I think there is a reason behind why there have been two year gaps between ToC's, and that is a lengthy amount of time between players who win 5+ games. But there are other reasons as well, and that pertains to special tournaments being held in milestone seasons. In Season 30 we had the Battle of the Decades tourney, and last season, the All-Star Games. I think in order for there to be a ToC next season, there needs to be more 5+ game winners this season in addition to Sam Kavanaugh, Jason Zuffranieri, and this season's College Championship and Teachers Tournament winners. So far there have not been 5+ day champions since Jason lost his 20th game (even his giant killer didn't win his next match). Or the producers can invite a few 4-game winners like Ryan Bilger into the ToC.MarkBarrett wrote: ↑Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:06 pm
For a tradition to bring back I would nominate the yearly ToC. For whatever has caused the 2-year break pattern find a way to change things. Yes, for the staff it has to be extra work to work out everything from coordinated travel plans to sequester videos to sponsor participation to "harder" clues to whatever else goes into the event. I doubt that prize fund really matter for stretching the time between ToCs.
Emma was a 3x champ and had a very impressive tournament. Waiting to mostly get high-scoring 4x and above champs should not matter. A year is enough time to round up a worthy enough field. It was disappointing from a fan's point of the view that the most recent cut line of Alex Schmidt, Mary Ann Borer, Dave Leffler, Jackie Fuchs, Jonathan Dinerstein and John Presloid went too deep while on the flip side I do at times not sympathize well as thoughts of, "You should have won five games then" rest on my other shoulder.
Last time there were consecutive seasons in which the ToC was held were Seasons 31 and 32.