On October 07 2023 13:56 JJH777 wrote:
Still too much of an advantage for people who qualify through regionals rather than the open bracket imo. They goal of a tournament should be to crown the best player there. Even if someone from the open bracket is the best player at Atlanta they will have an extremely low chance of winning the event. Having to play through the open bracket is already a big penalty I really don’t understand why there was a necessity to make that penalty bigger.

Which is likely why upgrading the advantages of qualifying through a regional event, because having to go through the open bracket means there were insufficient results for a direct spot.

Either some of the ESL employees, or the ESL owners, don’t like surprises that much. Double elimination system for the regionals gives higher chances the better players being there.

On October 07 2023 13:40 Azzur wrote:
I personally prefer the better players winning – don’t generally like weaker players playing well for one series and creating a sensation.

It still has to be fun to watch though, you could make everyone play bo69’s, but it would get dull very quickly.

Head honchos are probably not unhappy to see Oliveira win given how the Chinese sponsors are still forking money for not so small events…

My guess on who they don’t really want.to see : the likes of Astrea, Scarlett, Special, Trigger, Gerald. More globally, those below the absolute elite and/or not bringing audience or money. Gotta look at how G8 spots were decided for instance.

ESL Asia region seeds at DreamHack Atlanta increased from 1 to 2. Global/Combined Ranking seeds reduced from 3 to 2.

Nice, that was the biggest complaint I had with the first season.

On October 07 2023 13:56 JJH777 wrote:
Still too much of an advantage for people who qualify through regionals rather than the open bracket imo. They goal of a tournament should be to crown the best player there. Even if someone from the open bracket is the best player at Atlanta they will have an extremely low chance of winning the event. Having to play through the open bracket is already a big penalty I really don’t understand why there was a necessity to make that penalty bigger.

Yeah in earlier epochs of SC2 you saw a lot more huge open bracket runs, I guess tournaments were structured a bit differently and the globalised system and circuit we have now wasn’t a thing.

In those events the open bracket was really just a preliminary stage of a tournament bracket. Now it’s come out of an open bracket into the next stages often with some disadvantage to boot and in combination with the extra games people just tend not to be able to perform the feat.

Something I really do wish would be somewhat looked at. I’d love some more miracle runs myself, but I am mean does it even make economic sense to almost any pro, unless they’re nearby to even both trying and travelling over these days?