Proposal Eliminating low seed tiebreak winners picking their opponent for playoffs

Trashuny

Banned deucer.
I’m not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to smogon tournaments, so if there’s misinformation, feel free to correct me, I got a lot of information from Boat and some others. For my examples I will be talking about the world cup format on smogon (that other smaller tours take from) but I extend this to any tournament with a playoffs tiebreaker that gives low seed tiebreak winners the ability to choose an opponent, including individuals if that seems like a good fit. This came up in the World Cup of 1v1, and when talking about it with several others it came up that the current ruling makes little sense.

Problem: Right now, in a 3 team tiebreak for 2 slots (round robin), the team that eventually goes 2-0 actually gets to pick their opponent from the top two seeds. In a 4 team tiebreak for 2 slots, the seeding of the two winners is determined by the points from pools. The three team one is more concerning, as it gives leverage to a tiebreak team that is seeded way lower than the top ones. This is undesirable because it gives lower seeds an unfair advantage. They get to choose their opponent after barely making playoffs, which is kind of ridiculous. In a four team tiebreak for two slots, who plays who is up to points or BD. This is less bad because it doesn’t give an outright controllable advantage to a low seeded team, but this would still be changed by my solution.

You could say that in a three team tiebreak for two slots, the 2-0 team should be the second to last seed and the 1-1 team should be the last seed. But this is actually worse, because if the #1 seed of the top two seeds is perceived to be worse, it could incentivize throwing for a 1-1, which is bad.

Solution: Instead of the teams that make it out of the tiebreaker being able to choose an opposing team to play in playoffs, the top seed(s) should. For example, in a three team tiebreak for two slots, if Team A goes 2-0, Team B goes 1-1, and Team C goes 0-2, the #1 seed should pick which of the top two teams they play. If it was five teams competing for three slots, the #1 seed would choose their opponent after the tiebreak, then the #2 seed would. This rewards teams that win more games instead of rewarding teams that barely didn’t make playoffs.
 

The Official Glyx

Banned deucer.
As the host of 1v1 World Cup, I was naturally extensively involved in the discussions surrounding the making of this thread. To sum up my side of the discussion, I was fine with what I was told is the status quo; ie tiebreak winner (2-0 team) gets to pick between the available seeds while the 1-1 team gets the remaining seed, with the 0-2 team being eliminated. The only alternative that I'd be okay with being an idea that was mentioned to randomize the seeds of the two teams to survive tiebreaks. The confusion that this may create, however, is that if Team A and Team B both beat team C before facing off against each other, then there would effectively be no reason for them to bother playing each other, as the resulting seeding would be randomized regardless of who goes 2-0 vs 1-1. In this regard, you'd essentially be playing until a team is eliminated, rather than until a team wins, which I think is rather fine, since that is the entire purpose of tiebreaks.

As it pertains to the idea of top seed privilege (ie the suggestion to have higher seeds pick their opponent), I generally don't like this as a policy, as that gives players/teams who already have an innately advantageous position, as a result of their strong performance during the prior rounds, an even bigger advantage in being able to lock in an opponent they have the advantage against, as opposed to anyone else who could have potentially ended up in the bottom seed, since it is naturally understandable that the player/team in the top seed may not necessarily be widely perceived as the "best" player/team, and so the same goes for the bottom seed. The main reason I'm alright with letting the 2-0 team in this tiebreak scenario pick between 3rd or 4th seed while the 1st and 2nd seeds get no say is because the 2-0 team was forced to play extra games with the potential of elimination on the line, while the 1st and 2nd seeds have no involvement in tiebreaks whatsoever and are safe from elimination, and as such it makes sense in my opinion that the player/team to do the best in tiebreaks gets the best unoccupied playoffs spot.

Ultimately, what broader smogtours does when it comes to rulings like this won't directly be imposed onto subforum tours like 1v1 World Cup, even if it was initially discussed there, and as such I don't really have much stake in whatever happens outside of 1v1. That said, I don't think a policy of top seed privilege is really conducive to making tournaments more fair or competitive than the existing status quo (or the alternative I mentioned), and as such shouldn't be adopted as an official ruling.
 

Amaranth

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Problem: Right now, in a 3 team tiebreak for 2 slots (round robin), the team that eventually goes 2-0 actually gets to pick their opponent from the top two seeds. [...] They get to choose their opponent after barely making playoffs, which is kind of ridiculous.
no, in an official tournament the 2-0 team would get the high seed and the 1-1 team would get the low seed - neither team has seed selection. this is a misunderstanding.

You could say that in a three team tiebreak for two slots, the 2-0 team should be the second to last seed and the 1-1 team should be the last seed. But this is actually worse, because if the #1 seed of the top two seeds is perceived to be worse, it could incentivize throwing for a 1-1, which is bad.
this is a problem and there are a bunch of issues with 3-way tiebreakers in general, where teams may have incentives to collude for seeding. unfortunately three way tiebreakers just kind of suck and the fact that the series complete asynchronously can always lead to issues like these, it's very hard to prevent

Solution: Instead of the teams that make it out of the tiebreaker being able to choose an opposing team to play in playoffs, the top seed(s) should. For example, in a three team tiebreak for two slots, if Team A goes 2-0, Team B goes 1-1, and Team C goes 0-2, the #1 seed should pick which of the top two teams they play. If it was five teams competing for three slots, the #1 seed would choose their opponent after the tiebreak, then the #2 seed would. This rewards teams that win more games instead of rewarding teams that barely didn’t make playoffs.
I don't know if this is the answer though; the team that wins the tiebreaker 2-0 should get the higher seed for a slightly better performance, and the team that finishes 1-1 should get the lower seed for a slightly worse performance. I would look towards options that bind seeding to performance rather than introducing deliberate seed selection if at all possible.

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Generally speaking I'm hesitant on seed selection as a default solution to things. "1st seed picks" becomes a nightmare whenever there's a tie for 1st and it can quickly devolve into silly situations where teams that end up being decreed as 'high seeds' get disproportionate advantages.
I do think it's a decent solution in SOME scenarios and hosts should have the freedom to apply it as they see fit - I myself used it twice throughout this ongoing WCoP - but this is only because the current tiebreaking/seeding systems in place are extremely lacking (points are bad, head to head is kind of silly, and random chance is never bad but also you'd hope there'd be something better in place).

I'm not strongly opposed to giving high seeds opponent selection advantages because there is a tendency in tours like WCoP to take your foot off the gas once you lock Top 8 and I don't love that. But any system that involves significant advantages for placing higher better make damn sure that 1st seed is always decided in ways much more meaningful than the current available options (points etc). I'm open to the idea but I'd need to see (or come up with) something very thorough and convincing.
 

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