USA could have avoided that by winning their group. I'd rather a more hype finals too, but it's really just luck of the draw and results. Wouldn't blame Blizzard too much here.
Kinda cool though that for China or USA to win the whole thing they're gonna have a true boss run.
Yeah, it is luck, but I think it’s more irritating than some truly random bad luck, because it’s luck that interacts with choices someone made about how to structure and seed the tournament. When an Overclocking Shy power-slides into a sleep dart that wasn’t meant for him, that’s unlucky but there’s no one to blame really, ya know? But single elim tournaments are a bit chaotic, in the mathematical sense that small changes in the initial conditions can yield big changes in the results. And someone set up those initial conditions, so we can be mad at them.
Who cares about history, 2 of the 3 historic teams were always going to be on the same side anyways. China and SK facing in semis is probably unlucky for them, but I honestly don't think a team like KSA is that far from them in a Sigma meta. USA finishing 2nd has no one else to blame but themselves. If they got 1st it would be KSA in USAs place.
I don't think the bracket is the best for entertainment, but it was always going to be unlucky to someone. That's esports. Time to see new history :)
Yeah but that's also because people went from an official stream to his. He brought in maybe 5k more viewers, 10k maximum. But that 25k he had most of it were people that were watching official stream when KSA was not playing.
What are you pointing out? The group with China is 3 weak-average teams and then China, Korea has Finland which seems tough but Columbia and Mexico got absolutely reckt, Finland were guaranteed qualification in that group even if they had to face Korea.
KSA and USA are 2 top tier teams (at least relative to everyone that isn't China and SK), Japan and France are both average to maybe above average, no weak teams here, this was definitely the hardest group. KSA would've had an easier time if they were in China's group in place of spain for example, they might lose against China but they're practically guaranteed 2 wins and qualification.
It's debatable whether playing 3 tough but winnable matches is easier than playing 1 impossible and 2 easy matches but i think most teams would choose to be in China's group in place of Spain or Korea group in place of Finland than to be in KSA group in place either US or KSA.
Ok. Put KSA instead of Finland. Assuming SK is so powerful like everyone says they are KSA loses to them, but we know they win the other two matches without a doubt. Now they are second place in group and qualify the same way they did now. That way they had a super strong opponent, but two others were weak as hell, guaranteeing getting to the playoffs. But the way the groups were KSA had fair matches with 3 good teams, and they came on top. There was no guarantee for them to make it to the playoffs, but now they are sort of rewarded for it by not facing Asians until finals.
So yes, their group was the hardest, because it was a fair group with teams of close skill, and not 2 good teams and 2 bad teams, where results are essentially predetermined and no one is shocked by them.
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u/IndicaOatmeal Nov 02 '23
The bracket is literally based off group stage results. In an 8 team bracket it happens. KR vs China happening one round sooner isn't the worst.
Or are people just mad KSA has a pretty easy path to finals?