Championship details - Input requested!

[KishSquared]

Hey everyone! Thanks so much to all Midwesterners for supporting the Midwest Circuit in its first season. It's been far more successful than we imagined, and we truly believe that it has helped the Midwest as a whole to improve.

The Championship is the last event of the first season. After much debate, we have decided to wait out the winter and hold the event in early March. We'll avoid the date of Cataclysm, so no worries there. It will be SMYM7 in Champaign, IL, which is about as central for everyone as it gets. We hope everyone can make it!

Regarding the format of the Championship, we would like to explore a different method of competition. Too often, brackets do not truly rank the top players, as an average player can "sneak" his/her way into the top 5 with an easy brackets, while elite players are knocking each other out earlier in the bracket. Also, we have yet to see someone win twice. We see two reasons for this: that the Midwest is void of a "dominant" player that will win every event, and also that bracket plays a big role in determining who comes out on top. We would like to find a way to avoid this. We want the Champion of the first season to have truly earned the title as "victor".

So here's the deal. We want to see the Championship come down to a Round Robin competition amongst the top 8 players. Each player will need to play every other top 8 player, and the winner will be decided by who can win the most. No luck, no easy brackets, just straight-up who can win.

And no worries, we're not talking about making the Championship exclusive to the top 8 points holders. To put it simply, everyone would play a round robin like normal, seeded by points, and, ultimately, the top players will come out of that and play each other. Essentially, we'll be replacing the bracket with another round robin.

We'll discuss things in more detail as needed. What we want to hear from you is whether this change-of-format would be well-received. We want do what we believe is best for the Midwest, competitively speaking, but we also don't want to make a drastic last-minute change if people see no point to doing so. Let us know what you think, or if you have any questions.

We'll discuss this through mid-January, and at that point we'll make a firm decision. Thanks!

The committee,
AOB, KishSquared, Mathos

 

[Capps Indigo]

hey, thanks for making this thread. i was actually wondering where a good place to discuss circuit stuff would be.

can you (or whoever might have the info) tell me the number of entrants that you've had so far for the past circuit events? like.. SMYM6 had ___ for singles and ___ teams.

as for the format. would you just be doing this for singles.. or for both singles and doubles?

 

[Drephen]

how is the final pot split?

if its not been decided then i suggest for singles 1-5 get money, teams 1-3, and crews 1-2

 

[viperboy_74]

i'm all for the RR idea, it makes complete sence.


BUT


i think that it should be sooner than early march. someone's game can change so much between now and march, and i think that defeats the whole purpose of the circuit points. hold it in mid february, please....

 

[eighteenspikes]

Maybe instead of the Finals being round robin, wherein 7 players are eliminated in a match set lacking an exciting play mechanic, you could maybe take the top 2 out of those 8 and have them play an extended singles set (best of 13 or whatever). There's no use in taking top 4 as a round robin in the top 4 and a double elim bracket in the top 4 would look almost identical. Cause if RR is best of 3 then I would think that Round Robin would not be a very exciting or climactic way to determine the winner, especially if Midwest players are so close in skill

 

[AlphaZealot]

A long time ago, in the summer of 2004, I went to a tournament at UMD. It was held using a swiss format which hasn't been used since GS2 in 2005.

Essentially, if you win, you go on to play someone else who wins. This process was repeated until the top 8 were determined (there were around 40 people in attendance).

Fortunately I made top 8. The top 8 then did a round robin system like you suggest, where everyone plays each other. This system was slightly flawed back then because the swiss format relied on how well you did, so I placed 6 because I lost by 3 stock to Neo and 2 stock to PXT. However, one good thing I think was that they found the top 4 and seeded them to play each other.

You need a championship match. Something with a lot on the line. Round robin top 8 to determine top 4 and seed accordingly.

 

[KishSquared]

Thanks for the input, guys. Please keep your ideas coming!

18, that's not a bad idea. Just realize that the "final 2" will have already played each other in the final round robin, and possibly even before that. It's a good idea for ending the tournament with a climactic match though. Maybe try MLG-style? The first to get a total of 7 wins against the other, counting all prior matches? That way if A beat B twice, the score would be 4-2, and it'd be 3-3 if they each won once.

EDIT: AZ, yeah, we actually discussed the similarity to GS2. That tournament wasn't terribly well-received, mostly because (I believe) it was extremely difficult to organize. For anyone who's curious, this isn't Swiss because when you're out, you're out. But thanks for the suggestion AZ, because one of our concerns was certainly the lack of a climactic final battle.

EDIT2: Drephen, do you mean normal or bonus payout? Because Bonus goes to top 3 singles, top 3 teams, and top crew (at this point only 1st place crew since there's only ~$20 in the pot... might change depending on the crews at the championship)

 

[eighteenspikes]

18, that's not a bad idea. Just realize that the "final 2" will have already played each other in the final round robin, and possibly even before that. It's a good idea for ending the tournament with a climactic match though. Maybe try MLG-style? The first to get a total of 7 wins against the other, counting all prior matches? That way if A beat B twice, the score would be 4-2, and it'd be 3-3 if they each won once.

That's an interesting way to do it, although I think having round-robin bite you in the *** later on can be horrible, unless you want to brutally enforce the FastLikeTree rule. I was actually in a DDR tournament once where you pick from 5 songs per round and the top half of the people with the highest percentage would go on. All of the first songs were on Standard difficulty so I didn't really care, I knew I was going through, so I got like 70-ish %. Turns out they actually averaged the percentages, so after I found that out I tried really hard and got like 90% on my song in the second round and actually got 100% on my third. But the first one lowered me enough to get kicked out after the 3rd round, even though I had a perfect play. Similarly, people just aren't motivated to play as hard in Round Robin if they know they are going through, and if a decisive match comes up later, it shouldn't really haunt them. But that's the thing, nobody really knows which match will be the decisive one... it's not like people throw matches or whatever if they think they're going through, but that pressure to excel just isn't there. In that sense I think that RR shouldn't have an impact on the final matchup.
And I agree with AZ's mention of the bracket, which I was initially against (I figured it was redundant as it seeded games in preparation to just be 1 vs 2 right over again) but gave more thought to, as it gives people who do well but have a couple poor RR matches a second chance.

tl;dr my opinion is to wipe the RR slate clean for a seeded 4 man bracket

 

[AOB]

i think that it should be sooner than early march. someone's game can change so much between now and march, and i think that defeats the whole purpose of the circuit points. hold it in mid february, please....

We were trying to avoid the possibility of being snowed out, although with a winter like this perhaps that shouldn't be too much of a concern. I remember that there was some opposition to Feb 17th, but the 24th sounded okay. Unless someone speaks out against that soon, I'll get on it.

 

[_marth1_]

i'd like february also

 

[DippnDots]

Too often, brackets do not truly rank the top players, as an average player can "sneak" his/her way into the top 5 with an easy brackets, while elite players are knocking each other out earlier in the bracket.

Me!
Top 13 though

 

[Capps Indigo]

personally, id like to keep smym as it has been (early april). it could be next season's circuit opener. march is usually a bad month for smym b/c spring break is usually in march, so local turnout wouldve been down if it'd taken place then.

the reason i asked for turnout of the events so far is b/c i might have a decent venue for the championships. but, of course, i have to check on a few things beforehand, and knowing how many people we'd have to accomodate would help. in addition, how can there not be a chicago tourney in the midwest circuit series?

 

[Tink]

this is true <_<. shouldve made huge johns it!!!!!! NOOOOOo.

 

[AOB]

The thing is that Champaign is a fairly central location... Chicago, not quite as much. I think our friends to the west would appreciate not having to drive through the city on top of an already long trip.

 

[Capps Indigo]

i always thought that champaign was an excelent location for a midwest tourney, no doubt about that.

but i dont think thats really a factor. i mean, if the west midwest people drive to ohio, then its no better or worse to drive to chicago. in fact, i think it would take as long to get to purdue from kansas city as is does to get to chicago.

and if they did this on the east coast, i dont think they would decide not to have a NY tourney b/c people would have to drive thru the city.

of course, im not the one to decide anything, but im just saying.. thats all.


edit (in response to below): my bad jeff, i misread the part that said that champaign was already decided on. =P i wasnt trying to argue, just wanted to say that every location is going to be closer and farther to somebody.

 

[KishSquared]

Actually, I disagree. I think the Championship should be as central as possible. I'd love to see every season championship occur in Champaign, because I really think it's the most central location for the Midwest.

Just because the Kansas City guys are willing to drive 13+ hours doesn't mean we should make them do it for every event. If the Championship is truly going to be the Championship, then it should be central so as many people can attend as possible.

Regardless, this decision has already been made. If someone is willing to host a Chicago event for the second season, I think that'd be great. For now, though, let's discuss the RR concept. That's what needs to be decided.

 

[KishSquared]

Last chance, everyone!! This is your chance to influence how the championship is run. Agree or disagree, please post up!

We'll run this until the end of the week, and then we'll make a decision.

 

[eighteenspikes]

What do you think of this idea...

Instead of final 8's Round Robin being best of 3, and recording the wins-losses, have the first game be random and then the winner is decided by whoever wins 2 in a row first. Then that person gets a point. This would make beating your opponent on his own counterpick stage more important, instead of making the Random Stage game more important (getting a good matchup or lucky game on the random stage means you have your counterpick to fall back on to win the set... I've won lots of matches against people better than me in this fashion), yet it doesn't break away too far from the conventional method. Also the top 4 would be more well defined as the best, most consistent players. Those top 4 would then be seeded in a traditional double-elimination bracket.

What do you think of that? Or could that potentially take too long?

 

[KishPrime]

I concur fully.

EDIT: In response to 18, matches could feasibly go for two hours, assuming Dave's Stupid Rule is used. No need to change the whole system.

AZ, with this system, every match counts, and I want to work on ways to display the current matches and what every match currently means.

 

[eighteenspikes]

Alright, I understand that it could take way too long for the regular matches. Would that work out for the finals though? Cause I'm just thinking of ways to heighten the excitement of it. It's like a spelling bee final. Two good players SHOULD be going at it for a while...

Anyways, I wont defend that much anyways cause it's not actually my real opinon on what I'd like to see, I just wanted to stir up some discussion.
My opinion is still that it should be RR's to decide top 4, put into a bracket where previous performances make no impact on the final matchups. Is this different than what the kishes had planned? Does anyone agree/disagree with this?

 

[Tink]

big c and tinky will host a near chicago tourny for the 2nd season :D. prolly will be at x-treme gamming since it worked out last time.

 

[KishSquared]

18Spikes, consider this - A Round Robin is the ultimate means by which you determine the BEST person in the room. Everyone plays everyone, the winner is the one who wins the most. The only reason to NOT do a complete RR is time - it would be insane to try to do it with more than 15-20 people in one day. Regardless of time, however, it truly is the means by which you find the 'winner' of the tournament.

So, in that light, here's a few questions:

Is there a reason in having 4 people play a final bracket when one person has already won? Is that fair to the winner? Is there a reason to have these 4 duke it out, when they all just played each other? Is there an reason to do this other than having a so-called "final match"? Will the top 8 players being willing to play even more matches after a series of RRs?

NOTE: I'm not trying to say you're wrong or anything. I'm trying to get opinions, and I appreciate your efforts in giving yours. I just want to know if it's really something people want. If it is, then we'll do it.

A solution that would give us all a "final match" would be to have the top 2 play a final match MLG-style, starting with the record they already have. If Player A beat B 3-1, and you need 5 wins to win, then A just needs 2 more wins to B's 4. That's fair to A since he already beat B.

 

[AOB]

I'm with the Squared on this one. Putting the top 4 into a bracket would make the results less accurate. A "final match" seems unnecessary--usually, not too many people watch the finals anyway!

 

[eighteenspikes]

Is there a reason in having 4 people play a final bracket when one person has already won? Is that fair to the winner? Is there a reason to have these 4 duke it out, when they all just played each other? Is there an reason to do this other than having a so-called "final match"? Will the top 8 players being willing to play even more matches after a series of RRs?

Yes, because that's when single matches make a solid impact on your placing. The matches have finality. In Round Robin, you don't really know what the most important matches are. Unless it's one of the final RR matches and you are told it's an important one. But that still keeps people from playing at their best.
Let's say I were in that 8 man round robin pool ( still, stay with me on this one), and I get 3 2-0's and I'm pumped. Then I get two 0-2's against people who go on to 2-0 the other 5 players, with a 2-1 against each other (doesn't matter who), meaning I have no chance to go through to the top 2. The last 2 matches mean nothing to me now and whether I win or lose means nothing, besides maybe making the difference between $50 and $60 or something. Consequently, regarding the two guys I played that 0-2'ed me, even though I was aware that they were good players for being in the final 8, I would have no idea that these 2 guys are the ones that I have to play my heart out to win against, lest I lose my spot in the finals.
So the reason to have 'these 4 duke it out', is to take the top 4 who played "well" and give them a reason to play their BEST

But, those are just my thoughts. If it doesn't make sense still you can ask more questions but otherwise I think my opinion is pretty clear; by this point it's just your decision, which I can respectfully accept either way (what do I care anyways, as I wont be there ). As for the MLG thing, I personally wouldn't like having that, but for the sake of a championship final I can completely understand the rationale, and don't have any compelling arguments either way, really.

 

[KishPrime]

I think that the people that will be in the final bracket will be playing like heck the whole way through to make the highest placing they can. There's too many people close to breaking into the Top 5 (Jiano anyone?), and the Top 5 are rather selfish about their spots. It's going to be incredibly respected just to make it there, and I think everyone will be fighting for every ranking point they can get. Taking a match from anyone could cost them the championship, and it could happen anytime. Only in an RR is every ROUND critical. If you can't win on an opponent's counter stage you are setting yourself up for a tie-breaker loss. Everyone will have to go all out the whole time. As long as we have an announcer updating I don't see a problem.

Also, everyone plays everyone is still the most accurate.

 

[Codename: Zero]

If someone is willing to host a Chicago event for the second season, I think that'd be great. For now, though, let's discuss the RR concept. That's what needs to be decided.

Myself and WiseLugia can probably host something in the second season at College of Dupage (COD) if you're interested.

 

[KishPrime]

Man I can't wait for this. I want to make the RR. >_<

 

[toga]

I think the rules are fair to 50/50 smashers like me I just have to pratice very very hard and mabey,just mabey by the grace of god I can place in the top 10 ( NOT!!!!!-_-)