Wow... what kind of improvisation is this, Eric? We agreed on splitting players by cities.

But you're arriving on the 30th. If we wait for everyone to gather on Saturday and then draw lots, we'll start at best at 3:00 PM, or even later. About half the people will waste a lot of time. The more pairs that start playing earlier, the higher the chance that we'll finish the first round.

I think players from the same city should be separated. I wrote about "13 players from the capital" and "13 from the rest of the world." The difficulty is that there are unknown factors. When will Preds, Peterius, and Medium arrive? So, we can only be sure when we seat the last pair.

And where did the seeding come from? And especially in this composition - if we're going to seed, it should be according to the ranking agency, which in our case is Forrest.

The last thing I want is pairs like AlexGreat - Stinger or Bayazet - Roland in the first round. It's better for the players, the organizers, and the fans when the favorites start their fight for the championship later. If an unseeded player knocks out a favorite early on, then so be it.
But if the favorites survive the first two rounds, then the real battle will begin... a lot of people will tune in to the broadcast, starting from the 3rd round.

The best Heroes tournament was in Krasnodar in 2004. That's where they used a draw that separated the favorites. Of course, there was a Swiss system, but if you look at the essence, there's no difference - the favorites should meet later.

http://forum.heroesleague.ru/viewtopic.php?t=585&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=120

There were questions. I never found out who the seeded players Lao, Ded Zapadlo, and Profus were; I can't remember them from any tournament.
At the same time, such brilliant players as Phil123 and DSVasya were unseeded and made it through from the very bottom. Still, they both made it far. Although I don't remember exactly, Vasya might have been placed in the second group due to the absence of seeded players.

Therefore, we need to approach this issue carefully. Suggest how to do the seeding, but objectively. And not: "He's from St. Petersburg, and that's all that needs to be said!"

P.S. Reserve the following numbers for the seeded players in the table: 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25.