Get Rid of Play-Ins, Send All Teams Straight to Groups

kingdraeboy·Oct 9, 2018·1 votes·943 views

I'm well aware that many Wildcard regions are far beneath the major regions. But am I the only one that feels like the play-ins aren't a real part of this tournament? The only one that only tunes in when the group stage begins?

This isn't me saying that we should do away with Wildcard teams, quite the opposite in fact. They're their region's champions and have earned the right to play against the true titans of League. So why make them go over yet another arbitrary hurdle? Sure Wildcard regions are weaker but forcing them to play extra games just to make it to groups isn't going to help any.

However Wildcards in the group stage are something else entirely. David vs Goliath stories emerge. KaBum, ANX, INTZ and the like have created iconic stories and moments in League history. Everyone loves an underdog story. Locking 12 underdogs in a cage and forcing them to fight to the death until only 4 are left? Not so much.

League Worlds should run similarly to the format of the FIFA World Cup in soccer. Where even though Europe and South America (the Korea and China of soccer if you will) dominate the rest of the world each region's selected representatives go straight into the group stage, having earned the right to face the world's best. All of the regions regardless of historical results are put into the same stage of the tournament and allowed to let their PLAY sort them out.

Maybe its just me. But I don't find Play-Ins fun or worth watching. However I love watching a Wildcard team threaten to upset a major region, and seeing how ecstatic their fanbases get. I'd love to see a 24 or 32 team format still with groups of 4 but with an added round of 16 in the Knockout stage.

3 Comments

GeminiRuneOct 9, 20181 votes

I'd honestly like to know what kind of full scale format you'd propose...

kingdraeboyOct 9, 20181 votes

Like I said at the bottom of the post. 24 or 32 teams in the group stage and expanding the knockout stage to have a round of 16 teams before the quarter finals.

GeminiRuneOct 9, 20181 votes

No. I mean beyond that. How would it flow throughout the year and make sense? I mean once upon a time there existed teams that got pushed to quarters and 2 groups of 5 teams to fight for spots. For reference, that was the 2013 World Championship.

I could propose to add 4 more teams to the play in stage; 3 among the higher performing emerging regions from MSI and one from a "last chance qualifier" among 8 regions that would fill that 28th spot in a random draw tournament bracket. 3 issues with that though:

It would realistically mean that there could exist a 4th team from any major region through that LCQ; just as many opinion-driven viewers have wanted for years in the form of Korea getting a 4th seed. It may not be the way desired but hey it's still a possibility.
Production time to broadcast. In a Worlds scenario, would splitting the broadcast mean anything for this? Would Riot's Esports division have struggle with this akin to the dual-cast project done in NA LCS?
MSI would ultimately need to be changed as well to grant that reward to the emerging regions that performed well. The region leagues themselves would have to allocate for their own regional qualifier of sorts; not a problem for them in my opinion.

And all of that is just off the last couple of hours thinking about this post and then some. Anyone can just say "make it a 32 team tournament" but I rarely see anyone really putting out reasonable background to how their idea pans out.