Zelda Game Tournament: How Should I Select the Order?

[Forlong]

You might know that I have a "Zelda Smackdown" planned to start next year. However, I'm unsure about how I'll select the order. I want to select it personally, to ensure that something like "OoT vs. WW" doesn't happen in the first round; but that seems like it might be kind of cheap. Should I put my faith in drawing lots? Or does someone have an alternative idea that's better than either?

 

[Maikeru]

Suggestion:

Use the votes in this thread to create seeds.

The one with the most votes faces the one with the least votes. I don't think it would really be fair to put Skyward Sword as the lowest seed though, so I would give it a position based on your own judgment. Other than that, I would say go with what the poll shows, and when there are ties to decide for yourself.

Since Four Sword and Four Swords Adventures aren't on the poll, I would suggest using your own judgment on that as well. I'd probably put them in the 8th and 9th seed just putting them against each other.

 

[MW7]

I think you definitely should avoid picking at random in order to make sure that each round of selections is a tougher choice than the last. You could do something like seeding in the NCAA tournament, and base it either off aggregate critical reviews, sales, opinions of others, or your own judgment of what the most generally popular games are. One thing you could look at is the favorite Zelda poll at the top of this subforum. Each of these options have flaws like critical reviews being harder to find for the older games and the favorite Zelda poll just recently added Skyward Sword.

Personally I'd just pick it myself and my suggestion would be:

Number one seeds: OOT, TP, SS, WW
Number two seeds: ALTTP, MM, LA, LOZ
Number three seeds: MC, OOA, OOS, ST
Number four seeds: AOL, PH, FSA, FS

And then I'd suggest ranking within each seeding so that the top #1 seed plays the bottom #4 seed (i.e. OOT vs. FS in my example), but also so that the top #2 seed is paired in the same bracket as the bottom #1 seed (i.e. ALTTP vs. WW in my example).

Basically it would look like this:
1 v. 16 (OOT v. FS) 2 v. 15 (TP v. FSA)
8 v. 9 (LOZ v. MC) 7 v. 10 (LA v. OOA)

4 v. 13 (WW v. AOL) 3 v. 14 (SS v. PH)
5 v. 12 (ALTTP v. ST) 6 v. 11 (MM v. OOS)

The winner of 1 v. 16 would play the winner of 8 v. 9 and similarly for the other quadrants. The quadrants with 1 and 4 would meet in the semifinals as would 2 and 3's quadrant semifinalists. I'm pretty sure that's the most fair seeding arrangement possible- I don't think I messed it up .

Of course those are just my suggestions, but I think you should use the same format of seeding with the bracket. Also once you do it all, you may want to shuffle some games slightly to avoid horrible draws for one of the higher ranked teams. For instance in my example Skyward Sword is absolutely screwed by being put in the same quadrant as Majora's Mask so I might consider swapping ALTTP and MM. Good luck with setting all this up.

 

[Links Brother]

Pick at random. If a game can't get past the first round it won't be the best game. G4's Death Match is at random and it's doing great.

 

[MW7]

Pick at random. If a game can't get past the first round it won't be the best game. G4's Death Match is at random and it's doing great.

I have to argue against this. Your logic is right, but doing this makes it so that later rounds could potentially be less exciting than earlier rounds. G4's Deathmatch was flawed in my eyes because Skyward Sword had to face 3 GOTY quality games just to get to the finals where it plays a game that shouldn't have a chance against it. Leaving a tournament seeding purely up to random chance invites the possibility of something where all the good games end up on one side of the bracket so that the finals are a complete joke. Or it could unfairly bias the tournament in favor of a single game. Say OOT is placed on one side of the bracket with solely handheld games and say it reaches the finals. It would not nearly have had as tough a time as the games on the other side of the bracket, and even if it lost in the finals, it would still be called the runnerup of the tournament. How would that be fair to the games that could have beaten it earlier in the tournament had they been on the side of the bracket with them.

 

[Forlong]

Suggestion:

Use the votes in this thread to create seeds.

The one with the most votes faces the one with the least votes. I don't think it would really be fair to put Skyward Sword as the lowest seed though, so I would give it a position based on your own judgment. Other than that, I would say go with what the poll shows, and when there are ties to decide for yourself.

Since Four Sword and Four Swords Adventures aren't on the poll, I would suggest using your own judgment on that as well. I'd probably put them in the 8th and 9th seed just putting them against each other.

Oh, so that's how "seeds" work in a tournament. I always wondered that.