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RE: Double Elimination
 

So there was a lot of recent discussion about how Bo3 is usually underwhelming for the spectators since the Upper Bracket champion tends to just stomp the Lower Bracket champion 2-0 and it's all over.

I just wanted to highlight 3 events in less than a month where it's been quite the opposite:

ASUS / Gamespot AU Pro-Am
tgun lost 0-2 to TargA in the Upper Bracket Finals. He then proceeded to defeat mOOnGLaDe 2-1 in the Lower Bracket finals, and then took a 2-0 and 2-1 against TargA in the Grand Final. One of the most epic comebacks we've ever seen.



Gigabyte eSports Winter Slam
mOOnGLaDe lost to Mafia 1-2 in the 2nd round. He dropped down to the lower bracket, where he had to battle through Fourby (2-0), deth (2-0), iaguz (2-0), Mafia (2-0) and tgun (2-1) in order to reach the grand finals against TargA. He managed to take down TargA 2-1 in the first best of 3, and narrowly lost 1-2 in the second series.



ACL Melbourne
PiG lost to Light 0-2 in the Upper Bracket. Light went on to face Mafia in the UB finals, before being matched against PiG again the Lower Bracket Finals. PiG defeated Light 2-0. At this point in the tournament, Mafia hadn't lost a single series to anyone - even in the group stages. PiG came back to defeat Mafia 2-1 and 2-1, rewriting the definition of underdog.



Now I'm not writing this to argue that Double Elimination is definitively the best and fairest format for both players and spectators, but it's events like these that clearly demonstrate that when you have an event full of players with very similar skill levels, it can create one of the most exciting scenarios ever.