Mailbag: Revolver 2015 v. Ring 2021 (v. Sockeye 2021), Hard Cap v. Soft Cap, Three Livestreams, Asterisk?

How would today's best teams stack up against peak Revolver?

November 5, 2021 by Charlie Eisenhood in Opinion with 0 comments

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Q: If you assume that Nationals round lengths are fixed at 2:15 between rounds, and assume a minimum 20 min between games, would you rather have:

A) +1 soft cap at 95 min, and hard cap at 110 (5 min to finish point and play universe if needed + 20 min to next game). This cuts the current 20 min between soft and hard — which is too long for +1 — to 15 min, recognizing that some time is still needed to allow the +1 soft to play out in the case of a comeback.

OR

B) No soft cap. Hard at 110.

In B, more games can play out to 15, because you can use the full round time before any cap goes on. The risk of A is that games still end at 13 or 14, when those same games could have gotten to 15 if the +1 didn’t come on 15 minutes earlier than the game needed to end.

Essentially, what’s more desirable? Short games where the winner must score last or longer games where the winner merely ends with more points?