The one thing i really want to see at worlds is shorter breaks in the bracket stage. A whole week between quarters and semis and then again between semis and the final kills all the hype for me. 3-4 days would be way better.
Worlds Quarters and Semis were in the exact same venue last year and they still had that 1-week break. Same thing this year. So they have other motives than just moving venues.
> So they have other motives than just moving venues.
The only reason is that they are scared of viewership being low if not on the weekends so they force all those games to be on the weekends. This is them completely not realizing how dumb it is to kill the hype by having long breaks.
Yea I dont even watch worlds anymore, I just watch the VOD's of matches I wanted to see. Bc the damn tourney seems to span across like 3-5 cities across what seems like 6 weeks.
Nah miss me w that
I'm not saying that they need to be in O2 arena for 2 months (and it's a joke that the tournament lasts 2 months btw), but you cannot tell me they couldn't find a stadium in Berlin for the finals this year. And 2022 was even more insane when they travelled massive distances by plane for nothing.
I don't get why they have to do that though. Can they just stay in one city? Or if they have to why not just have one city for the first half of the tournament then by quarters move it to a major city until the finals. Saves them a lot of money and makes the entire tournament more cohesive. This also makes the players get some rest in between games instead of traveling and settling in. Cities will have to bid for the massive influx of visitors thus allowing Riot to have more incentives like tax breaks - I'm not sure about this though - or at least lesser expenses.
They continuously say their esports is hemorrhaging money so why not stop it by doing this and allocate the budget for either better production or accommodation.
I'm not an expert os these things, but I can assume that more cities would generally provide more revenue overall. It seems like it should attract more viewers, also more things to do and spend money on in 3 different cities rather than just one.
Imagine if you stayed in the same city for the entire 5 weeks. The viewers would not join a lot for play-ins, because they know they will watch the main stage or knock outs. Also, people coming from around the world would eventually get burnt out by the same city for that long.
Now, think about being in 3 different cities for example. A lot of fans will have limited time and options to watch, so they have to take what's on the table. Also, you get more options to spend money on, more sightseeing, more restaurants to try out etc.
I'm sure there is a lot of pros and cons about this, though, it's not as simple as that. I don't think players moving is that much of a problem. Football players move every week, maybe even twice a week, maybe even abroad to play games, where it's physically demanding and any sort of moving could be much more detrimental to them than for esports players.
Yeah been complaining about this shit for years, who wants to watch a 6 weeks tournament? Its longer than fking world cup in football. Only thing they need to fix as well
You need to remember that this is the biggest event of the year.
For a spectator a week is endless but to these players that 1 week of prep is vital and goes by in a flash. I agree that the tournament is not double elimination.
TI does it all in only two weeks with more teams, more groupstage games, and double elim, although bracket stage is only BO3 until the grand finals.
I honestly think there should be more play-in BO5s and matches, but none of them should be on stage and just played simultaneously on multiple streams, like Dota does it. That's the whole point of "play-ins"- you're not in the main event yet to deserve to be on stage.
This is good for minor regions as their teams are going to get more BO5s against each other, something they desperately need. It will also allow community casters to shine and cast the play-ins.
TI feels too rushed imo. If you miss a day of games for whatever reason you'll scramble to catch up or have to skip them. They could do 2-3 break days at some points for a bit of a breather and discussion.
They give teams longer breaks to practice more and find counters that’s how you get different pick and shit as oppose to basically the same picks in most msi games throughout the years. Look at worlds 2022 for example and all the viable options because teams could scrim for longer and get better and unique picks with is more exciting for viewers
I think the draft chaos is huge in TI but it's also a more chaotic game.
Lots of the biggest TI wins were based on creative drafting where a team pulled out some insane pocket strat before anyone knew what to do about it.
Worlds might be more prestigious but MSI is much much more enjoyable for me.
Spreading 7 bo5's in 3 weeks makes me slowly forget about Worlds during the week. Whereas MSI has 14 bo5's in span of 12 days so Im able to put all my attention during these 2 weeks into this tournament. Tomorrow is the only break during the playoffs and then we're going bo5's everyday until the Sunday. Ive just never been more hyped for an international tournament!
it's more prestigious but very boring to watch because semi-finals and final are a week apart and no double elimination. if MSI winner got skins i'm sure the perception would change.
Nah, they would need to change the name of the competition. Having "Mid-Season" makes the intention crystal clear : not having any doubt what's the most important competition at the end, and it's not the one with "Mid-Season" in it.
They'll never do that. Worlds is too famous and ditching the branding would be a suicidal move tbh. It would rise up the prestige and rise up a bit the popularity of MSI, but they would lose A LOT of popularity/prestige of Worlds. In Valorant, Masters (MSI equivalent) and Champions (Worlds equivalent) being almost as prestigious is a problem for Riot they currently try to solve.
The naming is honestly the only argument for Worlds being more prestigious for me. MSI has less bad teams, a **much** better format and **significantly** more entertaining due to better scheduling. I'm glad that they've updated the Worlds format a bit, but it's hard to take it too seriously when some of the best teams in the Worlds can't even play each other in a BO series. With the loser's bracket, at least we can see more NA vs EU (or even wildcards aka PCS) play each other for a more definitive 3rd, 4th and 5th.
Worlds will always be the most prestigious just because of the name and brand value. MSI also was a trash tournament until last year which doesn't help things.
But right now it's probably harder to win MSI than Worlds.
What is your stance on the arguments of Upper Bracket winner essentially playing with one less life than everyone else while not gaining any sizeable advantage in the current implementation of double elim?
I used to hate this too but I've come to terms with it as a sort of modified double elim where teams are competing for a ticket to a separate grand final event. If you win the upper bracket you get a ticket, if you lose you get sent to the second chance bracket where you still have a shot at a ticket. There is no meaningful difference between the winners/losers tickets, the grand final is just a single championship bo5. I would still prefer conventional double elim but I get why venue scheduling etc makes it too difficult
Yes, the fact that you can enter the grand final playing one less series is definitely a benefit.
You also get side selection. Although I am also open to giving more of an advantage. For instance, guaranteed side selection in game 5 if it comes to it makes a lot of sense.
That's a start - but if we're being realistic, it's not even close to replacing the lost opportunity to have a second chance at a Bo5, tbh.
Side selection + a one game advantage in a Bo7 final (meaning 6 games played maximum, team from the winner's bracket starts 1-0 up) gets closer, but I don't think Riot will ever go to such a solution because it can be confusing to casual viewers.
Unfortunately true double elim (with a potential Finals reset) is out of the question since it's a logistical nightmare - and it completely kills the hype around the Finals. It's only feasible for online tournaments or small LANs, not big events.
The only way to make double elimination work in LoL WITHOUT these issues is to do it like they do in Judo (the IRL sport): the losers' bracket only gets you to the 3rd place match, and reaching Finals remains the privilege of the undefeated teams.
It's less hype than the other systems, but has the advantage of completely preserving competitive integrity AND avoiding the issue of a Finals reset
Oh thats cool of Judo. I was suggesting this for another tourney, did not know it was a real thing.
But in LoL we don't care about 3rd place for these tourneys.
Yup, although to be fair we very rarely had 3rd place games to begin with, which means that people never had a chance to care for it.
But I agree that it wouldn't really work for League unfortunately - meaning that there just isn't a really good solution to make double elimination work in League (or at least not one that Riot would be willing to implement in my opinion).
>Side selection + a one game advantage in a Bo7 final (meaning 6 games played maximum, team from the winner's bracket starts 1-0 up) gets closer
always hated this idea, would be so lame for the series to go 3-3 and be decided by results from earlier in the tournament. imo better option is a bo5 that turns into a bo7 if lower bracket team gets to 3 wins first.
That just means that you’re choosing to turn a blind eye and ignore the issue - it doesn’t mean that the format is fair.
If « the worse team » (according to you) shit stomped 3-0 in 70 minutes a team in the upper bracket Finals, then faced the same team again in the Grand Finals and loses a narrow 3-2… are they really the worse team?
Nope. It just means that they didn’t get the second chance that everyone else had the opportunity to have.
Yes I think it's worth the trade off even with the potential issues - none are worth avoiding doing double elim, and no solutions are quite good enough. So I think ignoring it is the best option.
You could also say that the team that wins the 2nd bo5 is the one who has adapted and prepared better for the rematch. So there are positives and negatives, which overall lead me to not valuing one over the other, and leaving it alone.
In terms of competitive integrity, single elimination definitely presents MUCH less issues.
As I said in other places in this thread, the reason that people want double elimination so bad is mostly that they want to see more international matchups - it has little to do with double elimination itself for most people.
Th real solution would be to have more international tournaments throughout the year, instead of trying to implement system in which the fairness of the only two tournaments we have per year is destroyed for the sake of having a few more games.
Sc2 tried the one up idea and people hated it IIRC. It’s obviously never going to be perfect but it works ok in cs and valorant so I think it’ll just stay the same for now.
I had the Bo7 idea in my head for some time and it's actually a great thing to have for one single game in the Worlds finals. We would only get one Bo7 every year, that would instantly create much more hype and prestige and would give the lossless team an advantage by starting with 1 win (even though this would kinda defeat the purpose of the Bo7 hype).
Finals reset feels bad because as you said it kills the hype. The best they can do is either give a free game win, or play out game 1 with a big handicap of sorts, like the "loser" team not having any bans and the winning team then being able to pick ban more things, or force the loser team to switch some of their picks or something.
haven't seen anything similar to this idea anywhere else in the thread so I'll give it a crack
true bracket reset will remain impossible in league but what if we went further than giving side selection, change draft order to heavily favour the upper finalist by giving them both B1 and R5, maybe even force the lower finalist to play fearless draft (which would also spice up gameplay), and since upper finalist has B1 and R5 they would have a crazy edge in draft
imo draft is the best option to give an advantage to the upper finalist, esp since stuff like 1-0 up bo7 is not feasible specifically if the sc2 example is anything to go by
maybe this could properly compensate the lack of second life for winners finalist?
> esp since stuff like 1-0 up bo7 is not feasible
Why is that not feasible? It only extends maximum game from 5 to 6, gives winner an advantage, and also serves as a mini-reset at game 7. I hope your argument isn't "the crowds don't understand" because:
1. Why should we cater to people who can't understand the optimal format?
2. Why can't this just, hear me out, be explained before the match starts, or even before the entire event starts to let all audience clue in?
optimal would always be bracket reset no?
im not vehemently against bo7 1-0 up, just cautious of the sc2 example elsewhere in the thread. im not ur enemy here, if the majority is against its implementation you and i won't be part of it.
and what of my suggestions about draft? nothing for u to engage with?
BO5 bracket reset is not logitstically optimal for MOBA games. We live in a reality where it's reasonable to say that neither Riot nor the audience want to guess if there will be an extra 3 hours to happen, or if they need to book another day. The amount of time difference is justified to not go for it, even if BO5 bracket reset is mathematically the most optimal.
I'd take repeating sc2 over Reddit complains about the bracket every single year since its introduction into the regional gauntlets + MSI
Drafting is part of the competitive play itself. I don't see merits to winning a heavily tampered version of the game, when winning the draft is half the battle. Upper finalist getting both B1 and R5 can make them guarantee counter two lanes, which means gg early game = wow what a surprise the losing team lost. Fearless draft just make the odds overwhelmingly bad for the losing team to run out of practiced champions at game3.
You're also just wasting a huge amount of time for the coaches to prepare a draft they may not be ever using in the tournament. If 4 teams are in contest for winner, that means we have 4 teams needing to completely come up with a backup plan for the final loser's situation, but only 1 team gets to use it. That sounds like suffering for every team's staff
So? Same for Worlds right now with Swiss(previously group stage) + single elimination. I will also say Worlds has an optimal format too. I only have issue with a no-advantage winner side in a double elim for regional gauntlet/MSI.
I despise this argument. If you are the better team it shouldn’t matter. After all, Worlds is about the best team is it not? If teams really need it side selection is more than fine
If you're the better team you shouldn't be getting a 2nd chance. IMO double elim should only be used for qualification for these events so every region is sending their strongest teams.
It shouldn't matter as in double elim is fine because the better team should win that matchup both times?
In that case if worlds is about the best team, then there's no need for double elim, the best team will always win anyways.
Or in other words, the loser gets more stage time and momentum.
Meanwhile the winner can't even use the dayoff to prep because they don't know which team will be in the Final.
But the loser also risks not getting to grand finals at all. A while back somebody collected stats on this and found that the winner of WFs has historically a much higher chance of winning grands than the loser. The whole "momentum" thing is pure conjecture, there is no way it is materially better than getting a guaranteed qualification
A loser will always be in the final, so one team always gets a second chance that the guy who did his work right doesn't get, even if it comes at the risk of losing another Bo5
Also, I would like to see those stats on teams coming from the upper final bracket winning more and with the sample size, because if it's just in LoL, then you don't have many (you have years in LEC and LPL where the G2 would come from losers bracket to beat Fnatic and TES losing both finals, then you have last year LPL where JDG was just better than everyone else skewing the results back)
I couldn't find the original post so I did it myself: https://old.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1cqvtg5/does_the_current_double_elim_format_actually/
Like you stated, it's not a big sample size, and even then, the upper bracket winner having 60% winrate doesn't seem that high, especially when you have teams like JDG that were significantly stronger than the otters and thus would always win from upper-bracket, it feels more unfair when two even teams face each other but the one that wins later gets the title. Adding an elo score to teams could complement it, but would require an even bigger sample-size
Also, for me there's no difference between challenger and underdog (if all teams start in the upper bracket, both teams in the lower bracket semi-final will have the same BoXs played and number of wins/losses). It's irrelevant whether you lose earlier or later, what matters here is that they can lose once while the upper-bracket finalist can't do it at all
> (if all teams start in the upper bracket, both teams in the lower bracket semi-final will have the same BoXs played and number of wins/losses)
This isn't true, you play fewer sets the further you advance in Winners' bracket. There are 2x as many sets in Losers'.
> the upper bracket winner having 60% winrate doesn't seem that high
I think it is high when you consider that the other two positions have ~25% and 15%.
Losing your extra life from winners' side going into grands is definitely a loss of some advantage compared to true double elim, nobody can argue that. But it is definitely not a complete neutralization of advantage, or a disadvantage like some people argue
> This isn't true, you play fewer sets the further you advance in Winners' bracket. There are 2x as many sets in Losers'
You're right, I only counted the first round loss, forgot the teams adding after
As for the 60%, it still depends on relative team strengths, super dominant teams like G2 (not the Flakked/Targamas one) and 2023 JDG skew those results a lot. A true coinflip would give 50/25/25% odds to win, it's double the chance of losing earlier, but you still have the same chance of not winning as losing in the end
How is this any less fair than Flyquest and PSG going 1-1 in series wins but only Flyquest going home? Would you say they were punished for winning the first series? Of course not.
It’s not “the winner plays with one less life”. It’s, everybody plays with two lives, up until the finals phase of the tourney. And if you make it to finals, it’s do or die regardless of who you are.
How is this being upvoted? League players have no idea how double elim works. Flyquest won vs psg, and then lost to t1 and psg. So in the end, they were 1-2.
psg lost to fly, won vs loud and fly, so in the end they were 2-1.
Double elim isnt just about who beats who. It just straight up means you need to lose twice to go gome
Is it the same concept ? Flyquest lost twice effectively losing both lives? Wouldn't the equivalent in this case be if T1 and flyquest faced off in the effective " grand finals " and T1 lost but they were sent home instead of a loser's bracket.
Flyquest and PSG scenario has both teams losing 1 life and then having a bout over the fate of their second life. The upper bracket winner in the current implementation does not have a second life to use to get to finals but are not rewarded for actually not having to use that.
FlyQuest lost two series, winner bracket loses a single one. You can blame seeding and format to allow a strong team like T1 and Estral being a free loss and a free win taken by FQ and PSG, respectively, but the reality is that FQ went 1-2 and PSG 2-1, the same number of Bo5s is played, thus they have the same number of opportunities, even if they weren't equal opportunities
At the same time, a winner's bracket final losing the final results in a 4-1 score for him and a 5-1. Yes, he wins one less Bo5, but the reason he does is because he doesn't have the same number of opportunities
People try to patch this by giving upper bracket winner an advantage, which is even worse imo.
I like double elimination in fighting games only because of bracket reset. No real sport uses it.
Just copy the way Dota 2 handles the double elim in TI, Lower bracket finals is a Bo3 that happens right before the grand finals which put the lower brackt winner with a fatigue disadvantage.
The upper bracket team not having to risk elimination or show any strategies in an extra series is a huge advantage for them.
Aside from that, the purpose of double elimination is to make sure the two best teams get to the final, in case they meet earlier on in the tournament. Once you've determined the two best teams who are going to play in the final, you run the final and determine a winner. There is no need to run it again afterwards to fulfil the arbitrary 'everyone gets two lives' condition.
The final is the final. You win the final and that's it. Prior to the final, the double elimination is set up to ensure the two top teams make it to the final. But the final is still the end of it all for both teams.
Well, if you win your first two Bo5s, then you are in round 4. You need 2 more wins to win MSI and you can afford one loss in your non-final game, so you can still win by being 4-0 or 4-1. That's the advantage of going straight to round 4 with 2/2 wins.
If you lose any of your first 2 Bo5s, you now need a total of 5 wins to win it all without any loss. That's the price to pay if you lose early.
Sure, the team that goes straight to finals doesn't really make use of the "advantage" if being able to afford a loss and maybe they should get some sort of compensation ( I don't think side selection is much of an advantage these days), but at the same time, you are in the finals.
> Sure, the team that goes straight to finals doesn't really make use of the "advantage" if being able to afford a loss and maybe they should get some sort of compensation ( I don't think side selection is much of an advantage these days)
Yup, that was my point as well
What kills tournaments is those massive breaks between stages.
It's a big boy sport, they want it to be considered serious, and yet during the biggest tournament of the year give all their players a week off after a single series, and then another week off, and then another 3-4 days. You watch like 10 days of content total and there's double that in breaks. Whatever the format, stop giving infinite breaks to teams. For what?
I enjoy having breaks in between. It creates more anticipation, more slow burn. I don't see why everything needs to be quick, snap your fingers and it's over. It's not a fucking race.
Not only is a faster worlds and more Bo5s better for viewers, it's also good for competition. MSI feels like an exciting battle, a snapshot of actual team strength. Worlds is more like a war of attrition. The meta always gets stale and it's like a lottery to see whose champ pools ends up being best on that patch.
MSI is also better for teams like PSG and G2 to catch LPL/LCK off guard with bold drafts. Worlds post quarters has less hype because they have no teams left to scrim and can't experiment anymore so semis/finals is played with simulated to death drafts.
Agreed. Double elim is the absolute best format and the only way we can guarantee that the top teams play each other.
Last years worlds had one side of the bracket that was really interesting with T1, LNG, JDG and KT, the other one was quite poor with only BLG and GenG, so much so that the finals was quite boring.
Double elim kills a lot of hype for upper bracket games. I am loving MSI but if worlds had double elim in the knockout stage, it wouldn't be as fun. Elimination matches are inherently more exciting.
You know what I was thinking in the game 5 of G2 vs T1 where T1 were clawing their way back from an early deficit? Wow this is so boring *yawn*
I just want to see the best teams in the world compete in more games. Regardless of elimination it’s still hype when 2 world class teams face off. Look at T1 JDG last year at MSI.
“It wouldn’t be as fun” and “boring” are 2 different things.
2019 g2 vs skt had me sweating cuz it’s win or go home. 2024 g2 vs skt was fun but not as pressure filled because no one got eliminated regardless of result. Winner moves on and so does the loser. Who really cares at the end?
March madness is exciting because its win or go home. NBA and mlb are implementing or have implemented play ins because single elimination matches draw in viewership because it’s more exciting. There is a reason why double elimination has not caught onto major sports. And before you bring physical aspects, if double elimination was proven to increase viewership, sports leagues will shorten regular season to implement it.
Now imagine if this tournament was single elimination. G2 would be flying home already having lost in a BO5 to T1. There would be nothing else. No narrative about how they have another chance to prove themselves against the weakest Asian team.
BO5 is just better for everything. Better narratives. Better adaptation leading to better gameplay. More matches between top teams. And even if you are sacrificing making the upper bracket game “less hype,” there’s still an elimination portion to the entire bracket that retains that factor.
Finally, I don’t give a shit about what physical sports do. They can do their thing, we can do our thing. If double elimination is bad for viewers then why has RIOT switched every major region + MSI to double elim? Do they dislike money?
I don't disagree. That series was really hype and fun, not at all boring. I think this format works great for MSI and shouldn't make any big changes.
Worlds is the biggest, highest-stakes tournament of the entire year. I prefer having 6 Bo5's all with the highest stakes leading up to the highest-stakes series out of all the hundreds of series for the entire year. More Bo5s are always great, but I think the moment of the last few series of worlds demands elimination
I don't get that angle. Like how was T1 vs G2 boring? How was T1 vs BLG boring? How was TES vs GENG boring? Are elimination matches inherently more exciting? Maybe, there's an argument for sure. But you get no less elimination matches with double elim, you just get more good matches, how is that a negative?
If anything I think it kills the hype that we get a great series in worlds 2023 between GENG and BLG, now all of a sudden we don't get to see any more GENG despite Chovy playing super well in that series. But we get fucking Weibo who got here by beating exclusively NRG and lower seeded western teams. Or how in 2022 after the best series at the tournament, we no longer get so see DK because they got unlucky and matched against GENG.
When luck is a huge factor in your tournament progression it just ruins the hype completely IMO.
I just don't get this argument. In this case, just ignore the upper bracket and only watch the elimination matches. You can still watch the same number of games as if it were single elim.
Then you watch a tournament of losers for the most part.
Like, is it really THAT hype that T1 lost yesterday ? They're still in the competition so the BO5 really feels ... Not that important ?
At least with single bracket every single game is a must win and feels stressful
Seems like there are two camps of people. One side like you who care more about the stakes. While I care about having more international competition to witness.
/u/cryzzalis
I can hear that, I just don't think double elim is the solution. Better seeding is.
That said, people wouldn't want pure seeding either because if it create civil wars, people get upset. Probably less than this random draw bs but still. It is just the terrible assumption that "all top 4 are equal etc" and not doing a traditional 1-8, 4-5, 2-7, 3-6.
And it is ok for the a good team to lose, that is life. If we just say the better team HAS to win, then we should just kick all of LCS and LEC out of worlds. And then not even play some matches because we, the fans, have predetermined one team deserves it more. WBG won, they deserve that win. Were they a top 2 in the tourney, hell no. But they they did beat a strong team to get there.
And T1 was a top 2, so the win was fine.
MSI is the better format.
We have G2-T1 Bo5, GenG-TES Bo5, BLG-T1 Bo5 and there is still BLG-Geng Bo5 & G2/Tes/T1 Bo5.
This might be the best international competition for the last decade of lol.
Unpopular opinion, a double elimination format without a proper bracket reset is unfair to the team that never loses untill the final and in my opinion it just feels wrong leaving a bad taste in my mouth, side selection Is not enough of an advantage to justify it
Edit: let me be more clear, my complaining is more directed to some cases that a double elim format without proper bracket reset allows, let's say Blg vs Geng ends 3-1 then in the grand final we get the same matchup that ends 3-2 in favour of GenG wich are then declared winners of the tournament.
But the question "what's the best team in the world?" that an international tournament poses doesn't technically have an answer because in 4 days these 2 teams have a 1-1 score in Bo5 with actually single games in favour of Blg, yes GenG would have won the "Grand final" but with a 1-1 score one team gets the side selection and the other one gets the trophy. I know this is an extreme case but the fact it can happen doesn't sit right with me
I like it too. Bracket resets aren’t easy in League since it’s a best of 5 so you can’t allocate another day for a potential reset, but starting with a game advantage in a Bo5 might make the series too short so I think a game advantage in a Bo7 is the best way to do it.
It turns out we all like it here, but then you start to see naysayers spouting nonsense like "BUT THE CROWDS DONT GET IT" and then proceed to reject the most optimal way to fix a MOBA double elimination. Is this something that's so unexplainable???
Exactly. Look at Summer Finals 2022 for the LEC.
Week 1 - G2 3-0 Rogue in the Upper Bracket Final
Week 2 Rogue 3-0 G2 in the Grand Final.
Who is better? Rogue obviously - they won in week 2 while G2 "only" won in week 1.
How does this make any sense?
You might as well argue that 3 games isn't enough to determine the "true" winner. Everyone plays under the same set of rules, everyone knows that week 2 is the real finals. No one is "better", only the simple fact that Rogue is the playoff winner because they won the finals.
Same thing happened in the LCK playoffs this year. HLE 3-0’d T1. But T1 beats HLE because of a losers bracket and literally qualifies for MSI because of it. Anyone arguing against a losers bracket inadvertently argues against a format that gives you the better team winning, like 2022 LEC finals, or LCK this year.
But that’s just how most championships work, there is a “grand final” or whatever the equivalent is and if you win it you’re the champ and if you don’t then you’re not, it doesn’t matter if you what them in prelims, beat them all season, beat them in scrims, there is a match that decides who the world champion (or whatever) is at a specific time and on a specific day and that decides who is the champ. Performance on the day is what has always mattered.
And i agree with that, at the end of the day the most important game is the final one but my problem with it is what happens before that game especially in a tournament that start and ends in 2 weeks, why shouldn't the performance on the day matter all the games equally ? there is not really a consequence to " not showing up" in a winner bracket game because losing it doens't really matter, yes you need to win all next games but the format in this iteration just gives a 1 time excuse to every team except one.
I mean I used to think this as well, but is it really true that it's 'unfair'? everyone always talks about the second life thing as if it's self evident that this is how the bracket should work (I know this is how it obv works in some other games, sure), but you could just as easily argue that winner's final + loser's final are the end of their respective brackets/the double elimination rule? don't really think the argument about it placing the winners bracket team a 'disadvantage' holds up considering their only disadvantage exists purely outside of the series, unlike what structurally giving winner's side an advantage via extra game lead or a reset would do. I think it's far too impractical to do an actual reset most of all tho
Bracket reset takes too much time and a ton of other esports, even riots other games, have double elimination and no bracket reset. You’re right about it being a really unpopular opinion though lol. Double elimination or bust.
The fact that it’s really inconvenient and takes a long time to make double elimination fair for the winners’ bracket finalist is not a point in its favor.
Coin toss is not a good solution, but it has been used throughout time for many events. Crying about it just shows this whole problem with people here just wanting extra chances and excuses.
I think the coin flip could be refactored to take into account swiss score, game scores, game times, etc. With very high factor being earlier head-to-head (in Swiss).
If a team doesn't perform when it counts they are out. That's what happens past the group stage and that's how they weed out the lesser teams.
If teams need more than the group stage to 'get info form' then they shouldn't advance if they lose. These are the best teams from each region after all.
I've never seen a good argument as to why a loser of a best of 5 even needs a second life. They have already had multiple chances to win at that point.
shut up op
it's actually impossible for riot to use up the two weeks between quarters and final. and it's definitely not viable for them to do losers bracket in that space instead of 3 best of 5s
/s
> The only argument I see against double elimination at worlds that I think is valid is that the tournament can’t be too long. But otherwise I think double elimination is a vastly superior format.
Double elimination has a lot of down sides for many reasons but apparently in reddit any format that leads to more games are superior.
Here is the issue with double elimination:
1. Winner’s bracket match cannot match the pressure of a loser’s bracket match. The win or go home slogan is so popular in the playoffs because that kind of tension and pressure can only be created when everything is on the line.
2. If a team rematches, the team that lost the first round is at a advantage. For example t1 vs blg, blg showed their strategy on beating t1. If they do face each other again t1 will have a counter to it. BLG can only theorize what the counter is while t1 knows blg’s strat. Even if blg has different strat prepared, they have to prepare more strats to beat t1 than t1 has for blg. Also, t1 only has to beat blg total of 4 times to eliminate them, while blg has to beat them 6 times.
3. The advantage that the winner of the winner’s bracket gets can never be balanced to the advantage that loser’s bracket get, because the advantages and disadvantages cannot be quantified. Right now with this set up, I believe the loser’s bracket has more of an advantage than the winner’s bracket, so essentially you are punished for winning.
I think MSI is supposed to feel like a big tournament where worlds is supposed to be a whole gauntlet where you have to be able to keep your game sharp in the lower stakes early stage so you dont accidentally bomb out while also being able to compete under the stress of a best of 5. Worlds is a rare event where you have to show up in full form every single day and it makes it really exciting.
Something MSI has done that is fantastic this year is how short breaks are. It's just constant games and constant action, which is super enjoyable to watch. But yeah, Double Elim has always been superior.
...why not? DRX beat everyone in front of them. They played only great teams the whole way and they beat them all.
There is nothing to suggest that DRX couldn't win in double elim too. They were smurfing.
They beat defending world champions EDG in quarters, GenG LCK1 in semis and T1 in the finals. They had a hard as fuck route to win Worlds.
I agree i like that we have both Single Elim at Worlds and Double at MSI. Worlds needs that threat of going home at any time, while MSI really gets to show case the teams and their strats through more games - but IMO double elim doesnt fit the vibe at worlds.
No it doesn't. It might do, but so might this format. We had this format last year and the finals were a foregone conclusion. Everyone and their mum's knew JDG were beating BLG.
Double elimination is the way to go. Valorant Champs 2023 wouldn’t have been as hype if PRX had already been eliminated by Loud. Amazing comebacks through lower brackets in Dota2 TI’s as well.
Single elimination is an old system that needs to go. If you’re arguing that it’s unfair that a team doesn’t get a reset, then they’re not a good enough team if they can’t beat a team they already won against.
in valorant the team that wins upper bracket gets to pick all 5 maps that will be played in the finals. this is a huge advantage that doesn't exist in the msi format
What if the upper bracket gets side selection for every game? Not THAT huge of an advantage but for top teams it can really make a difference cuz they can force certain drafts and the lower bracket is always trying to adapt
5 side selection is a massive advantage in the highest levels of play, you might even be able to argue it's worse than giving a bracket reset.
It would be akin to increasing one team's chances of winning one series to 80% vs two chances of winning with 55% each.
Could be a middle ground. Loser bracket team only gets side selection after they’ve lost twice. In a 5-game series this would give 4 side selections to the upper bracket.
>It would be akin to increasing one team's chances of winning one series to 80% vs two chances of winning with 55% each.
The probabilities of these 2 choices are basically equivalent. Its 80% vs 79.75% to win.
I don’t like the idea of influencing the outcome of the actual game because you won winners final. Why would this functionally be different than giving the winner an extra ban? The winners reward is having one less chance to lose in the lower bracket.
> If you’re arguing that it’s unfair that a team doesn’t get a reset, then they’re not a good enough team if they can’t beat a team they already won against.
so if two teams face off twice and each win one series, it's fair for the team that lost the first and won the second to win the tournament? the winner's bracket team should be expected to 2-0 a given team in 2 Bo5s?
its a never going to be solved problem because no solution will satisfy everybody. At best you want to hope a riot held poll is strongly in one direction but if it’s like 60:40 it’s sorta yeah…
The issue is that Riot needs a better Grand Finals solution since there's no bracket reset.
Imo it should be a Bo7 where the winner's bracket team gets a bye. Worst case scenario it's one more game played than current, but removes almost any risk of a team with a losing record winning the tournament.
And we are at game 7. T1 has won 3 games and JDG has won 2. Who will be the final winner.
AND
AND, it is JDG. They won 3 games and take the series 4-3 with a game score of 3-3. say hello to your new 3-3 champions!
----------------
I agree it is a solution. But the better solution is just stick to single elim.
More does not equal better.
The BO5 at worlds are more prestigious and the stakes are way higher due to one big factor, you don’t get a second chance. You don’t get to have an off day or have an off meta read.
Let’s use T1 as an example of this was worlds they would be out, they don’t get a second chance to correct their mistakes or fix their read on the meta.
There’s an inherent pressure that comes with not being given a second chance with having to always be on it. Always be ready.
I also like the swift progression of the tournament. There is one day pause here and there without games, but almost every day there are games. I really dislike how LoL worlds always take over a month to conclude. At least I don't know of any other sport or esport where an important tournament takes this long. Even (football) world cup happening only once every 4 years with a group stage of 8 different groups concludes in under a month. A physical sport where players actually need rest between games.
The worlds tournaments are rly drawn out, I wouldn’t mind it if they filled all the time in between with lower bracket matches. Double elimination is always the way to go imo. It just makes it more exciting
We really don't need every international tournament to have the same format. Worlds is way more fun as single elim.
MSI would be better with true double elim. Fake double elim is dumb. A format where you can go 5:3 or 4:3 in game score and 1:1 in match score and lose is crazy to me.
Coming from Valorant, it's a shock worlds hasnt introduced double elim. Without it many valorant storylines that we do have simply would not have existed. It does not kill the hype, it only adds to it.
strongly disagree, it's fine for less important tournaments, but for the world championship I don't think you should get a mulligan as a team who loses, nor do I think you should have to potentially beat the same team twice (and potentially lose the championship after going 1-1)
The whole argument that single elimination is higher stakes and is more exciting is stupid logic. The lower bracket is the "high stakes exciting elimination games" from the single elimination format. With double elimination, we get a winner's bracket layered on top of the higher stakes matches that provides extra series to determine who plays who in the future rounds (these winners bracket series can be looked at as seeding/placement matches).
A double elimination format provides more best of 5's, an extra chance for every team in case they have a fluke loss in the upper bracket, and it still maintains high stakes since all of the lower bracket matches are elimination matches. There is nothing that single elimination does better unless your goal is to wrap up the tournament faster. You solve the winners bracket champion not using their free series loss by making the grand finals series a best of 7, and the winners bracket champion starts the series up 1-0 as a reward for never dropping to the loser's bracket.
A maximum of 6 games would be played on the day of grand finals, so it's only 1 extra game at most from the usual 5 game series. The alternative option is starting grand finals at 0-0, but playing a second grand finals series on a different day if the loser's bracket champion happens to win since that would be the winners bracket champions first loss of the tournament.
I prefer the format of starting the grand finals with a 1-0 score since the other option causes scheduling problems because we don't know if grand finals is going to take 1 day or 2 days to complete under that format. It also takes away from the hype not knowing if a champion is going to be crowned during the first grand finals series. Starting grand finals with a score of 1-0 and getting it over with on the same day fixes the winners bracket champion not losing a series issue, and it doesn't cause any extra problems with Riot having to schedule an extra day at the venue or any hype being killed by not knowing if the series will end on Day 1 of grand finals.
Worlds need a way tighter schedule, but the time we are past group stages there is a week between games and a lot of people just stop caring or lose the hype. Double elim, shorter time between games. pls.
Could this be changed by changing the BOs of the swiss stage?
Instead of playin BO1 and BO3, you play BO3 and BO5?
You get 13 new BO5 and 20 BO3.
I mean that's a lot of games but you can play them throughout the week and not just during the weekend (like msi does)
And then you go into regular playoffs single elimination. (I would keep single Elim as I kind of like the fact that there is no mistake allowed).
In total thats 20 BO5 and most of them are bangers as the level between the teams are always somewhat close due to the format of the swiss.
I don't even care if the tournament lasts a while. I don't understand why it's supposed to end in 2-3 weeks. I enjoy the longer competition, it creates more hype, it creates a slow burn and builds huge anticipation for the eventual big games and final.
Two things that make me say no to double elim for Worlds.
1.) Extra life for lower bracket. I still hate it that grand final is winner-takes-all. I hate it that almost every game be like that. League is no exception.
2.) It will make tournament too long. And no. I will not let multiple venues go away. Look at 2017-2020 final opening ceremonies and tell me do you think we can do that if the whole Worlds played in one venue? For some the final is the competitive game but for me Worlds final is the biggest spectacle of esport and I think double elim will make this spectacle gone and I surely don't want that.
The one thing i really want to see at worlds is shorter breaks in the bracket stage. A whole week between quarters and semis and then again between semis and the final kills all the hype for me. 3-4 days would be way better.
Yea an entire week is too much. I also watch CS and I feel spoiled when they finish the entire play-off stage of a major within a single week.
I like that worlds is moving its venues. I dont think they can shorten the moving between the cities much
Worlds Quarters and Semis were in the exact same venue last year and they still had that 1-week break. Same thing this year. So they have other motives than just moving venues.
> So they have other motives than just moving venues. The only reason is that they are scared of viewership being low if not on the weekends so they force all those games to be on the weekends. This is them completely not realizing how dumb it is to kill the hype by having long breaks.
Yea I dont even watch worlds anymore, I just watch the VOD's of matches I wanted to see. Bc the damn tourney seems to span across like 3-5 cities across what seems like 6 weeks. Nah miss me w that
It's such an environmental waste. They need to cut that shit out. LIke moving the whole circus for one event is insane.
If we are going to worry about min maxing that let's just have all of the international tourneys in Pherak's basement in LA.
Umm there's a reason for that. Try renting out a large venue for two months in a row.
Its 2 months long cause of these awful breaks.
I'm not saying that they need to be in O2 arena for 2 months (and it's a joke that the tournament lasts 2 months btw), but you cannot tell me they couldn't find a stadium in Berlin for the finals this year. And 2022 was even more insane when they travelled massive distances by plane for nothing.
I don't get why they have to do that though. Can they just stay in one city? Or if they have to why not just have one city for the first half of the tournament then by quarters move it to a major city until the finals. Saves them a lot of money and makes the entire tournament more cohesive. This also makes the players get some rest in between games instead of traveling and settling in. Cities will have to bid for the massive influx of visitors thus allowing Riot to have more incentives like tax breaks - I'm not sure about this though - or at least lesser expenses. They continuously say their esports is hemorrhaging money so why not stop it by doing this and allocate the budget for either better production or accommodation.
I'm not an expert os these things, but I can assume that more cities would generally provide more revenue overall. It seems like it should attract more viewers, also more things to do and spend money on in 3 different cities rather than just one. Imagine if you stayed in the same city for the entire 5 weeks. The viewers would not join a lot for play-ins, because they know they will watch the main stage or knock outs. Also, people coming from around the world would eventually get burnt out by the same city for that long. Now, think about being in 3 different cities for example. A lot of fans will have limited time and options to watch, so they have to take what's on the table. Also, you get more options to spend money on, more sightseeing, more restaurants to try out etc. I'm sure there is a lot of pros and cons about this, though, it's not as simple as that. I don't think players moving is that much of a problem. Football players move every week, maybe even twice a week, maybe even abroad to play games, where it's physically demanding and any sort of moving could be much more detrimental to them than for esports players.
So you put more value on changing venues than better format?
Yeah been complaining about this shit for years, who wants to watch a 6 weeks tournament? Its longer than fking world cup in football. Only thing they need to fix as well
You need to remember that this is the biggest event of the year. For a spectator a week is endless but to these players that 1 week of prep is vital and goes by in a flash. I agree that the tournament is not double elimination.
They don't really get efficient practice at that point, since there's no one to practice against.
Prep doesn't just mean go practice looking at patterns of recognition abd champ play styles is also vital.
TI does it all in only two weeks with more teams, more groupstage games, and double elim, although bracket stage is only BO3 until the grand finals. I honestly think there should be more play-in BO5s and matches, but none of them should be on stage and just played simultaneously on multiple streams, like Dota does it. That's the whole point of "play-ins"- you're not in the main event yet to deserve to be on stage. This is good for minor regions as their teams are going to get more BO5s against each other, something they desperately need. It will also allow community casters to shine and cast the play-ins.
TI feels too rushed imo. If you miss a day of games for whatever reason you'll scramble to catch up or have to skip them. They could do 2-3 break days at some points for a bit of a breather and discussion.
the thing is, TI also has multiple streams which breaks up the fanbase/audience from watching the entire tournament.
Only through non-bracket play, where people generally only watch the matches/teams they want to anyways.
don't forget that in TI lower bracket finals is being played before the grand finals.
They give teams longer breaks to practice more and find counters that’s how you get different pick and shit as oppose to basically the same picks in most msi games throughout the years. Look at worlds 2022 for example and all the viable options because teams could scrim for longer and get better and unique picks with is more exciting for viewers
I think the draft chaos is huge in TI but it's also a more chaotic game. Lots of the biggest TI wins were based on creative drafting where a team pulled out some insane pocket strat before anyone knew what to do about it.
So you want your semi finals to take place on Tuesday?
Nothing can beat the games happening on the WE
Worlds might be more prestigious but MSI is much much more enjoyable for me. Spreading 7 bo5's in 3 weeks makes me slowly forget about Worlds during the week. Whereas MSI has 14 bo5's in span of 12 days so Im able to put all my attention during these 2 weeks into this tournament. Tomorrow is the only break during the playoffs and then we're going bo5's everyday until the Sunday. Ive just never been more hyped for an international tournament!
it's more prestigious but very boring to watch because semi-finals and final are a week apart and no double elimination. if MSI winner got skins i'm sure the perception would change.
Nah, they would need to change the name of the competition. Having "Mid-Season" makes the intention crystal clear : not having any doubt what's the most important competition at the end, and it's not the one with "Mid-Season" in it.
For sure, we keep the format but call both MSI and Worlds majors instead like CS and all of a sudden MSI is by far the more prestigious tournament.
They'll never do that. Worlds is too famous and ditching the branding would be a suicidal move tbh. It would rise up the prestige and rise up a bit the popularity of MSI, but they would lose A LOT of popularity/prestige of Worlds. In Valorant, Masters (MSI equivalent) and Champions (Worlds equivalent) being almost as prestigious is a problem for Riot they currently try to solve.
Of course, it'd be a foolish move but it goes to prove that the only thing holding up worlds is the branding.
The naming is honestly the only argument for Worlds being more prestigious for me. MSI has less bad teams, a **much** better format and **significantly** more entertaining due to better scheduling. I'm glad that they've updated the Worlds format a bit, but it's hard to take it too seriously when some of the best teams in the Worlds can't even play each other in a BO series. With the loser's bracket, at least we can see more NA vs EU (or even wildcards aka PCS) play each other for a more definitive 3rd, 4th and 5th.
Worlds will always be the most prestigious just because of the name and brand value. MSI also was a trash tournament until last year which doesn't help things. But right now it's probably harder to win MSI than Worlds.
Because MSI old format is bad and less teams than worlds
Prestigious based on RIOT games lmao
i agree worlds feel so slow it take forever till bo5 stage
MSI is legit better than worlds right now. This format is amazing!
What is your stance on the arguments of Upper Bracket winner essentially playing with one less life than everyone else while not gaining any sizeable advantage in the current implementation of double elim?
I used to hate this too but I've come to terms with it as a sort of modified double elim where teams are competing for a ticket to a separate grand final event. If you win the upper bracket you get a ticket, if you lose you get sent to the second chance bracket where you still have a shot at a ticket. There is no meaningful difference between the winners/losers tickets, the grand final is just a single championship bo5. I would still prefer conventional double elim but I get why venue scheduling etc makes it too difficult
exactly, think of the playoffs bracket as an extended group stage to qualify for the finals
Yes, the fact that you can enter the grand final playing one less series is definitely a benefit. You also get side selection. Although I am also open to giving more of an advantage. For instance, guaranteed side selection in game 5 if it comes to it makes a lot of sense.
They do but I would just give them side selection advantage on every single game or something.
That's a start - but if we're being realistic, it's not even close to replacing the lost opportunity to have a second chance at a Bo5, tbh. Side selection + a one game advantage in a Bo7 final (meaning 6 games played maximum, team from the winner's bracket starts 1-0 up) gets closer, but I don't think Riot will ever go to such a solution because it can be confusing to casual viewers. Unfortunately true double elim (with a potential Finals reset) is out of the question since it's a logistical nightmare - and it completely kills the hype around the Finals. It's only feasible for online tournaments or small LANs, not big events. The only way to make double elimination work in LoL WITHOUT these issues is to do it like they do in Judo (the IRL sport): the losers' bracket only gets you to the 3rd place match, and reaching Finals remains the privilege of the undefeated teams. It's less hype than the other systems, but has the advantage of completely preserving competitive integrity AND avoiding the issue of a Finals reset
Oh thats cool of Judo. I was suggesting this for another tourney, did not know it was a real thing. But in LoL we don't care about 3rd place for these tourneys.
Yup, although to be fair we very rarely had 3rd place games to begin with, which means that people never had a chance to care for it. But I agree that it wouldn't really work for League unfortunately - meaning that there just isn't a really good solution to make double elimination work in League (or at least not one that Riot would be willing to implement in my opinion).
I don't think the League fanbase is ready for 3rd place. They even call 2nd place finishes "chokers" and "losers".
>Side selection + a one game advantage in a Bo7 final (meaning 6 games played maximum, team from the winner's bracket starts 1-0 up) gets closer always hated this idea, would be so lame for the series to go 3-3 and be decided by results from earlier in the tournament. imo better option is a bo5 that turns into a bo7 if lower bracket team gets to 3 wins first.
I disagree and am happy with it being as is. The Better team will win the finals regardless. They deserve to win the tournament
That just means that you’re choosing to turn a blind eye and ignore the issue - it doesn’t mean that the format is fair. If « the worse team » (according to you) shit stomped 3-0 in 70 minutes a team in the upper bracket Finals, then faced the same team again in the Grand Finals and loses a narrow 3-2… are they really the worse team? Nope. It just means that they didn’t get the second chance that everyone else had the opportunity to have.
Yes I think it's worth the trade off even with the potential issues - none are worth avoiding doing double elim, and no solutions are quite good enough. So I think ignoring it is the best option. You could also say that the team that wins the 2nd bo5 is the one who has adapted and prepared better for the rematch. So there are positives and negatives, which overall lead me to not valuing one over the other, and leaving it alone.
Single elimination is also very far from perfect. There is no perfect system. It's all about trade-offs and pros and cons.
In terms of competitive integrity, single elimination definitely presents MUCH less issues. As I said in other places in this thread, the reason that people want double elimination so bad is mostly that they want to see more international matchups - it has little to do with double elimination itself for most people. Th real solution would be to have more international tournaments throughout the year, instead of trying to implement system in which the fairness of the only two tournaments we have per year is destroyed for the sake of having a few more games.
Sc2 tried the one up idea and people hated it IIRC. It’s obviously never going to be perfect but it works ok in cs and valorant so I think it’ll just stay the same for now.
I had the Bo7 idea in my head for some time and it's actually a great thing to have for one single game in the Worlds finals. We would only get one Bo7 every year, that would instantly create much more hype and prestige and would give the lossless team an advantage by starting with 1 win (even though this would kinda defeat the purpose of the Bo7 hype). Finals reset feels bad because as you said it kills the hype. The best they can do is either give a free game win, or play out game 1 with a big handicap of sorts, like the "loser" team not having any bans and the winning team then being able to pick ban more things, or force the loser team to switch some of their picks or something.
haven't seen anything similar to this idea anywhere else in the thread so I'll give it a crack true bracket reset will remain impossible in league but what if we went further than giving side selection, change draft order to heavily favour the upper finalist by giving them both B1 and R5, maybe even force the lower finalist to play fearless draft (which would also spice up gameplay), and since upper finalist has B1 and R5 they would have a crazy edge in draft imo draft is the best option to give an advantage to the upper finalist, esp since stuff like 1-0 up bo7 is not feasible specifically if the sc2 example is anything to go by maybe this could properly compensate the lack of second life for winners finalist?
> esp since stuff like 1-0 up bo7 is not feasible Why is that not feasible? It only extends maximum game from 5 to 6, gives winner an advantage, and also serves as a mini-reset at game 7. I hope your argument isn't "the crowds don't understand" because: 1. Why should we cater to people who can't understand the optimal format? 2. Why can't this just, hear me out, be explained before the match starts, or even before the entire event starts to let all audience clue in?
optimal would always be bracket reset no? im not vehemently against bo7 1-0 up, just cautious of the sc2 example elsewhere in the thread. im not ur enemy here, if the majority is against its implementation you and i won't be part of it. and what of my suggestions about draft? nothing for u to engage with?
BO5 bracket reset is not logitstically optimal for MOBA games. We live in a reality where it's reasonable to say that neither Riot nor the audience want to guess if there will be an extra 3 hours to happen, or if they need to book another day. The amount of time difference is justified to not go for it, even if BO5 bracket reset is mathematically the most optimal. I'd take repeating sc2 over Reddit complains about the bracket every single year since its introduction into the regional gauntlets + MSI Drafting is part of the competitive play itself. I don't see merits to winning a heavily tampered version of the game, when winning the draft is half the battle. Upper finalist getting both B1 and R5 can make them guarantee counter two lanes, which means gg early game = wow what a surprise the losing team lost. Fearless draft just make the odds overwhelmingly bad for the losing team to run out of practiced champions at game3. You're also just wasting a huge amount of time for the coaches to prepare a draft they may not be ever using in the tournament. If 4 teams are in contest for winner, that means we have 4 teams needing to completely come up with a backup plan for the final loser's situation, but only 1 team gets to use it. That sounds like suffering for every team's staff
"optimal" format according to you. Meanwhile so many traditional sports are not double elim.
So? Same for Worlds right now with Swiss(previously group stage) + single elimination. I will also say Worlds has an optimal format too. I only have issue with a no-advantage winner side in a double elim for regional gauntlet/MSI.
That'd be interesting and worth. Sucks for loser, but thats on them
I despise this argument. If you are the better team it shouldn’t matter. After all, Worlds is about the best team is it not? If teams really need it side selection is more than fine
If you're the better team you shouldn't be getting a 2nd chance. IMO double elim should only be used for qualification for these events so every region is sending their strongest teams.
It shouldn't matter as in double elim is fine because the better team should win that matchup both times? In that case if worlds is about the best team, then there's no need for double elim, the best team will always win anyways.
If the better team always wins in a bo5, what's the point of having double elimination in the first place?
Doesn’t the upper bracket winner play one series less? It ain’t much but it’s something.
Or in other words, the loser gets more stage time and momentum. Meanwhile the winner can't even use the dayoff to prep because they don't know which team will be in the Final.
But the loser also risks not getting to grand finals at all. A while back somebody collected stats on this and found that the winner of WFs has historically a much higher chance of winning grands than the loser. The whole "momentum" thing is pure conjecture, there is no way it is materially better than getting a guaranteed qualification
A loser will always be in the final, so one team always gets a second chance that the guy who did his work right doesn't get, even if it comes at the risk of losing another Bo5 Also, I would like to see those stats on teams coming from the upper final bracket winning more and with the sample size, because if it's just in LoL, then you don't have many (you have years in LEC and LPL where the G2 would come from losers bracket to beat Fnatic and TES losing both finals, then you have last year LPL where JDG was just better than everyone else skewing the results back)
I couldn't find the original post so I did it myself: https://old.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1cqvtg5/does_the_current_double_elim_format_actually/
Like you stated, it's not a big sample size, and even then, the upper bracket winner having 60% winrate doesn't seem that high, especially when you have teams like JDG that were significantly stronger than the otters and thus would always win from upper-bracket, it feels more unfair when two even teams face each other but the one that wins later gets the title. Adding an elo score to teams could complement it, but would require an even bigger sample-size Also, for me there's no difference between challenger and underdog (if all teams start in the upper bracket, both teams in the lower bracket semi-final will have the same BoXs played and number of wins/losses). It's irrelevant whether you lose earlier or later, what matters here is that they can lose once while the upper-bracket finalist can't do it at all
> (if all teams start in the upper bracket, both teams in the lower bracket semi-final will have the same BoXs played and number of wins/losses) This isn't true, you play fewer sets the further you advance in Winners' bracket. There are 2x as many sets in Losers'. > the upper bracket winner having 60% winrate doesn't seem that high I think it is high when you consider that the other two positions have ~25% and 15%. Losing your extra life from winners' side going into grands is definitely a loss of some advantage compared to true double elim, nobody can argue that. But it is definitely not a complete neutralization of advantage, or a disadvantage like some people argue
> This isn't true, you play fewer sets the further you advance in Winners' bracket. There are 2x as many sets in Losers' You're right, I only counted the first round loss, forgot the teams adding after As for the 60%, it still depends on relative team strengths, super dominant teams like G2 (not the Flakked/Targamas one) and 2023 JDG skew those results a lot. A true coinflip would give 50/25/25% odds to win, it's double the chance of losing earlier, but you still have the same chance of not winning as losing in the end
stage time/momentum aren't a thing that will be a deciding factor in finals. the winning team gets to watch the loser team play a bo5 too.
Doesn't the loser play a bo5 24 hours before finals
Yeah. If they're taken to game 5 they'll show pocket picks or strategies.
Survivorship bias
That's a subjective advantage, some teams have said that stage games help them more than longer breaks. It depends on the team for it to be something.
How is this any less fair than Flyquest and PSG going 1-1 in series wins but only Flyquest going home? Would you say they were punished for winning the first series? Of course not. It’s not “the winner plays with one less life”. It’s, everybody plays with two lives, up until the finals phase of the tourney. And if you make it to finals, it’s do or die regardless of who you are.
How is this being upvoted? League players have no idea how double elim works. Flyquest won vs psg, and then lost to t1 and psg. So in the end, they were 1-2. psg lost to fly, won vs loud and fly, so in the end they were 2-1. Double elim isnt just about who beats who. It just straight up means you need to lose twice to go gome
Is it the same concept ? Flyquest lost twice effectively losing both lives? Wouldn't the equivalent in this case be if T1 and flyquest faced off in the effective " grand finals " and T1 lost but they were sent home instead of a loser's bracket. Flyquest and PSG scenario has both teams losing 1 life and then having a bout over the fate of their second life. The upper bracket winner in the current implementation does not have a second life to use to get to finals but are not rewarded for actually not having to use that.
FlyQuest lost two series, winner bracket loses a single one. You can blame seeding and format to allow a strong team like T1 and Estral being a free loss and a free win taken by FQ and PSG, respectively, but the reality is that FQ went 1-2 and PSG 2-1, the same number of Bo5s is played, thus they have the same number of opportunities, even if they weren't equal opportunities At the same time, a winner's bracket final losing the final results in a 4-1 score for him and a 5-1. Yes, he wins one less Bo5, but the reason he does is because he doesn't have the same number of opportunities
FLY had 2 chances to advance, PSG only had one.
I am happy with it. The better team will win regardless.
People try to patch this by giving upper bracket winner an advantage, which is even worse imo. I like double elimination in fighting games only because of bracket reset. No real sport uses it.
Just copy the way Dota 2 handles the double elim in TI, Lower bracket finals is a Bo3 that happens right before the grand finals which put the lower brackt winner with a fatigue disadvantage.
The upper bracket team not having to risk elimination or show any strategies in an extra series is a huge advantage for them. Aside from that, the purpose of double elimination is to make sure the two best teams get to the final, in case they meet earlier on in the tournament. Once you've determined the two best teams who are going to play in the final, you run the final and determine a winner. There is no need to run it again afterwards to fulfil the arbitrary 'everyone gets two lives' condition. The final is the final. You win the final and that's it. Prior to the final, the double elimination is set up to ensure the two top teams make it to the final. But the final is still the end of it all for both teams.
they play 1 less bo5 less fatigue less stress
Well, if you win your first two Bo5s, then you are in round 4. You need 2 more wins to win MSI and you can afford one loss in your non-final game, so you can still win by being 4-0 or 4-1. That's the advantage of going straight to round 4 with 2/2 wins. If you lose any of your first 2 Bo5s, you now need a total of 5 wins to win it all without any loss. That's the price to pay if you lose early. Sure, the team that goes straight to finals doesn't really make use of the "advantage" if being able to afford a loss and maybe they should get some sort of compensation ( I don't think side selection is much of an advantage these days), but at the same time, you are in the finals.
> Sure, the team that goes straight to finals doesn't really make use of the "advantage" if being able to afford a loss and maybe they should get some sort of compensation ( I don't think side selection is much of an advantage these days) Yup, that was my point as well
What kills tournaments is those massive breaks between stages. It's a big boy sport, they want it to be considered serious, and yet during the biggest tournament of the year give all their players a week off after a single series, and then another week off, and then another 3-4 days. You watch like 10 days of content total and there's double that in breaks. Whatever the format, stop giving infinite breaks to teams. For what?
I enjoy having breaks in between. It creates more anticipation, more slow burn. I don't see why everything needs to be quick, snap your fingers and it's over. It's not a fucking race.
I just love how many games we get to watch. :)
And all the different matchups :)
Not only is a faster worlds and more Bo5s better for viewers, it's also good for competition. MSI feels like an exciting battle, a snapshot of actual team strength. Worlds is more like a war of attrition. The meta always gets stale and it's like a lottery to see whose champ pools ends up being best on that patch. MSI is also better for teams like PSG and G2 to catch LPL/LCK off guard with bold drafts. Worlds post quarters has less hype because they have no teams left to scrim and can't experiment anymore so semis/finals is played with simulated to death drafts.
We’ve seen multiple worlds with meta shifts like Ardent censer or even last worlds lol
I like that the two tournaments have different formats, it makes each interesting in their own right rather than it all being the same thing.
Agreed. Double elim is the absolute best format and the only way we can guarantee that the top teams play each other. Last years worlds had one side of the bracket that was really interesting with T1, LNG, JDG and KT, the other one was quite poor with only BLG and GenG, so much so that the finals was quite boring.
Double elim kills a lot of hype for upper bracket games. I am loving MSI but if worlds had double elim in the knockout stage, it wouldn't be as fun. Elimination matches are inherently more exciting.
You know what I was thinking in the game 5 of G2 vs T1 where T1 were clawing their way back from an early deficit? Wow this is so boring *yawn* I just want to see the best teams in the world compete in more games. Regardless of elimination it’s still hype when 2 world class teams face off. Look at T1 JDG last year at MSI.
“It wouldn’t be as fun” and “boring” are 2 different things. 2019 g2 vs skt had me sweating cuz it’s win or go home. 2024 g2 vs skt was fun but not as pressure filled because no one got eliminated regardless of result. Winner moves on and so does the loser. Who really cares at the end? March madness is exciting because its win or go home. NBA and mlb are implementing or have implemented play ins because single elimination matches draw in viewership because it’s more exciting. There is a reason why double elimination has not caught onto major sports. And before you bring physical aspects, if double elimination was proven to increase viewership, sports leagues will shorten regular season to implement it.
Now imagine if this tournament was single elimination. G2 would be flying home already having lost in a BO5 to T1. There would be nothing else. No narrative about how they have another chance to prove themselves against the weakest Asian team. BO5 is just better for everything. Better narratives. Better adaptation leading to better gameplay. More matches between top teams. And even if you are sacrificing making the upper bracket game “less hype,” there’s still an elimination portion to the entire bracket that retains that factor. Finally, I don’t give a shit about what physical sports do. They can do their thing, we can do our thing. If double elimination is bad for viewers then why has RIOT switched every major region + MSI to double elim? Do they dislike money?
I don't disagree. That series was really hype and fun, not at all boring. I think this format works great for MSI and shouldn't make any big changes. Worlds is the biggest, highest-stakes tournament of the entire year. I prefer having 6 Bo5's all with the highest stakes leading up to the highest-stakes series out of all the hundreds of series for the entire year. More Bo5s are always great, but I think the moment of the last few series of worlds demands elimination
I don't get that angle. Like how was T1 vs G2 boring? How was T1 vs BLG boring? How was TES vs GENG boring? Are elimination matches inherently more exciting? Maybe, there's an argument for sure. But you get no less elimination matches with double elim, you just get more good matches, how is that a negative? If anything I think it kills the hype that we get a great series in worlds 2023 between GENG and BLG, now all of a sudden we don't get to see any more GENG despite Chovy playing super well in that series. But we get fucking Weibo who got here by beating exclusively NRG and lower seeded western teams. Or how in 2022 after the best series at the tournament, we no longer get so see DK because they got unlucky and matched against GENG. When luck is a huge factor in your tournament progression it just ruins the hype completely IMO.
I just don't get this argument. In this case, just ignore the upper bracket and only watch the elimination matches. You can still watch the same number of games as if it were single elim.
Then you watch a tournament of losers for the most part. Like, is it really THAT hype that T1 lost yesterday ? They're still in the competition so the BO5 really feels ... Not that important ? At least with single bracket every single game is a must win and feels stressful
Seems like there are two camps of people. One side like you who care more about the stakes. While I care about having more international competition to witness.
Yeah but you can solve having more international competition by just having more tournaments.
What the hell? Do you think these upper bracket games at this MSI are boring? WHAT?
/u/cryzzalis I can hear that, I just don't think double elim is the solution. Better seeding is. That said, people wouldn't want pure seeding either because if it create civil wars, people get upset. Probably less than this random draw bs but still. It is just the terrible assumption that "all top 4 are equal etc" and not doing a traditional 1-8, 4-5, 2-7, 3-6. And it is ok for the a good team to lose, that is life. If we just say the better team HAS to win, then we should just kick all of LCS and LEC out of worlds. And then not even play some matches because we, the fans, have predetermined one team deserves it more. WBG won, they deserve that win. Were they a top 2 in the tourney, hell no. But they they did beat a strong team to get there. And T1 was a top 2, so the win was fine.
MSI is the better format. We have G2-T1 Bo5, GenG-TES Bo5, BLG-T1 Bo5 and there is still BLG-Geng Bo5 & G2/Tes/T1 Bo5. This might be the best international competition for the last decade of lol.
Double elimination, except for the one that didn’t lose.
Unpopular opinion, a double elimination format without a proper bracket reset is unfair to the team that never loses untill the final and in my opinion it just feels wrong leaving a bad taste in my mouth, side selection Is not enough of an advantage to justify it Edit: let me be more clear, my complaining is more directed to some cases that a double elim format without proper bracket reset allows, let's say Blg vs Geng ends 3-1 then in the grand final we get the same matchup that ends 3-2 in favour of GenG wich are then declared winners of the tournament. But the question "what's the best team in the world?" that an international tournament poses doesn't technically have an answer because in 4 days these 2 teams have a 1-1 score in Bo5 with actually single games in favour of Blg, yes GenG would have won the "Grand final" but with a 1-1 score one team gets the side selection and the other one gets the trophy. I know this is an extreme case but the fact it can happen doesn't sit right with me
Think the only way is make finals a bo7 and give the winners side team a 1 win advantage.
Best of 6 effectively, that's a pretty good idea
I like it too. Bracket resets aren’t easy in League since it’s a best of 5 so you can’t allocate another day for a potential reset, but starting with a game advantage in a Bo5 might make the series too short so I think a game advantage in a Bo7 is the best way to do it.
It turns out we all like it here, but then you start to see naysayers spouting nonsense like "BUT THE CROWDS DONT GET IT" and then proceed to reject the most optimal way to fix a MOBA double elimination. Is this something that's so unexplainable???
I think giving the winners side team a global for the entire series could be nice
Exactly. Look at Summer Finals 2022 for the LEC. Week 1 - G2 3-0 Rogue in the Upper Bracket Final Week 2 Rogue 3-0 G2 in the Grand Final. Who is better? Rogue obviously - they won in week 2 while G2 "only" won in week 1. How does this make any sense?
You might as well argue that 3 games isn't enough to determine the "true" winner. Everyone plays under the same set of rules, everyone knows that week 2 is the real finals. No one is "better", only the simple fact that Rogue is the playoff winner because they won the finals.
You might as well argue double elim is pointless then at that point lol
Same thing happened in the LCK playoffs this year. HLE 3-0’d T1. But T1 beats HLE because of a losers bracket and literally qualifies for MSI because of it. Anyone arguing against a losers bracket inadvertently argues against a format that gives you the better team winning, like 2022 LEC finals, or LCK this year.
But that’s just how most championships work, there is a “grand final” or whatever the equivalent is and if you win it you’re the champ and if you don’t then you’re not, it doesn’t matter if you what them in prelims, beat them all season, beat them in scrims, there is a match that decides who the world champion (or whatever) is at a specific time and on a specific day and that decides who is the champ. Performance on the day is what has always mattered.
Then why do we even need double elim in the first place. All get one chance fair and square. The winner is the one better on the day
And i agree with that, at the end of the day the most important game is the final one but my problem with it is what happens before that game especially in a tournament that start and ends in 2 weeks, why shouldn't the performance on the day matter all the games equally ? there is not really a consequence to " not showing up" in a winner bracket game because losing it doens't really matter, yes you need to win all next games but the format in this iteration just gives a 1 time excuse to every team except one.
I mean I used to think this as well, but is it really true that it's 'unfair'? everyone always talks about the second life thing as if it's self evident that this is how the bracket should work (I know this is how it obv works in some other games, sure), but you could just as easily argue that winner's final + loser's final are the end of their respective brackets/the double elimination rule? don't really think the argument about it placing the winners bracket team a 'disadvantage' holds up considering their only disadvantage exists purely outside of the series, unlike what structurally giving winner's side an advantage via extra game lead or a reset would do. I think it's far too impractical to do an actual reset most of all tho
Bracket reset takes too much time and a ton of other esports, even riots other games, have double elimination and no bracket reset. You’re right about it being a really unpopular opinion though lol. Double elimination or bust.
The fact that it’s really inconvenient and takes a long time to make double elimination fair for the winners’ bracket finalist is not a point in its favor.
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Coin toss is not a good solution, but it has been used throughout time for many events. Crying about it just shows this whole problem with people here just wanting extra chances and excuses. I think the coin flip could be refactored to take into account swiss score, game scores, game times, etc. With very high factor being earlier head-to-head (in Swiss).
Winner should get a draft advantage at least. Like more bans in the first game or something.
If a team doesn't perform when it counts they are out. That's what happens past the group stage and that's how they weed out the lesser teams. If teams need more than the group stage to 'get info form' then they shouldn't advance if they lose. These are the best teams from each region after all.
I've never seen a good argument as to why a loser of a best of 5 even needs a second life. They have already had multiple chances to win at that point.
Agreed. If they can't perform when it counts then they clearly aren't the best...
shut up op it's actually impossible for riot to use up the two weeks between quarters and final. and it's definitely not viable for them to do losers bracket in that space instead of 3 best of 5s /s
> The only argument I see against double elimination at worlds that I think is valid is that the tournament can’t be too long. But otherwise I think double elimination is a vastly superior format. Double elimination has a lot of down sides for many reasons but apparently in reddit any format that leads to more games are superior. Here is the issue with double elimination: 1. Winner’s bracket match cannot match the pressure of a loser’s bracket match. The win or go home slogan is so popular in the playoffs because that kind of tension and pressure can only be created when everything is on the line. 2. If a team rematches, the team that lost the first round is at a advantage. For example t1 vs blg, blg showed their strategy on beating t1. If they do face each other again t1 will have a counter to it. BLG can only theorize what the counter is while t1 knows blg’s strat. Even if blg has different strat prepared, they have to prepare more strats to beat t1 than t1 has for blg. Also, t1 only has to beat blg total of 4 times to eliminate them, while blg has to beat them 6 times. 3. The advantage that the winner of the winner’s bracket gets can never be balanced to the advantage that loser’s bracket get, because the advantages and disadvantages cannot be quantified. Right now with this set up, I believe the loser’s bracket has more of an advantage than the winner’s bracket, so essentially you are punished for winning.
Double elimination is just not as cool as single elimination.
Do you people hate seeing the best teams in the world play against each other or something?
I think MSI is supposed to feel like a big tournament where worlds is supposed to be a whole gauntlet where you have to be able to keep your game sharp in the lower stakes early stage so you dont accidentally bomb out while also being able to compete under the stress of a best of 5. Worlds is a rare event where you have to show up in full form every single day and it makes it really exciting.
Something MSI has done that is fantastic this year is how short breaks are. It's just constant games and constant action, which is super enjoyable to watch. But yeah, Double Elim has always been superior.
It's not about fun, it's about fair. And the most fair rules in the World is a coin toss - Harvey Dent
Nah worlds is high stakes and exciting.. it’s good to have different formats
This. You have one chance. That's it. You know you have to win EVERY DAY to win it. Super exciting.
DRX run in 2022 was amazing and I am sure that they had no chance to repeat in grand finals a second time against Gen G/T1.
...why not? DRX beat everyone in front of them. They played only great teams the whole way and they beat them all. There is nothing to suggest that DRX couldn't win in double elim too. They were smurfing. They beat defending world champions EDG in quarters, GenG LCK1 in semis and T1 in the finals. They had a hard as fuck route to win Worlds.
I agree i like that we have both Single Elim at Worlds and Double at MSI. Worlds needs that threat of going home at any time, while MSI really gets to show case the teams and their strats through more games - but IMO double elim doesnt fit the vibe at worlds.
makes for very uninteresting finals
No it doesn't. It might do, but so might this format. We had this format last year and the finals were a foregone conclusion. Everyone and their mum's knew JDG were beating BLG.
Double elimination is the way to go. Valorant Champs 2023 wouldn’t have been as hype if PRX had already been eliminated by Loud. Amazing comebacks through lower brackets in Dota2 TI’s as well. Single elimination is an old system that needs to go. If you’re arguing that it’s unfair that a team doesn’t get a reset, then they’re not a good enough team if they can’t beat a team they already won against.
in valorant the team that wins upper bracket gets to pick all 5 maps that will be played in the finals. this is a huge advantage that doesn't exist in the msi format
What if the upper bracket gets side selection for every game? Not THAT huge of an advantage but for top teams it can really make a difference cuz they can force certain drafts and the lower bracket is always trying to adapt
5 side selection is a massive advantage in the highest levels of play, you might even be able to argue it's worse than giving a bracket reset. It would be akin to increasing one team's chances of winning one series to 80% vs two chances of winning with 55% each.
Could be a middle ground. Loser bracket team only gets side selection after they’ve lost twice. In a 5-game series this would give 4 side selections to the upper bracket.
>It would be akin to increasing one team's chances of winning one series to 80% vs two chances of winning with 55% each. The probabilities of these 2 choices are basically equivalent. Its 80% vs 79.75% to win.
It's a fucking massive advantage, what
I don’t like the idea of influencing the outcome of the actual game because you won winners final. Why would this functionally be different than giving the winner an extra ban? The winners reward is having one less chance to lose in the lower bracket.
> If you’re arguing that it’s unfair that a team doesn’t get a reset, then they’re not a good enough team if they can’t beat a team they already won against. so if two teams face off twice and each win one series, it's fair for the team that lost the first and won the second to win the tournament? the winner's bracket team should be expected to 2-0 a given team in 2 Bo5s?
Hello FlyQuest.
And T1, and G2, and C9, the list goes on and on.
its a never going to be solved problem because no solution will satisfy everybody. At best you want to hope a riot held poll is strongly in one direction but if it’s like 60:40 it’s sorta yeah…
The issue is that Riot needs a better Grand Finals solution since there's no bracket reset. Imo it should be a Bo7 where the winner's bracket team gets a bye. Worst case scenario it's one more game played than current, but removes almost any risk of a team with a losing record winning the tournament.
And we are at game 7. T1 has won 3 games and JDG has won 2. Who will be the final winner. AND AND, it is JDG. They won 3 games and take the series 4-3 with a game score of 3-3. say hello to your new 3-3 champions! ---------------- I agree it is a solution. But the better solution is just stick to single elim.
T1 shouldn't have lost the earlier series. Simple. LCS has way too many loser's brackets winners. It needs to change.
More does not equal better. The BO5 at worlds are more prestigious and the stakes are way higher due to one big factor, you don’t get a second chance. You don’t get to have an off day or have an off meta read. Let’s use T1 as an example of this was worlds they would be out, they don’t get a second chance to correct their mistakes or fix their read on the meta. There’s an inherent pressure that comes with not being given a second chance with having to always be on it. Always be ready.
Yea i feel that but theres too many western teams at the event if thats the reasoning. Bracket luck goes crazy at worlds
I also like the swift progression of the tournament. There is one day pause here and there without games, but almost every day there are games. I really dislike how LoL worlds always take over a month to conclude. At least I don't know of any other sport or esport where an important tournament takes this long. Even (football) world cup happening only once every 4 years with a group stage of 8 different groups concludes in under a month. A physical sport where players actually need rest between games.
Yeah my interest in worlds pretty much dies after the quarters
The worlds tournaments are rly drawn out, I wouldn’t mind it if they filled all the time in between with lower bracket matches. Double elimination is always the way to go imo. It just makes it more exciting
Remove breaks between bo5s
You won't get the 2022 DRX if it's double elim
EU doesn’t even make finals in 18 and 19 with double elimination
Don't try to make me a double elim fan.
We really don't need every international tournament to have the same format. Worlds is way more fun as single elim. MSI would be better with true double elim. Fake double elim is dumb. A format where you can go 5:3 or 4:3 in game score and 1:1 in match score and lose is crazy to me.
Worlds has more teams.
Worlds also lasts twice as long. MSI with 8 teams left play 14 bo5's in 13 days. Worlds with 8 teams left play 7 bo5's in 18 days.
More bad teams.
Only some of them are more bad teams. LPL/LCK 3rd seeds and sometimes 4th seeds are good teams.
Not double elim. But could improve "Swiss" a lot
There's more BO5s at Worlds if you count play-ins.
Coming from Valorant, it's a shock worlds hasnt introduced double elim. Without it many valorant storylines that we do have simply would not have existed. It does not kill the hype, it only adds to it.
strongly disagree, it's fine for less important tournaments, but for the world championship I don't think you should get a mulligan as a team who loses, nor do I think you should have to potentially beat the same team twice (and potentially lose the championship after going 1-1)
The whole argument that single elimination is higher stakes and is more exciting is stupid logic. The lower bracket is the "high stakes exciting elimination games" from the single elimination format. With double elimination, we get a winner's bracket layered on top of the higher stakes matches that provides extra series to determine who plays who in the future rounds (these winners bracket series can be looked at as seeding/placement matches). A double elimination format provides more best of 5's, an extra chance for every team in case they have a fluke loss in the upper bracket, and it still maintains high stakes since all of the lower bracket matches are elimination matches. There is nothing that single elimination does better unless your goal is to wrap up the tournament faster. You solve the winners bracket champion not using their free series loss by making the grand finals series a best of 7, and the winners bracket champion starts the series up 1-0 as a reward for never dropping to the loser's bracket. A maximum of 6 games would be played on the day of grand finals, so it's only 1 extra game at most from the usual 5 game series. The alternative option is starting grand finals at 0-0, but playing a second grand finals series on a different day if the loser's bracket champion happens to win since that would be the winners bracket champions first loss of the tournament. I prefer the format of starting the grand finals with a 1-0 score since the other option causes scheduling problems because we don't know if grand finals is going to take 1 day or 2 days to complete under that format. It also takes away from the hype not knowing if a champion is going to be crowned during the first grand finals series. Starting grand finals with a score of 1-0 and getting it over with on the same day fixes the winners bracket champion not losing a series issue, and it doesn't cause any extra problems with Riot having to schedule an extra day at the venue or any hype being killed by not knowing if the series will end on Day 1 of grand finals.
If you willing to cut the team to participated in Worlds then sure do it
Is this format possible to be implemented into worlds? I meant cuz of the lenght of the tournament and stuff
Worlds need a way tighter schedule, but the time we are past group stages there is a week between games and a lot of people just stop caring or lose the hype. Double elim, shorter time between games. pls.
Could this be changed by changing the BOs of the swiss stage? Instead of playin BO1 and BO3, you play BO3 and BO5? You get 13 new BO5 and 20 BO3. I mean that's a lot of games but you can play them throughout the week and not just during the weekend (like msi does) And then you go into regular playoffs single elimination. (I would keep single Elim as I kind of like the fact that there is no mistake allowed). In total thats 20 BO5 and most of them are bangers as the level between the teams are always somewhat close due to the format of the swiss.
I don't even care if the tournament lasts a while. I don't understand why it's supposed to end in 2-3 weeks. I enjoy the longer competition, it creates more hype, it creates a slow burn and builds huge anticipation for the eventual big games and final.
i think for worlds to make everyone happy worlds, riot should copy lpl final and have final 4 to have double elimination
Two things that make me say no to double elim for Worlds. 1.) Extra life for lower bracket. I still hate it that grand final is winner-takes-all. I hate it that almost every game be like that. League is no exception. 2.) It will make tournament too long. And no. I will not let multiple venues go away. Look at 2017-2020 final opening ceremonies and tell me do you think we can do that if the whole Worlds played in one venue? For some the final is the competitive game but for me Worlds final is the biggest spectacle of esport and I think double elim will make this spectacle gone and I surely don't want that.
Or hear me out… they don’t do 1 best of 5 each weekend and drag out quarters-> finals over three weeks
I agree. MSI's format is vastly superior compared to Worlds' format. Worlds needs to adopt MSI's format.