8 Man Side Events at Majors?

[Clocked]

I'm a competitive Magic: The Gathering player, so it sort of surprised me to never see/hear about really small pick-up events at larger tournaments. At some of the larger tournaments in Magic, if you get knocked out, you can generally find a few of what are referred to as 8 mans, 8 person, single elimination tournaments that take an hour or two for people to pass the time when they get knocked out of the main bracket. They cost like $10 apiece to enter, and they're something like winner gets $40, 2nd gets $25, and 3rd gets $15.

I think Smash could really stand to gain by implementing this, especially as tournaments get bigger and longer. The whole thing would work something like this:

Required: 4 complete setups (There can be less, but the whole thing just runs about twice as slow with less than 4 setups)

Start when 8 entrants are seated. Randomly generate round 1 pairings, and play 2 out of 3 sets. Next, play semis, both matches simultaneously if you're pressed for time, then a match for 3rd, pay 3rd place, then the finals, pay both players respectively.

Assuming each set was 3 matches that went to time, the entire thing could last no longer than an hour and a half, and even that is doubtful. On top of that this is a good place to play alternate tournament types, like Items, and Low/Midtiers, the like.

I really think this could be a fun idea in Smash, what do you guys think?

 

[Palmerfan]

I like this idea a lot. Especially with the shift at nationals from round robin pools to bracket pools/straight bracket, I think this is a great idea to get everyone playing more.

 

[TheKiest]

Usually at majors, people will run "side/unofficial" events doing pretty much what you said. The issue usually is freeing up the TVs to do so. Every TV is more or less needed until the last event has eliminated 2/3rds of the people for the most part and by then most people who have stayed either want to play friendlies, watch the higher level matches, or go home.

I'm curious why 8 man single elim? or are you saying lots of 8 man single elim?

 

[Clocked]

8 Man Single Elim because it goes quick, long tournaments would go just over an hour if done with this method. The idea would be to have 2 or 3 of these, (Which could probably run on two setups each come to think of it) and as soon as 8 people sit down, one fires. When it's over, another one starts up, when 8 people sit down, it fires again. It gives people the experience of playing in bracket, even if they get knocked out of bracket, and if the TO takes say $5 of the pot, it helps the TO's at majors recuperate the cost of some of the larger venues.