For the 3 people who are curious, here is some information on how Mario Kart will be run at Vegas for Evo Finals.
There will be one Time Trial for qualifiers, and the track will be unknown until the day of the tournament (only I know which track it will be…). The top X times will qualify. At West and East, it was 8 people, but we may include more for Vegas, depending on number of entrants. If there is more than 8, we will run some semis to whittle the field down to top 8 from Vegas (making 16 total with the 4 from West and the 4 from East).
UPDATE: 07-26-2006
The beta schedule for Evo Finals came out, and there seems like there will be no Time Trial qualifications on Saturday. Saturday will be reserved simply for the Semis to weed the number of players down to the top 8 for Sunday. So if you want to qualify for Mario Kart, get to Evo Finals on Friday to submit your Time Trial score.
(end update)
The format in which we will whittle down the playing field is through a series of 4-man races. Each 4-man race will be played on 4 random tracks (4 from a pre-selected group of tracks drawn out of a hat), and the two players with the highest point total will advance until we get our top 8 players for the two final races (really, we’re playing until we get the top 4 finishers, but the 5th through 8th finishers also need to play to figure out what place they finish in). The top 4 finishers will compete in the final final race to determine spots 1-4. The next top 4 finishers will also race for the 5-8 spots. In case of ties, the people who are tied will have a one-track race-off.
Actually, the main reason for this post is that I am actually one of the qualifiers from Evo West, and so to prevent an unfair advantage for me, I will present to all Mario Kart players the 16 tracks that were chosen to qualify for the random drawn-out-of-a-hat selection to be raced in the semis and finals. That way, I don’t have any knowledge in advance that no one else has, to prevent any accusations of cheating or conspiracy (as is popular here at shoryuken.com). So without further ado, here are the 16 tracks:
- Delfino Square (Flower Cup)
- Waluigi Pinball (Flower Cup)
- Shroom Ridge (Flower Cup)
- DK Pass (Star Cup)
- Tick-Tock Clock (Star Cup)
- Mario Circuit (Star Cup)
- Airship Fortress (Star Cup)
- Wario Stadium (Special Cup)
- Peach Gardens (Special Cup)
- Bowser Castle (Special Cup)
- Rainbow Road (Special Cup)
- Frappe Snowland (Banana Cup)
- Bowser Castle 2 (Banana Cup)
- Choco Mountain (Leaf Cup)
- Banshee Boardwalk (Lightning Cup)
- Yoshi Circuit (Lightning Cup)
Within a single 4-man race, the tracks will not be repeated. But between the various 4-man races, there is definitely the need to repeat tracks if there are a larger number of semis to be played out before Sunday.
The other 16 tracks that were left out were done so pretty much at my discretion. If you really have a beef with a certian track being left off, post here and I’ll explain why I left it off. I’ll expalin it, and you can tell me why I’m wrong, but I’m warning you now: don’t expect to change my mind. I want these set now so no final last minute changes causes anyone grief.
- James