ESL Go4COH2 cups

Congratz Hans and tofu for winning the EU and NA kick-off cups respectively. Use this thread to discuss the series. It was nice to see Hans going koo-koo after winning over Jove last night.

I thought the Swiss system worked well for an unseeded cup. I'm still very unsure about this "map or faction" picking system with the cointoss and the Best-of-1's. I wonder how player's picking strategies will evolve.

OKW seemed to dominate. In the final game, Hans had 4 quintuple-vet (lol) Volks squads, each with a 'schrek. They seemed to be the most important unit throughout the games that I watched.

Final - okw HelpingHans vs Jove - Cast by tightrope

I like the swiss style. My one compliant would be that some players started their games very late. The first round for the NA cup, we waited for over two hours for everyone to finish.

I would ask ESL that players need to confirm that their match has started and we need a chat room so admins can keep us updated on what is going on.

Overall I would call both tournies a success. GJ to both winners.

Love how a little bit of extra exposure and an unusual format allows for some players to shine that usually might not.

I loved the format in principle, not the timing though, wish I'd worked out that it was one game an hour before I endeavoured to cast it. Fortunately a few Langreskaya classics made up for it towards the end.

Overall I enjoyed it, and it was a surprisingly good start to CoH2's 1v1 ESL season.

I enjoyed it! The current coh2 patch is the best in the games history, but tweaks to OKW and some other small things will really make it shine.

Great to see ESL and Relic making moves on Esports finally! Even if its on a smaller scale.

I'll provide some perspective for the NA side.

All in all, this tournament took about 11 - 12 hours. I had 4 games, 2 no shows, and a final game I threw because it was 3 AM in the morning and didn't really care at that point. I spent about 4-5 hours playing and 6-7 hours waiting. (the no shows should account for half of this)

Unlike the EU tournament, round 4 and up were best of 3s. Not only did it make the wait times extremely long, it just wore on all the players, most of who were either playing well into the night or even through the night. Combined with the double elim, most NA players dropped at the end, like paul and vindicare did.

I really, really, REALLY hope they don't repeat this style of tournament because frankly, it is a little insane to ask players to dedicate half a day on a sunday night. If they do, I can't see myself playing another tournament.

Watching Hans breakdown after his victory at the end was pretty special to watch, but that wasn't the best game of the night. His match vs EZ was not stop action. I was one the edge of my seat. There was encredible micro on both sides, and I don't think I saw Hans blink more than I couple time; he was putting his all into that game.

7h35m on his twitch recording. Highly recommend checking it out. Maybe someone wants to cast it to?

Edit: EZ made a new fan out of me. Does he stream?

There were many good games in the tourney and fortunately,I won 1st prize in NA division.

Thank you for all who fought against me,it's all GG.And thank you for all who cheered me up

Overall it was a good tourney,but,I found the rules was quite a bit of fuzzy.


First,we don't know the game will be BO1 or BO3 at all.The rule says "BO1 / Quarter Finals and above: BO3"

But every round has its number:there are no word "Quarter" or "Final".

At first,there were 6 rounds in the NA tourney so we could suppose Round 6 should be the Final,and Round 5 should be the Semi Final and Round 4 shuld be the Quarter one.

However,all rounds ended in BO1.How did I got to know that?Well,both sides(me and my opponent) have to confirm the result on ESL tourney page after each game,and when both sides checked the result after 1st match,ESL says you are winner/loser of the round.

In fact,even the final round was BO1.I wonder where is Quarter Finals and above


Second is about Schedule.I said there were 6 rounds in NA Cup.When the torney began,I remember there were only 6 rounds:it was one less than Euro Cup so it remains in my memory.

Finally,I played 10 rounds...wow...4 rounds poped out after me and PauL.a.D finished THE FINAL.

How do you feel if you are told that you have to work more 4 hours just after 8 hours hard work.I believe this lead to karoshi

Furthermore,ESL also said the Cup has finished...I have no idea at all.

Below is SS of my ESL page.It was taken the end of Round 9,yes Round 10 (vs.VindicareX again) hadn't finished yet.But the right side of the page declare that the Cup has finished and I'm No.1

Are you confused? ME TOO!!!




Third thing is the different rule from EU Cup.Admin of the ESL said that additional rounds popped out because not all players had lost two times.

They said NA tourney has 2 lives so the tourney lasts until all players (except winner) defeat two times.Well,I admit EU Cup is different from NA Cup,but EU Cup decided its winner although there remains only 1 loss player(like jove,Jesulin).

The biggest victim is PauL.a.D He should be No.1 in NA division.He won all games (he beat me at Round 6) but he must not know that I'm zombie which has two lives He didn't show up after Round 7.

I especially praise his Mental strength.He is the only one who joined both EU and NA Cup! Playing almost 24 hours at high level isn't the usual.Great PauL.a.D


And as RedxWings says,there are sooooo loooooong waiting.I bet Vindicare didn't come last match because he took a nap or just bored of waiting.

After all,I won the 1st prize because I manage to go on playing.My torney time is more than 12 hours...I'm so tired now.

esport! ESPORT!

Congrats to Hans and Tofu for winning EU/NA.

Some really fun games to watch, some great play.

My biggest concern, probably to no surprise, is the timing issues. Spectators don't want to have to sit around for significant periods of time between matches and participants get bored as well. Having to devote upwards of 10 hours every Sunday for months on end to win $100 a week isn't worth it. Tons of players won't be able to commit to this sort of schedule and many more will get burned out after the first month.

My other concern is that this is just too many small tournaments back to back to back for our small community. I think we would be better off having a big event every few months and then a few smaller events in-between to keep things rolling. Weekly cups might work for a community like Hearthstone where the top players are going to be traveling to big events, giving other players a chance to make a name for themselves during the weekly events... but for us... I just see people getting burnt out and wanting something new - or even a break from the tournament grind - because 10+ hours per Sunday of waiting/playing week in and week out is a grind, not a competition.

+1

Is it really Bo1?

The Go4COH weekly cups won't have the same structure I believe.

Great for action.

But the waiting between matches was seriously hard on participants, casters and viewers alike.

On the fence with BO1. Its contrary to coh/2 tradition as BO3. Its faster, yes, but we also all love a revenge/grudge/recovery match.

Some casts:

Paul vs. Barton



Jesulin vs. Jove



extra clip:

Show Spoiler

Siberian vs. Noganno

The problem is with the 'Swiss Style' Tournament. This type of tournament is designed so players are evenly matched up against each other, from the beginning to the end. This, for the game of Company of Heroes is not necessarily a good thing because this causes the games to last a long time. We all know how long matches can last when players are evenly matched. I guess this is ESL's way of getting their seed's for future events that they host.

Seeded style tournament's are the way to go, the problem is the ESL staff doesn't know our community enough, and they also didn't probably want to take the time to check all the players steam id's and see where they sat in the auto-match ladder.

Seeded tournament's work the best in my opinion, the first few rounds wont last too long, or shouldn't because the 'higher' seeds are more skilled, and they would be matched against 'lower' seeds, creating the tournament to have short first few rounds. Much like March Madness.

Anyways, all in all it was fun to watch the competition, thanks for all the casters/players for providing us with viewing pleasure.

The problem is with the 'Swiss Style' Tournament. This type of tournament is designed so players are evenly matched up against each other, from the beginning to the end. This, for the game of Company of Heroes is not necessarily a good thing because this causes the games to last a long time. We all know how long matches can last when players are evenly matched. I guess this is ESL's way of getting their seed's for future events that they host.

Seeded style tournament's are the way to go, the problem is the ESL staff doesn't know our community enough, and they also didn't probably want to take the time to check all the players steam id's and see where they sat in the auto-match ladder.

Seeded tournament's work the best in my opinion, the first few rounds wont last too long, or shouldn't because the 'higher' seeds are more skilled, and they would be matched against 'lower' seeds, creating the tournament to have short first few rounds. Much like March Madness.

Anyways, all in all it was fun to watch the competition, thanks for all the casters/players for providing us with viewing pleasure.

The admins do not check if matches even started. Most of the downtime was because players were not experienced with ESL chat system and how to report games. I have played ESL for other games and I knew this would be an issue. When you play a Go4LOL cup the tourney lasts like 18 hours.

Stupid question: Where do i find the past cup? The only one i found are the upcoming cups.

Thank you for all the kind comments guys.

I think the main problem with this current set-up is that players as well as viewers as waiting too long between matches. I started at 10pm and finished around 7:30am. That's a ridiculous amount of to put aside for a tournament. The same happened with the OCF tournament as well so it's not the Swiss format to blame. What should be done is set a 3-4 round limit per day. Either make the tourney last over 2 days or make it so that tournaments last ever 2 weeks. Opinions?