BigChuck01
Member
Aight guys, I come bearing super sour grapes over battle roads. I've been watching the ratings for the last couple weeks, and what I'm seeing is making me sick. Before battle roads, eveyone who did well at REAL tournaments like States and Regionals held the top spots, which makes sense. These are the people winning the HARD tournaments, so they deserve to be up there. Now that battle roads have come along though, everyone and their mother has a rating of 1900+. The top 20 is now filled with people who are undeserving of it (I don't care if this comes off as arrogant or offensive, it's the dead truth). Let's start off with #1, Johhny Kettler. Now I love John, and hes an amazing player, but I think it's safe to say without being a jerk that John is not THE best player in North America. Johnny had a decent states/regionals run, which put him at a decent rating, which is fine. After battle roads, however, Johhny gets to jump up 200 points from going 50-0 at 10 battle roads against a bunch of mediocre SEMI-literate texas players. Is this fair? Seems like it right? I mean, EVERYONE can just play all those battle roads, right? Wrong (to an extent).
Lets first take a look at what you REALLY have to do to make a battle road "worth it". First, you have to know your rating, and the ballpark rating of the people you're playing against. Next, you have to know the general amount of skill the people you'll be playing against will have. NEXT, you have to know the metagame. Finally, you have to guess at what you think your record will be at the end of the tournament.
I thought through all of the steps above, and decided there was no WAY it would be profitable for me to play any battle roads. I calculated that I could literally only take 1 loss a tournament, else I would lose a significant amount of points. When playing in the midwest, youd be LUCKY to sneak away from a tournament with 1 loss. I can name 20 midwest players off the top of my HEAD that are EXPECTED to make the cut at Nats. So yea, knowing that I could only take 1 loss against the toughest metagame in the world, I (correctly) opted out of battle roads.
Now we have players like Kettler, Ross, Miguel Angel Lopez Bernal, and Roberto sora who actually SKYROCKTED into top 8 from battle roads. Whys this? Is it because Miguel Angel Lopez Bernal and Roberto sora are actually TWO OF THE TOP 8 PLAYERS IN NORTH AMERICA? No, they're not (sorry guys, but its true!). They are all actually high ranked because they find the smallest cupcake competition tourneys in the WORLD, and procede to x-0 against a bunch of players who probably, no, DEFINATELY don't even know how to read. The players at the super small shops in super small cities are SO bad, that it's impossible to lose to them, luck or no luck.
So how do we fix the problem? Theres a couple things we can do. IMO, the best thing is to just get rid of battle roads completely. Battle roads are 100% are based, and allow players who havent won a single major in their life to play 100 BRs in Nowhere Kansas and jump to the top of the ratings for a free trip to Hawaii. Battle roads are also ridiculously easy to collude in, due to nothing but points being offered. I could have easily drove over to Iowa with a bunch of friends, had them clear out the no name competition, and scoop to me in the cut for a free 50 points. Theres no way a judge would have been able to catch me. How do we know this kind of stuff isnt going on now? That leads me to my 2nd suggestion for battle roads: WAAAAY less, and only in big stores with legitimate judges. How many battle roads had 10-11 people with somebodys mother/brother being the judge. DOZENS im guessing. Who KNOWS what goes on in these kind of tournaments. Allow each state 2 battle roads for a certain area, so things like Texas dont happen (7 BRs in 2 weeks, 4 BRs in 4 days at one point. Kettler had a field day there I bet). 3rd suggestion is simply give battle roads a K value of 0. Let people jsut play them for fun/prizes. Don't let these 10 person tourneys decide who goes to WORLDS. Worlds is suposed to be the best of the best, not the best of the who can find the most garbage battle roads to clean up in.
Lets first take a look at what you REALLY have to do to make a battle road "worth it". First, you have to know your rating, and the ballpark rating of the people you're playing against. Next, you have to know the general amount of skill the people you'll be playing against will have. NEXT, you have to know the metagame. Finally, you have to guess at what you think your record will be at the end of the tournament.
I thought through all of the steps above, and decided there was no WAY it would be profitable for me to play any battle roads. I calculated that I could literally only take 1 loss a tournament, else I would lose a significant amount of points. When playing in the midwest, youd be LUCKY to sneak away from a tournament with 1 loss. I can name 20 midwest players off the top of my HEAD that are EXPECTED to make the cut at Nats. So yea, knowing that I could only take 1 loss against the toughest metagame in the world, I (correctly) opted out of battle roads.
Now we have players like Kettler, Ross, Miguel Angel Lopez Bernal, and Roberto sora who actually SKYROCKTED into top 8 from battle roads. Whys this? Is it because Miguel Angel Lopez Bernal and Roberto sora are actually TWO OF THE TOP 8 PLAYERS IN NORTH AMERICA? No, they're not (sorry guys, but its true!). They are all actually high ranked because they find the smallest cupcake competition tourneys in the WORLD, and procede to x-0 against a bunch of players who probably, no, DEFINATELY don't even know how to read. The players at the super small shops in super small cities are SO bad, that it's impossible to lose to them, luck or no luck.
So how do we fix the problem? Theres a couple things we can do. IMO, the best thing is to just get rid of battle roads completely. Battle roads are 100% are based, and allow players who havent won a single major in their life to play 100 BRs in Nowhere Kansas and jump to the top of the ratings for a free trip to Hawaii. Battle roads are also ridiculously easy to collude in, due to nothing but points being offered. I could have easily drove over to Iowa with a bunch of friends, had them clear out the no name competition, and scoop to me in the cut for a free 50 points. Theres no way a judge would have been able to catch me. How do we know this kind of stuff isnt going on now? That leads me to my 2nd suggestion for battle roads: WAAAAY less, and only in big stores with legitimate judges. How many battle roads had 10-11 people with somebodys mother/brother being the judge. DOZENS im guessing. Who KNOWS what goes on in these kind of tournaments. Allow each state 2 battle roads for a certain area, so things like Texas dont happen (7 BRs in 2 weeks, 4 BRs in 4 days at one point. Kettler had a field day there I bet). 3rd suggestion is simply give battle roads a K value of 0. Let people jsut play them for fun/prizes. Don't let these 10 person tourneys decide who goes to WORLDS. Worlds is suposed to be the best of the best, not the best of the who can find the most garbage battle roads to clean up in.
rereleases and fall BRs