SWC Bracket FAQ :: SmiteFire

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The SMITE World Championship, powered by Curse Voice, will occur on January 9 - 11, 2015. This FAQ addresses questions around the tournament bracket format.

by Stew Chisam, President

The SWC features the top 2 teams from North America, the top 2 teams from Europe, the top 2 teams from China, the top team from Brazil, and the top team from Spanish-speaking Latin America, as determined by various Regional Championships held around the world.

The current bracket for the event is here.

Many questions have been asked about this bracket format. This document is meant to answer the most common questions and to solicit overall community feedback.

What are the constraints around scheduling?

The event occurs over 3 days, with some restrictions around how early we can start each day and how late we can end in the WORST CASE scenario each day. These restrictions are slightly different each day, with the opportunity to play the most games on Saturday.

Keep in mind that if a tournament format has “Best of X” series, then we must assume that in the WORST CASE (from a scheduling perspective, not a competition perspective!) all games could go an hour, and all series could be played out fully (i.e., playing all matches in a best of 3, not just 2).

We also made the choice that we wanted to play all of the matches on the main stage versus splitting onto separate stages (reasoning below). That limits the total number of matches that can be played but I think improves the overall spectator experience, and allows more money to be given to the players instead of to the tournament operators. (More information on this decision is provided below).

Lastly, there are all sorts of “contingency” plans that we have to make for an event like this. Things that are unlikely to happen but MIGHT, thus we may have to plan for them. This can affect planning as well. For example: One scenario we have to consider in a complex international tournament like this is “What happens if one of the teams winds up unable to make it due to Visa issues?” We don’t expect that to happen, but it could. And if it does, you want a format that can adapt without completely having to rework everything at the last minute.

Why play all the matches on the main stage, instead of adding a second stage, which would have allowed more games to be played?

This was an option we strongly considered, and was the format that we used at the Launch Tournament. And as the game and number of teams grow, I’m sure we would consider in future years again.

But for this year we prefered a format that consolidated everything onto the main stage for a few reasons:

As a spectator, I really want to see every match if possible. Running simultaneous matches makes that impossible.
The matches on the “second stage” tend to be poorly attended both in person and on stream from the “main stage” matches. And the second matches draw away from the audience. We saw this at the launch tournament. If possible, I think it’s best to have one super vibrant experience in one location, versus diluting both experiences. (I know this opinion may be controversial).
If we run on a second stage, there are almost always scenarios in which at least one of the teams never gets a chance to play on the main stage. (This happened at Launch Tournament). As a player, it may wind up being a once in a lifetime experience to be able to play in a venue and stage such as we have at the Launch Tournament. To send someone home without them having that chance just sucks.
From a production standpoint, running multiple stages at a high-level of production drives costs up. It’s not just paying for the stage, but you have to staff the casters and production staff and many other factors. For an event this size, it would have increased the costs by a six figure number and probably also driven our production quality down (just from a practical standpoint in that our talent would be split across stages). Given points #1 - #3, we thought that the players and fans would appreciate us giving that money instead back to the players through the prize pool, instead of to the tournament operators.

Given those contraints, what Bracket Options were there?

We considered scores of possible brackets, but three possibilities were considered most strongly based on the ability to run within the time constraints:

8-Team Single Elimination -- This is a traditional single elimination matchup in which the Round 1 matches are BEST OF 3 and the Semi-finals and Finals are BEST OF 5. : http://challonge.com/swc01
"Double Elimination Group Play" -- this runs two groups of 4 that each play each other in BEST OF 1 matches during a double elimination group play format to decide the Semi-Finalists. Once the Semi-Finalists are determined, you play single elimination semi-finals and finals. (NOTE: IF a rematch occurs in the Lower Bracket, a third game in the “continuation series” between those two teams might be played if the same team did not win both matches that they played in group play).
A sample bracket is here (sorry it still uses the Aquila name instead of Titan): http://imgur.com/uwipxGg
The published brackets, which is a single-elimination, double-bye format. http://www.hirezstudios.com/smite/promo/smite-world-championship#brackets

Given those contraints, why choose the Single Elimination, Double Bye Format?

It’s a tough choice for sure. There are pros and cons to each of the systems. And while we have to make a final choice VERY SOON (Monday at the latest) due to logistical reasons, we will listen to player feedback following this post and make a final decision on Monday.
To be perfectly honest and transparent, for most of our planning period, we prefered OPTION #2 above, which is the “Double Elimination Group Play” option. That may still be the best option (we will let y’all voice your opinions). But it has a couple drawbacks:

It requires “BEST OF 1” matchups during the group stage, instead of “BEST OF 3.” That is exciting and let’s us see a bunch of match-ups but it can create some potentially tricky scenarios when you “bracket craft”. The biggest thing is you have to plan for a “Continuation Series” in which teams that met in the winner’s bracket may have to play a third match if they rematch in the losers bracket and a different team wins.
Scheduling wise, all of the team shifts on stage requires additional time.
The only benefit that would be granted the teams that did not lose in group play is that they would play the team that lost once in the other bracket in the semi-finals. (I.e., the winner’s bracket teams from Group Play would not be given an advantage in the semi-finals). I think this is fine, but is a note.
In worst case contingence plans in which we re-arrange the brackets in case one of the 8 teams is unable to attend due to visa issues, this system is less than ideal.
The traditional 8 team single elimination bracket could be perceived as the “fairest” but there were some cross region match-ups it made less likely to have. I think we would all like to see the Chinese and Latin American teams play each other.

Isn’t the "Double Bye" for the top seeds from North America and Europe unfair?

I can definitely see that perspective. And definitely in future years, I don’t think we would ever choose that format. But IN THIS YEAR, I think it’s fair to say that the American and European teams had a much tougher path to qualify, due to the early stage of the Hispanic American, Brazilian and Chinese scenes.

Keep in mind that the Hispanic American and Brazilian servers just came into beta in August. The Chinese servers are still in a very early closed beta with a limited population.

For next year’s SWC, the situation will almost certainly be MUCH different, but right now, the American and EU scenes are much larger and more developed. That OF COURSE doesn’t mean the EU and NA teams are bette, but there’s an argument to be made for the double-bye format, which has the teams from the NEW regions playing each other first before joining the teams from the OLDER Regions in a 6-team playoff.

Cast Your Vote

At the end of the day, the SMITE Community made this event happen, and the SMITE Community drove the prize pool to $2 million.

And the 3 options presented above are all doable from the Hi-Rez side.

So let’s make this YOUR CHOICE. Voting closes on Sunday, December 21 at 8:00 PM US Eastern.

CAST YOUR VOTE HERE

The choices are:

8-Team Single Elimination -- This is a traditional single elimination matchup in which the Round 1 matches are BEST OF 3 and the Semi-finals and Finals are BEST OF 5. : http://challonge.com/swc01
"Double Elimination Group Play" -- this runs two groups of 4 that each play each other in BEST OF 1 matches during a double elimination group play format to decide the Semi-Finalists. Once the Semi-Finalists are determined, you play single elimination semi-finals and finals. (NOTE: IF a rematch occurs in the Lower Bracket, a third game in the “continuation series” between those two teams might be played if the same team did not win both matches that they played in group play). A sample bracket is here (sorry it still uses the Aquila name instead of Titan): http://imgur.com/uwipxGg
The published brackets, which is a single-elimination, double-bye format. http://www.hirezstudios.com/smite/promo/smite-world-championship#brackets

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