« Resetting the Bracket: Pause and Reflect or RTSD? »

On Wednesday's episode 99 of Live on Three, Marcus 'djWHEAT' Graham covered a few topics relating to tournament organisers, based around presentation and education; one topic was on fighting game tournaments, specifically when one is at the point of a reset bracket in grand finals.

Marcus' argument was that when the bracket has been reset, time should be taken for the commentators to discuss what just happened, what it means and what happens now. Too often do we see players mashing rematch and the match continues without a second thought or satisfactory explanation. I agree with him, however this produces problems that must be dealt with.

For those not familiar with a 'reset bracket', Marcus is referring to the point where the player in the losers side of the bracket wins the first set of the grand final, sending the player on the winners side crashing into the losers bracket to meet his opponent on equal footing for the final set. Had the player in winners won the first set, the match would have been over, as once you lose in the losers bracket, you're out. Not everyone understands this concept clearly. I know it took me weeks to first get my head around the double elimination concept.

At majors, I agree that it is a moment to hold play and briefly discuss for the audience at large. But what about from the players' point of view? Let's take a hypothetical situation. John Doe is in winners vs John Smith in losers. Doe goes 2-0 up, but Smith manages to pull it back and reset the bracket 2-3. You could argue that momentum is seriously in Smith's favour right now, and a forced pause could give Doe time to regroup and come back stronger, or talk to a friend/team mate for advice. Maybe he is not the type of player who would take some time to regroup unprovoked. Does a forced pause here put Smith at a disadvantage? Or is it irrelevant as long as this is explained in the structure of the tournament / just before grand finals begin?

At the European Gaming League 4 grand finals for SSF4:AE, we witnessed an epic 30-minute battle between LLL/MCZ.Ryan Hart and WDM/MCZ.Louffy086. When Louffy reset the bracket, Ryan took a solid 90 seconds to reflect on the preceding 5-game bloodbath before continuing, and even then it is possible he rematched earlier than planned because Louffy was about to talk to his team mates. This gave the commentators a golden opportunity to discuss the first half of the match (and stuff their faces with biscuits) and build the viewer tension for the remainder of the match. So a predetermined break is clearly a positive addition to the tournament presentation. On this occasion we were playing to Ryan's tune, as Louffy had immediately pressed rematch (wanting to keep his momentum) so it was up to Ryan to dictate when the match would begin.

If the tournament organisers step in to allow the commentator discussion, how much time should the commentators have? How long is potentially too long? 90 seconds? Two minutes? 

 Answers on a postcard.