I prefer double-elim, but, this depends on the amount of players.

However, QCon's grand final is the dumbest way I have ever seen a double-elim ended.

You don't end double-elim with a single set of Best of X. The WB winner must lose 2 sets to be defeated in a grand final. Giving 1 map auto-win with only 1 set of Best of X to the WB winner is stupid due to it not continuing the format that the entire rest of the tournament used. Not to mention it takes away potential games in the grand final and who doesn't want to see as many games as possible with a tournament's 2 best players?

Lastly, before anyone yells at me for Evil fanboi'ing, I was rooting for Rapha during QCon. Evil as well, but, Rapha mostly.

edit: Maybe my reply sounded harsh, but, I suppose it's just frustrating to me, as a principle, that QCon grand final was ended the way that it was.

It caused a lot of anger and frustration, as a whole, in the community from what I remember seeing. Not just from Evil fans, either. Personally, I think that Rapha would have won had it been 2 sets of Bo5(or was it 7? I forget now). However, we'll never get to know because Rapha was allowed to just toss out ztn from the get go.

I can't think of any time in my life where I've seen a 'free map, 1 set only' set-up for a grand final in a double-elim, in a sport(online or IRL). I used to play in moderately high-level 9-ball billiards tournaments and heads would have rolled at the mere mention of such a rule-set.

Edit 2: I have wanted to say this for several months, I think that much is apparent. Just never felt it was worth making a new thread for(plus, I was not a member of this glorious website, back then :P). Thanks for providing a venue in which I was able to vent a little bit. =)

It happened during an i-series quake 4 tournament with the final of toxjq vs avek, with toxjq having the one map advantage in the best of 5.

tbh qcon should have been double bo3 instead of bo5 w/ winner brac player gets to remove a map of opponent and even then Evil lost the first and went 2-0 afterwards to tie up series.

tox is just a map where if you have the right circumstances, you can make it go really in your favor and I think rapha is a kind of player that if hes able to put himself in that position, he's basically untouchable (example, strenx qcon2011), especially considering how+forward evil is and how many frags that style of playing can give away.

Should I make a stat comparison of evil & rapha this time?

You tell me adobo. : ) )

QC's 8 groups of 4 players bo3, double elimination
DH's 4 groups of 8 players bo5, single elimination

It should be mentioned that only half the player went to the playoffs at DH while all of them went at QC.

I think I prefer DH's method. QC's was original but it really is too static for playoff seeding. If a player in the last group happened to be severely underestimated and perform extremely well, he'd still get a super-low seed, only above the three guys he beat­. A classic group stage will let anyone get a high/low seed for the playoffs and it's better that way.

bo5 in groups is just unnecessary. There's no huge difference between 2-1 win or 3-2 win.

Top 16 to playoffs was even more unnecessary because A.1 vs B.4 is just a waste. There was only one 3-1 game with closest matchup.

Result of this dreamhack
1. extremely demanding, long, and unfruitful group games
2. short , flip flop playoffs. Tho they did finish how everyone predicted...go figure. I feel like dahang and evil could spice up the lower bracket with great potential.

My pick would be same groups, BO3
Top 8 double elim, but with such large groups there can be cooller-like "didn't give a shit and lost to a noob" conundrum
or
Top 16 with bottom 8 fighting for place in 1/8, then double elim

whatever format: Make the final BO7, it just really deserves it. (7 maps in pool of course)

yeah i was so dissapointed, i was under the impression the finals were bo7 and then it ended on sinister :(

I was sitting near Rapha when the admins asked him if B07 was ok - he said he would do it if Cypher was up for it, so I'm guessing Cypher said no.

Why do the admins even ask? They fix it, period. How weird is that?

I'm guessing because when the tournament information was originally announced it was B05 all the way. And it's not normal to change the rules mid tourney ^^

I thought it was BO7... well anyway, don't know why they never do it.

DE with bo7 ending = best

double eli is always better

bo3 group stages. bo5 double elim brackets. bo7 final.

This.

I like the 8 player groups (esp. since there was so many good players so we got some nice games in the group-stages). But if bo3 group-games would allow for a DE-bracket that would be better.

bo7 final on double elim? Do you mean a potential of two sets of bo7?

yes. these guys are playing at lan for money. finals should be long and stressful

There were no mini-games b4 DH final :((

Didn't mind the groups much, but lack of DE in playoffs and BO7 in finals was :(

Mappool was big and both finalists deserved to battle it out on all of them, really wanted to see t7 and ztn :(

QC - it gave a strong start, many games between top players. And double elimination fixes unlucky seed problem.
On DH dahang played only cypher and rapha, no match vs evil, av3k or tox.

The best of 5 group stage of Dreamhack was draining to say the least, seeing 3-0 after 3-0, punctuated only by a couple of competitive games really wasn't an ideal way to start the tournament. It also made for a really poor schedule that limited what could be shown on the main stream. When you have Bo5 you have these large time slots reserved for what can potentially be 5 maps, but in reality most group stage games never go the distance in any tournament (minus the qcon format), so all it achieves is to create a scheduling nightmare.

I also like the idea of everything building up toward a final, which would mean in this case, Bo3 groups, Bo5 knockouts, Bo7 finals. This is the best case especially when you accept that the groups generally have the least competitive games, and the competition level is increasing as the tournament progresses, culminating in the ultimate test between the two best players in the final.

I do like the fact that the knockouts were just that though, actual knockouts, I don't know where double elimination crept into gaming from, but I can't stand it. The LAN tournament environment is supposed to be the ultimate test, both of game skill and mental strength, the second chance provided by double elim is such an alien concept to me, I'm sure there is at least one but, what proper competitive sport actually uses this sytem? I always feel that the grand final in a double elimination system has a strange feel to it, it's like "oh he lost but wait he gets another try because he's only lost once so far", it's absurd to me.

I think my dream tournament would be a world tour of Quake with 10 players, 10 locations, in a league format. Players play two games at each tour stop and after 18 games each the top 4 compete in a straight knockout at the final stop. When I win the lottery it will happen so stay tuned.

Bookmarked for World Tour!

As a player i think DH was the best. no matter what you get 7 matches of wether thats bo3 or bo5 i dont mind too much. but bo3 with 4 players in a group is shit, traveling all that way to potentially only play 6maps. no thanks.

Just to clarify, everyone was guaranteed at least 10 maps of play in the QuakeCon 2013 format.

Everyone got to play at least 3 matches in the group stage (your 6 maps), plus everyone got to advance to the DE playoff bracket, where they were guaranteed at least two more matches (an additional 4 maps).

I would love to see a group stage where players pick 1 map each and if it's tie they get 1 point each like in soccer, whereas when it's a 2-0, the winner gets 3 points.
And where frag/death net would also count in case of tied placements. For this to be fair forfeitting would be forbidden, you'd have to play 10 mins, and even if your opponent is winning and you have no chance to turn it around, you're still trying not to die and reduce the difference.

different maps favour different scorelines :/

Which would again add a new tactical element. Picking fast/slow maps so you can destroy your opponent even more/run from him to make it close. Which can always backfire, cause in fast maps it's easier to make frags back, etc.

sounds stupid to me. if you want to imitate real sports, maybe we should take boxing and get judges to score each map 10-9, 10-8 etc.

If you did that, take away health and make both players almost invincible (you can K.O. with a bigger hit combo in short succession). That way players just throw punches at eachother, nobody dies, then at the end of the 10 min, judges give scores.

QC's was better imo

I love DE. Giving 2nd chance... battling your way up from the losers bracket... It's much more exiting.

As a spectator, I even prefer DE, from groups + SE, but that would be terrible for the players (since some will play 2 games only)

Therefore, groups + DE is perfect imo, and if quakecon did something great, is that.

1. Third place match usually seem like a waste of time and kind of humiliating for the players imo.

2. Best of 5 was too much for groups like others said.

3. Quakecon's group stages sucked. Its not worth playing seriously and letting people learn your tactics and what your best maps are etc, just for 5th seed instead of 8th. Especially with double elimination after.

I agree on 3rd place match. You attend to win, nothing less. I never care about those matches. Sure, they look great on paper, those matchups. 2 big names clashing. But for what? A match is proportionally interesting to what's at stake.

Both players lost a game before and are quite upset about it already. I personally never liked to play 3rd place matches. It's more like "ok, I failed to win, now let me get out of here in dignity"

quakecon format was pretty much perfect imo

I enjoyed QuakeCon more.

I was only a little dissapointed that we didn't see av3k vs rapha because of the format

QC but without the stupid grand final rules