Due to the number of teams and a very varying degree of skill, getting to the World Cyber Games final can sometimes be more a question of luck than a question of skill.

Certain groups at this year's final and the previous one, for that matter, were very difficult. Predicting the winner of a few other groups was difficult as well, but that was due to the obscurity of the teams in them. This means that it is possible both in theory and in practice to have a nightmare half of the bracket, the other half being a very weak one in comparison.

This is what happened this year. The upper half of the bracket has got the Extreme Masters LA winners SK Gaming, the World eSports Masters champions mTw and the Electronic Sports World Cup runners up eSTRO. The fourth team in the mix is not a team of pushovers either - it's CBTEAM from Norway with players like Ola 'elemeNt' Moum and Sondre 'REAL' Svanevik.

The other half of the bracket will seem like a walk in the park in comparison. The winners of Groups E-H will find themselves there. The highest-rated team among the potential candidates is GamePlay. The Finns are always dangerous but they are closer to being collectors of fourth and fifth places than consistent finalists.

The other top team in the bottom half of the bracket is Meet Your Makers, but it was only because they were in a group ranked number four (MIBR) and eight (eSTRO) in the world. If it wasn't for the extreme imbalance of Group C, GamePlay could have ended up being the only highly-rated team in the bottom half of the bracket.

Of course, this gives fans a chance to see unknown teams far in the tournament. But the only joy of watching an underdog in a semi final is after they defeated a major favourite, not a neighbour from the land of obscurity.

The same situation applies in all other games. The lack of real seeding at the World Cyber Games often puts potential medalists overboard as early as group play and makes brackets either hell or paradise.

The lack of a proper tournament structure also allows half of the WCG players and teams to choose which half of the bracket they will find themselves in. Possibly screwing innocent and honest contenders for a second place in the group out of their rightful spot in the playoffs in the process. Korean StarCraft players do this every year to avoid each other.

If the WCG cannot come up with solutions of their own, they could go and ask how it is done elsewhere, at the ESWC, for example. Not allowing players and teams to know what the bracket is going to look like before group play starts is a simple enough solution. Seeding has also been used for years. Is it really that difficult?

The World Cyber Games is trying to imitate the Olympics where (only in theory) amateurs compete. But that doesn't mean that the tournaments should be structured in an amateur way.

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photo: Daniel Jensen, ESNation