I dislike double elimination brackets.

I hate double elim a lot for 2 reasons:

1 - It's unfair to the team that gets to the grand finals unbeaten. It sucks from their POV. Everyone gets to lose once but not us? Why are we being punished for getting to the grand finals unbeaten? And please DO NOT mention the map veto advantage or im gonna lose my shit. Everyone knows the map veto advantage barely means shit since the teams that come from the lowers actually win the grand finals at least 50% of the time if not more. Basically you are giving everyone an extra fucking life EXCEPT the best performing team on the event??? like?????????

2 - Upper bracket matches have such low stakes it makes me wanna sleep. This is not group stage anymore my guy, this is PLAYOFFS, give me a high stakes match please omg its not that hard. Im not the only one that doesnt give a shit to the uppers as well since pretty much all of the most watched games in any tournament are the lower bracket games. Not even the upper final gets a lot more views in comparison to a regular elimination game. Thats not a coincidence.

Sorry double elim pisses me off

More games = more views in total = more fun :D
I think people prefer this over a LOCK IN format

your 2 reasons contradict themselves like i cant explain it but thats how i feel

Double elim brackets are better for entertainment, no one would watch if the upper bracket winner gets a huge advantage that gives them a 90 percent chance to win.

gambusia1302 [#2]

More games = more views in total = more fun :D
I think people prefer this over a LOCK IN format

Least games = Each game is more important = Higher stakes and a lot more fun

say what you want about lock in but it was definetely the most intense VCT tournament ever

Hyxagon [#4]

Double elim brackets are better for entertainment, no one would watch if the upper bracket winner gets a huge advantage that gives them a 90 percent chance to win.

why do you enjoy watching a game thats barely worth anything so much like an upper bracket game? Why is this more entertaining than everyone having only one life i just cannot understand

Single elim is so flukey though bc you can get all the frontrunners paired against each other early on and then a team that maybe isn't the best winning it all.

Map veto is actually a strong advantage. It's just that a lot of teams choke tbh. Maybe if the upper finals winner got to choose the entire order of the maps it'd be stronger.

Veri [#5]

Least games = Each game is more important = Higher stakes and a lot more fun

say what you want about lock in but it was definetely the most intense VCT tournament ever

In a single slim bracket, the two best teams could face eachother in the first round, which means that the match that deserves to be a grand final happens early in the tournament, and the real second place team gets last place.

awful take but hey you're entitled to your preferences

Maybe for other games but not for val with how few events there are and how important the events are. If there were more events I'd agree with you. Maybe if Riot ran single elim they could do more tournaments

bees [#7]

Single elim is so flukey though bc you can get all the frontrunners paired against each other early on and then a team that maybe isn't the best winning it all.

Map veto is actually a strong advantage. It's just that a lot of teams choke tbh. Maybe if the upper finals winner got to choose the entire order of the maps it'd be stronger.

I agree that single elim is flukey bucause Valorant is a dogshit game so fluke wins are very commom, i dont know how to solve this but thats not my problem is leo faria's

i cannot agree with map vetos being a big advantage thou. Even if they are, its definetely not as big as being allowed to lose once

bees [#7]

Single elim is so flukey though bc you can get all the frontrunners paired against each other early on and then a team that maybe isn't the best winning it all.

Map veto is actually a strong advantage. It's just that a lot of teams choke tbh. Maybe if the upper finals winner got to choose the entire order of the maps it'd be stronger.

Nah if you just have a good map pool and strats you'll be fine map advantages mean literally nothing if the team from the lower bracket isn't on a fluke run

What if we had a B03/5 bracket reset like in fighting games but probably without a crowd since it just doesn't make sense

Hyxagon [#8]

In a single slim bracket, the two best teams could face eachother in the first round, which means that the match that deserves to be a grand final happens early in the tournament, and the real second place team gets last place.

why? first from each group plays the second from another group, how would this lead to the 2 best playing each other?

Double elimination brackets are made to bring out the true best teams in the tournament because imagine if in a single elimination format, the two best teams face off against each other in the first game. Wouldn't that in a way be unfair to either team since they clearly deserve to be in the grand final but couldn't because they happened to play an opponent as good as them way too early. Like imagine if Masters Shanghai playoffs were single elimination and Gen.G and Heretics faced off in the quarter finals...

Also the 2 map ban + first pick advantage is good enough for the team coming in unbeaten. It's just a massive skill issue that PRX couldn't win two grand finals with that advantage tbh

There's no way to give an upper final advantage without compromising competitive integrity. A "best of 4" would be the only other advantage outside of map vetoes, where the upper final team only has to win 2 maps and the lower final team has to win 3. Still think that's just crazy unfair but the only other way.

teams have a history of throwing map veto's so i 50% agree with you because so many teams constantly pick enemy team's best maps but by the grandfinals i agree with you it doesn't matter if u are in top 2 you most likely have a good map pool one bad map at worst but i don't think that is because of double elim i think it is because of the timing when the GF takes place it should be delayed by a day or two so the winning team gets to anti 5 out of 7 maps basically guarantees a map win or 2 with double ban and a 60% chance of winning the other 3-4 maps cause anti
going back to history of throwing map veto's i think that fucks with the win rate since objectively they have all the advantages meaning they have shown the least weakness and the least amount of free anti while the lower bracket teams have a fuck ton of pressure which gives with the loss they took free anti and from playing lowers you will get more free anti
TLDR
i think teams have stopped throwing map veto's this year since 2/3 grandfinals where won by the upper bracket teams and geng choked against sen we all agree so i count that as 2.5/3 and that is because lower bracket teams give free anti because of there loss + the pressure of lowers while upper teams have less free anti they didn't lose more than one map and there chilling because of there extra life

Veri [#14]

why? first from each group plays the second from another group, how would this lead to the 2 best playing each other?

If champs was a single elim bracket after group stage, we might have gotten TH vs EDG in the first round

Veri [#5]

Least games = Each game is more important = Higher stakes and a lot more fun

say what you want about lock in but it was definetely the most intense VCT tournament ever

The only thing intense about LOCK IN was the grand final because it was one of the best bo5 series ever

Hyxagon [#18]

If champs was a single elim bracket after group stage, we might have gotten TH vs EDG in the first round

i mean, true

Veri [#6]

why do you enjoy watching a game thats barely worth anything so much like an upper bracket game? Why is this more entertaining than everyone having only one life i just cannot understand

In both systems there’s still 7 elimination games, just with double elimination there’s more matches for the teams to play and games later in the tournament are more likely to have the best teams

Hyxagon [#8]

In a single slim bracket, the two best teams could face eachother in the first round, which means that the match that deserves to be a grand final happens early in the tournament, and the real second place team gets last place.

going by on paper stats doesn't work as seen with nrg this year lol the two best teams are the two teams who make it to the grand finals in a single bracket format

Veri [#11]

I agree that single elim is flukey bucause Valorant is a dogshit game so fluke wins are very commom, i dont know how to solve this but thats not my problem is leo faria's

i cannot agree with map vetos being a big advantage thou. Even if they are, its definetely not as big as being allowed to lose once

Bro if you think valorant is a dogshit game then stop watching instead of yapping

bees [#23]

Bro if you think valorant is a dogshit game then stop watching instead of yapping

im too deep already...

I love double elimination brackets

Finally someone who agrees with me. I still firmly believe that playoffs should be single elim if the sole purpose of the tournament is to decide a winner. For something like VCT regional playoffs it is different, I think that should be double elim.

my hot take is that the way group stages are done in tournaments is dumb af, they should just be 4-team tables with points like they do in the fifa world cup (at least for champs where there are many groups and teams.... for masters idek just the number of teams at a masters is kinda silly imo)

wouldn't change much except allow a team that has already been eliminated to potentially ruin someone's tournament by stealing a map and eliminating another team off map difference

more chaos

LycheeBlade [#27]

my hot take is that the way group stages are done in tournaments is dumb af, they should just be 4-team tables with points like they do in the fifa world cup (at least for champs where there are many groups and teams.... for masters idek just the number of teams at a masters is kinda silly imo)

wouldn't change much except allow a team that has already been eliminated to potentially ruin someone's tournament by stealing a map and eliminating another team off map difference

more chaos

Thats what im saying bro just copy the world cup format or any successful sports competition format. Football is the most popular sport in the world because of the single elim playoffs

jackb2016 [#26]

Finally someone who agrees with me. I still firmly believe that playoffs should be single elim if the sole purpose of the tournament is to decide a winner. For something like VCT regional playoffs it is different, I think that should be double elim.

Nah, with only 3 internationals a year we would hardly get any games that we actually want to watch

w take
it is not bad that two good teams face each other early in the bracket. the goal of the tournament is to find the best team. the best team should not lose. having an off-say should not be normal in the biggest competitions
that’s what the group stage is for (if done as a round-robin instead of another double elim), but in playoffs you’re not supposed to lose
every single sport has single elim brackets and nobody complains as much as vlr.gg does

I dislike single elim

why?

ascend vs gambit 2021 champions

Single eliminations is dumb and unfair.
Odds of getting two finalist teams in the same bracket and get eliminated early on is extremely likely.

LoL Worlds last year is a prime example of that. We had a shitty grand finals with T1 destroying Weibo when we all knew JDG v T1 was the real grand finals

RzqoFoxie [#32]

Single eliminations is dumb and unfair.
Odds of getting two finalist teams in the same bracket and get eliminated early on is extremely likely.

LoL Worlds last year is a prime example of that. We had a shitty grand finals with T1 destroying Weibo when we all knew JDG v T1 was the real grand finals

I agree but weibo didnt really get destroyed. it was a respectable 3:1

Paraplant [#30]

w take
it is not bad that two good teams face each other early in the bracket. the goal of the tournament is to find the best team. the best team should not lose. having an off-say should not be normal in the biggest competitions
that’s what the group stage is for (if done as a round-robin instead of another double elim), but in playoffs you’re not supposed to lose
every single sport has single elim brackets and nobody complains as much as vlr.gg does

Would you not argue that it makes the finals more boring? it produces a higher chance for a 3:0 stomp

GambleNats [#34]

Would you not argue that it makes the finals more boring? it produces a higher chance for a 3:0 stomp

but it’s not going to happen
because a team that is so shit will not go to the finals
the chances of all the good teams being in the same half of the bracket is incredibly low because of the way the bracket works: first seeds against second. there was never a tournament so far in valorant where the upper bracket final (which is equivalent to single elim final) had one very good team and one very shit team

Paraplant [#35]

but it’s not going to happen
because a team that is so shit will not go to the finals
the chances of all the good teams being in the same half of the bracket is incredibly low because of the way the bracket works: first seeds against second. there was never a tournament so far in valorant where the upper bracket final (which is equivalent to single elim final) had one very good team and one very shit team

theres been 12 events. thats nothing

W, Single elim are 10x more fun to watch

GambleNats [#36]

theres been 12 events. thats nothing

but that’s 100% so far. 4 years in a row without a single exception. if you really think double elim is better there should be more arguments for it

Double elim is way better, but you are kinda right about the part that it’s unfair to the team that gets to the grand finals unbeaten.

In a lot of fighting game tournaments they make the opponents coming from losers bracket need to win extra rounds in order to take the trophy.

For Val they could do something similar, like the losers team needs 3 maps to win but winners only need 2 maps