The RoM 5 Thread

[Deleted member]

Dudes. Alex strife wants to do a meeting with the MBR and BBR this week. Maybe Thursday. You all should talk to him. It seems important

I was going to talk to him even if he didn't talk to us.

KK, I don't have facebook, so I'd like to know your current viewpoints through some other medium.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I didn't watch the stream so I'm pretty out of the loop, but I think i've gathered most of the facts from the posts here. I concur with Umbreon, I didn't read the facebook stuff so it'd be nice to have a summary.

Honestly, I am concerned with the implications of KK's post(s). Smash has always had a niche community so that afforded the members certain privileges. The line that really got me was "I wasn't aware we were required to be good actors in addition to skilled players in order to enter tournaments". It does bother me that the crowd/viewers are being given the power of accusation and jury: any issues are the business of the TOs and the players involved, nobody else. It is only natural for everyone to have their own opinion, but those external opinions should not influence the actions of the parties involved.

Also, this isn't the first time i've heard complaints about Alukard's abilities as a TO. Has anyone considered reaching out to him to provide additional help? On a related note, it would be interesting to see an all-star national TO team that provides their services in the way VG Boot Camp does.

 

[Marc]

I made the final call for the M2K/Armada decision so I'll take the hit for that.

I actually thought that was reasonable. Over here too, if people erroneously play a Bo3 where they should do 5 and vice versa and both players are under the impression that that's what the set was like, they're not made to continue after the fact. Either catch it while they're still playing or leave it be. I would also not have let M2K and unknown replay the last game after it was already played out, though the TO should at least have been around to clear things up.

1. Is splitting allowed, banned, or left to the discretion of the TO?
2. How much influence is the crowd allowed to impact a performance?
3. Does your entry into the tournament force you to avoid self-sabotage (forfeits, playing specific characters, etc)?

People should be smart enough to not openly split. That's not okay in any line of competition and is essentially a monetary agreement that invalidates results and might even lead to blatant bracket manipulation. You can't tell people what to do with their money, but for the overall health of competition I would definitely support scaring players into doing things behind closed doors, though preferably not at all. It's different when there are time restraints, but I do think you more or less owe everyone involved (TO, participants, viewers) a legitimate performance. You can disagree on the latter, but avoiding any appearance of rigging the competition should be enough reason on its own.

Self-sabotage by itself is not that big of a deal, but here it happened in conjunction with splitting and letting a countryman pass. It's perceived as bracket manipulation, which isn't as much the case if Mango goes all Falcon (everyone knows what he's doing upfront also, I've never seen him be tryhard till GFs then picking Mario vs PP, lol). I do think there's a bit of a double standard and the crowd shouldn't have much sway over TO decision-making, but you can't really avoid their judgement on the boards etc.

 

[Deleted member]

marc like i have my own view on splitting but that doesn't matter. we keep dancing around the issue and it keeps coming back. let's just give an actual stance on it like we did for everything else relevant so far.

 

[Strong Badam]

yeah like wobbling

....will write my thoughts on this topic after i sleep.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Self-sabotage by itself is not that big of a deal, but here it happened in conjunction with splitting and letting a countryman pass. It's perceived as bracket manipulation, which isn't as much the case if Mango goes all Falcon (everyone knows what he's doing upfront also, I've never seen him be tryhard till GFs then picking Mario vs PP, lol). I do think there's a bit of a double standard and the crowd shouldn't have much sway over TO decision-making, but you can't really avoid their judgement on the boards etc.

M2K went Falcon ditto vs Cort at FAST1 because of a three way split between himself, DaShizWiz, and Cort.

So, again, this sort of thing has happened before.

 

[Nintendude]

Also, this isn't the first time i've heard complaints about Alukard's abilities as a TO. Has anyone considered reaching out to him to provide additional help?

It's been attempted but the problem is that a lot of the time he doesn't think he's doing anything wrong. He says that seeding doesn't matter because everyone should be playing to win the tournament, and he doesn't see the difference between playing a super good player in round 1 or round 4. Obviously this argument is hilariously bad, but nobody's managed to convince him he's wrong.

 

[omgwtfToph]

I am strongly considering deconstructing my reputation and reshaping it into something more socially convenient because I notice that Mango (and other members of the community) get no **** for sandbagging or tossing matches whenever they damn please and I would appreciate that luxury.

This was actually the very first point I tried making to everybody on the stream when people started *****ing during finals, but nobody seemed to listen.

I think it's ****ed up too. I think it's ****ed up that there's a precedent for this sort of thing too. I've never appreciated people throwing matches.

That said, and this is a statement I'm going to make completely in a vacuum, I've always thought splitting was dumb (not be-all-end-all evil or anything, just annoying), and

We really should just add 2 clauses to the MBR ruleset:

Bracket manipulation is banned and players suspected of doing this may be DQ'd at the TO's discretion.
Players may opt for a 1-minute button check prior to the start of the match.

at least the first statement, I can get behind. I don't think it would hurt any tournament to include that sort of rule. Even if it's hard to enforce, simply having the rule lets players know it's frowned upon.

To be honest, at the end of the day I don't think this is the outlandishly big deal most people are making it out to be, because as KK pointed out this has happened before. Best thing we can do is make a few statements/set a few rules that could ideally limit confusion in the future, then drop the issue.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

It's been attempted but the problem is that a lot of the time he doesn't think he's doing anything wrong. He says that seeding doesn't matter because everyone should be playing to win the tournament, and he doesn't see the difference between playing a super good player in round 1 or round 4. Obviously this argument is hilariously bad, but nobody's managed to convince him he's wrong.

Well he does have a point. It may be annoying for the people fighting for 5th-13th and below to have to play someone hard early, but the people fighting for first place will get there no matter what. In many ways I agree with a no bracket editing stance (though I would suggest never trusting TO, do your pool->bracket manually and correct TO). People from the same region will have to play each other eventually; you can seed them so they arent in the same pool and they may have to play early in bracket or you can put them in the same pool and they won't play early, but if they both keep advancing, they will play no matter what. In that regard, I can see where Alukard may be coming from.

In any case, it seems the problem here (from the TO side) is that Alukard had too much going on and not enough hands to manage the tourney, or else I'm sure he would have done something more appropriate. Also, I agree with Sheridan's decision: if the set is over, its over. Don't force players to revisit the set after it's over.

 

[Nintendude]

Alukard's stance would have a lot more merit if he paid out 100% of the pot to 1st place.

 

[Zankoku]

I disagree. A double elimination bracket should be completely accurate to 2nd place.

 

[Deleted member]

cool, new question then

why do we do pools?

completely serious btw. let's actually define it.

 

[Nintendude]

Well, there's a few reasons I can think of:

1. Pools allow you to reduce the number of entrants into a bracket-friendly number, such as 64.
2. Pools allow for players to be seeded in the bracket based on how they are performing on the day(s) of the tournament.
3. Pools give lower level players more incentive to participate in the tournament by guaranteeing them more matches for their entry fee.

 

[Zankoku]

The most accurate format would be to stick everyone in a big round robin. But that takes too long and doesn't really direct the hype toward the conclusion. Having people in multiple round robin pools would work too, but then leaves as many people tied for first as there are pools.

A double elimination bracket allows for a little room for error (compared to single elimination) but when built randomly its accuracy is still only limited to the top 2.

Seeding would greatly improve the accuracy of a double elimination bracket, but seeding based on anything but numbers would be subjective. So we compromise and acquire some rough numbers via a set of round robin pools, and seed a bracket based on those numbers.

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

Pools are still seeded though so we are still making some assumptions about who is better, it's just that those assumptions don't propagate as strongly as in a double-elim bracket.

I also think that pools give the lesser skilled players more of an opportunity to play a greater range of people in a competitive setting than they would otherwise have.

 

[Pink Reaper]

I honestly feel like pool seeding is sort of a problem because of things like 2nd/3rd seeding. It's usually easy to figure out who is top seed in a pool but some pools either have too strong of lower seeds or too weak of lower seeds meaning you could see randoms in bracket(which isnt a problem imo) or you could see a lower seed taking top spot resulting in odd bracket seeding(Which is what pools sis supposed to help avoid) We really need a strong ELO ratings list, it would help with a lot.

If we're talking about bracket integrity, why dont we do what the Kishes did and have a top 8 round robin with top two advancing? It guarantees the best two players to be in Grand Finals.

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

Yeah there is a problem sometimes when the ostensible top seed ****s around and gets 2nd seed. You can't deprive a person who legitimately won their top seed. The only thing you can do is try to put the strongest 2 seed against the weakest 1 seed, and rearrange the rest of the bracket based on expectation of who is going to win so you don't get unbalanced winners quarters, etc. A TO should always have at least 2 other people helping with the seeding, 1 of which should be from a different region.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Yeah there is a problem sometimes when the ostensible top seed ****s around and gets 2nd seed. You can't deprive a person who legitimately won their top seed. The only thing you can do is try to put the strongest 2 seed against the weakest 1 seed, and rearrange the rest of the bracket based on expectation of who is going to win so you don't get unbalanced winners quarters, etc. A TO should always have at least 2 other people helping with the seeding, 1 of which should be from a different region.

I am wholly against this type of bracket manipulation. The bracket is supposed to be unbiased, not "balanced". What is the point of doing pools if you are going to change the bracket to your liking anyways?

A TO should essentially write their bracket out ahead of time with the locations of the seeds and then fill in the blanks when pools are finished. The problems arise when TOs start tampering with the bracket in order to make it more "fair". The tournament should be unbiased, not unbiased unless you live kinda near each other or are "too good" to play each other early on.

If someone upsets a first seed in their pool, they should have the privileges that go along with it. This doesn't mean you put them against the "strongest" 2nd seed because they are the "weakest" first seed, that is entirely unfair to the accomplishments they earned. By doing this type of manipulation, you teach the first seeds that they will be alright even if they **** around and don't win their pool, because the TOs will fix the bracket so they are basically in the same spot anyways.

TOs just need to tell the players to man the **** up and play the game. But probably in a nicer way.

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

I think you might be misreading my post.

I always keep 2nd seeds as 2nd seeds, and 1st seeds as 1st seeds. I do not however attempt to write out in the bracket where precisely each seed of each pool will go ahead of time. I'm not going to randomly seed the bracket based on treating all 1st seeds equally, that's just asking for a stacked side of the bracket or regional conflicts.

Seeding the weakest 1st seed against the strongest 2nd seed is effectively what happens in directly seeding a bracket anyway. If you have a fully seeded 32-man bracket, seed 16 plays seed 17 the first round. And if you have 16 pools with top 2 advancing, putting strongest 2 seed against weakest 1 seed is practically the same thing.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

But the difference is you don't have a 16th and 17th seed. You have a group of 1st seeds, 2nd seeds, etc. To judge the players subjectively and change the bracket accordingly, you are imposing bias on the bracket.

Bracket balance should be something that is considered long before the bracket is built. A TO should be thinking about bracket balance when he is making the pools. You don't want mango and m2k on the same side of the bracket? Then place them in pools in such a way that the 1st seeds of each are on opposite sides of the bracket. And if one of them happens to get 2nd seed, then the person who earned the first seed gets the same benefits mango/m2k would have gotten. No special treatment should be given.

 

[Pink Reaper]

I do feel the need to ask, why exactly do we seed by region? It really shouldnt be necessary. It's pointless bracket manipulation so that we dont hear "I came all this way just to play X from my region." But the point of the actual tournament isnt to play a bunch of people from different states, that's what friendlies are for. The point of a tournament is to test the skills of all entrants. If the seeds play out so that Norcal plays norcal and socal plays socal, so be it, that's what happens. Im with sveet on this, pools should be the place for forcing specific match-ups, you can move people around in pools all you want as long as the seeding stays reasonable. Bracket is a straight test of skill, play who you have to play.

I feel like im always arguing against everything, am i a negative person?

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

Sveet, it's naive to treat all 1st seed as being equal to one another, and the solution you suggest introduces practically the same amount of bias as you say my bracket arrangement does.

I'm not saying completely disregard seeding at all. I'm saying that small changes in the seeding won't materially affect our test of skill hardly at all, and it has obvious benefits for the players. Once you get beyond a certain point, changing seeding by a 1-2 spots is practically irrelevant. To claim otherwise would be to claim that we have such precision in our ability to seed people that we really don't have. So I don't believe there is any reason not to switch say a 15th and 16th seed in a 32-man bracket if it avoids a regional conflict. It's unlikely that it will meaningfully affect the overall result of the bracket, it gives the players opportunities to play other people (which I think you can argue is a better measure of skill than playing people you play all the time), and it avoids the possibility of bracket manipulation.

If I can avoid a potential winners semis with Mango & Lucky on one side of the bracket and M2K and Cactuar on the other side by switching around two people of practically equal skill, why shouldn't I?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Sveet, it's naive to treat all 1st seed as being equal to one another, and the solution you suggest introduces practically the same amount of bias as you say my bracket arrangement does.

na·ive or na·ïve (n-v, nä-) also na·if or na·ïf (n-f, nä-)
adj.
1. Lacking worldly experience and understanding, especially:
a. Simple and guileless; artless: a child with a naive charm.
b. Unsuspecting or credulous: "Students, often bright but naive, betand losesubstantial sums of money on sporting events" (Tim Layden).

Thank you for opening with an insult. I am glad that you are approaching this discussion with such an open mind.

Sarcasm aside, I understand that you may feel this is personal, but I assure you I don't intend for it to be. I respect the work you have done and have no complaints. You are one of the finest TOs.

bi·as (bs)
n.
2.
a. A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.
b. An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.
3. A statistical sampling or testing error caused by systematically favoring some outcomes over others.

By definition, changing the bracket after viewing the results of pools is a bias. And no, the different methods do not have "practically the same amount of bias". In the eyes of an unbiased TO, all first seeds should be considered equal.

I'm not saying completely disregard seeding at all. I'm saying that small changes in the seeding won't materially affect our test of skill hardly at all, and it has obvious benefits for the players. Once you get beyond a certain point, changing seeding by a 1-2 spots is practically irrelevant. To claim otherwise would be to claim that we have such precision in our ability to seed people that we really don't have. So I don't believe there is any reason not to switch say a 15th and 16th seed in a 32-man bracket if it avoids a regional conflict. It's unlikely that it will meaningfully affect the overall result of the bracket, it gives the players opportunities to play other people (which I think you can argue is a better measure of skill than playing people you play all the time), and it avoids the possibility of bracket manipulation.

If I can avoid a potential winners semis with Mango & Lucky on one side of the bracket and M2K and Cactuar on the other side by switching around two people of practically equal skill, why shouldn't I?

For one, it causes pool conflicts. First seeds and second seeds of the same pool are on opposite halves of the bracket and the same goes for third and fourth seeds. No two players from the same pool are in the same quarter of the bracket. Switching someone to the opposite side of the bracket will break this relationship and inevitably cause rematches from pools. The proper way to go about altering the bracket is to rewrite it completely, choosing different pairings of pools.

Each round, the person that advances has earned it. It is sad to eliminate your best friend from a national, but that is something the players need to understand may happen when they enter the same tournament as their friend. The role of a TO is to be as unbiased as possible, and indulging emotional arguments directly conflicts with that objective.

Until the Elo project is completed, it is hard to be completely unbiased when seeding pools, since a human must subjectively rank players by skill at some point. But remember, brackets are sort methods; they are cold and methodical. Like any sort method, the more iterations that are done, the more orderly the results, regardless of how chaotic the initial sample. My choice is to consciously minimize bias during initial seeding and impose no further bias, letting the player's performances determine the rest.

tl;dr It is impossible for the TO to make everybody happy, nor is it their place to attempt to. Someone will always rather have the bracket another way, but as soon as the TO makes a change to satisfy someone, they are committing a wrong on everyone else in attendance.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I'm going to double post to apologize for going off topic. Unbiased TOing is something I am very passionate about.

 

[Deleted member]

na·ive or na·ïve (n-v, nä-) also na·if or na·ïf (n-f, nä-)
adj.
1. Lacking worldly experience and understanding, especially:
a. Simple and guileless; artless: a child with a naive charm.
b. Unsuspecting or credulous: "Students, often bright but naive, betand losesubstantial sums of money on sporting events" (Tim Layden).

Thank you for opening with an insult. I am glad that you are approaching this discussion with such an open mind.

Sarcasm aside, I understand that you may feel this is personal, but I assure you I don't intend for it to be. I respect the work you have done and have no complaints. You are one of the finest TOs.

No one is insulting you. He's describing the behavior, and aptly at that. If you respected him, you wouldn't bring in a condescending definition. This is a friendly check from a peer, but don't do it again. We're above that **** here.

Equivalent seeding is an ideal that is not the reality. I agree that assumed equality within your player pool begs for poor seeding that leads to mid-bracket corrections that can simply be avoided otherwise.

 

[Pink Reaper]

If you're going to be online, get on aim *******, i need someone to talk to and keep me awake

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

No one is insulting you. He's describing the behavior, and aptly at that. If you respected him, you wouldn't bring in a condescending definition. This is a friendly check from a peer, but don't do it again. We're above that **** here.

Dude, nobody needs you to speak for them. If he wants to say he wasn't insulting me, let him say it and we can work it out. What he wrote seemed very condescending and insulting, and I have every right to call him out for it.

 

[Cactuar]

You're dumb.

Spoiler

You clicked this just to see:

 

[Divinokage]

I wasn't aware we were required to be good actors in addition to skilled players in order to enter tournaments with impunity but the more you know.

I don't think you are required to do that but if you are someone many people look up to.. wouldn't you set the example about how a top player should be? In many cases, even in other communities you'll see even certain top players won't even get acknowledged just because of their character. As a smasher, I'm pretty sure we all act a certain way to prove something perhaps? Just like me, "the warrior" character is sort of part of me and its also the side of me where I can show people that difficult things are possible. I did choose that kind of road before even starting on the journey and I thought it would be fun for me and the people since we are all in this together.

Though perhaps my personal experience isn't the total truth about all the other players but what do I know.. Tell me, I'd like to know.

 

[Cactuar]

Lol @ giving KK **** about setting examples because he's a top level player despite M2K having been a blight on the image of top level smashers for... the entirety of his career.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I don't think you are required to do that but if you are someone many people look up to.. wouldn't you set the example about how a top player should be? In many cases, even in other communities you'll see even certain top players won't even get acknowledged just because of their character. As a smasher, I'm pretty sure we all act a certain way to prove something perhaps? Just like me, "the warrior" character is sort of part of me and its also the side of me where I can show people that difficult things are possible. I did choose that kind of road before even starting on the journey and I thought it would be fun for me and the people since we are all in this together.

Though perhaps my personal experience isn't the total truth about all the other players but what do I know.. Tell me, I'd like to know.

I have attempted to be a role model for players. I have attempted to contribute heaps and bounds of information in my own way to better the community. I participated in the MBR originally to facilitate this - when we more active, I attempted to share my views and mold discussion productively. I wanted to better the community, lower the entry barriers as much as I could, and (excluding the last 5 days) I gained a very strong reputation as being one of the (if not the) most generous posters of tactical information and high level player input.

Then ROM5 happened and I have the community asking for me to be banned? Or punished? Because I didn't feel like wailing on a friend at the stream's request after he forfeited the set to me? Because my set vs M2K wasn't good enough? I didn't even participate in the split.

People that I have critiqued, that have come up to me at tournaments telling me how much they appreciate my contributions and critiques, and so forth are demanding my head on a platter. For something that is not only allowed in the rules (not addressed at all) but also something that has been done before by numerous others.

And you wonder why I no longer care about being someone to look up to? Surely you are smarter than this.

 

[AlphaZealot]

I completely agree with Sveet regarding bracket seeding. It is preposterous to try to figure out who the "worst" 1 seed is so they get to fight the "best" 2 seed. If you want to split those hairs, you better damn well make sure that the 1 seed didn't 2-0 their whole pool and are at least using pool tie breakers to arrange placements of the same seed (e.g. no 1 seed that failed to drop even a single game should be ranked below a 1 seed who did).

In absence of a greater system like power ranking, circuit points, or the like, pools should be random. The exception to this on the grassroots side that I can live with is separating out people who traveled together, but even so, you reduce the accuracy and credibility of your bracket (also, travel is the important part here, simply saying "I live on the East Coast so I get to avoid every great EC player should not be an allowable criteria).

Regarding splitting - if splitting did not effect the outcome of a match, people would not agree to do it before they play. In the same manner, when a splitting agreement occurs, it is done before the players actually have earned the money they are already divvying up. If the TO does not like his finals being a sham, I would simply recommended DQing the splitters and awarding the prize money by shifting placements upward.

The prize money for a tournament is not actually earned until a tournament completes by the rules. Assuming a rule exists against manipulation or the like, splitting essentially voids your claim to any prize money since the "contract" that is the competition was not honored.

 

[Nintendude]

Then ROM5 happened and I have the community asking for me to be banned? Or punished? Because I didn't feel like wailing on a friend at the stream's request after he forfeited the set to me? Because my set vs M2K wasn't good enough? I didn't even participate in the split.

KK, I really don't think that a lot of people want you punished. They just happen to be a lot more vocal than the rest of us, who don't post in every thread on the boards, and from what I've read most of the malicious comments came when people were still under the impression that you participated in a 3-way split.

In other words, we all love you still. Just ignore them and let's all move on.

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

This isn't the place for the bracket seeding discussion, so I'll just say this before moving on:

Calling it "naive" wasn't an insult of you, it was a criticism of an idea. I usually take care to distinguish the two and I'm sorry I didn't this time.

A completely "unbiased" (I don't think it's accurate to call it bias) bracket will give you accurate results, but only in the asymptotic distribution of a large number of results. I think looking at it that way disregards the fact that a tournament is not just a data point, it is also an experience for people, and that necessitates sacrificing some "bias" for that, especially if the difference in results is practically immeasurable.

This is not a matter of choosing one principle or the other and running to the extreme with it, it's a matter of prudently weighting them. I am not willing to say that we should be concerned only with an unbiased bracket and nothing else and that not even the slightest modicum can be compromised for player convenience. So yes I do think it is our place to make people happy, within reason and within the confines of a competitive event. A good TO (in my opinion) knows how to balance the two.

I have my issues with an ELO rating too. Any statistical aggregation like that is still subjective, because you make value judgments about the framework and the definition of 'skill.' The ELO project can't be considered complete or useful until it can make predictions about tournament results on the level of expert smashers.

 

[unknown522]

Pretty much what KK said.

More to add once i get off work, or manage to get a long enough break, cuz my view is slightly different

 

[Divinokage]

Lol @ giving KK **** about setting examples because he's a top level player despite M2K having been a blight on the image of top level smashers for... the entirety of his career.

I had gave him **** before but I have no hope in M2k regarding those kinds of concerns, at least I know with David and Ryan that they can change which is why I am concerned. I didnt do it the right way in the beginning because my emotions blinded my judgment, I was just pissed seeing that.. and I deleted the FB status regarding that too.

Anyhow I don't think I am being negative or anything like that atm, I just want to understand.

 

[Deleted member]

Regarding splitting - if splitting did not effect the outcome of a match, people would not agree to do it before they play. In the same manner, when a splitting agreement occurs, it is done before the players actually have earned the money they are already divvying up. If the TO does not like his finals being a sham, I would simply recommended DQing the splitters and awarding the prize money by shifting placements upward.

Not necessarily. A GF is essentially an imbalanced risk/reward evaluation with diminishing returns. So let's say 1st and 2nd place would get $700 and $300 respectively, you can assume that you "already have" the $300 but have yet to gain the other $700. This is inherently risky. Because humans are naturally risk averse, it's better to "already have" $500 on a split than it is to have the base $300 "and maybe another $400". Not only that, but BOTH players are hedging against their possible losses. Unless you have a good reason to think that you can beat your opponent, or if for some reason you think that the potential for pride is worth the difference, it makes more financial sense to split. The first situation is rare at our biggest tournaments, and the second is an unlikely line of thought because it conflicts with that risk aversion. To be honest, it's amazing that splitting is done as little as it is, since it's better for both players do to it fairly often.

 

[unknown522]

Alright. Thank you for your concern Kage. I'm glad it was talked out in a calm manner eventually.

And thanks for believing in us

 

[AlphaZealot]

The "already have" is an incorrect assumption. Before the tournament completes and you are eliminated according to the rules, you have nothing. You cannot give away money you have not actually won. Again, depends on the rules whether this would apply, but most tournaments have a clause against manipulation, which is exactly what is occurring when you start talking to your opponent before you play to "hedge your bets".

If a TO wanted to make their tournament about who can make it to top 2 then they should stop making a difference in prizes. Of course, that basically defeats the entire purpose of holding a tournament, doesn't it?

Also, semantics, but humans are not risk averse. Maybe normal adults, but I wouldn't classify a fair portion of the community as adults, and there are still plenty of young ones out there, too.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Alright. Thank you for your concern Kage. I'm glad it was talked out in a calm manner eventually.

And thanks for believing in us

Unknown is so diplomatic.

Kage, I've already posted why I don't care about what the community thinks of me anymore so long as I retain the ability to enter tournaments. This is a no-brainer. Read my post again or something idk how you're not getting this.