Playstile 2LO Tournaments
Playstile 2LO (aka Playstile Two Loss Out) is a tournament structure for official KeyForge tournaments that combines the best features of Swiss-style pairings and double-elimination. The goal of Playstile 2LO tournaments is to provide a structure where all matches contribute to a player’s chance to win the tournament and reduce round-to-round byes (and associated wait times) to a minimum. In addition to achieving these goals, Playstile 2LO is also very efficient and will usually result in the tournament reaching a top cut one round sooner than other tournament structures.
This tournament structure will be used in all sanctioned KeyForge events starting August 18, 2023.
Summary
KeyForge tournaments consist of two stages: qualifying rounds, and finals. Qualifying rounds are conducted by pairing players within the Playstile 2LO tournament structure until they either lose twice, or qualify for the finals (aka “make the top cut”). In qualifying rounds, a player is eliminated from the tournament after two losses.
There is no bracket like traditional double elimination. Instead, after round one, players are placed within a “pool” of either “Undefeated” or “One-Loss” players and paired within these pools each round (see Pairings, below).
Play continues until the tournament reaches a stage known as the “top cut” which is the stopping point where a certain number of players are qualified to pass to the final stage of the tournament. In KeyForge tournaments, the top cut currently consists of two, four, or eight players who will advance to the final stage (the size of the top cut is dependent on tournament attendance; the final stage uses single-elimination, and then a best-of-three series in the final match).
Playstile 2LO’s top cut is formed when the number of Undefeated players is equal to or less than half the size of the top cut. These players immediately qualify for the top cut, leaving half or more of the remaining slots to be filled by One-Loss players.
Depending on how many One-Loss players remain, pairings will continue in qualifying rounds until an additional round would eliminate too many players to fill the remaining top cut slots. If there are more players than slots available, Strength of Schedule (S.O.S.) is used to rank players, and then players play an additional round called a “Play-In” to determine who wins the remaining top cut slots.
TOURNAMENT ROUNDS
A Playstile 2LO tournament is played over a series of qualifying rounds which continue until every top cut slot has been filled by a qualifying player. The top cut will consist of a combination of undefeated players and one-loss players, with the number of each depending on the total number of players in the tournament. The exact number of qualifying rounds needed to reach a top cut also depends on the total number of players in the tournament.
For example, in a tournament with 128 players, four players will be undefeated after five qualifying rounds (they will each have a 5-0 win/loss record). Those four players will immediately qualify for the top cut. Two additional qualifying rounds will be needed to determine which of the remaining players will qualify for the other four top-cut slots (a more detailed example is found later in this page).
After the top cut is determined, the tournament will proceed into the finals. In KeyForge tournaments, the top cut is comprised of 8 players who will play two single-game elimination rounds, and a final match of best-of-three.
QUALIFYING ROUND PAIRINGS
First round pairings are completely randomized among the entire participant base. After the first round, half of the tournament’s participants will have their first win, creating the initial Undefeated pool of players. The other half of players will have one loss, creating the initial One-Loss pool of players.
Subsequent rounds will randomly pair players within their respective pools. This means that Undefeated players will only play other Undefeated players. The same is true for the One-Loss pool of players. When an undefeated player is defeated for the first time, that player moves into the One-Loss pool for the next round.
Pairings during the qualifying rounds are additionally constrained to opponents that have not previously played each other in the tournament, unless there is no other pairing option available.
BYES
If there are an uneven number of participants in a given round, it will be necessary to assign a “bye” to a player for that round. The bye will be assigned to a randomly determined player who receives a win for that round. A player that has already received a bye cannot receive another bye in the tournament, unless all remaining players have already received one bye each.
UNDEFEATED TOP CUT
After a certain number of qualifying rounds (the exact number depends on the total number of players at the start of the tournament), there will be a number of undefeated players equal to half the number of top cut slots or less. Usually, this will consist of four undefeated players. Rarely, it could be as few as three or two undefeated players. As soon as this situation occurs at the end of a round, the undefeated players immediately qualify for the top cut and no longer play in qualifying rounds.
RUN-OFF ROUNDS
Once the top cut has qualified the undefeated players, if the size of the One-Loss pool is double or more than the slots remaining in the cut, then the One-Loss players will continue to be paired in run-off rounds. Pairings in run-off rounds work the same as qualifying rounds.
When the number of One-Loss players is less than double the number of top cut slots remaining, run-off rounds are finished. A number of One-Loss players immediately qualify. Then, a tiebreaker will determine who will participate in “Play-In” matches to fill the remaining slots in the top cut. Strength of Schedule determines tiebreaker.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
Strength of Schedule (S.O.S.) is a rating of how difficult a player’s opponents were over the course of the tournament (for more information, see the Strength of Schedule Calculation below). This calculation of opponent strength is used as a tiebreaker when there are less slots available in the top cut than players remaining. A higher S.O.S. means that a player is ranked higher in the standings than a player with lower S.O.S.
PLAY-IN ROUND
There is a possibility that 2LO does not resolve into a perfect top cut. When this happens, players are ranked by S.O.S. and then a number of them must play an additional game to secure their place in the top cut. For example, if we reach the end of the run-off rounds and 10 players remain for a cut of eight, two matches must occur to determine who of the bottom four players actually make the cut. Matches are paired starting from the lowest player by S.0.S. who would have “made” the cut, and the highest ranked player who would not have. That means 8th rank will play 9th rank, 7th rank will play 10th rank, and so on.
FINALS
Once the top cut has been determined, the tournament proceeds to the finals stage. The finals consist of of bracketed single-elimination rounds and a final match. In the initial round single-elimination rounds, players are paired by their seed rank from the qualifying rounds, lowest to highest (e.g. 1st will play 8th, 2nd will play 7th, and so on). In KeyForge, the final match is played as a best-of-three series (i.e. the players will play up to three matches, and the first to win twice wins the tournament).
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