BuzzerBeater Forums

Hi,

here is a question from one of my fellow. He asks why he doesn´t play our national tournament although some of bots, who finished lesser than him in last season league, play tournament. It seems kind of weird to me, too... can someone explain the system? I have no idea why bots play in tournament and active managers do not. Thanks.

The top X amount of teams, depending on how big your nation is in BB, play, regardless of bot status.

BB sets the draw at a power of 2 less than the total number of teams in a country. The Czech Republic had 3 divisions and 336 teams, so the first round of the cup has 256 teams. I'm not sure what criteria is used to determine which teams are chosen, but but it may be last season's record - based either on finish which would exclude some teams that finish 6th, 7th, or 8th; or wins, which would probably make the cutoff around 10 wins in D.III.

What BB should do is have a preliminary round which would reduce the field to 256 teams. This could be played on the first Thursday of the season. So in the Czech Republic you would have 160 teams playing 80 games, with the winners joining the other 176 teams in the first round proper. They could use the previous season record and bot-ness to determine which teams have to play the preliminary round, so this would include all the bots, and lower finishing D.III teams. The game matchups could still be random, and upper division teams would still start on the 2nd Thursday like they always have.

Under the current system, about 1/4 of all teams are kept out of the cup. In most countries these teams are bots, but in the Czech Republic which was almost full, there are a lot of active teams being excluded.

Since a 4th division was added to the Czech Republic this season, the cup draw really should be expanded to 1024. This would mean all of the existing teams could participate along with several hundred newly minted bots. Since the cup is still more than one week away, this solution may be feasible for the Czech Republic and any other countries that have added divisions.

I don't see the tournament as something that should be available to every single team in the championship. Look at it as a competition for the best X teams. Having it set up for the largest power of 2 that is smaller than the total number of teams in all leagues is perfectly fine.

Awesome, thank you very much for your answer!

The thing is that some bots are playing tournament and some active managers don´t.. I think that managers could enjoy more than bots :)

The thing is that some bots are playing tournament and some active managers don´t.. I think that managers could enjoy more than bots

Of course, the question is why these players are ranked lower than bots? In the long run, at least, this shouldn't happen.

I don't see the tournament as something that should be available to every single team in the championship. Look at it as a competition for the best X teams. Having it set up for the largest power of 2 that is smaller than the total number of teams in all leagues is perfectly fine.

As it is currently constituted, 75% of all teams in a country enter the cup, with 2/3 of those teams coming from the bottom division. It is hardly an elite field. Further siince new teams can be placed into the bottom division, your measurement of "bestness" is often who took over a bot with a better record the season before.

The preliminary round would involve only teams in the lowest division, and would determine the 2/3 of teams that come from the bottom division in the classic manner of advancing in a cup - winning in the previous round. You can't really believe that if Team B beats Team A, that Team A is the better team for entering the first round proper.

Further siince new teams can be placed into the bottom division, your measurement of "bestness" is often who took over a bot with a better record the season before.

Sure. But things will and should fall into place after the end of a team's first season. This kind of short-term patchwork solution is absolutely unnecessary for what should shake out to be a long-term game. Seriously, if the average team ends up having a life shorter than 2 seasons, then BB has all sorts of problems bigger than the cup draw.

1) A preliminary round is not a patchwork solution. It is standard practice in almost any cup competition to use a preliminary round to reduce the field, rather than arbitrarily excluding teams.

2) It is a long-term solution. It is quite unlikely that BB will go away from its 1:4 or 1:2 pyramid, which means that the total number of teams will not be a power of 2.