The Official SMITE Magazine eSports Edition | Page 24

teams and the tournament structure
afterwards. This streamlines the
brackets, but limits the amount
of possible matchups, which in
turn could make the tournament
less entertaining to watch.

BRACKET TYPES
Okay! On to the bracket types
themselves. There’s a clear
preference for brackets in eSports in
general, and the most popular ones
are single and double-elimination,
sometimes with a Round Robin
preliminary round to determine
seeding. These different types can
be mixed and matched at various
stages during the tournament for
the most entertaining and enjoyable
experience for the viewers.
The first one is the singleelimination bracket. These are the
simplest brackets available, and as
such the easiest to read. The teams
are matched up according to their
seeding or at random, depending on
whether there was a Round Robin or
season preceding the tournament.
In each match two teams duke it
out, and the loser is eliminated
from the tournament. To lessen
the effect of chance, the games
24 • Contents

are often played in a Bo3 or higher
format. This extends the matches,
but reduces the effect of a bad game
or unlucky draft and allows teams
to recuperate and come back.
Single-elimination is a clean
structure and allows for longer
matches, and possibly more
interesting fights, due to the low
number of games played. Due to
the increased number of games
played in a match, teams aren’t
punished as hard for a bad game, but
a bad match sees them immediately
removed. This unrelenting nature
punishes the teams more, as a bad
matchup destroys their chances

“

top) and a losers (or bottom) bracket
after the first round, requiring two
losses to be eliminated from the
tournament: one loss in the winners
bracket, and one in the losers
bracket. Each round in the winners
bracket has the losing team drop to
the next round in the losers bracket.
A loss in the losers bracket means
elimination from the tournament.
This double-elimination structure
removes the immediate threat of
being eliminated from the tournament
in a single bad matchup, freeing
the players from the associated
pressure. It also allows for an
underdog matched against the top

This unrelenting nature
punishes the teams more, as a
bad matchup destroys their
chances at the grand prize.
at the grand prize. The variety in
matchups is also very limited, as
the teams are eliminated quicker
than in other structures.
A slightly more complex variance
on the single-elimination bracket is
the double-elimination bracket. This
bracket type divides into a winners (or

”

team in the first round to fight back
up through the ranks to face them
again, re-enacting the epic tale of
David and Goliath. It does require
a lot more matches to be played,
almost doubling the number, and as
a result they need to be a lot shorter
to fit in the allotted time. The earlier
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