CAL Predictions: Season 9 PT, Round 3
[Note: This introduction was written before the bracket was altered. This is the updated bracket, but I’m leaving the article intact because I think the point remains the same, even though the specific situation isn’t applicable anymore.]
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time on Earth, it’s that people will always complain. Benjamin Franklin said that Death and Taxes were the only two constants in the world. I think Benjamin Franklin might have been deaf. If he had working ears, surely he would have heard all the complaining going on around him. If people aren’t complaining about taxes, they’re complaining about death. And if both of those aren’t mentioned, you can be sure they’re complaining about wives, husbands, food, neighbors, dogs, cars, trains, planes, or the po-po. There’s always something.
Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised when I read a forum thread complaining about the placement tournament. People looked at the matchups in the lower bracket and deemed “American eXpress” and “Make You say late” as unworthy for Invite compared to the other teams that might get eliminated. The problem is that they’re playing each other, and unless somebody wishes upon a star while I sleep tonight, one of them has to make it to the Big Show, over those more “worthy” teams.
The posters offered reseeding as a solution to the problem. Reseeding would, theoretically, ensure that the high seeds play the low seeds, and thus the best teams make Invite. Sports fans will remember the reseeding debate from the NBA playoffs, and I’m sure that was part of the reason why it was mentioned; it’s fresh in our memories.
The problem with reseeding is that the argument for using it isn’t a competitive one.
The whole reseeding debacle in the NBA playoffs was an entertainment issue. Nobody denied that the best team made it to the Finals (or if they did, it wasn’t due to seeding), they just complained that the best teams met too early. The idea is that the high seeds don’t play each other too early, because that would be a more exciting match-up than the winner playing a lower seed in the next round.
I don’t think it’s any better for the placement tournament. Reseeding is actually unfairly stacked, in this case. The top teams always get to play the worst seeds, and the worst seeds always play the best seed remaining. Isn’t the whole point of the tournament to put everybody on equal footing and see who comes out on top? We want the eight best teams to advance, and to do that we need to level the playing field. Reseeding, to me, seems to guarantee that the low seeds have an uphill climb, and the high seeds have a walk in the park.
If you look at the bracket for this PT, how much of a difference would it actually make, anyway? It’s too messy to go back and reseed the whole thing and try to predict the winners, so let’s just reseed the last eight teams accordingly. Right now, we have:
Cyber Phenom vs. inRage
Legerity vs. Unheardof
American eXpress vs. Make You say Late
Old School Gamers vs. Nous Sommes Francophones
Reseeding would give us this:
Cyber Phenom vs. Nous Sommes Francophones
Legerity vs. Old School Gamers
Unheardof vs. inRage
American eXpress vs. Make You say late
So, from what I can tell, CP and Legerity get a little bit of an easier matchup, Unheardof gets a harder match, and we still have AmeX playing mysL.
If we really want an even Placement Tournament, you’d need every team to play every other team on every map. Then we’d ensure, over the course of about 30 weeks, which teams are most deserving. And at the end of those 30 weeks, we’d promptly ask for that portion of our lives back to spend on more useful things.
In some ways, the placement tournament is more of a process, anyway. The good teams will rise to the top eventually, and the teams that need to be replaced will be. The two biggest “snubs” I can remember from last season were Unheardof and itasamassacre. IAM got moved up during the season, and they’re back in Invite now, and Unheardof is one match away from getting there.
None of this is means the system we have is perfect. It’s not, and I’m sure there are be ways to improve it. But I’m not convinced reseeding is even part of the answer.
Round 3 Predictions (de_nuke)
Featured Match
American eXpress vs. Cyber Phenom – I’m not sure what the big deal is concerning American eXpress, as mentioned above. They’re seeded 9th, and they finished 4th in the Main Playoffs. If you’re making an argument they’re not as good as an eliminated team, fine. But if you look at the results, I think there’s an equally strong argument that they do belong.
That being said, I don’t think they’re going to make it this season. Cyber Phenom looked strong against GameFrog, and Nuke is just as CT-sided as Inferno. CP had no problems shutting down CT side in their last match, and I’d be surprised if they couldn’t do the same thing again. They had up to three AWPers on that Inferno match, and Nuke lends itself to a similar setup; one AWP outside, one AWP at ramp, and one floating between ramp and upper. It wouldn’t surprise me to see at least two AWPs for CP on defense.
I hope AmeX was watching the Inferno match, because I think they could learn a lot from it. GameFrog had two successful strategies: mixing the pace, and picking. After a couple slow strats that didn’t go anywhere, they put a lot of pressure on the AWPs through rushes and fast strats. It seemed to take CP by surprise the first couple rounds, and it at least got a bomb plant if not a round win. Same thing with the picking; jaywizzle got a couple nice picks on banana that resulted in decent rounds for the Froggers.
Nuke lends itself to the same ideas. AmeX could pick ramp or outside, or use a quick top rush to make the AWPers rotate. Rotating with an AWP is never fun when the other team is already setup and hiding, it’s like a scene from Caddyshack where Bill Murray is futilely trying to uproot the groundhog.
Unfortunately for AmeX, the rotation times on Nuke are a lot faster. There isn’t much time to plant and hide. You’re lucky if you can do one, but usually not both before you’re already being counter-flashed and a coordinated CT team is retaking the site.
In the end, Cyber Phenom will get the berth in Invite. Knowing how to win and executing are two different things, and I think CP is just a stronger team.
CP > AmeX 13-9
Old School Gamers vs. Nous Sommes Francophones – These guys met in the Main playoffs with OSG pulling out a 16-13 win. That earned them the privilege of being destroyed 4-16 by inRage. What map did they play on? Nuke. I’m not going to say that OSG is weak on Nuke just from the results of one match, but I think it certainly raises the possibility, even though inRage probably started on CT side.
Switching gears, nsF has had an interesting PT so far. They walloped TRU in the opening round, avenging their loss in the Season 8 PT. Then they got destroyed by eMg on the heavily CT-sided Inferno, 6-13. With both teams struggling on CT-sided maps and their results in Main, it looks like they’ll have a close match.
I’d love to pick nsF, they’re great guys, and I think they’ve improved from last season, but I’m going to go with OSG here. It’s hard to pick against them when they’ve already beaten the team they’re playing and their opponent just lost a big match, while OSG won 13-5. If you’re interested in watching how the match goes (or laughing at how bad my prediction ends up being), they’ll announce the SourceTV info in #OSG on GameSurge shortly before their 10:00 Eastern Time start.
OSG > nsF 13-11
Unheardof vs. Make You say late – Make You say late suffered a huge loss to itasamassacre, losing 4-13. That’s not pretty, and even with Remix on the roster, I think Unheardof is going to take the match. They beat American eXpress 13-8 in the first round, and AmeX is ranked very closely to mysL and beat them 16-14 in the Main playoffs. It seems like they’re pretty close in terms of skill.
Remix didn’t play a big factor in the Inferno match, but there’s always the chance that he’ll drop 30 in a match. mysL isn’t out of it yet, but the recent matches point to Unheardof.
? > mysL 13-10
And tonight’s LANDodger Prediction Lottery winners are … six (good luck to all teams), one (the predicted winners winning), and two (predicted losers proving me wrong).
