Hey folks,
For those that don't know, I was part of the admin team for the latest Nations Cup (2023). One of the main contributions I had was helping setup the Start.gg and Matcherino pages, as well as coming up with the formula used for the initial Qualifier seeding that was then revised by the rest of the Admin team and Nerfox into what was ultimately used.
I wanted to come back to the idea of qualification spots. Although there is no confirmed NC in the foreseeable future, and in truth, if there is another at the earliest, it would be in 2025, I wanted to play around and maybe spark a discussion on what type of qualifying format it should follow.
The team that wins the league cup advances to the Nations Cup, then the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place league winners, of course, if any of the league winners are also the cup winner, then it goes down one level. There is also an international play-in with the 4th best team of each league as a sort of wildcard spot.
In retrospect, it is a pretty heavy schedule. The league is four months long, split into two-month periods. With teams playing basically 1 match per week in each of those.
I think if I made any changes to it, it would be to actually split the regional league further down to only 4-6 teams each and have them play a round-robin for 2 months at their own pace. As it stands, each league has 16 teams in each division, and you have the top league and the conference league.
The main point of it as well is that it gives you a new seeding table for the open qualifiers, where all the teams in the league, and most of the top teams in the conference, get seeded spots for the open qualifiers right before the start of Nations Cup proper.
This system also does away with Silver, Bronze, and Wood, at least in mae. Replacing it with a Main event, and then division 1 and 2 below it. The system resembles the upcoming UEFA changes to the Chamipns, Europa, and Conference League group stages. However, this would be a true Swiss group stage and not a seeded pre-determined one.
The main reason I like this approach is that it creates a natural league for nations to participate in. It means regular competition and practice for teams. It also makes having a complete 10-player roster that much more important, as having someone to cover for each of the matches would be crucial.
The idea here is that instead of trying to have an overall solid format, like the one for the Nations League, you leave the format of nation-based events up to the local players/TOs. If all European nations want to start a league, they can do that, and if that league meets some sort of baseline for competitiveness, then it gets recognized. It both contributes points to the ELO system as well as gives out qualification spots at the end of it.
The way it works is that it gives out one spot to the top 8 nations in the ranking (so each nation needs to decide on the team that leads them as "A" team). It also gives out four spots to the best region, 2 to the 2nd best, and 1 to 3rd and 4th. Finally, on a continent level, two spots are awarded to the best one, and then 1 each for 2nd and 3rd. All these are Main Event qualification spots.
This means that by the time the Nations Cup qualifiers kick off, you already know 22 of the 32 teams present (20 from these Rankings and two from winner+runner-up). Then comes Phase 2 and 3 qualifications, which just means advanced starts (not seeding) for the qualifiers. These are also given out based on the overall nation, region, and continent ELO.
The main benefit of this system is that it keeps the circuit open. Any TO can come up with a nation-based competition. As long as it's somewhat competitive (say, for example, a Latin American bracket), it can give points and potentially a spot if the countries agree to it beforehand.
The other benefit is that you could potentially implement a gentleman's agreement on when international matches are played. For example, no tournament of over $5000 in prizes can have its qualifiers during the first weekend of every month. That way, if there is an international tournament, the matches can always be scheduled for the first weekend of each month without worry that a qualifier for a major spring up out of nowhere.
It also offloads all that year-long league into the qualifiers, which although now would be a tad longer to handle the extra phases, are still open, and only longer by a few weeks, which is better than the months it would take to run the whole leagues.
It's not without flaws tho. First of all, the current way the Rankings made handles multiple teams per nation is... sketchy, to say the least. Basically, it's not true ELO, each time your nation players, no matter if they win or lose, you get a few points, so the rankings naturally inflate over time. This also means that some national teams playing each other could potentially inflate their own nation's ranking artificially by playing like 1000 matches. However, that would be really obvious.
For those that don't know, I was part of the admin team for the latest Nations Cup (2023). One of the main contributions I had was helping setup the Start.gg and Matcherino pages, as well as coming up with the formula used for the initial Qualifier seeding that was then revised by the rest of the Admin team and Nerfox into what was ultimately used.
I wanted to come back to the idea of qualification spots. Although there is no confirmed NC in the foreseeable future, and in truth, if there is another at the earliest, it would be in 2025, I wanted to play around and maybe spark a discussion on what type of qualifying format it should follow.
Principles:
First thing first, here are some statements that I think will be, or should be, generally true of the qualification process. This means that any solution should conform to these statements. Obviously, you can also argue for or against them, which is part of the point :P- There should be an open-to-everyone last-chance qualifier.
- The winner and runner-up teams should be invited.
- The event won't be MS sponsored (so there won't be no a dedicated date window for it).
- It should allow for more timezone flexibility, aka regionalized qualification.
Solutions:
The following are two of the ideas I had and somewhat developed to adhere to those principles. Again, these likely have points of friction or issues that I have not foreseen, and I by no means want to paint them as complete and ready to go. So feel free to call out anything you feel they fail to address.Nations League
If you rather read a spreadsheet version, here is one. In short, three regions (Americas, Europe, Asia) run their own regional league for a year, along with a regional cup. Anybody familiar with Football (soccer) might recognize it as a standard league + FA Cup system.The team that wins the league cup advances to the Nations Cup, then the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place league winners, of course, if any of the league winners are also the cup winner, then it goes down one level. There is also an international play-in with the 4th best team of each league as a sort of wildcard spot.
In retrospect, it is a pretty heavy schedule. The league is four months long, split into two-month periods. With teams playing basically 1 match per week in each of those.
I think if I made any changes to it, it would be to actually split the regional league further down to only 4-6 teams each and have them play a round-robin for 2 months at their own pace. As it stands, each league has 16 teams in each division, and you have the top league and the conference league.
The main point of it as well is that it gives you a new seeding table for the open qualifiers, where all the teams in the league, and most of the top teams in the conference, get seeded spots for the open qualifiers right before the start of Nations Cup proper.
This system also does away with Silver, Bronze, and Wood, at least in mae. Replacing it with a Main event, and then division 1 and 2 below it. The system resembles the upcoming UEFA changes to the Chamipns, Europa, and Conference League group stages. However, this would be a true Swiss group stage and not a seeded pre-determined one.
The main reason I like this approach is that it creates a natural league for nations to participate in. It means regular competition and practice for teams. It also makes having a complete 10-player roster that much more important, as having someone to cover for each of the matches would be crucial.
Nations Rankings
Idea number 2 borrows from the same football influences, but this time its FIFA's world ranking elo system combined with UEFA's qualification spot allocation. In short, the better a nation performs in Nation Based competition, the more points it has, and the better qualification it will have for come Nations Cup.The idea here is that instead of trying to have an overall solid format, like the one for the Nations League, you leave the format of nation-based events up to the local players/TOs. If all European nations want to start a league, they can do that, and if that league meets some sort of baseline for competitiveness, then it gets recognized. It both contributes points to the ELO system as well as gives out qualification spots at the end of it.
The way it works is that it gives out one spot to the top 8 nations in the ranking (so each nation needs to decide on the team that leads them as "A" team). It also gives out four spots to the best region, 2 to the 2nd best, and 1 to 3rd and 4th. Finally, on a continent level, two spots are awarded to the best one, and then 1 each for 2nd and 3rd. All these are Main Event qualification spots.
This means that by the time the Nations Cup qualifiers kick off, you already know 22 of the 32 teams present (20 from these Rankings and two from winner+runner-up). Then comes Phase 2 and 3 qualifications, which just means advanced starts (not seeding) for the qualifiers. These are also given out based on the overall nation, region, and continent ELO.
The main benefit of this system is that it keeps the circuit open. Any TO can come up with a nation-based competition. As long as it's somewhat competitive (say, for example, a Latin American bracket), it can give points and potentially a spot if the countries agree to it beforehand.
The other benefit is that you could potentially implement a gentleman's agreement on when international matches are played. For example, no tournament of over $5000 in prizes can have its qualifiers during the first weekend of every month. That way, if there is an international tournament, the matches can always be scheduled for the first weekend of each month without worry that a qualifier for a major spring up out of nowhere.
It also offloads all that year-long league into the qualifiers, which although now would be a tad longer to handle the extra phases, are still open, and only longer by a few weeks, which is better than the months it would take to run the whole leagues.
It's not without flaws tho. First of all, the current way the Rankings made handles multiple teams per nation is... sketchy, to say the least. Basically, it's not true ELO, each time your nation players, no matter if they win or lose, you get a few points, so the rankings naturally inflate over time. This also means that some national teams playing each other could potentially inflate their own nation's ranking artificially by playing like 1000 matches. However, that would be really obvious.