Map Advantage versus Bracket Reset
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I was reading a tftv thread regarding map advantage in RGL Sixes, and it made me curious what highlander players playing in divs with double elim currently prefer. As far as I can tell, Highlander has always done bracket resets --where if the team coming from the lower bracket wins against the upper bracket team, there is another set of bo3 maps the following week.
In RGL sixes, they are currently doing map advantage, where grand finals is played to a bo5 and the upper bracket is “up a map” at the very beginning–essentially meaning the upper bracket team only needs to win two maps, whereas the lower bracket team would need to win three.
As far as I can tell there are valid advantages and disadvantages to both, and I wanted to know what y’all think.
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I would like to see a comparitive list of pros vs cons for each.
I would also like RGL to use one singular system instead of different system across formats.
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I really prefer map advantage in more mainstream esports, as in theory the most important match should be the longest, the finale, and it finishes the tournament in a more timely fashion. It doesn’t drag out the season for another week, you don’t see maps replayed in the final, so there is more variety and less predictability in terms of who wins what map based on the last bo3.
My gut feeling was to voice my support for map advantage, but in the middle of typing that up, I realized that bracket resets are very valid for less “professional” esports. Here in HL, you very well may have to ring two players in a match because shitty internet, irl stuff, etc. If you don’t have your mains on night one, you could have your mains on night two. It doesn’t help that our grand finals start so damn late. Considering that 4 maps can take 4+ hours, if we ran bo5 grand finals, we could finish around 2am EST. People probably have to wake up for work/school in the morning and it’d impact viewership and potentially player availability.
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@tua As a matter of fact the sixes grand finals apparently did run to three or four in the morning.
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it also had 2.1k viewers at the end too
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@tua said in Map Advantage versus Bracket Reset:
Here in HL, you very well may have to ring two players in a match because shitty internet, irl stuff, etc. If you don’t have your mains on night one, you could have your mains on night two.
Technically that’s a more niche scenario that could be resolved through rescheduling–especially if the admins let players reschedule to the following monday (when the bracket reset would supposedly be played)
It doesn’t help that our grand finals start so damn late. Considering that 4 maps can take 4+ hours, if we ran bo5 grand finals, we could finish around 2am EST. People probably have to wake up for work/school in the morning and it’d impact viewership and potentially player availability.
Yeah, that can be a real issue, especially since stopwatch can go for a LONG time. For a stopwatch that can go to the third half, it could take 30-45 minutes to go through 1 map-- of course that’s worse scenario for stopwatch. Keep in mind though that teams can agree to play stopwatch as bo1 and koth as bo5 (and can make it dependant per map if established beforehand). What also contributes to those long match times are pauses and halftimes–not just raw gameplay
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Even normal BO3 matches have lasted to one in the morning before, causing players to be tired and not at their best. And while I can imagine teams agreeing to play KOTH bo5, I can’t imagine anyone being pleased about agreeing to play stopwatch bo1, given the asymmetry in that.
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@Maven imagine how many more viewers it could’ve had if it had started and ended sooner, or how many viewers it would’ve had if this was October
I’m east coast and have to wake up at 7 or 8am every weekday and I’m sure the majority of east coasters (especially when school is in session, unlike now) would not be able to stay up late enough to finish watching the game -
From a standpoint of fairness (imo), it doesn’t make sense to me that two teams could get through playoffs, each only losing one match, and one of them is crowned 1st place because they lost earlier in the playoffs bracket, even if 1st seed had an advantage in the match they lost.
I see the argument for the other side in terms of viewership for streams, etc, but if I was 1st seed and then lost in grand finals and didn’t get the opportunity of the bracket reset, I’d feel pretty cheated.
Especially since I’ve seen ringer situations fuck over highlander teams, since the culture is to accept anyone anytime, even if they’re way better than the main