Pendant



The pendant is an award in the International Saimoe League. It was introduced in ISML 2015 as the male counterpart to the female necklace awards. The current iteration of the pendants employs a special instant-runoff voting match contested by 8 best-performing characters in a given period, with the winner claiming that period's pendant award and a dedicated poster created by official ISML staff.

The award is an unmistakable mark of strength in the tournament, since most pendant winners successfully qualify for the playoffs, and are consequently favorites to win the Lapis Scepter (aka winning the entire tournament). In fact, due to the award's relatively short history, all Scepter winners since 2015 have won at least one pendant beforehand; thus, in a given tournament, one could safely assume that the championship would be claimed by one of the seven pendant winners.

Current format
After each regular season period, all contestants are ranked by wins, then other relevant stats (generally cumulative vote percentage difference or CVPD). To put it in simple terms: If you have more wins, earn more total votes, and score bigger winning margins, you have a better chance to qualify for the pendant match.

The current format is instant-runoff voting: basically you need to arrange the contestants from 1st to 8th. Those in 1st will receive your vote. If your 1st choice is eliminated, your vote will then transfer to your next highest choice. If a character is abstained, they will not receive your vote. If all of your choices are eliminated, your vote is exhausted.

Results start by counting all highest-choice votes from each contestant. The one with the lowest votes is eliminated, and each voter who chose him as top choice will have their votes transferred to their next-highest choice. After all votes are transferred, another contestant with the lowest votes is eliminated. Transfer votes, eliminate last place, rinse and repeat until 2 contestants remain.

The winner is decided when a contestant scores more than 50% of all votes cast (simple majority). Because of this, it is possible for a pendant match to end before the final (7th) round if he manages to score votes this way; examples of such rounds include Levi (2018 Aquamarine) and Nagisa Shiota (2018 Emerald).

Notes:

History
The pendant was introduced in the first Male Regular Season Tournament in 2015 as the counterpart to the female's necklace. Like the necklace awards, pendants have no bearing on the contestant's standings in the tournament. A male is similarly restricted to only one pendant per year, and winners are banned from participating in that year's remaining gem rounds.

Unlike most editions, the 2015 pendants were ordered differently as a result of the female Stella / Nova division split reducing the regular season to 5 periods, which also carries over to the male tournament. In order they are: Aquamarine -  Amethyst -  Ruby -  Emerald -  Topaz.


 * The remaining two gems, Sapphire and  Diamond, were re-purposed as "Crown" awards, which are given after the regular season ends.
 * Sapphire crown was awarded to the contestant with the highest seeding score. Consequently, they also earned the first seed in that year's playoffs.
 * Diamond crown was a special round consisting of previous Male Exhibition winners from 2011-2014 ( Lelouch, Kirito,  Houtarou, and  Hideyoshi), and the remaining three are chosen from the highest-ranked players who haven't won a pendant, or appeared in the topaz pendant round. The contestant with the most votes outright wins, no calculation formulas required.

The pendants were restored to the original seven-gem order in ISML 2016: Aquamarine -  Topaz -  Amethyst -  Sapphire -  Emerald -  Ruby -  Diamond. Starting from ISML 2017 onwards, all pendant winners from the previous edition who did not win the Scepter were awarded automatic qualification on the Main Tournament, thus allowing them to skip nominations entirely. The 2017 edition was also the first to implement the instant-runoff voting method that is still in use today.

In ISML 2020, the male Exhibition gems were introduced, which serves as a consolation / secondary counterpart to the pendant. These gems are contested between 8 best-performing males who haven't won an award yet, or have fewer awards arranged by the year when they first claimed one. They have a separate named accesory: "Rings", and their posters are designed differently from the main gem awards. For more details, see this article.

Although the pendant is associated with tournament success, there have been three instances where pendant winners failed to advance into the playoffs in the same year they won the award: Archer (2017),  Taki Tachibana (2018), and  Gilgamesh (2020). Interestingly, all of them won the Sapphire pendant when these instances happened.

Poster design

 * 1) find a poster template
 * 2) find an OFFICIAL ART of character (not absolute; since some pictures use fan art)
 * 3) If necessary, extract the character from the background (like using directional lasso tool [L in photoshop])
 * 4) Once character is done, adjust effects as needed
 * 5) i dont even know how to do touch-ups tbh
 * 6) Voila! poster done.
 * 7) this list is only temporary, a better section could be written by someone who has ACTUAL experience, not me
 * 1) this list is only temporary, a better section could be written by someone who has ACTUAL experience, not me

Pendant table
The 2015 Sapphire crown does NOT count under appearances, but the diamond crown DOES count. Both awards will be added into a male's Pendant tally for consistency purposes.

Statistics correct as of ISML 2022 (January 12).

ISML 2015
Format: Qualification: Top 7 highest-placed males at the time.


 * Voters choose up to two (2) contestants.
 * After the match ends, the scores are calculated using this formula:
 * (PSAO in period / 3) + Vote percentage = Final score. 
 * PSAO: Point-weighted strength of Schedule vs. all opponents
 * The contestant with the highest final score wins the pendant.

Sapphire crown: The award is given to the player with the highest seeding score at the end of the regular season.


 * Formula: Current value +/- (Current value * Percentage) = Seeding score.
 * Everyone starts with a Seeding Score of 100
 * Winning adds a percentage of the opponent's score to your value, while losing subtracts a percentage from your score instead.
 * This percentage starts at 1% and is increased by 1 after each match is played, culminating in a 35% increase / decrease in the last regular season match. This means winning the latter matches is critical; a contestant scoring an upset at that stage can result in a dramatic change in their seeding scores.

Below is a list of eight players with the highest seeding scores.

Diamond crown: Voters can choose up to two contestants from this group. The player with the most amount of votes wins, no calculation required.

Gallery
'''This section has been truncated for ease of page viewing. Click [Expand] to see the gallery.''' ISML 2015