The Seattle area of the Pacific Northwest section just held their local playoffs for 18 & Over Mixed this past weekend. With it, a new format for local playoffs was used that is interesting and worth discussing.
As background, in the Pacific Northwest section, our sectionals are generally eight teams from four to six districts. Alaska is a district and often doesn't send a team, and sometimes Southern Oregon doesn't send a team for a given division/level/gender.
To fill out the eight teams then, two to four wildcards are handed out to the 2nd place teams from the other districts. These are generally done giving wildcards first to the districts with the most teams at a level. The result is that Seattle and Portland always get a wildcard, and Eastern Washington and Southwest Washington often do as well.
This leads to an interesting situation at local playoffs in each district where with a normal single elimination draw, the finals are between two teams that already know they are both going to Sectionals and the final carries far less weight than it might otherwise.
To give the final more meaning and significance, a new format was used this year, and from what I can tell may be for other division's local playoffs for the 2020 league year.
In the past, the local playoff format has taken the top two teams from each sub-flight and created a draw where 1st place teams play 2nd place teams, or if there aren't a power of two teams, the top teams get a 1st round bye.
This year, for districts where there is a wildcard slot for Sectionals, the format has changed to have all the sub-flight 1st place teams in one draw, and the 2nd place teams in another draw. The 1st place teams play their draw to conclusion and the winner is the local playoff champion. But the loser of the final does not automatically get the wildcard berth.
Instead, the 2nd place team draw is also played to completion and the winner of that draw then faces the 1st place team draw final loser for the wildcard spot.
It is a little confusing, but you can sort of think of it like a "winner's" bracket for the 1st place teams where the winner advances and the final loser still gets an extra chance to advance, and a "loser's" bracket for the 2nd place teams where not only do you have to win your draw, but play an extra match after to get the wildcard.
Here is an example of what the draw looks like.
This is an interesting approach and I think has some pros and cons.
On the surface, there is a clear advantage to being a 1st place team in your sub-flight as you get to go to the "winner's" bracket and can lose in the final and still be able to get the wildcard if you win the subsequent wildcard match. Correspondingly, there is a disadvantage to being a 2nd place team as there is no safety net should you use in your draw's final, and you have to play and win an extra match to get the wildcard.
But is it really an advantage to be in the "winner's" bracket?
Presumably the 1st place teams are the stronger teams, so it is arguably a tougher road to win the bracket, and the safety net of being able to lose is there only if you make the final. Additionally, in a three or five sub-flight scenario, a 1st place team may still have to play an extra match if they are the 3rd or 5th seeded team.
Consider a scenario with five sub-flights as the draw above is for, where one of them had several strong teams. The sub-flight winner, team A, may finish with one loss and be seeded 5th. This means they have to play an extra match against the 4th seed in the "winner's" draw. They will have to win two matches against other 1st place teams to make the final, and then win a third against another 1st place team, or should they lose, turn around and play a fourth match and win it.
Now, the 2nd place team, team B, in the same sub-flight may have also had just one loss and be seeded 1st or 2nd in the "loser's" bracket and not have to play the extra match as the 4th and 5th seeds in this draw are required to. Their road to the wildcard match requires winning just two matches against 2nd place teams, where they may get to play a team just coming off losing in the "winner's" bracket final having to play a fourth match.
So was it really an advantage to be the 1st place team? Both have to win three matches to advance to Sectionals, and two matches in a row to get to a match where it is win and advance, but team B gets to do it against 2nd place teams while team A has to do it against 1st place teams. Is the failsafe team A has of losing at that point and having a 2nd chance to advance in a fourth match worth it?
Obviously, if you are one of the top-3 seeds in the "winner's" bracket, you don't have to play the extra match and just having to win one match to make the final probably is worth having to do so against a first place team. But even in this scenario one could perhaps argue that being a top-3 seed in the "loser's" bracket has some advantages.
Now, clearly this does make the "winner's" bracket final meaningful where it wasn't before, and it does perhaps give the 2nd place teams a more realistic chance of advancing, but it does sort of stink for the 1st place team that has to play the extra match or face a top-2 seed early while the 2nd place teams get less formidable opponents.
It certainly introduces a new dynamic though and perhaps makes the entire event more exciting.
What do you think? Do you like this new format and how it makes the final matches more meaningful? Or does it unfairly put the lower seeded 1st place teams at a disadvantage?
