We are currently in Week 22 of the SFCCL. The deadline for this week is Sunday, January 24th. Week 23 will bring back the Inter Divisional Matches for a 5th time this season. Below are the dates for the next couple of weeks:
Week 22: January 11th – 24th (14 days)
Week 23: January 25th – February 7th Inter Divisional matches (14 days)
Week 24: February 8th – 21st (14 days)
Week 25: February 22nd – March 7th
Beginning of SUPER BRAWL Tournament – March 8th
As I stated when Capcom announced SUPER SFIV, the SFCCL would move to the new game for various reasons. The biggest reason is that sheer number of people playing the original SFIV will get very small once SUPER SFIV is released, and therefore, a smaller number of possible new members. In evitable, there are some that will prefer the gameplay of the original game compared to the new one. But growing the League on an outdated game limits the growth. Some of the new features in SUPER SFIV might be very helpful in playing some of the events we are currently doing with the League.
Prize matches earned at the Survivor Series tournament on January 27th will have to be played during Week 24. I’ll contact the winners prior to posting Week 24 rankings & matches.
Now by now, you’re probably asking, "what is this Super Brawl tournament you keep mentioning?’ Basically, it’s the entire SFCCL battling itself out in one last, grand finale 1-on-1 tournament to crown our final Gold Champion for the season. ULTIMACLOUD’s Rufus, or whoever is the Gold Champion at the end of Week 24, will basically have to defend his title against the entire League.
Like Survivor Series and War Games, most of the event names come from the original SFCCL league that my friends and family came up with back on the SFII days on the SNES. Just like now, we had weekly ranked matches to determine a champion and the contenders. From there, to breakup the monotony of standard matches, we came up with the idea for special events like the Survivor Series, War Games, Halloween Havoc, King Of The Hill, and Super Brawl. Some of the events were actually incorporated into the weekly matches, so it was not uncommon to have the Gold Championship at stake in a War Games match. These events in the present day SFCCL have changed due to online limitations and for easier understanding.
The biggest event we did to end a season then was called Super Brawl. The event basically took the best ideas from all the other events and played them out one last time in one event. It was a lot of fun & a great way to end a long season of real & non-real fights. With that in mind and after weeks of brainstorming, I came up with the plan to have a season-ending grand tournament. Every member and fighter will be involved in this final tournament. The winner at the end will be crowned the final Gold Champion of the SFCCL first season. The tournament will be a single elimination, one-on-one tournament with best 2 out of 3 five-round matches. You lose, and your fighter is done for the season. You win, and you advance to the next round of the tournament. For all those members trying to climb the rankings to get to the top divisions, here is your shot to play with the ‘big boys’ of the League.
Now some of you may be wondering how we will conduct a tournament with so many members and fighters. At the present time going into Week 23, we have a total of 80 confirmed members, or 160 fighters. Since we don’t have a number of members that is divisible by 4, which is necessary to have a perfect tournament bracket (16, 32, 64, 128, etc.), we need to trim some fighters so that we have a perfect 128 fighters in the second round of the tournament. This is where our weekly rankings will come into play.
With 160 fighters going into next week at the present time, we would need to eliminate 64 fighters. These 64 fighters will create 32 matches in the first round, and therefore, 32 winning fighters advancing to the 2nd round of the tournament. There, they would join the other 96 fighters, who will receive a 1st round bye. The top 96 fighters in the rankings at the end of Week 25 will receive a 1st round bye. In terms of divisions, all the fighters in the first 6 divisions (Gold, Silver, Bronze, A, B, and C) will get the bye. The remaining fighters in the League would play in the 1st round. Basically, that would be from the D Division all the way down to the G Division.
Now, bear in mind that with any dropouts or new members, these numbers might change including the cutoff point in the rankings. I won’t have the final details until Week 25 has concluded. But the end goal is to have a perfect 128 fighters for the 2nd round.
This setup favors the members who have played in the SFCCL the longest. Their commitment and success will be rewarded in this final event. Below is a breakdown of the number of fighters in each round:
· 1st round: 64 fighters in 32 matches (subject to change)
· 2nd round: 128 fighters in 64 matches
· 3rd round: 64 fighters in 32 matches
· 4th round: 32 fighters in 16 matches
· 5th round: 16 fighters in 8 matches
· 6th round: 8 fighters in 4 matches
· 7th round: 4 fighters in 2 matches
· 8th round: 2 fighters in one final match
Brackets will be posted on March 8th that clearly shows the path for every fighter to reach the Finals. The seeding of the tournament will also be organized by the final rankings following Week 25. The existing Gold Champion (currently ULTIMACLOUD’s Rufus) will be the #1 seed in the tournament. He will be matched up in the 2nd round versus the winner of the lowest ranked match in the 1st round. And so forth. The higher ranking your fighter holds, the lower ranking opponent you will have in each round.
The time period for this grand tournament will be long, which is why it begins on March 8th. This will allow for a total of 7 weeks playing out and most importantly, ending just before the release of SUPER SFIV. Below is the preliminary schedule for SUPER BRAWL, which will be finalized once I have a final roster following Week 25:
1st round: March 8th – 14th (7 days for 32 matches)
2nd round: March 15th – 28th (14 days for 64 matches)
3rd round: March 29th – April 4th (7 days for 32 matches)
4th round: April 5th – 11th (7 days for 16 matches)
5th round: April 12th – 18th (7 days for 8 matches)
6th, 7th, & 8th rounds: April 19th – 25th (7 days for the final 7 matches)
Since the brackets will be updated daily, I expect some rounds to occur faster than others since members/fighters will be free to play their next round match if both participants are known. The dates are more like bookends – clearly stating the end of one round and the official beginning of another. It’s also quite possible that we may complete the tournament even sooner than described above. If that is the case, I can go on vacation earlier!
As for the ongoing problem of matches not being played every week, the same rules will exist. However, the big difference is there has to be a winner in each match. There cannot be any ‘draws’. Otherwise, there will be an open spot in the next round. Any matches not played will have to be ‘decided’. A forfeit will be given to one fighter. There are several ways to determine which fighter is disqualified. I won’t give full details here as I don’t want anyone to try to cheat the system. However, communication from each member is important during each week. Also, the previous forfeits a member/fighter has compiled over the season will impact the decision. If you have a history of forfeiting your matches, any unplayed matches in the SUPER BRAWL tournament will be decided by calculating the number of forfeits for each fighter for the season. Bottom line, play your matches and everything will take care of itself without any outside interference.
I hope this blog helps clearly layout my plans for ending what has been an unbelievable, fantastic yet at time troubling season for the SFCCL. I can’t begin to thank everyone who has helped in creating this League, especially the all the members that have made this League a success. I received a lot of criticism when I first proposed this league in the Official PS forums. I even had to remove myself from an on-going discussion on how a league would work after I already laid out my plans. I felt my idea was being taken away from me, so I set out to create the league I envisioned. And I think it’s worked out pretty well overall. A total of 176 people have been in the SFCCL at one time or another. And I expect that number to increase by the time SUPER BRAWL begins.
Well that’s it. I hope everyone is pleased with my little idea on how to end this season of the SFCCL with the SUPER BRAWL tournament. To me, as I look at it from a design point of view, it will be a fantastic tournament in which the rankings and divisions will all be melted away after the 1st round. At that point, we are all in the same division battling it out until there is only one fighter left standing.
There…when it is all over…the answer will lie…in the heart of the battle.
Good luck to all members & fighters the rest of the season.