Here we go again...
First, let me say that I am 100% against going under 7 vs 7, but I'm French, so people could use it against me, so let me explain before throwing tomatoes at me.
Dropping under 7 vs 7 would make it just like another groupfighting tournament. But even if it is a "groupfighting for nations", then you must agree on the fact that nations MUST have a bigger attendance than a regular "team". It's still a national team, not a team made of a bunch of friends (or at least it's supposed to be *cough*). I understand the lack of attendance in some nations and the fact that they have to make coalitions in order to play, however I disagree with going under 5 vs 5, because it would just be uninteresting and unfair. Ok, the smaller nations would bring "enough players", however the bigger nations would struggle in order to bring the best five, there would be internal problems (and trust me, there is no need of such restrictions in order to have problems in some nations
) and in the end, bigger nation would just have a disadvantage compared to minor ones.
Also, the "coalition" system worked pretty well so far. You'll tell me again "you're in a big nation so you don't care", yeah well, tell me that we have to make a coalition with Switzerland and Belgium and we'll make it, it won't change anything for us. UK is kind of a coalition too (no hate please, don't take it as an insult or whatever) I'm sure that Scotland could bring enough people for example...On a 7 vs 7. Do you even realize that 3 men less is a pain in the ass for bigger nations, and even for the gameplay itself ? A 10 vs 10 does NOT play like a 10 vs 10, trust me.
Now, I'm not a conservationist, I'm for new ideas that can improve things, however I'm not for ideas that would be good for some and bad for others. You can't please everyone when making a tournament, you have to please the majority and be sorry for the others, that's how it works. So Carolus, I hope you will understand that if they decide to make a 7 vs 7 (which is a good idea, even if I would PERSONALLY prefer a 10 vs 10) it is not in order to have a FRA vs UK in finale and the other nations leaving, but because they can't afford to drop below this number in order to keep an interest in this tournament.
But I agree with Calle, if you would put 5v5 you would have more nations and better competition. Like this you can go and play semi finals with best teams as Germany , UK,France, etc, immidietly. When you talk about problem picking players, I already said that, do tournament and best 5 gets to play, easy as that. It is not hard to see who is the best in your nation. Duels first to 3. Or you could also tell people to make teams of 5 and organise inside nation tournament with already made teams, and team of 5 that wins plays on cup.
1 : Best duellist =/= best melee player, so a duel system would be pointless.
2 : Even if a team of 5 wins against another, it's pointless if 2 of them are inferior to 2 of the other nation. For example, if I bring a team with 4 friends including 2 guys that I personally know for being good but not excellent and two guys I have full confidence in (and trust me that's rare
), and that we face a team composed of 5 balanced or good players. We'll probably win because we'll be 3 to carry, will it mean that our team is better ? No, it would mean that 3 of us did the job and the 2 others got carried, so that system wouldn't work.
Trust me, it's hard enough to select a roster of 18 people when you're part of a bigger nation, especially when you have plenty of good players, so selecting only 10 guys and fielding 5 ? Forgive me but that's a joke.
I hope you won't take anything personal here, I'm just expressing my point of view, may it be shared or not.