Please pardon my non-participant brief interjection here:
IMO there's two ways to go in the future. (as is this rendition can be salvaged but not entirely saved.)
1. Next time, there is no joining post signups. Leaving gives your opponent a win, there are no byes or the lore changes in such away that the game is no longer "get 4 wins". The game becomes elimination. This gives you a speedy, concise event.
2. Next time, there is no "tiers" and opponents are randomly matched every round. Everything else stays the same. This allows for more fair play with uneven numbers and keeps everyone in the event longer. It also allows comebacks.
1 is more competitive, 2 is more relaxed buy still fair.
I prefer two afterall this is meant to be a game not an event but I actually think the best option is a combination of the two. No joining post round 1 is a must otherwise we get incidents where the only person able to win is the person who was here from the start. It all depends who quickly you want further iterations to end I see where root came from where the top tier players never getting matched up defeats the advantage of going unbeaten but purely matching up the top tier players to end the game is just as unfair randomising all matches is the fairest way to lay it out if someone who has three parts just happens to get matched up againsrt the only other player with three pieces so be it but deliberately matching them up is just wrong. Unless I am very much mistaken not even any of the competitive pvp is done this way so why should a simple forum game be any different.
In general I concur with your statement here, tree (in yellow within quote), but I know recently of one event (
12 Lives #3) in which I participated a great deal that EVERY ROUND matched top / higher players together and bottom / lower players together. In the end, as a lucky-to-be-in-the-position higher ranked player most of the event I was left feeling like the advantage of winning (I never lost a round matchup until the end) as the event went along meant very little besides "well it is better than losing ground". (For the record, I finished 2nd while having a winning record against every player in the event. This does not take
anything away from Regy's accomplishments in winning it all.)
TL;DR -- 12 Lives event operates matching equal level (top-to-top, bottom-to-bottom) opponents. I experienced this recently : after defeating the other top-2 opponent (besides myself) for seven straight rounds I lost the event 1-0 x3 on the closing Round.
