WHAT
I invented a tournament format. It might have been invented before! I didn't do very much research.
I'm calling it "Zwiss" because it's not quite Swiss and because any time I do anything people add "Z" to it. I'm open to better names. And of course, if it has been invented before, let's use whatever name it already has. :^)
It might be a disaster! But it might not. I'm gonna try it, probably next week.
HOW
It's pretty simple!
Run a double elimination bracket, but the losers side is Swiss format instead of being a mini single-elimination bracket.
Each new round of losers is added into the Swiss bracket-in-progress with +1 win for each winners-side match they previously won. The winner of the Swiss bracket fights the winner of Winners Finals to determine the grand champion, and still has to win two sets.
This might be realllllllllly difficult to run on Challonge, though I think a Single Elimination bracket and an accompanying Swiss bracket with a spot for everyone might work.
WHY
Swiss format is like a smaller version of Round Robin, where everyone plays in every "round" of the tournament even if they lost previous rounds. It's great for people who lost, because it lets everyone keep playing in the tournament - and the majority of players in any tournament are "people who lost"!
However, Swiss is awful if you have a local hierarchy of good players. If there's someone who often wins your locals (let's call them Mrs. Pick) and someone who usually places second (let's call them Mike Z), then what Swiss does is: about halfway through, if both those players haven't lost, they play each other because of their win ratios. Say Mrs. Pick wins. Since the rest of the bracket is filled with 'weaker' players, Mrs. Pick has already won the tournament as long as she keeps winning, but more importantly, if that happens Mike Z has already lost the tournament no matter if he keeps winning or not. So they play the remaining half of the matches with Mike Z having no real possibility of winning, and Mrs. Pick having a near-guaranteed lock on it. That sucks, but only for those players. :^P
Zwizz attempts to solve both problems by providing a continually-important winners side elimination bracket, and a losers side where nobody is eliminated from the tournament until Grand Finals. Of course, if Mrs. Pick and Mike Z both lose, they might be in the same situation as before, but they both already lost once, so nyaaaaaaah.
And there ya go.
