Following a mishap with the SOS scoring formula at the Teamfight Tactics European Qualifier Finals today, the tournament’s admins have walked back day one eliminations, leaving day two to be played with all 64 starting players.
The first of eight regional finals began today with the TFT European Qualifier Finals, featuring 64 players competing for three seats at the Galaxies Championship. A total of five rounds were played today at the TFT European Qualifier Finals to determine the 32 players that would advance to day two. The competition was intense—as to be expected—resulting in a number of tie-breakers heading into the later rounds.
Seeding during rounds four and five were potentially incorrect, however, due to a mathematical error in the SOS scoring formula that failed to award tie-breaker points to competitors who played against the same person multiple times.
Related: How to watch TFT Galaxies Championship European Qualifier Finals
“Any ties in points will be broken by SOS Score (total points scored by all opponents in your previous lobbies/total games played by all opponents in your previous lobbies),” the rules state. “The SOS score will be used for each round’s matchmaking and will also decide the final cut. In the event that two players have the same points and SOS score, the tie will be broken at random.”
The potential tie-breaker error at the TFT European Qualifier Finals may have effected lobby seeding in rounds four and five. It also may have affected the final tie-breaker results that determined which players had made the top-32 cut-off.
What may have occurred, according to Elliot “FluffyHS” Karlsson, is that “if a competitor played against another competitor multiple times, they only got one point as opposed to points earned for each time played.” And with only 64 players competing in five rounds, competitors had to face off against players more than once—meaning some players possibly benefited from playing unique opponents.
FluffyHS and his team of mathematicians informed the tournament admins about the error, which eventually led to a conversation with the head of Riot EU esports, Alberto Guerrero.
Shortly after the meeting, an official announcement was released regarding concern over the tie-breaker SOS scoring error by the admin Marco.
“Following the feedback from the community, we decided to recheck the way we calculated the SOS score,” Marco said. “After rechecking our calculation process, we consider that the formula used today is a valid interpretation of what the SOS score rule is. However, we also can understand if someone got another interpretation for the SOS score rule.”
In what appears to be an effort to compromise, the tournament admin team came to a decision that didn’t eliminate anyone from day one.
“We’re making the decision to not eliminate anyone tonight and the games will be played with 64 players tomorrow (day two),” Marco said. “However, the results and final scores of day one will not be changed as they were determined in a fair way.”
Marco also revealed that an exact SOS scoring formula for the remainder of the tournament will get shared tomorrow.
Based on the announcement, it remains uncertain how day two of the TFT European Qualifier Finals will get played out. It’s possible that not all 64 players will show up or even get the message before rounds begin on day two if they thought they were already cut.
