So recently in an interview FNS mentioned that the 1st place playoff confirmed was complete BS and even if Optic got it they'd still be pretty unhappy. 4 games into the playoffs, the top seeds from NA and SEA, the two teams being the Guard and Paper Rex, are already in the lower bracket where they played each other and only one of them won, the winner was Paper Rex.
Now, this being Guard's first LAN, we can make an exception as they lack experience on LAN, but I think FNS was right. If teams were given an opportunity to battle it out against each other in groups instead of getting a free ticket to playoffs, newer teams could have gained experience and gotten used to or readjusted to the LAN environment, instead of going into their first ever LAN or a LAN tournament in a while with a blind eye, sure the teams do scrim each other but I doubt they use an offline server for that. Anyways that's just my take on what FNS said and it probably being a reason for the Guard's premature elimination. What do you think? Comment your thoughts below.
Edit: Do you guys think the Val esports organizers should adopt a Round-Robin format tournament for non-riot events or even riot events in the future? To me it seems like the best format for most Esports in general and using a points system like the Six Invitational 2022 might just be great as well. The SI 2022 format also had teams placed 1st from groups advance into the 2nd round of playoffs automatically where as the 2nd and 3rd would have to play in the 1st round and the 4th seeded teams would go into the lower bracket