I wrote about this earlier as part of a larger article on the different overtime policies, but it’s time to revisit the CGS OT setup. There’s a very good for doing this: I was wrong. (My only consolation is that it’s not all my fault.)
First, a brief recap of the timeline. The overtime issue came up during the Buy.com LAN, which was in early April. They used the CGS round format: first team to 10 rounds wins, and OT is a one round sudden death. It’s a horrible, stupid policy for LANs because the overtime didn’t necessarily reward the best team. If you draw CT side on Nuke, you’re far more likely to win because the map favors that side. That’s not good.
The problem, and the reason why I was wrong, is that the CGS is a completely different beast. I had no way of knowing it at the time because the CGS didn’t announce their scoring system until June, and I wrote the article in April. (Curses! If only I had enough plutonium for my Delorean!) But basically, instead of rewarding wins and losses, the CGS implemented a point system to reward dominance. In CS, the scoring is one point per round. If you shut somebody out 10-0 (you suck, newbies!), you’ve got a 10-0 lead in the standings. A 10-9, overtime victory and a 0-10 loss to the same team doesn’t mean you’re tied in the standings at 1-1. One team is winning 19-10.
The point system completely changes the fairness of the overtime.
If the CGS used the overtime format from CAL or CEVO (6 or 10 rounds per overtime), it’d be horribly imbalanced and inherently unfair to the other teams. A simple example: there are two teams fighting for a spot in the postseason. The leading team has an 11 point advantage on the second team, but the second team has one more match to play. Let’s say their last match is against the worst team in the league, and it’s a team they’re going to blow out 10-5 or so.
Unfortunately, a 10-5 win doesn’t get them into the playoffs. They fall one point short. So the smartest thing for them to do would be to throw the match after they get 9 rounds, force overtime, and then get four more rounds (points) from a close overtime victory. I think we all see the problem there. You just can’t use the round/point system, as it is, and have two teams playing 18 rounds, and another two teams playing 24 or more.
So, upon further review, the CGS overtime isn’t as horrible as I thought. Was it still horribly stupid for the Buy.com LAN? Definitely. The LAN rewards wins, not rounds. But the league itself is going to be completely different, and I’m actually relieved that the competition won’t be compromised because of a silly overtime policy.
So relieved, in fact, that I don’t mind looking a little foolish for jumping the gun.
