What’s the format? It says Swiss but teams are playing 3 matches. Is it a higher number swiss or a straight up group stage?
yeah but they could easily do a full 16 team swiss in 5 games not 7
after round 1:
8 (1-0)
8 (0-1)
after round 2:
4 (2-0)
8 (1-1)
4 (0-2)
after round 3:
2 (3-0)
6 (2-1)
6 (1-2)
2 (0-3)
after round 4:
1 (4-0) [qualified]
4 (3-1) [qualified]
6 (2-2)
4 (1-3) [eliminated]
1 (0-4) [eliminated]
after round 5
3 (3-2) [qualified]
3 (2-3) [eliminated]
5 rounds instead of 7
The problem with groups is they are always imbalanced. You will usually have a really strong group (group of death) or a really weak group. Then the playoffs will potentially have teams that are weaker than teams that didn't make the playoffs.
Swiss is just better because every team is on equal footing. Also a lot of these NA Challenger teams are unknown which would make it hard to group them.