The full list of rules is here and it's fairly conformed to our standards, so allow me to cut right into the big differences. Contrary to one rumor I heard Devil Jin is banned, thank the gods. It's not listed, but a MLG rep has told me Dampierre will play. There are a few things that are out of the norm such as a draw is a win on both sides, loser chooses stage, extended series and desync penalties! Some of these have me excited and a couple I'm kinda torn on.
The draw is a win for both sides eliminates the epic runback from a draw in the event one player has already won a game... But that being said it's fair as both players did win the game.
Loser changes stage is something I'm very excited about. I love positional play and I really want to see how to players use stages to their advantage to deal with bad matchups. It's also going to force the hand of the opposing side to deal with Maxi in a small arena or Nightmare on an infinite stage. I can't wait to see the kind of gameplay this brings about.
Extended Series is something MLG has been criticized about time and time again. They are sticking to their guns on this one and I can see why. The main reason is if you look at results, the longer series will almost always determine the better player. So at the end of the day you can run 1-1 against someone after putting them into losers and then losing to them in losers, which is the cause of many a "salty runback" money match that often goes unknown to everyone but the players. However with extended series you get to definitively say who was the better player on the given day and it looks like that on the brackets and to the stream as well. That's the player they want to see advance through the brackets, can you blame them?
Also notable they will not be running the patch that comes out the week of the event. This is apparently their policy for all games where it doesn't pose a logistical nightmare... Such as SC2 where you have to patch to get on battle.net and you have to play on battle.net to play someone else. But when you look at games like LoL where Riot has servers dedicated to giving tournaments a patch players have practiced on for their major events, they do the same thing. Expect the future events to be on the most current iteration of the game, unless there is another patch the week of an event.
All in all, while the ruleset is a deviation of the standard, I like what I see. I mean I fully expect a whole slew of people to get uppity over the extended series, but that's what happened with every other game they picked up. It's also not going to get in the way of the best player winning in any given tournament. I mean people will be salty to the tune of "I would have won that set at another event" but at the end of the day, you couldn't win a longer series and as such the other guy advanced. Haters gonna hate. GET HYPE! eSports!
The draw is a win for both sides eliminates the epic runback from a draw in the event one player has already won a game... But that being said it's fair as both players did win the game.
Loser changes stage is something I'm very excited about. I love positional play and I really want to see how to players use stages to their advantage to deal with bad matchups. It's also going to force the hand of the opposing side to deal with Maxi in a small arena or Nightmare on an infinite stage. I can't wait to see the kind of gameplay this brings about.
Extended Series is something MLG has been criticized about time and time again. They are sticking to their guns on this one and I can see why. The main reason is if you look at results, the longer series will almost always determine the better player. So at the end of the day you can run 1-1 against someone after putting them into losers and then losing to them in losers, which is the cause of many a "salty runback" money match that often goes unknown to everyone but the players. However with extended series you get to definitively say who was the better player on the given day and it looks like that on the brackets and to the stream as well. That's the player they want to see advance through the brackets, can you blame them?
And now we must trust in the Referee's discretion
Desync penalties are something I have wanted to see for a while. MLG has it in their rules that desync issues can go from forfiet of game all the way to a ban from multiple circuit events, based on the referee's discretion. Something tells me that you aren't going to get that multi-event ban without trolling the main stage with home screens, because to my knowledge they have not been known to exercise penalties like that without just cause.Also notable they will not be running the patch that comes out the week of the event. This is apparently their policy for all games where it doesn't pose a logistical nightmare... Such as SC2 where you have to patch to get on battle.net and you have to play on battle.net to play someone else. But when you look at games like LoL where Riot has servers dedicated to giving tournaments a patch players have practiced on for their major events, they do the same thing. Expect the future events to be on the most current iteration of the game, unless there is another patch the week of an event.
All in all, while the ruleset is a deviation of the standard, I like what I see. I mean I fully expect a whole slew of people to get uppity over the extended series, but that's what happened with every other game they picked up. It's also not going to get in the way of the best player winning in any given tournament. I mean people will be salty to the tune of "I would have won that set at another event" but at the end of the day, you couldn't win a longer series and as such the other guy advanced. Haters gonna hate. GET HYPE! eSports!
