Hey!
So, 19XX is undoubfully one of the more popular tournament series here, mostly because we get a different meta of characters which is refreshing.
So in the effort of trying to keep things refreshing, I will try and present an argument for why shorter sets and possibly faster timer, could serve a similar purpose.
The carousel of Zane beating everyone outside of Troq, and Troq beating Zane so immensly hard, and Geiger being great against Troq, makes chosing a character that is disadvantaged against any of those three a tough choice to make. One does not want to pick a character into a really bad matchup.
What we see from the historical matchup chart - and, indeed, from every other created “real” matchup chart - is that every matchup is at least 3-7, if not better. To mansplain it, in a first to 10, you should get at least 3 wins in, with every character, in every matchup.
If the standard set is best of 7 or best of 5, we are then enforcing a sort of “inevitability of result”, where the factor of a characters advantage over another character is more likely to take an effect over player skill. If sets are done in best of 3, however, even the most disadvantaged matchups have a higher chance of winning, due to the inevitable results of a 3-7 matchup only being played until one of those sides have gotten 2 of their scheduled wins.
So, in summary, I believe that shorter sets are more forgiving for chosing characters that are considered “bad” in a stricktly mathematical sense, making it more up to player skill to get the wins - rather than prolonging sets to ensure an “inevitability” of having the most likely character to win. Having character picks be more forgiving could help bring a greater diversity to character representation, which in turn is better for the game in general.
As a sidenote: I also believe that fast timer makes the skill gap higher, due to the fact that making the correct decision becomes harder - again favoring better plays and players, rather than character choices. I also think that not having to commit more than 15-20 minutes to play your tournament match is likely to bring more participants to tournaments, rather than matches that last from 45 minutes to 90 minutes.
Reservations: I am not saying that there shouldn’t be a place for longer sets and medium timer, I just want to have a discussions about the potential possibilities of best of 3 and fast timer.