Before I begin, I want to make it explicitly clear that I am not suggesting that hosts seed tours based on skill. That subject has been discussed extensively, (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/improving-the-quality-of-tournaments-through-seeding.3632479/) and that system would not work well for Smogon.
Randomizing Rounds vs Seeding the Bracket
Randomizing rounds is the practice of randomly generating an opponent for each player in a round. Quoted directly from Smogon, “We tend not to use seeded brackets and instead stick with generating each round’s random pairings as the previous round finishes. This is a simple to understand method and helps to avoid scouting of known future opponents.” While this system does have the benefit of being more straightforward for hosts to use, it has two significant drawbacks, one of which can be eliminated by using seeding. Seeding serves two primary functions.
Avoiding early rematches is undoubtedly a desirable quality for a bracket. The solution is randomized seeding. By seeding the bracket, these impossible matchups would remain impossible.
Random seeding would bring the benefit outlined above while being unsubjective and keeping the actual matchups random. This is a very minimal change that would solve the problem.
This would also minimally change how tours are run, and even possibly make them easier to organize. Rather than using the bracketmaker for each round, a host would use it for R1 pairings, and use those pairings to assign seeds for the rest of the tour. From there, continue like a standard bracket (highest seed plays lowest seed, second highest plays second lowest, etc). There is no room for host manipulation either, because it would be clear if someone was assigned a seed they shouldn’t have gotten from the random pairings. Crucially, there is no need to reprogram the bracketmaker for this to work.
Randomizing Rounds vs Seeding the Bracket
Randomizing rounds is the practice of randomly generating an opponent for each player in a round. Quoted directly from Smogon, “We tend not to use seeded brackets and instead stick with generating each round’s random pairings as the previous round finishes. This is a simple to understand method and helps to avoid scouting of known future opponents.” While this system does have the benefit of being more straightforward for hosts to use, it has two significant drawbacks, one of which can be eliminated by using seeding. Seeding serves two primary functions.
- Prevents two high-skill players from meeting early in the bracket, which would result in either an early drop into Loser’s Bracket (if double-elimination), or a placing for one player that is disproportionate to their skill. Seeding would only solve this problem if seeds were decided by skill, which I address above.
- Prevents an early double-elimination. A double-elimination is when a player loses twice in a double-elimination bracket to the same player. A standard double-elimination bracket takes measures to stop this from happening. By using a system in which consecutive matches in Winner’s Bracket will alternate which branch of Loser’s Bracket a player drops into, double-eliminations typically never happen before Loser’s Semifinals. By randomizing rounds, you cannot prevent matchups that would be otherwise impossible. For example, take the following scenario. Alice beats Bob in round one of winner’s bracket, then loses to Caitlyn in round two. In any size bracket, mathematically, the earliest Alice and Bob can play again is Loser’s Semifinals, but by randomizing rounds this is not the case.
Avoiding early rematches is undoubtedly a desirable quality for a bracket. The solution is randomized seeding. By seeding the bracket, these impossible matchups would remain impossible.
Random seeding would bring the benefit outlined above while being unsubjective and keeping the actual matchups random. This is a very minimal change that would solve the problem.
This would also minimally change how tours are run, and even possibly make them easier to organize. Rather than using the bracketmaker for each round, a host would use it for R1 pairings, and use those pairings to assign seeds for the rest of the tour. From there, continue like a standard bracket (highest seed plays lowest seed, second highest plays second lowest, etc). There is no room for host manipulation either, because it would be clear if someone was assigned a seed they shouldn’t have gotten from the random pairings. Crucially, there is no need to reprogram the bracketmaker for this to work.
