KLONDIKE, CP Army Headquarters – Behind the scenes of the bracket challenge for March Madness, CP Army Headquarters found interesting trends in the predictions for the winners, losers, and the scores for each battle.
With most battles in the Outstanding Octet needing generally one overtime room or less, the probability of predicting a single battle is 1/45 or 2.2%, meaning that a perfect prediction of every battle for the Outstanding Octet had a chance of 0.0011% of being right(not factoring in Top Ten positions or sizes on the day of). Needless to say, nobody that attempted was able to predict every battle correctly, although nobody predicted every match-up entirely wrong as well. Two out of the three battles pulled major surprises, causing most people to lose points — this led to an average score of 3.33 this round. However, there were certainly some outliers, as well as two brackets that had perfect win predictions. Let’s see what happened with the Bracket Challenge for the Outstanding Octet.
Peoples Imperial Confederation vs Special Weapons and Tactics
This battle was a win for most people who predicted this battle — even if the scores weren’t right, most brackets had SWAT listed as the winner, leading to almost no mess-ups. Coincidentally, anyone whose score was above 4 points had a SWAT 3-0 victory over PIC.
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Fire Warriors vs Silver Empire
This battle was one of the most interesting battles. As the Fire Warriors is an army that was revived not too long back, it was expected to do poorly against a major army that was around for about a year. However, the Fire Warriors pulled the battle into overtime, upsetting almost every bracket. Out of the brackets submitted, only 4 predicted an overtime room. According to the rules of the Bracket Challenge, though, overtime battles must be predicted entirely correct (both winner and room score must be right) or it will be voided. Through that rule, Ferdthebird1 was able to predict a Silver Empire victory over the Fire Warriors with a room score of 2-1-1(W/D/L). There were only 3 other people to predict an overtime room, all with the Fire Warriors winning: Conor/Ry, AustinFraud, and Pran. Everyone else submitted a Silver Empire victory, with no overtime rooms. I was able to ask why Conor and AustinFraud predicted a bracket with a Fire Warriors victory, as well as the room score:
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Red Ravagers vs Templars
This battle was upsetting for most brackets submitted. Only ccrocket and Popcorny had a bracket predicting the Ravagers’ victory, while everyone else had a general Templars 3-0 victory over the Red Ravagers. However, the Templars loss (more info can be found HERE) was a surprise, due to the Templars maxing more than the Ravagers frequently; their performance on the day of the battle led to a defeat though, leading to the Ravagers to tie 2 rooms and win one. This was a hard prediction, especially with the Templars ranking above the Red Ravagers consistently in the Top Tens since the beginning of CP Army Headquarters.
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There surely were many groans when the latest Bracket Challenge update was released, but there are still 3 more rounds till someone is chosen as the winner of this challenge. The next round, Elite Eight, features 3 major armies and 1 small/medium army up against 4 major armies, creating some interesting battles to watch for. Make sure to look for the next update of the bracket challenge spreadsheet as well!
What do YOU think about the Outstanding Octet statistics? Do you think that the odds of the challenge will get easier or harder in the next three rounds? Let us know in the comments!
Pranav
CPA Headquarters Reporter
