First-to-10 exhibitions are awesome — and we should do more of them
In the past couple of weeks, there have been a couple of legendary first-to-10 exhibition matches from the Street Fighter and Dragon Ball FigherZ scenes. The first was Daigo vs Tokido, and the second was SonicFox vs Go1 (plus a rematch). These matches were a great way to gauge the difference in skill between each competitor AND serve as a continuation to hype storylines.
If you look at Smash, however, first-to-ten exhibition matches haven’t really been a thing recently. We’ve had Salty Suites — money matches between two players with some form of rivalry, with the opportunity for some trash talk beforehand. But these are typically A) best of 5 (Bo5), and B) kind of weakened these days with a lack of legitimate rivalries and trash talk.
So why would a longer exhibition match work if these shorter Salty Suites didn’t?
First-to-ten matches are better at showing player skill
A tournament bracket can be heavily luck based. People routinely have their bracket runs extended or reduced based on player and character matchups. Illness, DQs, and other factors can often muddy results. To fix this, ranking systems (e.g., MIOM and PGR) take multiple results into account over a set period of time. Even still, these ranking systems can only get so close to showing “skill.”
In addition, most tournaments start off with best of 3 (Bo3) before leading into the Bo5 bracket. This can lead to much more inconsistency, since there’s less adaptation needed in the earlier parts of a tournament. That’s one reason that TSM ZeRo (among other players) has expressed a preference for Bo5 in the past — the longer a set goes on is the more adaptation needed, and the less luck plays a factor.
A first-to-ten set takes this even further — while two instances of heavy luck mean a lot in a Bo5 (and two instances aren’t uncommon), it means very little in a first-to-ten set. More than that, as long as the character matchup (MU) is normally reasonably close, MU ratios become less important as the set becomes more about adaptation to your opponent. This way, you get a much better picture of skill.
Tournaments don’t need to rely on bracket luck for promotion
Mang0 vs Armada faced each other in every Genesis grand finals until Genesis 5 (where Plup faced Hungrybox and won the tournament). In the lead up to that, everyone sort of expected that the legacy would continue. But brackets don’t operate based on storylines, so while the Plup vs Hungrybox Grand Finals ended in memorable fashion, it could have ended much differently.
What if it was Hungrybox vs Armada again? Regardless of whether you enjoy their sets (I do), most people don’t think it’s as hype as a Mang0 vs Armada set (as long as it doesn’t go like Genesis 4). More than that, the way a top 8 bracket or Grand Finals goes affects how most people view the whole tournament.
As Hot_Bid mentioned in our conversation, most supermajors are only attractive for the top 8. Considering the amount of luck that can go into that top 8, why not take storytelling into our own hands? A first-to-ten exhibition match — or any exhibition match, really — means that a tournament will be memorable for more than its top 8. Depending on how attractive the match is, you can get much more viewers than usual outside of finals day, and attract more attention to the later days of your tournament.
I’m just saying — how many of you *wouldn’t* tune in for a first-to-ten between Mang0 and Armada during Genesis 6?
Exhibitions can build storylines in a way brackets can’t
Because of the inconsistency of brackets, certain players may never reach each other in bracket. Maybe they heavily disagree on the matchup between their characters. Maybe they’re really close in skill level, but one player consistently gets further due to bracket. There could be any number of reasons, but instead of leaving it up to the bracket to decide, we could pit them directly against each other.
2GG did this in one of the best ways with 2GGT: ZeRo Saga. After having lost to a couple handfuls of players over the years, ZeRo had to play each of them in a Bo5 set as part of “ZeRo’s Runback.” That was interesting for a number of reasons — mainly because people were excited to see if ZeRo would take everyone out, or go down early.
There are many storylines we can do this for, if we’re willing to find the genuinely interesting ones. Furthermore, they don’t have to be centered around the big 6 of Melee or ZeRo.
They’re awesome to watch
One of the most important aspects of doing an exhibition in the first place is that it’s interesting to the fans. There were so many hype moments and displays of skill contained in the first-to-ten sets of the FGC. Clippable moments, small adjustments, and genuine pride on the line — without having to rely on fake hype or toxic rivalries. First-to-ten exhibitions can show exactly why our games are awesome, on top of the other benefits they provide.
Besides, like I said… Genesis 6, Armada vs Mang0, first-to-ten. Who wouldn’t want that to happen?
