25 Playtest Thoughts

Hey birk, sorry about the delay on talking: took most of today to get my power back for some reason 0_o anyways, when you get a chance, the one question I have about pinning down the number of cycles and players per cycle for a ladder format is: how important is time, for this playtest?

-standard number of cycles is 4, cap has done 4 cycles in the past, as well as alternative numbers (2 cycles, one longer cycle)

-players per cycle is the bigger question, as this determines the actual number of bracket rounds: CAP has done setups like top 1 from a single 2 week cycle, top 4 from cycles of 2, and non-playtest CAP ladder tours have done top 2 from 4 cycles

Top 4 gives us 16 players for 4 rounds, top 2 gives us 8 for 3 rounds (assuming we have 4 cycles)

The big issue is time, because if we want this done by XYZ date, we have to factor in there is a mandatory time of whatever number of ladder cycles we set up, plus the bracket rounds which ideally go a bit faster but availability issues always can crop up.  Bracket stage is a lot easier to manage time in especially if on a crunch.

Personal opinion, I like top 4 from 4 cycles, it hits a good mark of inclusivity (so people who don’t have as much time aren’t smothered by people like college kids on winter break) as well as gives us a good set amount of time to promote ladder and CAP 25 in general, especially because at least two of the three 25s are really good on ladder (and even Smoko can shine, just a bit more MU dependent). We would have a good amount of time to 1- have an active ladder, especially at the start and end of weeks, 2- promote ladder, direct newer players to the ladder to participate without forcing them into a more rigid and unfamiliar tour structure, and 3- build to a sort of real elite climax for top 16.  The biggest issue is “can we afford to take this amount of time for bracket and for ladder stage, do we need to fit this in between X date and Z date” which is why time and timing comes into play really heavily.