Big Take Aways in the Elite Season Part 2
Written by Niko Nodal, Edited by Tyler Greer
The biggest takeaway for me is easily the fact that in order to grab those top 4 spots in a region, your team’s best play is required on a much more consistent basis in addition to the fact that you’ll have to be able to adapt. In my opinion, this is entirely because of the change to best-of-7 (BO7) single elimination matches for bracket play.
The safety net of the loser’s bracket doesn’t exist anymore, and I think this means teams need to execute at a higher level for a longer period of the tournament to be successful. Performing well in round robin translates to a higher seed going into playoffs, which in turn makes your run in the playoffs so much easier. In short, you need to be playing well from the beginning, and taking losses early before you’re ‘warmed up’ hurt’s more. For example in the North, where we average 12–15 teams a Round, a 1st place seed means you have to win one BO7 against a lower seeded team and you’re almost guaranteed a top 4 finish.
On the other hand, one bad BO7 and you’re in a pretty big hole for the rest of the series. The best example of this is the upset of Windy City Corruption over Grand Rapids Dynasty. I don’t think anyone would argue that Corruption is the more talented team, but they were able to win because they performed at a higher level throughout the course of 7 games, and Dynasty were not able to perform as consistently. Dynasty was up 3–1 in that series, and were not able to finish. Now, Dynasty is 9th in points and basically have to win Rounds 2 and 3, while also hoping everyone else tanks.
I think best of 7s help reduce the impact that random chance events have on playoffs. It’s much harder to blame your loss in a BO7 to one random 3 person ricochet kill or one controversial call, when there were 3 other games that your team lost.
Overall, I think the change to the BO7 single elimination bracket play is a good one. It rewards more consistent, high performance play, which is what a better team should be able to do.
