[mGGDrGooSe]

The mGG SENA Trials qualifier #1 was held on the weekend Brackets and Thread. This was mGG's largest tournament to date and our first pro-level tournament completely organised by us. For the most part, we are happy with how things turned out, but there were some obvious disappointments which we aim to fix for the future.

• Delayed Start:
  Caused mostly by a significant number of people signing up with names different from their in-game name and to a lesser extent with the stupid way that the names on a channel will reorder themselves as people come and go. It was suggested that if people can't sign up correctly they shouldn't be playing. Whilst I personally agree, it also would have resulted in a significant number of people not being able to play and taking their anger out on mGG in the forums. So delaying the start until we could get things sorted was the lesser of two evils. For qualifier #2 we will revert to the standard challonge self-signup system and people will simply have to deal with the 20 walk-overs at the start of the bracket.
• Bracket Seeding:
  Seeding was performed using the top 32 SEA power ranks (12 of the sign ups) with the rest being given double randomised seeds. As a reasonable number of talented players do not appear on the power ranks list, this lead to having a number of early team kills (most notebly Nv, but they were also the only team to have >2 people playing). In order to avoid this in future, we will be looking at having a much larger seed list. Unfortunetely, there is no completely objective way to perform this for players that are not on the power ranks lists - which will probably result in a lot of drama and whingeing. Suggestions are welcome.
• Single elimination fomat:
  We thought initially that BO3 from RO32 would have been sufficient to ensure that the best players were getting through, however, we underestimated the depth of those signing up. If a good number of people indicate their interest for a double elim format in the next qualifier, then we will use that.

Despite these issues, we think the rest of the day went off as expected and things ended up finishing approximately on schedule. Hopefully anyone who was grossly affected by the issues that did occur won't hesitate to sign up for the next qualifier on May 11th.

REPLAYS for casting and uploading
We'd also like to send out a call for replays that want to be casted and placed on Duckville's Youtube channel. In particular Glade vs Deth and Glade vs Rossi. We tried to cast them but Glade was lagging out when casters were present. Also any other games you think were entertaining but didn't make it on the stream. Rival vs Fenner and MightKiwi for example.

Reaplys can be sent to mggsc2 at h-o-t-m-a-i-l-com

[Asrathiel]

Originally Posted by mGGDrGooSe

In order to avoid this in future, we will be looking at having a much larger seed list. Unfortunetely, there is no completely objective way to perform this for players that are not on the power ranks lists - which will probably result in a lot of drama and whingeing. Suggestions are welcome.

I was just going to re-randomise until we got a bracket with minimal team kills. Open to other suggestions!

[Another]

Originally Posted by Asrathiel

I was just going to re-randomise until we got a bracket with minimal team kills. Open to other suggestions!

while that may work out okay, it also opens up to criticisms of bias on your behalf, when you decide what a "fair" bracket is people might not agree, and then have someone to blame. i think doing it off ladder rank or SEA points or something like that is going to be less controversial. ideally everyone would be playing at least some tournies and get SEA points as that would make seeding easy.

i dont have any ideas for solutions sorry

[ToR.Arnor]

Originally Posted by Asrathiel

I was just going to re-randomise until we got a bracket with minimal team kills. Open to other suggestions!

random is random, sometimes theres team kills, sometimes theres not

frankly its only a very small percentage of people who dont have SPR points atm anyway, most SEA tournament seem to be doing this, so for those good players who want seeding, they need to actually start participating in tournaments again

[Dox]

Originally Posted by Asrathiel

I was just going to re-randomise until we got a bracket with minimal team kills. Open to other suggestions!

There's nothing wrong with manual handling brackets. I've done it for years and people were always really happy with it. As long as you're transparent and objective about it!

Quick Comments

	Asrathiel:	It just makes me uneasy :P
	Snx.Mufasa:	im sure the players hitting moonglade and co would find something wrong with it xD

[|Erasmus|]

Have to agree with just seeding off sea power points... If you expect to get seeded, it should be based off recent results, not just people 'knowing' you're good. Since most of the recurring tournaments are giving out these points now that should be enough.

Quick Comments

Asrathiel:

That's what we did, though, and ended up with the teamkills

[x5.Stormz]

Double elim would be great! But apart from those few small things it was run really well!!! Thanks mGG for hosting all these events!

[UHF]

Apart from updating April, I have a seeding list based off most of the results since the start of 2012. If you want a list for the 2nd qualifier, I can give you one.

SPR isn't really suitable for seeding a regular open event, as it's a closed system.

[mGGDrGooSe]

Well seeing as there actually isnt any (true) relationship between seeding and teams, its not possible to avoid team kills without manual intervention of the seeding. If all of fray, Nv, Iris, IM, etc sign up again, there will be team kills galore, such is the SEA pro scene atm.

Quick Comments

metaGameGods:

hopefully we can avoid them all in the first 2 rounds though >.<.

[SLCN.Kez]

You're always going to get team kills or two stronger people facing off early, its just the draw of the bracket. If someone isn't seeded from something like power ranks, then thats their own fault. You can't readjust a system from the statistical anomalies that it might produce. The only ways you can combat this is to change the format, ie, make it double elim or groups or something, or it's just something you have to deal with.

[metaGameGods]

We are also wanting to hear feedback on the format. What people prefer between single elim and double elim for tournaments such as these.

[Snx.Mufasa]

wasn't the point on the SPR to encourage all players to play in as many tournaments so we could avoid the best players playing each other so early?

I can understand the frustration from the Nv guys but couldn't it be avoided if they just played in online competitions?

[Eddie]

Missed the event, hopefully be able to play/watch the next SEA one!

Wasn't a huge participant list for this one, and you were missing quite a few big name players, but brackets worked out alright considering. Good to see some new faces going deep. Great to see some of the Nv boys other than Rossi start playing in online tournaments as well. Unfortunate they meet early, but random is random.

Points reward participation and performance. If such a circumstance happens again where most of the pro's are from team Nv, they've already earned points from this qualifier, so should be seeded, so unlikely to meet early, and are welcome to earn more points in other tournaments. That's how it works. You've got to play/earn them. If they want to play in the end of season championship, it won't be invitational. Also Enderr/Stellar should have been number 1 seed, but not your fault if he doesn't reveal his id.

I think having players post which account they'll be using in a signup thread and manually adding to challonge yourselves is more reliable that having a signup link, as a lot of names dont match.

But these are very minor issues, sounds like you did an awesome job first up, and will build on it for the next one.

Originally Posted by UHF

SPR isn't really suitable for seeding a regular open event, as it's a closed system.

Can you explain your thoughts on this further?

[Dox]

Team kills are all well and good, but having 4 out of 5 people eliminating eachother in the 1st/2nd/3rd round is a bit excessive.

+ Show +

mOOnGLaDe > Dox
mOOnGLaDe > deth
mOOnGLaDe > Rossi
mOOnGLaDe > Petrify
mOOnGLaDe > RivaL
mOOnGLaDe > JazBas

Originally Posted by Myth.Mufasa

im sure the players hitting moonglade and co would find something wrong with it xD

Well you don't have to manually handle the whole bracket. You just look at it and identify glaring issues and handpick a few extra seeds. I've done this for so many tournaments in the past, preventing team kills & mirror matches all the way through to the 3rd round. No-one is going to crucify you for it... it's just an extra little touch to increase the overall quality of the event.

As for Single Elimination vs Double Elimination... I'm always a fan of DE, but if you're gonna run SE, at least get rid of Bo1.

[RVLiveR]

double elim would be great if we got started on time, unless the second qualifier would have a ro128's (I think the first one was ro64), because that lowers the chance of insta TK's. Alternatively more qualifiers and less people qualifying per round would be nice for next time, but idk how that would all work out.

Quick Comments

mGGDrGooSe:

If everyone turned up on the weekend we would have had ro128 (70 players)