I apparently have not have enough dabbling in the theoretical, so I’m going to take it up a level, and start dissecting tournament designs.
Dimensions of Tournament Design
Match Wins: Best of N
Schedule: Single-day, Weekly
Pool Play: Swiss, Round Robin, None
Elimination Play: Single Elim, Double Elim
Cast: Full Cast, Limited Cast
Who Counterpicks: Winner, Loser, Winner’s Choice, Loser’s Choice
Counterpick Options: Stable, Available Cast, Random
Timer: Fast, Medium, Slow, None
Who Can Play: Open, Invitation
Existing Tournaments, Dissected
IYL:
Match Wins: Best of 5/Best of 7
Schedule: Weekly
Pool Play: Round Robin
Elimination Play: Single Elim
Cast: Full Cast
Who Counterpicks: Loser
Counterpick Options: Available Cast
Timer: Medium
Who Can Play: Open
19XX:
Match Wins: Best of 7
Schedule: Weekly
Pool Play: None
Elimination Play: Double Elim
Cast: Limited Cast
Who Counterpicks: Loser
Counterpick Options: Available Cast
Timer: Medium
Who Can Play: Open
Lum’s Lucky Lottery
Match Wins: Best of 7
Schedule: Weekly
Pool Play: None
Elimination Play: Double Elim
Cast: Full Cast
Who Counterpicks: Loser’s Choice
Counterpick Options: Random
Timer: Medium
Who Can Play: Open
NFTT
Match Wins: Best of 3
Schedule: Single-day
Pool Play: None
Elimination Play: Double Elim
Cast: Full Cast
Who Counterpicks: Loser
Counterpick Options: Available Cast
Timer: Fast
Who Can Play: Open
Summer Smash
Match Wins: Best of 7
Schedule: Weekly
Pool Play: None
Elimination Play: Double Elim
Cast: Full Cast
Who Counterpicks: Loser
Counterpick Options: Available Cast
Timer: Medium
Who Can Play: Open
Discussion
Of the tournaments that have been run recently, it appears that each deviates from a “standard” format in one (or maybe 2 related) dimensions.
Questions:
- Historically, are there other tournaments that should be dissected this way (I suspect yes, but I wasn’t around, so I don’t know the details).
- Are there any dimensions that have obviously bad options in them (like, Winner counterpicks, which likely makes the match even more lopsided?)
- Are there dimensions of tournaments that I’ve missed, that either have been experimented with before, or that should be?
- Can we come up with any more interesting tournament variations by selecting different subsets of these options?