A New Year, A Different ETF2L.

Date December 20, 2014

ETF2L is going Swiss, and we don’t mean we are moving into making time pieces or holey cheese! This January is going to mark the beginning of the biggest experiment the modern ETF2L has seen. We are excited to announce that we will be experimenting with the Swiss-Style tournament system. The aim of this news post is to guide you through the big changes in brief. Additionally ETF2L’s very own UnitedKingdom Permzilla will be featuring on a dedicated Fully Charged EU airing Monday the 22nd of December, where you will be able to ask any questions on the change.

What does this mean exactly? What is a Swiss System?

All teams will now be seeded into one of four different tiers. Roughly speaking, Premiership will have its very own tier; division 1&2 will combine to have its own tier as will 3&4 and 5&6. Based on 6v6 season 19 signups we have produced this example division of tiers:

  • Tier 1 (Premiership) – 8 teams
  • Tier 2 (1&2) – 32 teams
  • Tier 3 (3&4) – 72 teams
  • Tier 4 (5&6) – 184 teams

Premiership will remain relatively untouched by this change; it will still be run in a round robin style where every team will play every other team once. However the other 3 tiers will witness the bulk of the changes because not every team will face off against one another, instead your team will play a set number of games against teams with the same points or similar match records; it’s important to bear in mind you can’t play the same team twice .

The names of the tiers have not yet been decided, we are open to suggestions but were thinking of following the ESEA/CEVO trend with Premiership/Main/Intermediate/Open.

Weekly Schedule

One of the main features of the Swiss system is a stricter schedule. Therefore the week will now be divided into different segments:

  • Sunday – Thursday: All available playing days for the week.
  • Thursday 23:59: Result submission deadline.
  • Friday & Saturday: Days reserved for potential replays and/or matches where Match Complaints are involved.
  • Saturday 23:59: Fixtures created and default dates set.

The Thursday deadline is absolutely strict unless permission is granted for a replay/ match complaint by the admins. Matches without submitted results will be nullified.

The Premiership tier will also run alongside this schedule, however there will be slight differences since it continue to be run in a Round Robin format. Obviously the fixtures for all 7 weeks will be available in advance, the same as it is currently. Scheduling will run the same method for Premiership as any other tier.

How are the fixtures decided?

Fixtures will now be created by matching teams with a similar points total where possible, ignoring teams that have played each other already. This is intended to create closer matches throughout the season. Another benefit of the division tier system is that there is much less seeding to do for admins which reduced admin workload and also reduces the chance of poor seedings (which do happen).

Before the season the admins will seed the top 50% of each tier who will receive imaginary points. These imaginary points will be used in addition to any earned points in the first two weeks to create fixtures. In other words it will ensure that the matches in the first two weeks are closer while not compromising the fairness of the standings. More detail can be found here. Once imaginary points have been discarded in Week 2, fixtures will be continue to be created by matching teams with similar point totals.

In addition to this any new teams will now be added into the next available week of fixtures as soon as they sign up for the season. Instead of being added to the bottom of the pile, the new team will be given real match points from imaginary games based on a team rating given by the ETF2L team, however this will never place them in the top half of their tier and will usually be set to a low bound. It will still have a deadline of adding new teams into the season, but that is yet to be decided when.

Default Dates

Every Saturday default dates will be automatically created at the same time as fixtures. In order to accommodate this, each week a team will pick 3 days out of the possible 5 playing days (Sunday-Thursday) which they would prefer to play on. An overlapping day will then be chosen by the automatic scheduler.

Teams will also select a preferred time AND a time window in which they can start the fixture. If the preferred times match, that time will be chosen. If they do not, the time window will be looked at. If the time windows do not overlap, then a compromise will be set between the time windows. The deadline for selecting your playable days is Friday at 23:59. Thursday has been chosen as the new default date for matches with no days submitted, it was chosen as it had the highest number of ETF2L games, when ignoring Sunday.

Wildcards

An unfortunate necessity of this system is the elimination of wildcards. There are no Wildcards allowed in the Swiss-System, because in order to function it must adhere to strict deadlines. However in our opinion this minor drawback is vastly outweighed by the benefits of this new system.

Tiebreakers & Playoffs

Another by-product of the new system will be an increase in ties, particularly in the bigger tiers. To solve this issue ties will automatically be sorted within the table by round difference (rounds scored subtract rounds conceded). This applies to all ties, including ones that affect any playoff positions. Tiebreakers will therefore no longer be used.

Playoffs would now take place in all tiers . This system makes it much easier to run playoffs in all tiers, just one look at some of the playoff trees from Season 19 should make it clear.

Summary

ETF2L is excited to be able to implement this system and experiment with it. There may be some hiccups but this system offers great benefits and we believe it will create a more enjoyable league for the community. Once the system is complete we will test it internally and make sure it’s in working order, if everything goes smoothly it will be available for implementation for 6v6 Season 20.

We hope we have covered most questions regarding the details, but no doubt we will have missed something out. There will be a Fully Charged EU featuring UnitedKingdom Permzilla to answer any questions or issues regarding the planned changes on Monday 22nd December. We have created a thread here for you to ask your questions about the Swiss System. Make sure you tune in on the 22nd!

Here’s the VOD of said Fully Charged episode:

86 Comments

  1. kKaltUu: UbeR | - -chess- said:

    Wow praise allah ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ノ

    Permzilla literally saving esports and killing wildcards, best day of 2014 for me.

  2. Sepu: (Kovein) - 0fo said:

    Finally

  3. Elliott said:

    Sick

  4. bejcn: :elephant: said:

    negativity because its cool

  5. Tomu: BoyBrigade - MEGA$$ said:

    Wooh!

  6. adysky said:

    lovely

  7. Dange said:

    Best decision in 2014, looking forward to it.

  8. rockie said:

    fuk Perm

  9. Samski: Bully said:

    Looking forward to S20 :)

  10. Sideshow: (ETF2L Donator) - ft. - WiK? said:

    This looks awesome, makes me wanna play again!

  11. ash: (Legend) - :D said:

    Maybe you should step up your spy play, sideshow?

  12. Selek: Dr. med. said:

    The wiki link is broken.

    This sounds very interesting, looking forward to how it will all play out!

  13. CanFo: (Legend) - [HA] - #T4F said:

    Are most matches actually set automatically? Man, I wish I would still be admin…

    Question (I’m gonna be wasted when Permzilla is going to be at FC):

    “To solve this issue ties will automatically be sorted within the table by round difference (rounds scored subtract rounds conceded).”

    How do you treat koth_? Since you can score a difference of 5 points on 5cp maps but only a difference of 3 points on koth maps. Maybe it doesnt matter anyway, I have not put much thought into it…

  14. firej said:

    platinum gold silver steel 8)

  15. Larath: /gE/ - GoodE said:

    I love this, thanks etf2l.

  16. Jaakarhu said:

    diz gun be guud

  17. Hetzer said:

    We ranked up for nothing.

    Thanks a lot.

  18. fraac: JOHN - CENATION said:

    interesting

  19. rockie said:

    The names of the tiers have not yet been decided, we are open to suggestions but were thinking of following the ESEA/CEVO trend with Premiership/Main/Intermediate/Open.

    FailFish

  20. roban: :-) said:

    Tier 1 should be called PERMZILLA TIER dont care about others

  21. mhwk: wookie - VDOH said:

    such a bs

  22. Useless: TC.Noobas said:

    No wildcards? I don’t care what you say but this is something I like!

  23. Tearmisu said:

    Wp ETF2L. Swiss is a very good system and I’m glad to see it being implemented. The div system needs an overhaul and I am very pleased with this change.

  24. Spreijer: CONCORDIA said:

    rip

  25. robin: PRXSM said:

    What about the whitelist ? ETF2L is making a step foward into competitive and that is awesome, but how competitive would be playing with cowmangler and all the other unlocks ? What about using a whitelist with only few unlocks like it was long time ago ?

  26. gouldie said:

    no tiers just dreams

  27. 009EFF: doggo - HL said:

    Thank you. Just. Thank you :’)

  28. taube: BWB said:

    tier 1 just stays prem. No need for special names there imo

  29. skippe said:

    no please

  30. Nik: MEGA$$ said:

    Ok so… will the same system also be used in HL? Since there’s way less teams in the higher divs. (HL masterrace :^))

  31. 4hp said:

    is this system being considered for Highlander season 8 as well?

  32. Pete_: PrettyGay said:

    We literally won our div for nothing lol. But yea, looking forward to closer games in the future :)

  33. nijoonen: Gaston - 8-) said:

    So much for that tiebreaker

  34. Leagle_: + - ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡9 said:

    I’m intrigued by how this is going to turn out. Should be interesting.

  35. Xabi said:

    Does this apply to both 6vs6 and 9vs9 ? Otherwise great rules, seems promising.

  36. kane: Seagulls said:

    Why not just call Tiers Division 1, 2, 3, 4

  37. eepily: (ETF2L Donator) said:

    <3 Permzirra. Always there making video games better

  38. Spycy: TC.Express said:

    I thought that the way ETF2L was coded was an osbtacle to a such seeding system, did you manage to overpass this?

  39. Fuxx: REMOVE said:

    By that they for sure meant it was a pain in the ass to edit the system due to unoptimized spaghetti-code

  40. Herr_P: IKEA said:

    Nice!

  41. Raf: GODRAF - hlpugs said:

    Please no :(

  42. Collaide said:

    No……….. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. N

    NOOOOO

  43. akachu said:

    KILLING TF2

  44. Henghast: open - bobs said:

    damn glad 2 didnt get mixed with 3 or lower, would’ve been terrible.

  45. cmd: (ETF2L Donator) - LEGO said:

    why

  46. birdy: (ETF2L Donator) - GoodE said:

    i love this, best thing to happen to etf2l

  47. Vlijm: UbeR | said:

    Ìnteresting. Good to see you guys apply new things and test them!

  48. jay: Synergy™ said:

    #notiersjustdreams

  49. 1pt: CC said:

    Can I be an admin?

  50. jay: Synergy™ said:

    Everyone says yes

    div 3 boiz say no

    ayo B)

  51. THE_WILLY said:

    Could have kept top divisions the same, since there should not be a problem with seeding (1&2 div)

  52. TWEEKARN\: ez-sports.ru said:

    :D

  53. wonder said:

    I have good division names:
    1.Gryffindor
    2.Slytherin
    3.Ravenclaw
    4.Hufflepuff

  54. zoob said:

    Difference between getting into Div 1 or Div 2 was brutal before, I like this more.

  55. dias: ANIMA said:

    Premiership/Main/Intermediate/Open.
    Please NO!

    Tell it Tier1-4 … much better

  56. JoeTea said:

    Sounds really nice, glad to see this came to fruition :D

  57. kpopfan69: GADOU said:

    nice

  58. T0m: (ETF2L Donator) said:

    http://www.quickmeme.com/img/8f/8fc47e57da13b3cdb9443d6714c79d3c2270640a6290c8938ead73c1cd99b8b3.jpg

  59. DamnEasy said:

    amazing

  60. konr said:

    I’m actually pretty happy about this because now this means that even if my team sucks for a while in preseason we still are in the same div as div 1 and have the opportunity to then improve during the season. Good shit fellas.

  61. .Constantine: (ETF2L Tomator) - (ノಠOಠ)ノ said:

    Maybe name the tiers as simple as low-mid-high+premiership?

    Could be interesting anyway

  62. almightybob: .ps said:

    > The names of the tiers have not yet been decided, we are open to suggestions but were thinking of following the ESEA/CEVO trend with Premiership/Main/Intermediate/Open.

    Who is it on the ETF2L staff with such a raging boner for NA? Please stop.

  63. Ziggy Stardust said:

    Should definitely keep Premiership as the top tier name

  64. smziii: (Legendary Ratehacks) - SVIFT said:

    who cares about the system where is the money perm Kappa

  65. Alycidon said:

    I always felt an overhaul was needed. This is a blessing to me <3

  66. b33p: (ETF2L Donator) - -st- said:

    tl;dr UGC was right all along

  67. Klefsas: DTown - WASP said:

    Cool cos of playoffs (i hope), bad cos div 1 it`s not div 2 and now we will have lots of no-names in “main” division next to good teams.

  68. mynkya said:

    I completely forgot hearing about this, sounds like it will be an awesome way to efficiently do games

  69. AB said:

    yay

  70. Bob Bami said:

    sick

  71. Turbo: -ƒ$-BLAH - sniper said:

    bring back mid-

  72. Herr_P: IKEA said:

    “6v6 low- off TEAMS ONLY” paradise is making a comeback

  73. stuntz said:

    best idea ever :D

  74. Gubbins: OpFor said:

    The skill system of low/mid/high could be making a comeback which would be fantastic. After years of weighted divs (all good teams stacked in 1 div), I think this system could be a great and refreshing change of pace for etf2l that, along with the new site, will prompt a few more brave changes from an obviously different species of head admin to what I am used to.

    Personally I love the idea of low/mid/high/prem as a name. Not only for nostalgia’s sake but also the ease with which searching for games of a specific skill level used to be. While possibly unimaginative, it is honestly just a name and I haven’t seen anyone complain for the last 6/7 years about the divisions being numbered.

    Best of luck to everyone and make sure to give it a try before commenting on the system and make sure to get a few backups on the roster because relying on wildcards is a thing of the past. Best of luck to all teams and ETF2L in general.

  75. Admirable: (Toucan Ambassador) said:

    #20believe

  76. maxxx.lfc: ⇗upp⇙ said:

    Bad idea. Just do swiss for d3-6 and leave prem, 1, 2 divisions alone.

  77. Sabesaroo: SMFC - COGU said:

    Why not just Prem/1/2/3? Why do you have to change the names?

  78. IsseiD said:

    Prem, Mid, Low, French

  79. vøid said:

    More like Prem, 1, mid, low, French

    cause really div 1 and 2 are day and night sometimes

  80. wonder said:

    Prem, High, Mid, Low

  81. Kemor said:

    etf2l is world of tanks now Kappa

  82. Lazybear: MUUQ - itsallgood said:

    Could always keep the name at Prem to Tier 4. Kinda reminds me of Quake.

  83. Donut: 'Ere said:

    Oh well, to be honest, i am so proud of my team being able to step it up to div5 and that’s not gonna be the case anymore :D However i think this will make the season a lot more interesting. Everything has to keep moving 

  84. baum said:

    if i wanted to do everything like the americans i wouldve moved to the USA…
    whats next… a minimum 5 BigMacs before a game?

  85. tteh-t said:

    Premiership (or Tier 1) to Tier 4 would be as simple as it gets thanks to good old numbers.

  86. Milan: exo. - MEG! said:

    Holly shit the gaps between and inside these tiers…