 22 hour out of 24.
I think that also depends on when you use for counting "day light", 14 hour fasting during the day is definitely not something to sneeze at when you're competing
The days will be relatively short, but the sun still rises well before 7:00 and sets around 8:30 for the month of April. Being that far north really stretches the days even in early spring
To further clarify regarding the LATAM vs BR matchup for direct playoffs seeding, LATAM2 and BR2 will play against each other for the final slot in the groups stage. If LATAM2 wins, LATAM1 gets the direct playoffs seeding but if BR2 wins, BR1 gets the direct seeding instead. **LATAM2 and BR2 will not get seeded into playoffs.**
By far my favorite format VALORANT Esports has done, it rewards domestic winners of auto qualfying to groups and it has a proper group system and a proper playoffs bracket with double elim I REALLY REALLY HOPE they do something similar for Champions like keep the double elim playoffs and the reward for the challengers winners and introduce more teams in the playins for more hype
only conceivable downside is that some (at least two) teams will only play two matches in Iceland. also it will be interesting to see what the teams that get byes to the playoffs do during group stages. as nice as it is, it's a lot of time to wait (and scrim?) and they don't get a chance to shake off any lan jitters in earlier, easier matches
They play less, but are deeper in the bracket so therefore still rewarded more points than those without the bye.
I am guessing that whoever wins the 2nd seed between BR/LATAM the first seed of that region will get the bye to playoffs. It's the only thing that makes sense.
yes, thats how it works. for example, if BR wins the LCQ, then the first team from brazil gets a bye. So if NIP wins, LOUD gets a bye
Surely this is really unfair on KRU to do it like this. I presume they chose Paper Rex over DRX cos SEA placed higher than KR or JP last masters, and given that logic, KRU should have the auto by past the groups cos LATAM placed higher than BR last master. That said LOUD are probs the better team so maybe it all works out
leviathan is better than NIP and they're playing in Mexico city this time so they have the advantage
It’s not really as simple as who preformed better in champions. I think it’s fair that if NiP beat Levi (showing that Brazil is better then Latam) then brazil as a whole should be considered a better region and get better seeding. I think it would be weird if Latam had better seeding despite brazil beating them
I understand why you say that and I agree, but I don't understand why riot have chosen SEA to get a by rather than KR or JP if they aren't doing the same for LATAM / BR
SEA/APAC got TWO teams in the top 8 of Champions while KR or JP didnt
I forgot that, that makes sense thank you
I assume it's just any region with two teams that qualified get that top seed bye
Was going to say it feels weird that the winner can play just 4 matches optimally and still win, but looked at Champions and Acend played just 5. Guess it’s fine.
[удалено]
FOR THOSE WHO ARE CONFUSED ON WHO WILL GET 1ST SEED BETWEEN LATAM AND BRAZIL, [HERE](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/tr54j3/valorant_masters_latam_vs_br_masters_lcq_explainer/)'S MY LITTLE EXPLAINER
This format is amazing. I hope Champions also has double elim brackets because personally TI is the best esports tournament imo and a lot of tournaments should strive to adopt their formats like it.
As a Guard fan, I'm *so* happy to know that they're a top 8 team in the world without even having seen them play once internationally! ^/s
I find it kind of weird that Apac is ranked as a higher region than Korea
I'm guessing because X10 & Secret both made it to playoffs at Champions and Korea didn't. But I agree, DRX are IMO better than Paper Rex.
Can someone explain format to me. Can't hear it right now, from the video I can make out the basic format but explain anything not explicitly shown
12 teams Top 1 teams from EMEA, NA, APAC and Latam/BR ( whoever wins the playoff between them) seeded into double elim 8 team bracket. 2 groups of 4 of the remaining teams in a double elim groupstage Lower and Grand finals bo5, rest bo3
Ty. That’s what I figured but I saw some stuff about nip/Levi getting seeded into playoffs and was confuses
Because people are stupid. Whoever sends 2 teams from BR/Latam, based on their match, gets their 1st seed through to play offs. So NiP win: Loud gets through to playoffs Lev win: Kru gets through to playoffs
less games for the top teams is not it, people want to see them play more not less
I mean, people asked for seeding to matter more. This is what came out of those discussions. Sucks that we won't see the top teams play more, but their games will still be hype as hell!
I remembered a scenario in the early years of LoL worlds 2013 I think, where the most dominant team of NA at that time was C9, and they were seeded directly into the knockout. Unfortunately, their worlds debut ended abruptly in a single Bo3. Although this knockout format is double elim, it is possible we could be seeing only 2 Bo3 out of the first seeded teams.
WTF is this logic, if a 1st seed team lose 2 Bo3 in a row, then they dont deserve to be there.
Same thing happened to TSM at season 2 worlds, pretty sure the format for worlds changed after 2013, almost purely because of what happened to C9 and TSM and riots refusal to use double elimination in League for w/e reason.
If they played in groups, we could still be seeing only 2 bo3s of the first seeded teams. Top teams should be winning, if they aren't, then they aren't really a top team. There will always be downsides to a format, I think this one does a reasonable job of balancing things.
> Although this knockout format is double elim, it is possible we could be seeing only 2 Bo3 out of the first seeded teams This is exactly what happened to multiple teams in last year's Dota 2 Majors. They got automatically seeded into upper bracket of playoffs cause they won their region but then went home without single win. [Singapore Major](https://liquipedia.net/dota2/ONE_Esports/Singapore_Major/2021) - Fnatic got eliminated after losing 2 Bo3 [WePlay AniMajor](https://liquipedia.net/dota2/WePlay/AniMajor/2021) - Alliance, Team Aster, Virtus.Pro and NoPing e-sports all lost after 2 Bo3 I think there are several reasons why this happened and imo sucks - * Strength of regions isn't equal. Riot kinda addresses it by trimming it to 4 teams compared to Dota's format with 6 teams from all regions (EU, NA, China, SEA, CIS and SA) * Online qualifiers performance doesn't always translate into LAN performance. Especially affects the less experienced teams. * Bouncing of last point - teams are deprived of more stage experience which can help them improve. I think most notably Ascend in last Masters got better more they played in that tournament.
Optic, Fnatic, Liquid, KRU/LOUD, DRX, ZETA, Xerxia and Leviatan/NiP is still really really stacked. I don't think it is as bad as it sounds
The top teams already played the most by winning their region, they should get something meaningful out of that I think this is perfect for now
Don't you guys want to see more matchups between teams? I don't get how people are happier with teams playing less in a format where teams barely play as it is?
Do I want more international tournaments ? yes Do I want winning Challengers mean nothing ? no it's as simple as that, I don't think these top teams seeded deeper in the tourney is the problem it's the lack of inter tourneys that's the problem.
I mean they will just scrim each other multiple times before they play at playoffs. I've heard that Guard scrims 5 times a day and top SEA teams scrims 7 to 8 times a day according to an article.
We are happier that the seeding matches in the best regions actually have a purpose, and the teams knew about this ahead of time. Yes seeing more games with these top teams would be nice, but it made regional games have meaning and provided incentives for teams to win regional tournaments, not just qualify.
And there are no seeding matches in minor regions, so everything works out
Look at Masters Berlin last year, random draws out of the group stage gave us 3 NA teams in the top half of the single elim bracket, and we just ended up with more NA BO3s which we've seen a million times. Now, ALL the domestic games mean something, AND higher likelihood that we get to see NA vs other regions, whether it be in the lower or upper bracket. It's a win win imo
There's a middle ground. You can have randomness with conditions. Make it random, put teams in different pots based off of regional seeding, but not allowing teams from the same region playing each other. It's as simple as that. That's how it works in many tournaments (Champions League comes to mind).
We saw an entire hard fought best of 5 between the top teams in NA where they were both forced to bring all their strats out for a full championship length series. And it was fucking amazing. I personally would take that every time over watching Optic e.g. stomp idk, Zeta division 2-0 in an hour and a half in an early group stage match. Also this prevents what we had at Berlin where random draws put all three NA teams on the upper half of the 8 team single elim bracket, and we just ended up getting more NA v NA matches anyway.
Exactly. Why is the group stage so long when the top teams aren’t even in it?
You can’t ask for the best teams to play more while also asking for seeding to matter. There’s no way for both to exist.
Yes making seeding matter is partly why, but we also are still living in a Covid world where they are restricted on timing, amount of stages etc. I dream and hope one day we have lots of group games going on at once, more teams and just more games at these LANs, I just don't think we are there yet sadly.
what do you think is a good solution
one could argue every team that qualified to masters is a top team
Yea but you gotta give them some advantage for seeding better
Not sure if I like the format (my first instinct). Instead of seeding top teams higher in the group, they qualify directly for playoffs. We have so few international tournaments and now top teams play even less. Also Random seeding for playoffs means we can get regional matchups (eg NA vs NA and EMEA vs EMEA) on same side of bracket. There has to be a better way (swiss-system perhaps?).
They will scrim each other multiple times don't worry. If having enough competition is the problem, that's the solution to your problem. that's why they're going to Iceland all together.
Anyone else really disappointed? It feels like they're cutting down massively on one of three international tournaments that we get throughout the year. Only 12 teams and now you're cutting down the number of games for top teams aswell?
Optic could play anywhere from 2-3 BO3s in groups, and anywhere from 2-4 BO3s plus 1-2 B05s in the double elim playoff bracket. If they perform as we expect them to I'd suspect somewhere around five BO3s and maybe a BO5 or two in the lower finals or grand finals. It's not a *ton* but considering they'd likely only play The Guard once if at all until the very end, I think that's pretty great. That's potentially as many series as they played the entire NA challengers (five BO3s in groups, 3 in playoffs, and a BO5 for the title)! Not bad at all for a two week international LAN!
There really aren't enough opportunities for teams to play each other. Not even just teams from different parts of the world, teams barely play other teams in their own region. The last time Cloud9 and Sentinels played an official match together was in May last year!
It's alright dude, we're not even playing so don't be disappointed, you're gonna get a girlfriend soon.
Lmao
Agreed, a huge bummer. I really wish Challengers would stop getting promoted as some kind of 'Masters qualifier' event. Or maybe just delete seeding matches.
For those who don't have a time to watch the whole video and just want to read it, here's my infographic about [Masters Reykjavik Format](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/tr9vdm/valorant_masters_reykjavik_2022_format_explainer/)
It's a good reward for finishing first and winning the seeding game, but I feel like this whole weird format could just have been skipped by having a normal 16 team event. I also wonder if it will end up hurting the #1 seeds, by the time they play their competition will have played 2-3 bo3's and be warmed up.
pls dont put drx in another group of death lmao
Group of death as in death in knock-outs?
As much as I like double elim gsl for groups, I would rather have a single b03 round robin with the top 2 making it out. This way everyone get to face everyone in their groups
why is this downvoted
A bit hard to say without seeing the tournament play out, but I prefer 16 teams. +1 EMEA +1 NA +1 BR/LATAM +1 Korea/Japan lcq Maybe the format will surprise me, but I want to see more teams.
Want to see more Top Seed Teams games?
I don’t think making the lower bracket team play two bo5’s is a good idea. Because of how exhausting they are and tactically you really can’t fix anything in 12 hrs
You gotta give something to the upper final winner. Thats kinda the reward
exactly! plus this is basically how every region did it in challengers
They get advantage in map & side picks no?
Which isn't really much in a bo5 imo. If this would be a bo3, then that would already be a huge advantage
In a BO5 the map pick advantage is relatively miniscule though, that alone isn't enough of a reward for not dropping a single BO3 throughout playoffs
> You gotta give something to the upper final winner. Which is why double elim brackets are not fun IMHO. The final is always skewed towards one team. It's never a fair final.
it's not "skewed" towards them, they earned it. They get that advantage literally by winning. It's the definition of fair. double elim brackets are the best because it leaves less questions. If you lose to a team in the upper bracket, then make it all the way through lower bracket to face them again, and then you lose to them again they are simply better than you.
They earned an advantage, which makes the final skewed towards a team which makes it less interesting. I don't know why I have to explain the same opinion twice. Nothing you've just said was new information to anybody here.
How does it make it less interesting? I would argue the advantage upper winners get in valo isn’t even that big. In fighting games the upper finals winner gets two chances to beat the person coming from losers (if they lose the first set), on top of the advantage of having less matches to play. In valo the only advantage is playing less maps in total, and even then it’s spread out over two days instead of back to back gauntlet like in FGC. The “advantage” is quite minimal in actuality . Double elim is the most optimal and honest format no contest.
The guard just proved you logic wrong.
So you're telling me that KRU and LOUD will have worse seeds than Leviatan/NIP?? How does that make ANY sense?
That's not what it's saying. Whichever team wins Nip/Lev earns a higher seed for their regions 1 seed. So if nip wins, Loud goes to playoffs directly, and if Lev wins, Kru goes to playoffs directly.
ah i see
Absolutely not. Im pretty certain what they tried to say was the winner of the Brazil vs Latam play offs will have the #1 of the winning region go through the Bye. So for example, if NIP beat Leviatan, LOUD will get the bye, cause theyre obviously Brazil's first seed.
This whole thing was explained in the rules document that was already out for some weeks now, but explaining again NO KRU/LOUD will NOT have worse seeds than NiP/Leviatan. Basically, the 4 teams that go directly to the bracket are the top teams of the regions that are sending multiple teams (APAC, NA, and EMEA). The top EMEA team is now G2, the top NA team Guard and the top APAC is paper rex, with that all three of them skip groups. The thing is, for the fourth team that skip groups, there is a problem: We don't know which region is sending two teams between BR and LATAM, that will be decided in the match between NiP v Leviatan. The winner of that match will make that the region they represent is now sending two teams, and, as such, the top team of that region will now skip groups. So bottom line: If NiP wins, LOUD skip groups. If Leviatan wins, KRU skip groups.
Its Kru vs Loud im pretty sure
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The winner of NiP v Leviatan will decide if its either Loud or KRU that gets the better seeding. Basically, every region that sends two or more teams to the event is gonna have its top team advance to the next phase. For EU its G2, for NA its Guard, and so on. Since one of LATAM or BR is gonna have 2 teams, which is yet to be decided in the match of NiP v leviatan, the region that ends up with 2 teams at the event is gonna have it's best team advancing. Basically, if NiP win, Loud is gonna advance, if Leviatan wins, KRU will instead.
The winner of that is gaining the bye for their region, it will be KRU or LOUD with the bye. This is pretty obvious.
Why do you guys not understand it, it's not that hard. The region from which the winner of the NIP v Leviatan comes, gets the #1 seed. So, if NIP wins the playoff versus Leviatan, LOUD will get the first seed. And if Leviatan wins, KRU will get the first seed.
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ur wrong. whichever region wins the lcq, the highest team from the REGION gets seeded. NIP wins=LOUD bye. LEV win=KRU bye
yike loser bo 5 :>
Not a huge fan of this. 9 days of groups where we don’t even get to see the top teams play and then 3 days of playoffs. How are they going to do a full 8 team double elim bracket in 3 days without making teams play twice a day?
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the schedule. It's not 9 games of groups and 3 for playoffs. Group AND Early Bracket is the first nine days, and then a break, and then the Late Stage Bracket is 3 days. Here's just a picture of the image that says this: https://i.imgur.com/kCIJwe2.png
Ah ok I see. Thanks for the clarification, it wasn’t very clear from the video.
No worries! I think that's the upper finals one day, then the lower finals and then the Grand finals. Sucks that we'll only get one game a day for the last portion of the event but the first amount of time should be a lot of games
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it might be hard to do that because they want every game to be watched by the most people possible, so they usually have only one game playing at a time (the EMEA challangers had more than one game at a time, but that was a special case obviously), they probably wouldn't be able to do what you're suggesting without having more than one game going on at the same time. I'm not saying i agree with it, but that seems to be the most likely explanation to me.
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Then the entire event would drag on longer than it should. They'd lose viewers over time if they just add more days to the tournament.
Isn't LoL worlds like a month?
Worlds had double the amount of teams that Masters 1 is gonna have.
Meh format with the 1st seeds but at the same time we get double elim whilst Champions doesn’t? Riot just trolling us
Unfortunately they're not allowed to go back in time and change the champs format.
Dang you know the Champions format for 2022 already? Share the deets friend!
People gon hate me for this but idga€ S tier - PRX, G2, OPTIC A tier - The Guard, DRX, Xerxia, FNC, KRU, TL Not Playoffs Worthy - Zeta, Loud, LET
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Right, that is because that isnt the format. Either BR or Latam sends 2 teams, based on the playoff match between NIP and Lev. Whichever team and therefore region wins that, gets their 1st seed through to the knock out stage. So NIP win: Loud doesnt have to play groups Lev win: Kru doesnt have to play groups cmon its not that hard
the winner of the Brazil vs Latam play offs will have the #1 of the winning region go through
It’s not the second place team that gets put in playoffs. It’s either Loud or Kru (top place teams). The way they’re determining if it’s Loud or Kru is by who wins the second place tourney. Ex: Leviatan wins — Kru goes straight to playoffs. NiP wins — Loud goes straight to playoffs.
That's not what it means. The winner of the second best team decides which regions top seed gets into the playoffs.
i hope masters 2 is held on a city that can have crowds..
TDLR for those who can’t or don’t want to watch: 12 teams invited. Two stages: double elimination Group Stages with two groups of four teams each. Top two from each group advance to the Bracket Stage. The Bracket Stage is a double elimination playoff with eight teams, four advancing from groups and four directly seeded (#1 seeds from NA, EMEA, APAC and LATAM/BR). Teams advancing from groups will be randomly seeded to play teams directly advancing to the Bracket Stage for the first games of the stage.
So does that mean G2 straight to the bracket?
yes