Ladle 125 - May 2nd, 2021

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Cadillac_
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Ladle 125 - May 2nd, 2021

Post by Cadillac_ »

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syllabear
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Re: Ladle 125 - May 2nd, 2021

Post by syllabear »

Thanks Cadi!

Get hype
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Re: Ladle 125 - May 2nd, 2021

Post by syllabear »

Power Rankings

A continuation of my pre-ladle Power Rankings, previous ones (from ladle 123) can be found here

Anyone who keeps up with these or simply has a keen eye will see that there were no predictions for ladle 124 - this is simply as a consequence of too many of the players being under alias, as well as last minute sign-ups making power rankings difficult.

This time around we have 5 teams, all of which were present in some form for the past two ladles. Starting in reverse order, with comparisons made to their power ranking spots from ladle 123:

5. Bikini Bears (no change)
This team is an amalgamation of players from both the Bikini Bears and Open Team from ladle 123. A similar roster played under the name équipe ouverte last time around, and now they're back under the other name. There is certainly some quality to this team, but equally a large amount of uncertainty on who will show up and how they will play. Do they have positions sorted or will this be agreed on the day? Who is calling the shots? I am aware they used voice chat last time around which is critical for coordination, but despite this I cannot see them putting up much of a challenge for any of the other teams

4. Team .uNknown (no change)
Three ladles in to their rebrand from Pandora's box, and Team .uNknown have certainly been one of the more impressive teams - as far as I am concerned - in this time. Despite not pulling off any stunning upsets, I think it can be widely agreed they have largely outperformed what was expected of them with the players they have. This just shows the importance of coordination and teamwork, and I think they do deserve a lot of credit for this. Despite this, I think there is currently a bit of a lull in the fortress scene at the moment, which uNknown have not been immune to. Without considerable regular practice or roster changes, I can't expect them to improve further

3. Paradigm (no change)
Paradigm played an amazing ladle 123, making it to the finals at the expense of Twi×ted arrows and putting up an excellent fight before eventually succumbing to the Gangsters. The question at the time was whether the current two-horse race paradigm would be broken by... well Paradigm. Unfortunately for them, they were unable to repeat their brilliance last time in 124, losing in straight matches to We Love Ashitaka (formerly Gangsters) and Dream Team (mostly Twi×ted arrows players). Even worse, I have heard they potentially have some roster issues this time around, with some uncertainty as to whether they will even be able to field a full team. Rather than looking above, they might need to be watching behind as to whether Team .uNknown might pip them to third.

2. Team Alias (formerly We Love Ashitaka, formerly Gangsters; -1 from two months ago)
Ah finally a team name I can get behind for this group of cads! They finally achieved their breakthrough in ladle 123. Although technically they didn't beat their main rivals on the day (their swiss round match-up against Twi×ted arrows ended 1-1) they remained undefeated and edged out a Paradigm team that was firing on all cylinders in the finals. The logical question following this win was therefore - can they retain their title? Now this is where things get a little complicated from a technical standpoint - there was a slight mixing of teams here (beyond the obvious name changes). Deso and olive ended up filling in slots on the spiritual successor to Gangsters, but with so many swaps and substitutions on these two sides it is hard to say whether this was truly a rematch. Either way, we have a return to previous order this time around - but I don't see Team Alias having the motivation or stamina to win back the title.

1. Twi×ted arrows (+1 from two months ago)
I predicted that Twi×ted arrows would not win ladle 123. What I didn't predict was that they wouldn't even make the finals. Although they remained undefeated on the day, draws against Gangsters and Paradigm, as well as a less rewarding bye meant they didn't make the finals for only the second time since the team's revival in ladle 114. It can be argued that they came back strongly in 124 under the name Dream Team, but with various substitutions and a different name, was it truly Twi×ted arrows? Well things are very clear this time around. With a classic line-up of Txa stalwarts, there is no question they are out to win today and remind everyone why they are considered one of the strongest teams in ladle history.
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sinewav
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Re: Ladle 125 - May 2nd, 2021

Post by sinewav »

Yo, link to the stream!

https://www.twitch.tv/screallly
syllabear
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Re: Ladle 125 - May 2nd, 2021

Post by syllabear »

Few issues to discuss post-ladle, though potentially one issue could resolve the other.

Firstly is the issue of the actual tournament structure. The last two ladles have been three swiss rounds of two matches each (traditional, first to 100 matches). A win is worth 1 point, a draw 0.5 per team and a loss is no points. If there are an odd number of teams, then challonge determines one team to get a bye each round. I have been setting the value of the bye to 0.7 (this value will be addressed in the second issue, see below).

The benefits to this system - more matches played overall than the previous elimination tournament, especially with fewer teams (we have been having mostly 4-7 teams per ladle). It also somewhat sticks to fortress tradition of 100 point matches. It finishes at a reasonable time.

Some other options that have been suggested in the discord include:

Same as above but with 4 swiss rounds.
Pros - people get to play more matches; finals positions are more accurate.
Cons - longer tournament (3 rounds+finals already finished at 21:30 GMT)

Swiss round with one match that is slightly longer e.g. first to 150 points
Pros - people get to play a wider variety of opponents
Cons - time taken swapping servers and getting ready increases proportionally to game time; loss of historic 100 point matches; no draws (I personally enjoy the fact teams can currently draw in the swiss round)

Single match swiss rounds to determine semi-final spots
Pros - people get to play a wider variety of opponents; return to elimination type format which is more traditional (and exciting?)
Cons - time taken swapping servers and getting ready increases proportionally to game time; longer tournament; playing swiss round to narrow the teams from 5/6 to 4 is rediculous

==================================================================

The second issue may depend on the outcome of how we structure ladle going forward. If we stick to a swiss tournament that uses byes then we need to determine the value of the bye. Currently I use 0.7. This is because at one point I read the arguments for each of the values, and 0.7 seemed to make the most sense to me at the time. However that was months ago and I can't remember why I picked it.

Other options include 0.5 (same as a draw) and 1.0 (same as a win).

It is of course important to know why challonge allocates a team to play a bye. Currently it gives the worst current team the bye. The first bye is determined by the order of teams entered (currently this is randomised, but technically we should be seeding teams when we use challonge - though it would mean the weakest seeded team misses the first round every time).

In this ladle, Paradigm were "seeded" 5th so they got a bye first round. Unknown were seeded 4th so despite both them and BB losing their first round matches, because Unknown started at 4th seed, they got the second bye.
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Titanoboa
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Re: Ladle 125 - May 2nd, 2021

Post by Titanoboa »

I'll just drop by and say that a while ago I sat down a few hours to see whether a 3 round swiss would suffice to pick out the best 2 out of 5 teams, and it doesn't. If you play 3 rounds of swiss with 5 teams the 2nd and 3rd teams will be tied in many scenarios, so you may as well schedule the tiebreaker ahead of time. This is with 1 point byes (please note: 0.7 point byes make absolutely no sense while pairings (read: byes) are random as there's a clear and unfair disadvantage for the teams with a bye). I don't recommend 3 round swiss for a 5 team tournament (for the purpose of finding 2 finalists).
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Re: Ladle 125 - May 2nd, 2021

Post by Z-Man »

Titanoboa wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 12:48 pm I'll just drop by and say that a while ago I sat down a few hours to see whether a 3 round swiss would suffice to pick out the best 2 out of 5 teams, and it doesn't.
Devil's advocate here: it does not have to pick the best 2; that the best team makes it to the final is enough to make it meaningful (assuming, as per usual, that team performance is stable and the best team always wins). For that, two swiss rounds suffice for 8 teams or less, with the obvious disadvantage that the outcome degenerates to that of plain old knockout. So play as many rounds as, well, you WANT to play :)

Recordings for 0.2.9.1.0:
round1_deli_bears_vs_alias.aarec 11616kb 1244s
round1_part1_sylla_txa_vs_unk.aarec 16392kb 1423s
round1_part2_dny_txa_vs_unk.aarec 9004kb 845s

round2_deli_alias_vs_txa.aarec 31864kb 2557s
round2_dny_para_vs_bears.aarec 16288kb 1903s
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Titanoboa
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Re: Ladle 125 - May 2nd, 2021

Post by Titanoboa »

Z-Man wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 9:22 pm
Titanoboa wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 12:48 pm I'll just drop by and say that a while ago I sat down a few hours to see whether a 3 round swiss would suffice to pick out the best 2 out of 5 teams, and it doesn't.
Devil's advocate here: it does not have to pick the best 2; that the best team makes it to the final is enough to make it meaningful.
That's a fair point!
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