I have been thinking about why I agree that ordering players in the group stage feels more fair than ordering by number of wins.
I think I understand why the tournament organizers chose to order the players by number of wins. They naturally want more high-stakes content, and they want the third game when it is 2-0 to have the same emotional valence as when it is 1-1, so they make all games have equal value regardless of when it is played. But for me it doesn't work. When someone is up 2-0, I think they have won; and although intellectually I know that the stakes haven't changed, emotionally I consider the match settled.
And the reason I consider the match settled is because that is how it works in every other tournament I have ever watched. I am not going to suddenly switch my emotional responses to things because one tournament has generated an innovation in order to make the casters' content more compelling. In fact, when I realize why they might be doing this, I get annoyed, because I get the sense that they are trying to emotionally manipulate me for their own purposes.
I actually think that play-all-three is a great format, and that using number of wins as a tie-breaker makes a lot of sense for giving the last game some weight. I also think most players are competitive enough to make the last game strong even in a 2-0 situation. But I find ordering on number of games won to be less fair than on number of sets won because for me it is a seemingly arbitrary innovation without sufficient justification.
I think I understand why the tournament organizers chose to order the players by number of wins. They naturally want more high-stakes content, and they want the third game when it is 2-0 to have the same emotional valence as when it is 1-1, so they make all games have equal value regardless of when it is played. But for me it doesn't work. When someone is up 2-0, I think they have won; and although intellectually I know that the stakes haven't changed, emotionally I consider the match settled.
And the reason I consider the match settled is because that is how it works in every other tournament I have ever watched. I am not going to suddenly switch my emotional responses to things because one tournament has generated an innovation in order to make the casters' content more compelling. In fact, when I realize why they might be doing this, I get annoyed, because I get the sense that they are trying to emotionally manipulate me for their own purposes.
I actually think that play-all-three is a great format, and that using number of wins as a tie-breaker makes a lot of sense for giving the last game some weight. I also think most players are competitive enough to make the last game strong even in a 2-0 situation. But I find ordering on number of games won to be less fair than on number of sets won because for me it is a seemingly arbitrary innovation without sufficient justification.