What does everyone prefer, The group stage and playoff format of EMEA/AMER/CN or the full bracket double elim style of APAC?
With that thing every place count, so lot of hype, some round robin game can become the equivalent of a semifinal so it's good.
But I don't know why people get mad about playoff doesn't have a double elim format, (Even if technically once in final you don't have a 2nd chance even if you didn't have lost your first chance yet)
Hmmm I think you are right, CS fan are use for doble elim because they are no such concept as "regular season" so that conditioned them to think that everything that isnt a double bracket is heresy.
But in Val, we have plenty of group stage for structural reason (Because we have league and tier system we cant make like in CS some open qualifier that make ussure that we will have a power of 2 number of team) we need to have a regular season, and regular season plus making everyone go to winner bracket just unhype the regular season
It depends on the number of teams. CN is my favourite just because of how optimal it is (there's a reason we use it at Masters), but it only works because they've got 8 teams.
For 6 teams the Americas format works well, as it pits everyone against everyone to decide who makes playoffs to ensure the 4 best teams make it through.
As for 10 teams, I much prefer EMEA's format over Pacific's. Even with how weird the tiebreaker rules are, it's still a lot better than a straight double elimination bracket where 6 teams get byes and if you lose 2 games you go home.