Global Challenges are back and with them come the return of closed teamsheet games that count for Championship Points. There’s a lot of unique charms to these semi-regular tournaments that sit somewhere between ladder games and in person tournaments. There are quite a few different points of view on how useful these tournaments are and if they should even be giving out CP in the first place. But you’re reading my blog so I’m going to stick to my view.
First off, yes the games are broken. Frequent glitches, game ending bugs, and inconsistent disconnect resolutions should be unacceptable. The closed teamsheet nature making it a fundamentally different format than higher level events is also a bad situation. Even still, I think the modest amount of CP up for grabs is very important to keep.
Playing 45 opponents in best of 1 games is going to give a more accurate rating than playing 10 opponents in best of 3 games. Even if the “wrong” player wins more often in bo1, the sample size is more important. You can have a great meta call but pull a couple bad matchups in a 10 round tournament and have it end your run. Whereas in a 45 round tournament a few bad pulls is just a speedbump. The opposite is also true, you can accept a few auto-losses and have a reasonable chance to dodge them for 10 rounds. In 45 rounds you’ll likely hit a couple, and your end rating will be more reflective of how good the meta call actually was. So yes I think it’s reasonable to reward points for placing, in spite of all the problems with the game software.
Giving championship points also adds stakes. Low stakes, but stakes nonetheless. In my opinion it’s a pretty important thing to have this tier between the ladder and the live events for a couple reasons. There’s obviously the accessibility of having a free tournament playable from anywhere with an internet connection. But there’s also a great opportunity for introspection for new (and old) players before they decide to pursue the circuit.
I don’t just mean introspection as in judging your own performance, but more how you actually felt playing. The ladder has literally no stakes, whether in game or on showdown there’s no big prize for wins and losses. A screenshot with a low number is about as close to a prize as you get. And yet, even there where games mean literally nothing, you have people lose their minds over single turns or dice rolls. I’m fairly confident saying anyone who feels the need to send a salty message over a ladder match should not pursue the game any further.
Now add a shot at championship points to the mix and emotions are higher since there’s a little something on the line. So now there’s at least a reason to feel a little salty when things don’t go your way, but there is of course a line between salty and toxic. Not having a chat built into the game makes it a fairly safe space to do a vibe check on yourself. Think about how much it’ll be amplified once there’s a buy-in, fewer rounds, and people are around.
It’s important to remember that hax is consistent at all levels of the game. It may seem more prevalent in the GC because you play more games and rounds are quicker. You may think it holds more weight in the GC because sets are best of 1. But having 45 rounds (and the option to do over for 45 more) doesn’t actually make a game loss to hax any worse than in a 9 or 10 round bo3 tournament. Bad luck is just as likely to affect you at events as it is online, and the longer it takes you to accept that the worse a time you’re going to have.
As an aside I’d like to address streamers a minute. I lurked a handful of streams when I wasn’t playing last week, some of them I recognized some not. I understand playing things up for the audience but the default reaction to the smallest bit of bad luck should not be cursing up a storm. Yet that seemed to be what the majority of streamers did and it’s pretty disheartening. In older games I usually played these events on a cartridge with an alternate name, so people wouldn’t recognize me on sight. Last year I played a couple games against names I recognized and afterwards checked to see if they were streaming and then watched the vods. With only 1 exception (Nekkra was extremely cool) every vod I watched had the streamers curse me up and down. It’s not a great feeling watching top players and their entire chats calling you names in a different language. Can’t even imagine what it would be like for a new player who looks up to them. I know it’s a fool’s errand to ask streamers to try to be better examples, but I have to imagine the audience for angry pricks is overserved already and streamers might have more success picking a different lane.
Anyway I’m rambling at this point so I’ll just recap. Games are broken. Global Challenge is still good to have. Championship Points are important to keep. 45 rounds is good (I meant to talk more about this, maybe another time). Hax is consistent. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others.