Round 1
The first round of the Challenger tournament is completed. At a glance, it seems as if eight of the 25 played matches in the first round resulted in upsets, but they mostly slot into distinct categories:
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Narrow Upsets. Most of Challenger was jammed together, so any two competitors within a few ranks of one another probably have no meaningful difference. This describes such “upsets” as #33 belial defeating #32 rta, or #35 watermeat narrowly defeating #30 portalfreak.
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Underseeded Players. The Swiss system run in Challenger allowed for entrants even late in the season. This meant a lot of good players, because they only played a few matches, were seeded lower than their skill level would dictate. This was certainly the case with #47 monaters, who had over 2,000 games played (albeit with a long layoff) before joining the SCL in Week 7, who won 9-1 over #18 basshead. It’s also true of #57 skrewwl00se, who joined for Week 10 (and won easily) before defeating #8 magicdoer1. It’s doubly rough for magicdoer, who was the highest seed not to receive a bye, and then was randomly paired with a clearly underseeded opponent.
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Genuine Upsets. The only unqualified upset is #51 sikeeatric narrowly defeating pash1k (#14) despite the fact that both played the entire season, resulting in a 4-12 points disparity.
Round 2 has already started. We’re down to 32, and the top seven seeds—all of whom received byes—get to start playing.
46 matches? Either challenger is even bigger than I thought it was, or that is a typo.
Indeed, mixed up matches and competitors, I think. All fixed. Thanks!