[2021] The Double Elimination Debate - Gbay99 [23:58]

We have teams celebrating their draw because the competition is not even. Is 100T a worse team for not being able to get out of a group that had 2 semifinalists than the current quarter finalists?

Is whoever wins GenG vs EDG better than loser of DWG vs T1?

Playing the bracket from GenGs side, it is actually much easier for GenG to win worlds than for them to win LCK

Here's what's interesting though: This isn't the fault of Worlds seeding or of the quarterfinal bracket. This is the fault of regional seeding. The fault (in my estimation) lies with the LCK. Gen.G is LCK #2 and T1 is LCK #3. By all rights, the way that teams were seeded, 100 Thieves are supposed to have an "easy" Korean opponent when they draw LCK 3. The reason C9 and Rogue were in the group of death is because they faced actual top teams: LPL #2 and LCK #1. Such is your life when you're LEC #3 and LCS #3. That's rightly deserved.

I think it is very, very reasonable to assume that EDG as LPL #1 should be seeded higher than LCK #2 or #3 and to consider them favorites. The bracket only looks stupid when LCK #2 is actually weaker than LCK #3. Both topped their groups (one more easily than the other, don't get me wrong) but those teams should still have been switched. Gen.G should have been in the EDG 100 Thieves group and T1 should have been in the MAD Lions TL one. Those both seem like incredibly reasonable groups, fairly seeded. But they weren't drawn because the LCK took their second best team and gave them the third seed. Why? Because Gen.G beat T1 in the spring playoffs and lost to T1 in the summer playoffs. That was enough for auto-qualification as LCK 2. Gen.G won a single bo5 in the spring split.

They received an easy group that they topped, they drew a relatively easy quarterfinal, but all of their prospective QF opponents would be easy (outside of EDG, unfairly seeded into a group of death because LCK 3 was T1).

So swap T1 and Gen.G at this tournament. Seed the teams accurately and suddenly everything looks correct.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I don't think the Worlds format is bad. No system is perfect but I think the Worlds format lands a good compromise on many fronts and I don't want to see it changed. The best teams cannot play each other until at most semifinals, no matter where they come from. Any two teams can get out of any group and will automatically be placed opposite one another. Any two sufficiently good teams in different groups guarantee that they dodge a quarterfinal bout. A 2/3 chance dictates that they won't meet until the finals. Anything short of that is an upset. KT Rolster arguably got robbed of a deeper run because IG inted their group stage. But I'm not convinced it's up to the tournament to salvage that. If KT were good enough, they'd have won that series and made finals. Instead they get forgotten like so many other teams who failed to pass quarterfinals. It was a rough draw, sure, but it turns out you still have to win if your goal is the world title. I think that's fine.

As a final point, I think double elimination makes a lot more sense when you care about more than one team becoming the reigning champion. I like the LCS's summer playoff format where that bracket itself qualifies the teams for Worlds and so a lower bracket run makes sense for finding the top 3 finishers.

The 2016 and 2017 world championships already showed us that isn't true. Compare the results of either region to the following year, 2018, where they went back to best of 1, and they both improved.

In 2015, with best of 1, LEC had two teams in semis. They failed to replicate that during the bo2/bo3 era. They went back to bo1 and made finals in back to back years, including an MSI championship.

LCS's first and only worlds semifinal was that same year of coming back into bo1s.

There are never 6-7 day breaks, at least not until world finals.

For reference, groups ended on a Monday and QF began on Friday. QF ended on Monday and SF start on Saturday. So the break is 3 (G -> QF), then 4 (QF -> SF), then 5 days (SF -> F).

I feel the downtime for sure. I'm sitting here in my hotel room and the only direct work I've done since casting C9 vs Gen.G (outside of prep) is a 1 hour story meeting and then I'm back to having tomorrow off as well.

That said, weekends are pretty prime. This is an event that the entire world watches and that means someone's got the games at 5am and someone's got the games at noon and someone's got the games at 8pm, or thereabouts. You miss out on a lot of people if you don't let people have a weird schedule for a day or two to catch the games.

You should be remembered for what you did. Plenty of TSM fans are still upset that they failed to get out of groups because Doublelift inted into Crown instead of taking Baron. They should have topped their group instead and played Cloud9 in the quarterfinals and then maybe H2k in the semifinals and then maybe made the finals. But they didn't. Because we play the games and what happened is Doublelift threw the game and TSM lost. KT Rolster may have been "actually" the second best team. But they lost in quarterfinals.

You can still be proud of your results. Maybe TSM fans are happy they got 3 wins. Maybe Fnatic fans are happy they made the finals. Maybe G2 fans are happy that they beat RNG in a nail-biting series. Maybe Misfits are happy they went to 5 games against T1. That's for them to decide. KT Rolster fans may still play that series back in their head. That's fine. But they didn't come close to winning Worlds that year.

I also don't think groups are unreasonably volatile. I can't think of a single team eliminated in groups where I was like, "yeah but they should have won worlds." Sorry, FPX, you inted your entire week 2 group stage. You had four shots and missed all of them. Guess you deserve to go home. I really can't imagine anyone reasonable claiming that FPX actually deserved to be in semis right now. Just like all those years of 3-win LCS teams failing to reach quarters. Sorry, you were almost good enough.

As much as people like to claim best of 1s are just going to be so rife with cheese, that it's just not fair to measure teams in them... I've really yet to see any such failures. Seriously, people got hype as hell for GAM's lane swap Nocturne turbo-farm and outside that... Game 1 of a bo5 back in 2012 where a Korean team went Heimerdinger mid with an Olaf jungle? It just doesn't actually happen.

But how could you possibly fix them? Outside of just saying “nah actually T1 is better we are going to overwrite your seeding” you’re going to get misshapen groups unless the regions seed better. Similar is seeding a 1st place group team vs. 2nd. What, we just say “yeah don’t care, IG is still top seed”? The tournament has to play out.

Playing 2-3x as many games is not the solve for that.

Fwiw I really like Swiss systems. LoR uses them, too.

Sure. And they’d deserve to be forgotten if that happened. I truly do not care who the conceptual best team in the world is. I care who wins Worlds. If FPX bombed out of groups by playing poorly then they deserved to be forgotten. Such is sport. Just like DL inting into Crown and Licorice stealing Baron on Ornn. The results matter.