IMPORTANT: New formats and rules for all WBO Beyblade tournaments

Realizing that the way the WBO runs tournaments has changed very little in the past eight years that we’ve existed, earlier this year we embarked on an initiative to re-evaluate the way WBO tournaments are run. Starting in early September, we began running “Experimental Format” unranked tournaments in different WBO communities to test new rules.

Through continuous discussion and feedback from the community, and experimentation and refinement conducted via our test tournaments over the past several months, we have decided upon a final version of rule changes for WBO Organized Play that are now available to use optionally for ranked events (where applicable) for all formats (PLA, HMS, MFB, LTD, ZRG, BST), but will be mandatory effective January 1, 2017.


What were our goals?
  • Make improvements that would help provide clearer guidelines for the formats we allow to be played and when they are to be used, including a new format for less than seven players.
  • Essentially eliminate the potential for an endless loop of win-percentage destroying tiebreakers at the end of the first stage of a tournament and provide clearer, standardized direction for the final stage of all events.
  • Introduce a more fun and strategic way of playing for top bladers who reach the finals of our tournaments: Deck Format.
  • Allow the option for each players BeyRank to mean something significant in a real competitive sense through the introduction of seeding, something which is standard among many other competitive games.
  • Burst Format: Re-evaluate the status of Odin’s ban.
 


New All Format Rules [Available Now, Mandatory 1/1/2017]
Quote:Format Guidelines
8–11 players - Round Robin
6–10 round first stage / Top 4 single elimination deck rotation finals (+3rd Place BeyBattle)

12–16 players - Block Round Robin
5–7 round first stage / Top 4 single elimination deck rotation finals (+3rd Place BeyBattle)

17+ players - Swiss
5+ rounds first stage / Top 8 single elimination deck rotation finals (+3rd Place BeyBattle)

Deck Format Final Stage
A special set of rules used in the final stages of WBO Beyblade tournaments that allows you to strategically switch between Beyblade combinations during the match.

Scoring
Matches are to 5 points. Out-spins are worth 1 point; knock-outs and bursts (for Burst Format only) are worth 2 points. If your Beyblade exits the stadium without making contact with the opposing Beyblade they’ll receive 1 point.

Deck Building
During deck building, you build up to 3 Beyblades with no repeated parts that will make up your deck. Once you’ve assembled your desired deck, you can declare that your deck is ready. The judge will inspect your deck. Before the match begins, both bladers will inspect each other’s decks. Then the Beyblade selection phase happens in secret as normal.

Replays
After each round, the loser is asked if they want a replay, which bars both bladers from switching their Beyblade in the next round. Replays do not alter the result of the previous round; a loss is still a loss, and you can’t replay once you’ve lost the match.

Switching
If a replay is declined, both bladers may switch Beyblades before the next round. The winner of the previous round must declare first if they will switch. If they will switch, they must make their selection and then show it to the opponent. The loser then has the option to switch their Beyblade for another Beyblade in their deck; however, they are not obligated to.

Seeding by BeyRank
Seeding is the initial placement of players in tournament brackets that determines who they face first. Organizers are encouraged to seed bladers based on their BeyRank, as is the standard for competitive games worldwide.

Order of Seeding
1. BeyRank of registered attendees, collected from the website the night of/morning before an event.
2. Existing WBO players with unknown ranks
3. New players

However, random seeding is permitted for tournaments with under 17 players.

Seeding can be easily controlled when using Challonge to run your tournament. Seeding of participants is controlled by the order of the list of participants from top to bottom. The first player on the list will be the top seed in the tournament, and the last player on the list will be the bottom seed.

Seeding in the Final Stage
In the final stage, players are seeded based on their rank in the standings of the first stage of the tournament.

Tiebreakers
Ties when advancing to the final stage are broken by the outcome of previous matches in the tournament between two tied players [winner moves on]. If players are still tied after this, proceed to the second tiebreak procedure:

Round Robin/Group Round Robin: Perform a tiebreak BeyBattle (or round robin in the case of three or more tied participants) to determine who will advance to the finals. Note these battles separately from Challonge. They will not count for BeyPoints when these rules are moved out of the experimental stage, but should be included when submitting results afterwards.

Swiss: Median-Buchholz score in Challonge. Whichever player has a higher score will advance to the finals.

Challonge
Challonge usage is optional, but heavily encouraged.

Challonge is a popular tournament management platform that can be accessed from any device with an internet connection. It streamlines the process of running tournaments by automatically generating brackets for any format, keep track of scores, seed players, determine tiebreakers, and more.

Organizers that use Challonge consistently run faster and more efficient tournaments, and all organizers are encouraged to use it. However, it is not mandatory and printable tournament materials are provided for organizers who would rather not use Challonge.

Burst Format: Odin Unbanned
The Odin Layer is now unbanned for Burst Format.

After becoming available throughout several different Experimental Format events in different communities, Odin proved itself to no longer be a centralizing piece of the game as it once did nearly a year ago when it was first banned. The metagame did not shift to revolve around it being available in the Experimental Format events, and its weakness to many Attack types was noticeable. It’s still a good Layer, but the game and our community has evolved beyond it now, making it a reasonable choice to move forward and revoke the ban.


Introducing Club Format, An Unranked, Free Format for 4-7 Players [Available Now]
Quote:This format allows for groups of 4-7 Bladers to play in free-to-enter, unranked tournaments. Prize reimbursement is not provided for these events, but the winners of each event have an opportunity to earn a Credit and a series of special Club Format Bits.

Rules
  • No Entry Fee
  • 2 Club Format events per region each month maximum
  • 4-7 Participants Only
  • Hosts must submit results spreadsheet and winning combinations like a regular tournament, and a mandatory group photo.
  • Prize reimbursement not provided
  • Winner: +1 Credit and Club Ace Bit (1 Club Format Win) OR if applicable Club Champion Bit (10 Club Format Wins) and Club Master Bit (25 Club Format Wins). Players cannot earn more than one of each Club Format Bit.
 

Available Formats
  • Unranked Winning Streak Format: Players line up and compete is single round BeyBattles (one at a time) for 20 minutes. After the first round (match up is determined by BeyRank as described below or randomly), the winner stays at the stadium, loser goes to the back of the line and the winner plays the next person in line. 30 seconds maximum for both players to choose combinations before each round. At the end of the 20 minutes, the player with the most round wins is the victor. OR
  • Unranked Round Robin Deck Format
  • Optional: Players seeded by BeyRank (top seeds play first in Winning Streak Format)

With these new rules now available (and soon to become mandatory on January 1st, 2017) for all ranked (where applicable) WBO tournaments, we will be continue keeping a close eye on how things play out from this point. We are open to making rule modifications after we've had a chance to see this in action in ranked tournaments for some time, but are confident that at the very least, what we have proposed here is credible and fair to be adopted as the standard for our events moving forward.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please direct them towards this thread.

A big thank you to everyone who played a part in either formulating, testing, or discussing these rule changes. This was truly a community effort! Special thanks go to Cake, Wombat, and Beylon for their constant feedback and consistently deep and insightful thoughts on everything at each step of the way.


Plastic Format: Screw Zeus Legality Update
WBO Plastic Format Rulebook Wrote:Screw Zeus (Zeus)
  • The combination of Screw Zeus with Attack Rings that visibly do not fit, cause the parts to bend from their original shape, or do not sit level with each other is forbidden. One example of this is Dragon Breaker.
  • The combination of Screw Zeus on SG Free Wing Base with Weight Disks that visibly do not fit and cause the parts to bend from their original shape or do not sit level with each other is forbidden.

It took us a little while (sorry about that!), but we have also added in an update on the legality of Screw Zeus in conjunction with Attack Rings and SG Free Wing Base. We realize the current wording above is slightly vague in that it does not provide a comprehensive list of compatible/incompatible parts.

There is a list posted in the thread I linked to above outlining at least some of these compatibilities/incompatibilities with Attack Rings, but I'm not sure if it is comprehensive and completely verified yet. I also do not believe we have a list of Weight Disks that will work and won't work with Screw Zeus + SG Free Wing Base. If we can come to a conclusion as a community on a complete list for both of these cases, we would be happy to add it to the rulebook.

For now however, this should hopefully make it clear in general that using Screw Zeus in situations where it feels forced to make it fit with the other parts it is being assembled with is forbidden.


Brand New Official Rulebooks
To coincide with all of these changes, we've also put together brand new rulebooks for all WBO Organized Play Formats. The Universal Rules are no more!: 

Organizers' Guide
Additionally, all WBO Organizers should read our new Organizers' Guide for more detailed information about how to run tournaments with Challonge, prize reimbursement, tournament management, post-tournament responsibilities, and more.
Just a heads-up that the unranked format says 4-6 players in the title but 4-7 in the description. Very excited about the new format nonetheless. Looks like I'm going to have some reading to do over the holidays lol
I'm excited for Club Format. I think I may actually be able to get enough of my kids friends to participate in that come January.
Thanks, The Supreme One! Knew I'd miss something haha.

And that's great, Naijalak! Exactly what we would hope becomes possible in a lot of communities who don't normally host tournaments.
This is amazing! :V Time to reprint everything haha.
Few questions:

-Did you even take into account not everyone might like/want the deck format final stage before you decided to make it manditory? What about those of us who don't frequently wreck tournaments with our beyblading skill who were happy with the way it was?
-What do we use if we don't own a deck box? Is it deck box or nothing?
-What was the logic behind 5 points per match because the idea of multiple 5 rounds matches when it's stamina vs stamina is not something i'm really looking forward to tbh?
you don't need a deck box, its just called a deck.
(Dec. 14, 2016  8:47 PM)Ultra Wrote: Few questions:

-Did you even take into account not everyone might like/want the deck format final stage before you decided to make it manditory? What about those of us who don't frequently wreck tournaments with our beyblading skill who were happy with the way it was?
-What do we use if we don't own a deck box? Is it deck box or nothing?
-What was the logic behind 5 points per match because the idea of multiple 5 rounds matches when it's stamina vs stamina is not something i'm really looking forward to tbh?

1. We've been running deck format for a few months now and the response has been positive. We were always clear that the goal was to eventually transform them into our standard ruleset.

However, nothing we do is set in stone; we'll continue to collect feedback from players and adjust our rules to suit. That said, finals in a tournament should be the ultimate test of skill within a tournament, and we wanted to increase the level of strategy involved in those high-stakes matches. It's important to note that these rules don't really affect your likelihood of progressing to the finals, since they only take effect after that.

2. You don't need any kind of container. Especially since you have to reveal your deck at the start anyway.

3. Deck format is designed to help avoid situations like this from happening. In the previous format, you'd really be locked into a Stamina battle; in deck format, the losing player can respond by switching to an advantageous combo. It's up to players to build decks that are flexible across multiple battle scenarios!
YES. YES. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.
This whole reconstruction makes the WBO finally easy to navigate!!
(Dec. 14, 2016  11:31 PM)DECEPTICON Wrote: YES. YES. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.
This whole reconstruction makes the WBO finally easy to navigate!!

Appreciate the feedback, but please post about the site here: https://worldbeyblade.org/Thread-8th-Ann...yblade-org

This is for the new rules only Smile
Alright, it appears I have to come out of hibernation early for Plastics. I'm thinking of making a S-AR compatibility spreadsheet akin to that of the Stadium one, on the rules.



Quote:Bey Brad

1. We've been running deck format for a few months now and the response has been positive. We were always clear that the goal was to eventually transform them into our standard ruleset.

However, nothing we do is set in stone; we'll continue to collect feedback from players and adjust our rules to suit. That said, finals in a tournament should be the ultimate test of skill within a tournament, and we wanted to increase the level of strategy involved in those high-stakes matches. It's important to note that these rules don't really affect your likelihood of progressing to the finals, since they only take effect after that.

2. You don't need any kind of container. Especially since you have to reveal your deck at the start anyway.

3. Deck format is designed to help avoid situations like this from happening. In the previous format, you'd really be locked into a Stamina battle; in deck format, the losing player can respond by switching to an advantageous combo. It's up to players to build decks that are flexible across multiple battle scenarios!



I do see that the general response to the new format has been mostly positive, to preface.
But I know, myself, would find it odd to not have the original system as an option at all. If you force the new format only, players will not try to change it back. At that point, the general player base will start to forget the original format of play. I imagine those now who oppose it are older, and are on the clock for their time here on the site. Its easy to sway everyone's opinion when really only giving them one option.


To leave this post on a more positive note; I'm really excited to see that P&HMS are finally ranked! I do hope this will mean a rise in activity to these formats, and activity on their respective sub-forums.
The perspective is definitely appreciated. The period for feedback is not over; we'll always be listening to players on how their events go. Obviously if feedback is negative, then we will course correct, as we did throughout the initial trial period.  The "original format" of play isn't really going anywhere as it still comprises the majority of a tournament experience.

Also, Plastics and HMS are not ranked. While we have a new rule book for them and will continue to support unranked plastics in our tournament scene, we don't have a plan to introduce a third player rank to encompass them.
I can say one thing - The club format is a brilliant idea !
Very pleased with how the new scoring system discriminates between KOs and SDs without making the latter completely lossless.
I have absolutely no complaints other than the loser being able to LOOK at the switched Bey, THEN be able to choose a potential counter-pick. I understand that this is probably reasoned as okay due to the "deck" concept, just doesn't sit well with me </3
(Dec. 16, 2016  2:05 AM)DrPepsidew Wrote: I have absolutely no complaints other than the loser being able to LOOK at the switched Bey, THEN be able to choose a potential counter-pick. I understand that this is probably reasoned as okay due to the "deck" concept, just doesn't sit well with me

Yo great to see you back after litterally a year hahah. 

That was something that was discussed plenty during the experimental stage of that format. Sure, people discussed variants, but in the end, they either favoured the winner the most, which is equally unfair, or they were very similar to just allowing the loser to look at the switched combination anyway.
(Dec. 16, 2016  2:05 AM)DrPepsidew Wrote: I have absolutely no complaints other than the loser being able to LOOK at the switched Bey, THEN be able to choose a potential counter-pick. I understand that this is probably reasoned as okay due to the "deck" concept, just doesn't sit well with me

Let us know how you feel once you've had a chance to try it! It definitely feels weird at first. It's not just stuff like banlists that are up for discussion; even though the experimental format is no longer experimental, it doesn't mean this is the point at which we stop collecting player feedback.
While discussing Deck Format's impact on formats other than Burst with some other bladers, @[Wombat] pointed out that in their current state, the Deck Format's "no repeated parts" rule bans such Standard staples as Wyvang Wyvang and Genbull Genbull combos. Standard and Zero-G are substantially different from Burst or Limited thanks to the inclusion of Synchromes, since a single Beyblade may use two of the same part. I think that the rule should be amended to state something like "Bladers may not use the same part on more than one combo in their Deck", which would allow decks to use doubled Synchromes while still blocking Decks that attempt to use, say, three different Dragooon combos.
Good point! I'll update the rules to clarify this because I don't think it was our intention to ban things like Wyvang Wyvang.
Definitely not. Thanks for letting us know Cake and Wombat.

Also, while anyone can obviously talk wherever they want, I do think it would be good to have conversations like that here so we can all learn together, keep improving the rules and quickly address situations like this where the verbiage doesn't match the intention. If we don't hear the feedback, we cannot really address it nor adapt to it.
While I'm glad to see that the Experimental Format is finally ranked, I strongly disagree with making it mandatory for all events. It should have been incorporated as an optional, yet ranked format that can be applied to any of our current formats, similarly to Team Format. Whenever a new format has been introduced in the past, it has never been mandatory, nor has the existing format before become unavailable to tournament hosts (of course Team Format has the obvious size limitations that prevent it from being mandatory, but there have definitely been events large enough to accommodate teams where it was not used). If Experimental Format was intended to become mandatory and "replace" the current format, that was never clearly communicated, and frankly I was led to believe otherwise.

Side Note: We really need to start coming up with more specific terms than "format" - as of now that word can be used to describe the type of Beyblades being used, the structure of the tournament, or in this case the procedure of the preliminary and finals matches. This could be confusing to users who ask "what format is this tournament" when the answer could be "Standard", "Block Round Robin", or "Deck Rotation" all at the same time.

(Dec. 21, 2016  4:48 AM)Cake Wrote: While discussing Deck Format's impact on formats other than Burst with some other bladers, @[Wombat] pointed out that in their current state, the Deck Format's "no repeated parts" rule bans such Standard staples as Wyvang Wyvang and Genbull Genbull combos. Standard and Zero-G are substantially different from Burst or Limited thanks to the inclusion of Synchromes, since a single Beyblade may use two of the same part. I think that the rule should be amended to state something like "Bladers may not use the same part on more than one combo in their Deck", which would allow decks to use doubled Synchromes while still blocking Decks that attempt to use, say, three different Dragooon combos.

In addition to what Cake said, I actually think it would be for the best if we did away with the "no repeated parts" rule in all MFB formats (if not entirely). The reasoning behind this is that the uses for certain parts in MFB (mostly Limited) is a lot more broad than it is in Burst - in Limited you can have Earth 90RSF and Earth 230D, or in Standard Dragooon B:D and Dragooon BD145RF, both of which are very different combos that happen to use the same part. There's a lot of other examples as well. And along with technically banning Synchroms, this rule also makes shuffling around Metal Faces annoying - almost all Limited combos require a Metal Face of some sort, forcing you to choose between which combo needs the MF-H the most. After trying to create a few Limited Decks myself I've found that it actually hampers a player's ability to construct a cohesive deck and restricts the diversity of the combos within the Deck (as well as the diversity of the Decks themselves).

As for Burst, each part generally only works in a handful of combos that have similar functions (the only exception I can think of atm is Valkyrie with things like VAY and VTX), so it's not as important that the rule be removed there. I understand why this rule was put in place - to prevent people from spamming "safe" combos - but any half-decent Deck is going to have at least one reliable answer to the respective centralizing "safe" combo of the format. In all honesty a Deck with repeated parts is somewhat easier to defeat due to the combos with repeat parts usually sharing the same weaknesses (at least in Burst, though this is occasionally the case in MFB too).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we agree to get rid of the rule somewhere in the discussion thread as well? I know I mentioned removing it, and then no one really paid attention to it for a while until Brad brought it back up (with more or less the same argument that I used in the paragraph right above this one), and everyone agreed (or at least a few people did, and no one disagreed)?
To add on to Wombat's post, while looking into all four Systems (by the way, why on't we have a separate ranking system for Plastics and/or HMS), Plastics is limited to so many Weight Disks that are competitive , two of which IIRC, are rather rare. And MFB's Energy Rings have a minor effect on performance when compared to other the parts. So in my opinion, we should have a two combo maximum of Weight Disks, Spin Gears(and SG2's preferably with different cores), Energy Rings, and the various Metal Faces. This way, bladers can keep certain combos still competitive and not have to borrow from someone else. I'm not well educated on HMS parts, but maybe this could be extended to their WD's if there is a low variety for them (not considering CWD's) and as a stretch, maybe certain Sub Attack Rings?
For what it is worth, I have indeed been struggling with this format versus format issue for years, Wombat hah. In Event Proposals, I have been trying to reference to formats and "structures" or even "organisations" of a tournament separately, but the word format makes so much sense in both contexts that it is difficult to find a good alternative hah.

As the Organizer who has come the closest to hosting Deck Format finals in Metal Fight Beyblade tournaments this Saturday, I realised that it would have made the tournament last much longer and, in general, while we have a lot of parts to lend out to players, sometimes such a player may have reached the finals so it becomes impossible to lend them all the competitive parts while keeping other finalists' decks full and satisfying too. Just like what made me realise that Plastics events should never ever be ranked because they rely entirely on who has the most money and who can buy the best parts two years ago, I think that requesting any number of combinations, varied or not, may make no sense in any series that is currently not being produced, due to the rarity of parts.

That being said, the rules do say "up to 3 Beyblades", so we can also just do Decks of down to one Beyblade hahahah. If all players agree.
Lots of great comments. Thanks sincerely. The comments about repeated parts totally make sense and we'll work to address them ASAP (like, today). In general, I would prefer not to have rules that require a ton of exceptions.

Quote:While I'm glad to see that the Experimental Format is finally ranked, I strongly disagree with making it mandatory for all events. It should have been incorporated as an optional, yet ranked format that can be applied to any of our current formats, similarly to Team Format. Whenever a new format has been introduced in the past, it has never been mandatory, nor has the existing format before become unavailable to tournament hosts (of course Team Format has the obvious size limitations that prevent it from being mandatory, but there have definitely been events large enough to accommodate teams where it was not used). If Experimental Format was intended to become mandatory and "replace" the current format, that was never clearly communicated, and frankly I was led to believe otherwise.

These changes are our best effort at addressing some of the biggest frustrations with some of Beyblade's inherent game mechanics and giving a much deeper strategic pool for players to swim in, while also learning from what both the WBO and competitive gaming communities at large had learned over the last decade.

We should be careful not to aggrandize the "original" ruleset. Many of the details of how our tournaments were run were decided pretty haphazardly at the beginning of things (much of it by myself), and then just ... never addressed. We had poor practices for breaking ties leading to the finals that could lead to an indefinite number of rematches, our tournament systems (we made a conscious effort to not refer to tournament systems — round robin, group round robin, swiss — as formats in the new organizer's guide due to exactly the confusion you mentioned Wombat, though we can still do better!) didn't scale to large numbers of players at all, among other issues. The whole point of the experimental format was to test these changes before we rolled them out everywhere, and I think the changes we made to those areas are pretty objectively positive.

If you're just referring to deck format, I would just say that we really think this is worth trying, if nothing else. It was very difficult to get even enough experimental tournaments going for Burst. It didn't give us much hope for running similar tests in MFB format, and the best way for us to collect data and see if it's good (or if it sucks) is to get it live in some tournaments and see how it goes. It's our hope that the strategic depth added by being able to switch combinations mid-match will be enjoyed by players that make it to the finals. If that hope isn't fulfilled, then we'll obviously drop it.

In general, I hope people can understand that we are trying to be way more fluid in how we approach things. It's also not realistic for us to expect that we can produce a "perfect ruleset" and then never ever have to adjust it, and discussing things for months on end can produce tons of interesting ideas and hypotheses, but the only way to know for sure is to get it live in the field. "If it sucks, we'll change it" is a pretty good motto to have. 

Quote:As the Organizer who has come the closest to hosting Deck Format finals in Metal Fight Beyblade tournaments this Saturday, I realised that it would have made the tournament last much longer and, in general, while we have a lot of parts to lend out to players, sometimes such a player may have reached the finals so it becomes impossible to lend them all the competitive parts while keeping other finalists' decks full and satisfying too.

You were also playing full round robin with Standard and Zero-G in one day I think, which is definitely a worst-case-scenario in terms of how long it could take! Since the new rules aren't mandatory yet and there'd been no announcement of rule changes for that tournament, nobody there was planning on building decks anyway, so it would've been a bad idea to run deck format haha.

I've introduced a ton of people to Beyblade in my life, and I really love teaching new players and getting them into the game. A novice player making it to the finals of a tournament should be considered a pretty great accomplishment in and of itself, and these players will still see their rank increase as their skills improve. They can still win prizes just for coming in third. And while I'm always happy to see how willing players in all of our communities are in terms of lending parts, I don't think anyone should feel obligated to ensure that every single player is decked out with top-tier parts, either.

Yes, deck format takes longer than just using one Beyblade; however, rematches to the finals will be greatly diminished and eliminated in most cases, and I think there is a lot that can be done to reduce downtime at tournaments and keep them moving swiftly, which I hope to post more about soon :D
It's been awhile! These changes seem great on the whole, and I'll drill down into some specifics below.

Deck Format


I love that the finals are deck format, that's a fantastic change that should make things much more competitive without making the tournament that much longer. Phenomenal idea.

I really, really like that both bladers get to see each other's decks. It makes the decision behind which Beyblade to pick more skill-based, as you have to weigh which of the three the other blader is most comfortable with and which of your Beyblades counter theirs. That's something I've been advocating for for ages, and I'm really excited to see it implemented!

Points

I was initially shocked by the point system since it is a substantial arbitrary buff to attack Beyblades, but upon reflection I realized it might actually be pretty cool since it provides more incentive toward playing riskier Beyblades.

I am slightly concerned about how much longer it will make Stamina/Defense vs. Stamina/Defense matches in theory (especially spin steal matches), but I will withhold final judgement on that until I get the chance to see it in practice.

I really like that the KO bonus isn't applied to self-KOs.

Counterpicks

The thing I'm most concerned about is the counterpicking system (loser gets to see the winner's choice). I have not yet seen the discussion behind that choice so I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but that's a significant benefit for the loser. Considering the rock/paper/scissors component of a lot of Beyblade types, I'm worried that in a match between experienced players the loser should always be able to pick a relatively hard counter and win.

What I'm most worried about is that the counterpick system will cause a lot of matches to go back and forth like so:

  1. Player A wins
  2. Player B counterpicks, Player B wins
  3. Player A counterpicks, Player A wins
  4. Player B counterpicks, Player B wins
  5. etc.
If you don't take into account the bonus points for KOs, this back-and-forth will always result in the player who wins the first round winning the set.

This is another thing I'm sure I need to see in person since it's such a massive change, but I do have some reservations.

Overall

I'm excited about the changes, and I hope I can experience them soon! I'd want to keep an eye on one or two changes, but overall this is awesome :D