Format
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Vertical Ladder
The format being used for this LAN is a vertical group Ladder, each round you are within a group, winning will see you progress and losing will see you demoted. Throughout the day you can progress upwards and downwards in the ladder , at the end of the stage the higher you in the ladder the better your finish. The stage consists of 7 rounds for every team and a final tiebreak round for some teams to determine seed in the bracket or making playoffs. It is essential you make sure to correctly report your scores as your performance in each round will affect the successive round.
Mock Tournament Example
Below is a mock example using teams from a previous event to show how progression works. We recommend reading on to gain a better understanding but this just acts as a visual aid.
Click image to view in full
Nearly all progression between groups is dependent on whether you win or lose, however there are three special cases, they are as follows:
King of the Hill Groups (KOTH)
This is when the top group consists of only two teams. As groups cannot contain less than 2 teams, both teams will be progressing sideways , having to continue to defend their position with teams coming up from below. The King of the Hill match is to determine your seeding in the next grouping, winning the match will give you an optimal matchup in the next round to defend your position, losing will give you a less beneficial seed in the next grouping.
Seeding Matches
A seeding match is when both teams in a matchup will be getting promoted for the next round. Typically this would be by assigning random teams in the group a BYE, the approach here instead is a seeding match is instead generated and the pairings are assigned so the top seeded and top performing teams in the group have the highest likelihood of progressing. The winner of the seeding match will receive a better seed in the destination group, with the loser of the seeding match receiving a low seed.
For the teams within the group that lose and do not benefit from a seeding match, within 2 rounds given expected results they will reach the same group as the team receiving the benefit from losing a seeding match. It is also possible to attain the same final placing if a team did not benefit in a group where seeding matches were present.
There are no seeding matches that affect progression to playoffs in the second half of the stage.
Catchment Matches
This is very similar to seeding matches and is exclusive to the bottom ranked group in a given round. This is to ensure that a team isnt stranded adrift at the bottom of the tournament after receiving a loss, with both teams progressing to the group above, similarly playing for a more optimal seed.
Tiebreaks
Tiebreaks will occur for some teams after the 7 rounds have finished to determine seeding in the bracket or progression to elimination.
F.A.Q
- What is the reason for not doing Groups (Round Robin)?
Given the number of teams for this tournament, teams do not easily slot into even group values (for example, 32 teams = 4 groups of 8). This means a couple of teams would have to be appended to 2 of the 4 groups. This is something we've done in the past, but generally with a lower team count. The impact of this method results in 2 extra rounds in the schedule, a round where the odd numbered team has to play, and a round where everyone isn't playing due to it being odd. With a total of 34 teams this pushes the schedule of our group day above it's limit. If we were to run on time (something that often isn't possible given all of the issues and scenarious a BYOC open LAN brings), we'd be at 11 hours minimum, with reduced breaks. Whilst everyone wants to get their money out of an EPIC.LAN, this is an unnacceptable schedule for both player and staff wellbeing, feedback we've run face first into on previous occasions. - Why not run smaller group sizes with more groups in total?
This is something we've considered and again have run in the past, it comes with negatives we feel this format outweighs. On the topic of getting your money's worth, a smaller group would mean less games, where initial seeding matters much more, and a lesser quality of game, often stomping the opponent or getting stomped. Furthermore, a BO1 MR12 loss in this format would hamper a teams progress much more. We've attempted to alleviate some of these issues in the past by increasing the teams that progress to elimination and so on (e.g EPIC29), but you quickly fall back onto a long schedule path, a problem that event suffered from. - What is this method attempting to fix?
The primary issue as mentioned is time, unless we were to sacrifice the quality of the elimination stage (BO1's, less teams through to Elimination), we'd be locked 2 extremely taxing days, the consequences of sacrificing the latter stages is more of a bodge than a proper solution. Beyond the timing, our 2 primary requirements trialing a new format where: Maintain a good level of game time to an ideal format length (between 6-8 main tournament rounds), and maintain or improve the quality of gameplay (Not being in a group where 60% of your matches are pretty much a done deal). We believe this format achieves both of those requirements, with its game time and quality of match (you're always playing a team similar to your level). - How do I follow my progression?
In the simplest terms, the higher you are on the page each round, the better you are doing, aim to win and be in Group 1. As noted at the top of this page, there is a "mock" event to show how each round is played out. And we will also have a spreadsheet tracking each round during the event for those who want a deeper look at how they are doing. This is a tailored format for the team count at this event, and isn't a variation of other formats shoehorned in to work. Beyond that, the CS Lead Admin team will gladly aid if you have questions. - Will EPIC.LAN be showing only the top matches on official broadcast?
No. We'll be targeting a range of matches across each round for the official broadcast to cover a wider variety of skill and teams. Players that fill out our Streaming form and get approved are also of course welcome to stream their own POV, providing it is not on the official broadcast. - Will this be used in the future?
We'll see! We believe this is a good solution for players to have a good range of games, and a better quality of games. It is team count dependant, we won't run this format unless it makes sense for the team count. We value any feedback in relation to it, we hope it provided a nicer and more time appropriate experience for an event of this size and within our time constraints. Any feedback you do have please keep it constructive!