SMYM 7 (Champaign, IL March 24)

[Needle of Juntah]

WOOT i got into chronicles of spellborn closed beta!

 

[MyNiggaNameDante]

Im glad i got blackup so its all good

 

[viperboy_74]

Top 32 allows for what I'll call "HugS Syndrome", it gives someone the ability to at least get on a roll and make a run, similar to HugS beating Tink, Dope, and PC Chris all in a row at an MLG (and that only got him into the top 8). If the bracket had been smaller such events would never occur.

exactly... it helps get on a roll, allows for upsets, and makes things more interesting...

 

[Dopey]

this tourny was a blast! im not doing shoutouts except, everyone i talked to, played, smoked a cig with, or laid on the couches with. IL was truly the place for the finals, you cant beat the piano background music with a blend of L buttons clicking violently with the whisper of "johns".

thanks AOB and kishes and everyone runnin this thing, it ran pretty smooth i think.

about the RRs tho, like i said at the beginning, this was gonna turn out to who lost or who won 2-0 or 2-1 and there was alot of close sets, which was good to watch, but alot of ppl that couldve made it in couldnt because they can only half own someone, not 2-0 own someone. but its alright, the final pool looked alright to me, most of the pp that deserved to be in were in. i just wish wife coulda stayed, i didnt get to fight a single peach all tourny =(

 

[Hank McCoy]

Im glad i got blackup so its all good

this pick is ****ing hilarious lol

WUR DA WITE WIMENZ @?

 

[Kel]

I think that circuit points should have been the deciding factor between the 2nd place finishers instead of game win percentages.

I had a match run out of time on corneria against Samantha because I stayed Marth and she went Sheik. I didn't want to lose the match because that would potentially cost me the tourney, so I couldn't advance on her and time ran out. In normal conditions I would have just jumped up on the wing and got into the fray but with this format I was forced to not
advance on her. Of course later I lost one match to Phil from Cincinnati so it was all for not.

I just think that if the points were there to seed everyone, then wouldn't that be an indicator towards who's outperformed throughout the entire season and not just who got unlucky with one game or whomever has a more verstile main. I'm with Trail, I play ICs and believe me, getting counterpicked with them is not fun and is pretty much an instant loss. And the same can be said for the other way around with the Iceys against Sheik. In the end, I just think the circuit points everyone earned all fall should have been the wildcard tiebreakers for all second seeds and not just win percentages.

 

[Husband]

Hmmm.... I want to do a crew battle with this crew:

Me
Iggy
Camper Bob
Vidjo


It would be AMAZING. I would get us sponsored by some tent-making company and every match would take 6 minutes, minimum.

I think me or Drephen could take on that whole crew alone, hahahaha

 

[Overswarm]

I think me or Drephen could take on that whole crew alone, hahahaha

I would bet you $50 otherwise -_^



And Kel, as for points instead of win %.... why should your placing at previous tournaments (or even just the sheer volume of tournaments you went to) be the deciding factor instead of how you are placing at this tournament?

 

[mathos]

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?! An entire crew comprised of campers and I'm not on there?

And yes Husband alone could take Vidjo, Bob, and Iggy by himself. . . . And Drephen could clear up eveyone Husband decides to let win.

 

[Overswarm]

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?! An entire crew comprised of campers and I'm not on there?

And yes Husband alone could take Vidjo, Bob, and Iggy by himself. . . . And Drephen could clear up eveyone Husband decides to let win.

I have not seen you play sir. I have heard of your lasers, but I must see them.

As of now you are low on the camping tier list!

 

[Tapion013]

Spamthos is the king of all campers...

 

[Overswarm]

Spamthos is the king of all campers...

I hereby challenge Mathos to a $5 money match, best 2 out of 3, on the following stages, in this order:

Kongo Jungle (falls)
Green Greens
Jungle Japes

 

[Jiano]

Here be videos.

 

[kirbstir]

I'm Batman

 

[Cra$hman]

Counterpicking in the round robin is the real problem. The thing is you're giving someone an advantage for the duration of the game when its the game that actually matters. Just because someone can beat you when they have a clear advantage doesn't prove anything, but by awarding points for mini-wins you're saying it does, and you're also saying losing when you're at a disadvantage matters too, and I don't think it does. Smash should always be an even contest, thats what all tournament rules in place so far have agreed upon, but getting an advantage to earn real points completely undermines that theory.

Its not a problem in sets because it ends up evening out, it doesn't mean anything if they can only beat you when they have the advantage.

 

[Echo]

wtf souroush we need to game it again dude go to INN :D

 

[Mune]

Thanks a bunch to Darkrain and the KC people for getting all of us from St. Louis. Also, thanks for Steak n' Sheak Forward and Dark.

Sunday sucked. Won't go into details, but never again will I rely on people for rides. Thanks a bunch to Geno for helping me and my friend with finding a ride home. You're too good.

 

[Overswarm]

Counterpicking in the round robin is the real problem. The thing is you're giving someone an advantage for the duration of the game when its the game that actually matters. Just because someone can beat you when they have a clear advantage doesn't prove anything, but by awarding points for mini-wins you're saying it does, and you're also saying losing when you're at a disadvantage matters too, and I don't think it does. Smash should always be an even contest, thats what all tournament rules in place so far have agreed upon, but getting an advantage to earn real points completely undermines that theory.

Its not a problem in sets because it ends up evening out, it doesn't mean anything if they can only beat you when they have the advantage.

Isn't it still giving the advantage to the players who are able to OVERCOME the disadvantage of being counterpicked?

Plus, it isn't like they are automatically given a loss to the set. They get to counterpick as well.

I'd still think the problem is with consistently having uneven pools, since that makes the emphasis on "that one game" such a big deal.

 

[Tapion013]

Plus, it isn't like they are automatically given a loss to the set. They get to counterpick as well.

I'd still think the problem is with consistently having uneven pools, since that makes the emphasis on "that one game" such a big deal.

The problem, at least at SMYM's case, was that that one game where you were at the disadvantage cost a lot of people to not make it to the bracket (including your brother) not just the one person that they couldn't beat.

In round robin, you aren't givin a loss, but when your record matters, and you can beat literally everyone in your pool, but because of the crappy counterpicks you go 2-1 with everyone, slaughtering them the first and last match, I think you can see the problem.

Round robin should always be all random, no counterpicking...

 

[Overswarm]

The problem, at least at SMYM's case, was that that one game where you were at the disadvantage cost a lot of people to not make it to the bracket (including your brother) not just the one person that they couldn't beat.

In round robin, you aren't givin a loss, but when your record matters, and you can beat literally everyone in your pool, but because of the crappy counterpicks you go 2-1 with everyone, slaughtering them the first and last match, I think you can see the problem.

Round robin should always be all random, no counterpicking...

Except the people that DID advance WON when their opponents counterpicked.

If the problem is all those single losses causing a select few, not all, to not advance, it can only be one of the following

1. Random chance (self destructs, faulty controllers, illness, etc.)
2. The players that advanced were, on the whole, better than those that didn't
3. The players that didn't advance had harder pools / players that did advance had easier pools
4. There was discrepencies in pool reports / pool rigging / cheating, etc.

#1 and 4 can be disregarded, which leaves us with 2 or 3.

You're complaint that counterpicks are such a horrible thing is illogical. It would be true if some people got counterpicked, and others didn't, but since you have to win 2 games, everyone gets counterpicked by every person they beat in one game.

So either the people that advanced are just plain better and there's nothing to be done but say "sorry, you earned it. Play better."

or

The players that advanced got an easy pool and/or players that didn't got a harder pool (thus resulting in more 3 game sets).

I'm leaning towards the possibility of pools being uneven, because level 1 pools have been horribly uneven at every tournament I have ever been to.

While I would bet money that the people that advanced at the tournament would beat those that "almost advanced" in a crew battle, I think that skill level isn't so wide that if pools had been switched people would be.


How can counterpicking be a problem for all (not people that play characters easily counterpicked, which is a choice they have to deal with), yet everyone is counterpicked? Shouldn't the fact that EVERYONE is counterpicked when they win a game even it up?

Counterpicking is actually more fair than random stages. One could say that they didn't advance merely because of a random stage selection (FD against ice climbers, FoD when you are Falcon, etc.) more accurately than they could say "I didn't advance because I was counterpicked and lost".

Sounds like a serious john to me.

 

[Tapion013]

You're complaint that counterpicks are such a horrible thing is illogical. It would be true if some people got counterpicked, and others didn't, but since you have to win 2 games, everyone gets counterpicked by every person they beat in one game.

I'm only saying this for round robins to determine brackets ESPECIALLY if you're going by record (which smym did). If you're going by total wins it doesn't matter all that much, but this was by record, meaning that one loss caused them to not advance, even though theoretically they did just as well as everyone else who did advance.

I'm leaning towards the possibility of pools being uneven, because level 1 pools have been horribly uneven at every tournament I have ever been to.

Agreed

How can counterpicking be a problem for all (not people that play characters easily counterpicked, which is a choice they have to deal with), yet everyone is counterpicked? Shouldn't the fact that EVERYONE is counterpicked when they win a game even it up?

It should... but during this tournament it didn't because those that were counterpicked on unovercomeable (maybe a word) stages could not advance even if they won the set.

Counterpicking is actually more fair than random stages. One could say that they didn't advance merely because of a random stage selection (FD against ice climbers, FoD when you are Falcon, etc.) more accurately than they could say "I didn't advance because I was counterpicked and lost".

That's what banning stages are for. You won't get those bad stages, and you only have to pick from 5 stages, meaning only 3 are left making it even more fair.

Sounds like a serious john to me.

I didn't go, so I have nothing to john about, but the fact that someone can only lose one set, and not advance, while others lose one set and do is unreasonable. All the second place finishers should've had thier own round robins or should've advanced top two. Wild cards (as AoB already stated several times) was the worst most unfair decision to make...

 

[-Chad-]

Perhaps if only complete sets counted instead of every match it would be better?

 

[Dr. Steve Brule]

you aren't thinking about it once again overswarm.

how can u say player x, who won teh same amount of sets as player y, but lost 1 match to a counterpick, is better than player y. thats ridiculous. especially if player x plays someone like ic, where a good counterpick to rainbow = done. or say player x is samus and gets counterpicked to fd and laser camped (like forward did to crashman). that's bogus. not only are there gay counterpicks, but pools will NEVER be even. so player x could be in a pool w/ better players than player y, still win teh same amount of sets, but get games knocked off and then not advance.

and no saying "i got counterpicked" is not a ****ing john. when u dont advance because a fox takes you to corneria / green greens / other homosexual stage and takes a match off you that isnt a john, thats a flaw in the system.

 

[KishPrime]

Actually with advanced slobs, no one has an excuse based on your character. The game in its current state requires you to be good with more than one character. Every one of the Top 10 players in the country understands this and has more than one character they can play at the elite level BECAUSE of counterpicks. We still advanced 32 people, and it is very unlikely that more than one or two people would've changed had we filtered the top 8 back throughout the pools. Many of the people with one loss would've simply had two and been outright eliminated.

That being clear, I think we all agree that the wild card system will not be used again. While I still believe it fair, it is also clear that many feel that it removes the ability to advance from their control. In actuality, advancing one or even two from pools is not a great thing. Even with two advancing, occasionally people can be eliminated by losing one set (still technically fair since it is based on your match results but obviously many people disagree). This is why FC does 4, but time often prevents us from doing that at other tournaments. Swiss, by our calculations, would've taken roughly 25% longer (till 3 AM), and Viperboy's system in which more people would've advanced, on paper at least, would've pushed tournament time over by at least one hour if not more.

Anyway, keep suggesting ideas, as there will be yet another season, and we are all learning what works and what does not.

 

[B-Will]

I haven't had a chance to read the above yet but I'll offer suggestions when I get around to it...

I just wanted to congratulate forward on getting 1st. Forward is too good.

 

[Husband]

Since when are matches decided by how much someone wins by? A set is a set and a win is a win. It shouldn’t matter if someone took a match off someone else. That person still won the set and shouldn’t be punished for not "******" the other person.

Your rules lead me to a question. Lets say there is a three way tie where three people all have the same record (wins and loses) and when the 3 faced each other each person beat one of the other 2 and all the matches between them went to the third match.(For argument sake, lets even say they all have the same amount of points from the previous events) By your rules, you would call it a "tie" and they would have to play each other again. But by your LOGIC, why wouldn’t you go by how many STOCK each person had at the end of the match? Say if one person 3 stocked all of the matches he won but other 2 guys only 1 stocked the matches they won. Since that one guy "won by more" (just like how someone can win by more by not letting it go to the 3rd match) shouldn’t he move on over the other 2 players?

Clearly this method isn’t fair. And why isn’t it fair? It isn’t fair because it doesn’t matter how much you won by. It just matters if you win. And we count wins by sets. People move on for winning the set, not for winning a single match. So if you want to play the game of “how much you win by affects if you move on in the tourney”, we should all start counting how much stock we win by.

 

[Dopey]

ppl are only now beginning to see what i saw from the start? maybe im just ahead of my time....

 

[Dr. Steve Brule]

The game in its current state requires you to be good with more than one character. Every one of the Top 10 players in the country understands this and has more than one character they can play at the elite level BECAUSE of counterpicks.

not true AT ALL. example #1 = hugs. he never changes characters. example #2 = ken. he goes fox occasionally, but for the most part he is all marth all the time. the rest of the top 10 dont NEED to change characters. it's all personal preference. a fox can still beat a marth on yoshi's story, a marth can still beat a falco on fd, a falco can still beat an ic, etc, etc. more importantly, however, is the player matchups. THATS why tehy change characters. pc's falco ***** mew2kings fox, even though the character matchup is relatively even. so mew2king picked up marth. kdj has trouble against kens marth with hsi fox, so he uses shiek when im sure he uses fox against other marths.

as a sidenote, another thing you see at the top level is they only counterpick to neutral stages because they don't inhibit their superior fighting ability, like other stages. (only exception i can think of has been ken's fox on onett, which lead to it being banned)

and yes that last part was for your health.

We still advanced 32 people, and it is very unlikely that more than one or two people would've changed had we filtered the top 8 back throughout the pools. Many of the people with one loss would've simply had two and been outright eliminated.

did you see some of those 1st round pools? i guarantee the results would NOT have been exactly as they were if top 8 were put back into pools.

(still technically fair since it is based on your match results but obviously many people disagree).

that's the thing. pools are innately unfair. if 2 players played one person and one of them got 2-0 and another got 2-1, that would be an accurate judge of skill. but you have 2 players playing 2 different people and then use matches? failure.

 

[AOB]

Kevin--of course set wins are the most important in a RR, and we used them first at SMYM. Under normal rules, if there's a tie, and it can't be broken by head-2-head, then game wins are considered. This is nothing new!
This weekend, obviously ties between 2nd-seeders couldn't be broken by h2h, so games came in.
And don't extrapolate our "logic" by assuming we would break ties with stock and damage. Like I said, breaking ties with game wins happens all the time, but we midwesterners have almost always used set wins first.

I think everyone is having trouble with this. We counted sets first and foremost. If you won the most sets in your pool, you won your pool. If you won the second most sets, you ended up in second. We broke ties between 2nd-seeders with individual game wins.
Yes, I know the system placed extra (arguably undue) importance on individual game wins.

Brule--you say that pools are unfair and then you provide an argument that only applies to the way we did this tournament. Pools per se are much more fair than brackets.

I do not understand where some of these unfairness arguments come from. Theoretically, if the pools were even in skill, I think the system we used this weekend would be fair. If, in whichever pool you found yourself, there was someone who had just as much ability to counterpick you and win, where would the unfairness be? It's unfair because you are relatively easy to counterpick? (Trail) Well maybe you can't have a character that you can always use on any stage against any person. Maybe you have to learn more than one character, like almost everyone has these days.
Now "fair" isn't the only criterion here. It would still be an unenjoyable system and I still wouldn't use it again. It would still feel like you are not in total control of whether you advance. But I think it would be fair.

And can we not turn this into a stages debate???

 

[KishPrime]

As for what Husband said, I agree with much of it, so I'll leave it as it is. However I'm sure he'll read AOB's post where he reminds you all that set wins were the deciding factor. Win all your matches and you don't care about rounds. Lose 1 and you put yourself into a potential tiebreaking situation.

did you see some of those 1st round pools? i guarantee the results would NOT have been exactly as they were if top 8 were put back into pools.

that's the thing. pools are innately unfair. if 2 players played one person and one of them got 2-0 and another got 2-1, that would be an accurate judge of skill. but you have 2 players playing 2 different people and then use matches? failure.

I never said exactly. I just said very little would have changed. Yes, I did see the pools... Besides, this is a championship, designed to reward players who performed well throughout the season. MLG did it too.

Pools are actually more fair than any other system, because everyone plays everyone, and there are strict match results to evaluate. Now, I know why you are saying what you are saying, because of the wild card system. I agree that the wild card is flawed, but still not unfair. Many professional sports use wild cards even with unbalanced schedules. Also remember we did not want to do the wild card system to begin with. However, we compromised in order to advance more people to the next round. The wild card was the only way to do that and still have time. I think it was the right decision, considering the time factor.

Look at it this way. We could've either advanced none of the two seeds, or half of the two seeds with the time that we had. We chose the lesser of two evils and advanced half. No one is arguing for the continuation of wild cards.

 

[Jesi]

well...

I had a good time... and I advanced (w00t) but a lot of other people could have probably advanced over me. Whether this says anything about the nature of how it was run. I don't know. Every time i've been to a tournament with pools it seems random whether I'll end up in a pool I can potentially advance in or whether I won't. This seemed no different than any other pools tourney (except that in it kept going all the way to the top). I liked it.

The top 8 pool was neat! I didn't mind not having a final match because the final 8 who played eachother each yeileded AWESOME matches to watch anywayz. Very cool

Thanks to everyone who played me and probably owned me in the second round sorry I suck so much haha

See you all next time, or at INN, and thanks Jiano for putting the 1st vidso me up! lol

-Jesi

 

[Tapion013]

Kevin--of course set wins are the most important in a RR, and we used them first at SMYM. Under normal rules, if there's a tie, and it can't be broken by head-2-head, then game wins are considered. This is nothing new!

It would've been different if it was only game wins, but game losses were also taken into account at this tournament. People who only lost one set advanced while others who only lost one did. If you did go by wins, this wouldn't matter, but you put losses in the mix as well. (Unless I'm missing something and RR was only 2 games, but I highly doubt it)

And don't extrapolate our "logic" by assuming we would break ties with stock and damage. Like I said, breaking ties with game wins happens all the time, but we midwesterners have almost always used set wins first.

but you used losses at this one... major flaw...

I think everyone is having trouble with this. We counted sets first and foremost. If you won the most sets in your pool, you won your pool. If you won the second most sets, you ended up in second. We broke ties between 2nd-seeders with individual game wins.

Now I'm just repeating myself. If it was solely on game wins, then how come second place with X wins and one loss didn't advance, but second place with X wins and no loss did? That's where it's being flawed.

Brule--you say that pools are unfair and then you provide an argument that only applies to the way we did this tournament. Pools per se are much more fair than brackets.

I'll let him answer this..

Pools are actually more fair than any other system, because everyone plays everyone, and there are strict match results to evaluate.

It's only fair if you advance enough people to make up for **** pools. Having only one advance + stupid wild card didn't make it fair.

Many professional sports use wild cards even with unbalanced schedules.

Wild cards for professional sports are far far different and more fair. First off, everyone plays an equal amount of games. Let's take baseball's 162. No one plays another game in a series because they lost, you play three games, then later you play that team at home for another 3, then maybe later. At the end, if two teams have the same record for a wild card slot, or even in a division, they play a playoff game against each other to determine who goes on..

Also remember we did not want to do the wild card system to begin with. However, we compromised in order to advance more people to the next round. The wild card was the only way to do that and still have time. I think it was the right decision, considering the time factor.

There are other ways to get around time factors. I heard Sliq stalled out for an 8 minute match. That's part of your time problem. How do you change that? Make the match limit 5 minutes, lower the stock to three. Then in later pools you change it back, especially for bracket. just suggestions

Look at it this way. We could've either advanced none of the two seeds, or half of the two seeds with the time that we had. We chose the lesser of two evils and advanced half. No one is arguing for the continuation of wild cards.

There would've been less contraversy if you didn't advance any, and just more whining about the top player advancing. It still wouldn't have been fair though...

 

[g-regulate]

sorry to chime in but i thought while we were on the topic......

in our area, at bigger tourneys we like to do pools as well. usually we take top 2 out of pools, but every now and then a problem arises. 3 people will beat everyone in the pool except eachother. (player A loses to B, B loses to C, C loses to A). they will all have the same record. do you guys have a system of solving who would move on? one time in the past we did a single match RR tiebreaker, but technically that could just go on forever. any suggestions?

 

[DYC]

sorry to chime in but i thought while we were on the topic......

in our area, at bigger tourneys we like to do pools as well. usually we take top 2 out of pools, but every now and then a problem arises. 3 people will beat everyone in the pool except eachother. (player A loses to B, B loses to C, C loses to A). they will all have the same record. do you guys have a system of solving who would move on? one time in the past we did a single match RR tiebreaker, but technically that could just go on forever. any suggestions?

If it's a complete 3-way tie there is no way to break it except a playoff, unless the event is part of some circuit where you can use circuit points as a breaker. Even though that could be unfair as well.

Pretty sure the safest way to break complete 3-way ties is just a tie breaker RR.

 

[g-regulate]

makes sense. thanks

 

[AOB]

A playoff would be redundant in a 3-way tie. I would break THAT by looking at game wins and losses, and if there were still a tie, circuit points (if there were any), and after that, uhm, rock-paper-scissors?

Crapion--my mistake. Anytime I said "game wins" I meant "game wins/losses." Maybe I should have said win ratio or something.
Using win ratio after set wins and h2h is standard procedure.
If we had not used losses also, there would have been ties out the wazoo and the system would have been even less effective. Anyway, is it really a great injustice if your losses are counted? All other things being equal, 2-0 a better performance than 2-1? Or does that loss mean nothing?

 

[Husband]

But you still didnt answer my question. If there is a tie and the 3 ppl are tied with sets, wins, losses and points, what decides who goes on??

 

[Dr. Steve Brule]

Anyway, is it really a great injustice if your losses are counted? All other things being equal, 2-0 a better performance than 2-1? Or does that loss mean nothing?

i already posted this but w/e. lets say player x has a pool with players a, b, and c. player y has a pool with d, e, and f. here's a breakdown of each skill or matchup

Look at it this way. We could've either advanced none of the two seeds, or half of the two seeds with the time that we had. We chose the lesser of two evils and advanced half. No one is arguing for the continuation of wild cards.

lesser evil = only 1st IMHO.

Brule--you say that pools are unfair and then you provide an argument that only applies to the way we did this tournament. Pools per se are much more fair than brackets.

I never said exactly. I just said very little would have changed. Yes, I did see the pools... Besides, this is a championship, designed to reward players who performed well throughout the season. MLG did it too.

Pools are actually more fair than any other system, because everyone plays everyone, and there are strict match results to evaluate.

pools are a way of seeding, in most tournaments. so here's how pools are done:

you divide # of total players by the desired # of players you want in a pool (usually 8). then u round down. then you RANDOMLY place people in those pools. it is quite possible a pool will have 3-4 really really good players in them. if you only have 2 advance, that means 1 or 2 of the really good players won't. in contrast, if that pool has an abundance of good players, then another pool MUST have a deficit of good players. so it could have 1 really good player and 2-3 decent ones. so if only 2 advance, you'll have 1-2 really good people getting cut and 1 only decent person advancing. (aka smym6, tapion's pool incident).

if u advance more than 2, like 4, and then go into another pool, then it STILL MATTERS because 2-3 of the decent players will be getting 2-4 seeds for next pool. while in the other pool, 2-3 really really good players will be getting 2-4 seeds for next pool. once again, broken.

so in order to try and prevent **** and by pools, smym7 used circuit points to seed. but circuit points aren't very accurate because the largest factors that determined yoru points were
1. your skill level
2. your attendance

attendance far outweighed performance, because a no-show is FAR worse than getting at least SOME points at a tourney.

but if you use pools to seed, which wasn't the case at smym7 cuz the whole tourney was pools, then that means (if you dont want completely random pools aka **** and bye pools) you need to seed teh seeding. which is RIDICULOUS.

 

[AOB]

Kevin--I did. I said "rock-paper-scissors." Perhaps only half-seriously, but I don't have a better answer.

Steve--Go dig up the midwest point rankings. They are not so grossly inaccurate as you would have us believe. Or should we randomly seed pools, or not use pools at all and randomly seed a bracket?

Yes, sometimes you end up with a difficult pool and sometimes an easy one. The same thing can happen in brackets, only brackets are not as forgiving. And sometimes the seeding you get from brackets is somewhat inaccurate. But it's not "broken." What are you saying? What is the solution?

I don't know how you would expect the 2nd-round pools to have been seeded any more than they already were.

And did something get lost at the beginning of your post?

 

[AOB]

Also your unnecessary and condescending explanation of how pools work, as if we did not already know how they work, isn't right. You don't plan the number of players in the pool. You split them into a power-of-2 number of pools, like 8 or 16.

And pools are seeded by skill all the time. Even if we had done it "randomly" we would have made adjustments so that darkrain and tink did not end up in the same pool. I don't know where you got the idea that arranging pools randomly is the only acceptable way to do it.