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Remembering quarter finals at Worlds and realizing why BO1 > BO3 for regular season.

Johr Dinh·8/29/2017, 7:23:19 PM·1 votes·774 views

Group stages at Worlds is always so much fun regardless of who's playing. You get 1 game at a time so even the lower tier teams have a chance to upset, higher chance of crazy clown fiesta games and backdoors, etc. With quarter finals at Worlds tho you can usually call who's gonna win almost every time, and it ends up being kind of a grindy experience since teams can play slower and just pace themselves for the easy 3-0 if they're that much better. It almost leaves people not wanting to tune into certain series at all, or checking out early after a game or two.

I feel like this is basically the same experience I get from BO1 vs BO3 in NALCS regular season now. BO1 I always watched all the games from any teams cuz even the worst case scenarios could lead to something exciting happening, whereas BO3 I watch my favorite teams but a lot of the series the outcome is pretty expected since as they say, "BO3 and BO5 is a better indicator of who the better team is in the end" which is great for competitive integrity but horrible for viewership and excitement.

I think regular season should go back to BO1s but just have 3-5 games against each team instead of 2 BO3s. The better team should still win more games but it'd make those games a lot less dull than a 2-0 blowout or a worse team winning 1 game and having it feel like it means less when they lose the series. At least if they win 1 they can enjoy it more in that moment, as can their fans. Plus I can watch and keep up more with the bottom teams since it's less difficult watching them get rekt for 1 game instead of 2 in a row lol.

Plus, idk I remember some pretty crazy BO1 games from back in the day but I couldn't tell you one regular season BO3 that stands out for me besides the TSM vs P1 game last summer, and that was just cuz the crazy rengar pick and TSM being undefeated with all that hype on the line.

7 Comments

BigBellBrute8/29/2017, 8:28:43 PM1 votes

How bout instead of a best of three we just play two games and count by games rather than matches? Also for each set, a team must play the red side once and the blue side once. We're not counting matches so there would be no ties. Baseball does it that way. They don't count series wins. They only count games.

III BAKURYU III 8/29/2017, 9:43:49 PM1 votes

That's really the point, NA/Western teams/regions but mainly NA, are trying to catch up to LCK's level. Can't do that with " crazy clown fiestas" or "luck". If NA want's to get on LCK level, they need more games at the competitive level and less about fiestas and more about grinding, as LCK players play around 50% more games than any NA player in solo Q. So in a way, the LCS is NA's solo Q to some degree. I will agree the group stage is really the best part about Worlds, so is in any sport, as it does involve the " unexpected" by say the NBA with 16 total teams #4 vs #5 seeds and NFL with the "Wildcard" teams/1st round, but after those games for the most part it goes back in favor to the better teams.

I understand the argument but looking at it on the other side of the fence, players asked for the "best of" not Riot themselves, the players saw LCK doing it for like 3 more years and figured "hmm, well LCK have been doing the "best of" should we" ?

ChompyWulf8/30/2017, 12:48:32 AM1 votes

While I don't exactly think the Best of 3 is the greatest format, it is far better than best of 1.

What might be best is to keep a Best of 3, but alter the results to a point based system to have a lot more flex. Lost a series but won a game? You got some points. A team wins 2-0, but three of the ten champs played were used both games. There's a small penalty for that. Finish in under 25 minutes, you got a bonus. Game drags past 45 minutes, losing team gets a bonus for hanging in there so long. A player or organization violates rules or conduct? Not just a cash fine anymore, points lost too.

It might sound a bit messy, but could make games and series far more interesting.