Online tournaments are never without good plays and good drama or at least it feels that way. Whether it is a DDoS or some spotty decision making from the tournament organizers, something will always happen. Something sure happened in yesterday's tournament.
First things first.
When you are in charge of a competition, you are in charge of figuring out who the best team is in the competition. Doesn't seem like a hard task, right? Well, maybe it is.
The ggClassic Group A ended in the following scenario:
- TD (4-1)
- Curse (3-2)
- Legion (3-2)
- CLG EU (3-2)
- TSM EVO (2-3)
- AL NA (0-5)
Curse, Legion, and CLG EU finished tied for 2nd and there was no easy tiebreaker: Curse beat Legion, Legion beat CLG EU, and CLG EU beat Curse. Let's look at the rules to see what they say about this type of situation:
Tie Breakers
In the round-robin stage, in the event a tie occurs for a slot in the second weekend, it will be broken in the following order:
In the round-robin stage, in the event a tie occurs for a slot in the second weekend, it will be broken in the following order:
1. Head-to-head record (If Team A beat Team B, Team A will advance if the two are tied)
2. Shortest average game length (The length of all round-robin games for each tied team will be averaged, with the team with the shortest average length advancing)
2. Shortest average game length (The length of all round-robin games for each tied team will be averaged, with the team with the shortest average length advancing)
So instead of letting skill determine who moves on, we allow time. CLG was screwed because I guess their poke strategy makes them less skilled (even though they did lose that game to EVO). Legion also introduced strategies that were meant for a late game like their game against EVO. In their game against CLG, they might have been able to end it faster but it would have required reckless play. Curse only had one long game and that was against Team Dynamic.
What does lowest average time really say about a team? What if a team had a 2-2 record going into the last game and knew that a 20 minute surrender would be enough to get them through, how would you feel about that? It would be perfectly legal and perfectly understandable with money on the line. So lowest average time tells you nothing about the skill level of the the three tied teams.
However, if you are going to do a time tiebreaker, at least do it like The Defense from DotA 2. The Defense has created a tiebreaker tool called timerating and it works like this:
How does timerating work exactly?
Once a match is finished, the gametime shown in the endscreen counts for the timerating of both teams. The time gets added as a positive rating for the loser and a negative rating for the winner. For example: ABC beats XYZ in 30 minutes and 20 seconds => Rating of ABC: -30:30, rating of XYZ: +30:20.
The ratings of all 5 matches from each team get added up to the final timerating. Example (the seconds are ignored for this one): ABC wins the first match in 40 minutes, loses the second one in 30, wins in 35, wins in 25, loses in 50. Timerating = -40 + 30 - 35 - 25 + 50 = -20:00
What timerating is better?
That is simple. +100 is better than +50, +50 is better than 0, 0 is better than -50, -50 is better than -100, etc. Just like real numbers.
Once a match is finished, the gametime shown in the endscreen counts for the timerating of both teams. The time gets added as a positive rating for the loser and a negative rating for the winner. For example: ABC beats XYZ in 30 minutes and 20 seconds => Rating of ABC: -30:30, rating of XYZ: +30:20.
The ratings of all 5 matches from each team get added up to the final timerating. Example (the seconds are ignored for this one): ABC wins the first match in 40 minutes, loses the second one in 30, wins in 35, wins in 25, loses in 50. Timerating = -40 + 30 - 35 - 25 + 50 = -20:00
What timerating is better?
That is simple. +100 is better than +50, +50 is better than 0, 0 is better than -50, -50 is better than -100, etc. Just like real numbers.
If we were to use this ranking, Counter Logic Gaming EU would have placed 2nd and moved into the playoffs because of their game with EVO, where they lost a late game nail-biter. Curse would have come in 3rd and Legion 4th. However, I'm not sold on timerating being the best way to solve a tiebreaker.
I think the only logical way would have been for the teams to play each other until it was clear who was moving on. Team Legion and their top lane, Cruzer, agrees:
That is the only way to determine who deserved to move on by the merits of their skill and not by some fabricated way of determining skill.
The time tiebreak method makes it seem that pushing strategies are superior to poke strategies and other late game strategies. We all know that not to be true and some logical thinking would have allowed the tournament organizers to figure that out. Instead we have two teams feeling like they got ripped off because they didn't play the time meta-game.
I wanted to see if LgN's AD carry, demunlul, could continue to carry the team when the pressure was on. I wanted to see if Pobelter could continue to play a pretty good support for Curse if more games and more pressure were added to the equation. I wish we could have seen if CLG EU would have continued to fight it out valiantly from Korea.
All of this is not to take away from the play the teams showed out there. Obviously everyone was well matched and great games were played because of it. I recommend you check out the VODs at www.own3d.tv/ggchronicle if you are interested in catching up. Of course tune in tomorrow as the Taipei Assassins will be playing against two red hot teams in Orbit Gaming and mTw NA. Games start at 4 PM EDT with mTw NA vs. 4Not.Fire and Orbit vs. CLG Black.
Congratulations to Team Curse for making it into the playoffs. We are not saying that you do not deserve it, we are just saying that other teams needed a chance to make you work more for it.
Since you are probably tired of reading, here is our pick for best game because of the play style Legion showed:
10,400
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