Since many of the big names from the Capcom world were only in MK for the PDP money, I feel that we would be best off in the long run if we build up our own big tournaments that focus just on MK. This is exactly what every other non-Capcom game has had to do in order to survive in the US, so there is no shame in us going this route; Tekken's done it with events like Strongstyle/Trashday/TiT, Guilty Gear had its own great event in Southeast Regionals, etc. Another way to put it - rather than pining for established stars like Justin to grace us with their presence, we need to create our own stars!
So, how to do this? I already posted a bit about this and offered one tournament idea there, so please read that first:
http://testyourmight.com/forum/showthread.php?12462-Article-Mortal-Monday-3...WATCH-NOW!&p=192267&viewfull=1#post192267
For now, I'm just going to flesh out the MK9 Nationals idea that I mentioned in that post. For those not in the know, Namco's arcade division used to run national tournaments for a number of their games - basically all the big arcade fighters from Tekken Tag through Tekken 5.0. These were formatted very much like SBO, with regional qualifiers spread throughout the country and a final 32-man bracket at Nationals. However, since Soul Calibur 3 did not originally have an arcade release, Namco did not run nationals for it and the SC community took it upon themselves to organize one with essentially the same format. The same occurred with SC4, albeit with a lot more issues that I won't get into here.
Anyway, I think this general idea could be fantastic for MK9 as an official TYM tournament series (or perhaps a collab with other MK sites). With that in mind, I'll explain some more of the details of the SC nationals to give you ideas:
- All regionals and the final Nationals bracket are double-elimination, standard rules etc. etc.
- Generally, there are 8 regional qualifiers throughout the country (SC4 also had qualifiers in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, I believe). The top 4 from each regional qualify for the Nationals bracket, with those just below as possible alternates. I would highly recommend adding an extra match to separate 5th and 6th place for this.
- Often, the pot from the regional tournaments goes toward travel expenses for the qualifiers. This is not always the case but it's what I would recommend. You also need to deliver big pot bonuses and such at Nationals, of course!
- Your placing in the qualifier determines your seeding in the Nationals bracket, kinda like how Devastation top 8 worked. In the first round, 1st place finishers would play 4th place finishers and 2nd's would play 3rd's. Alternate a 1 vs. 4 matchup and a 2 vs. 3 in each spot on the bracket; have separate hats/jars/etc. with all the players in each seed and pick randomly to fill out the bracket at the event (do not predetermine which regions go where in the bracket!). I understand that this will present some issues with players in stronger regions earning lower seeds, but I still think this is far better than making the entire bracket randomly.
- The location varies, but I'm inclined to believe that somewhere in the middle of the US would be best for us given the player representation. Most importantly, we must keep this a community-run event and not hand control over to an outside organization. Again, SC4 Nationals is quite the cautionary tale here...
I'll stop it here for now since this is getting plenty long already. My next post will make the case for a 64-player Nationals instead of the traditional 32 and create a hypothetical distribution for the regionals.
So, how to do this? I already posted a bit about this and offered one tournament idea there, so please read that first:
http://testyourmight.com/forum/showthread.php?12462-Article-Mortal-Monday-3...WATCH-NOW!&p=192267&viewfull=1#post192267
For now, I'm just going to flesh out the MK9 Nationals idea that I mentioned in that post. For those not in the know, Namco's arcade division used to run national tournaments for a number of their games - basically all the big arcade fighters from Tekken Tag through Tekken 5.0. These were formatted very much like SBO, with regional qualifiers spread throughout the country and a final 32-man bracket at Nationals. However, since Soul Calibur 3 did not originally have an arcade release, Namco did not run nationals for it and the SC community took it upon themselves to organize one with essentially the same format. The same occurred with SC4, albeit with a lot more issues that I won't get into here.
Anyway, I think this general idea could be fantastic for MK9 as an official TYM tournament series (or perhaps a collab with other MK sites). With that in mind, I'll explain some more of the details of the SC nationals to give you ideas:
- All regionals and the final Nationals bracket are double-elimination, standard rules etc. etc.
- Generally, there are 8 regional qualifiers throughout the country (SC4 also had qualifiers in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, I believe). The top 4 from each regional qualify for the Nationals bracket, with those just below as possible alternates. I would highly recommend adding an extra match to separate 5th and 6th place for this.
- Often, the pot from the regional tournaments goes toward travel expenses for the qualifiers. This is not always the case but it's what I would recommend. You also need to deliver big pot bonuses and such at Nationals, of course!
- Your placing in the qualifier determines your seeding in the Nationals bracket, kinda like how Devastation top 8 worked. In the first round, 1st place finishers would play 4th place finishers and 2nd's would play 3rd's. Alternate a 1 vs. 4 matchup and a 2 vs. 3 in each spot on the bracket; have separate hats/jars/etc. with all the players in each seed and pick randomly to fill out the bracket at the event (do not predetermine which regions go where in the bracket!). I understand that this will present some issues with players in stronger regions earning lower seeds, but I still think this is far better than making the entire bracket randomly.
- The location varies, but I'm inclined to believe that somewhere in the middle of the US would be best for us given the player representation. Most importantly, we must keep this a community-run event and not hand control over to an outside organization. Again, SC4 Nationals is quite the cautionary tale here...
I'll stop it here for now since this is getting plenty long already. My next post will make the case for a 64-player Nationals instead of the traditional 32 and create a hypothetical distribution for the regionals.
