ISML 2014

ISML 2014 was the 7th edition of the International Saimoe League contest, and the third year of the Nova/Stella split.

Date A Live heroine Kotori Itsuka claimed this year's Heavenly Tiara after defeating Sakurasou main girl Mashiro Shiina in the final, becoming the second girl to win the tournament without winning a necklace after Fate Testarossa in 2008. Although she competed in the seasonal contest a year before, Kotori became the first girl since 2008 to become ISML champion in her first-ever Main Tournament appearance.

It was the last edition to feature previous champions in the playoff stage. This year's defending champion was Ruri Gokou, who made as far as the Tiara quarter-finals, where she lost to eventual third-placer Kanade Tachibana in a rematch of last year's final.

The last Male Exhibition Tournament was held this year, but with a twist --- the contest featured characters known as "Traps" (androgynous / feminine-looking males) instead. Unsurprisingly, this led to Hideyoshi Kinoshita --- the best-known example of the archetype at that time --- winning ISML's fourth Lapis Scepter, after defeating Shidou Itsuka in the final

Aquamarine
Necklace Winner: Misaka Mikoto

Amethyst
Necklace Winner: Tachibana Kanade

Ruby
Necklace Winner: Kuroyukihime

Emerald
Necklace Winner: Yuuki Asuna

Topaz
Necklace Winner: Shiina Mashiro

Format
= (Votes for / Votes against).
 * Each division has 36 contestants. They are gathered into a single large group, where each contestant plays the others once (a single round-robin system) for 35 matches. These matches are further subdivided into 5 periods, each having 7 matches. The top 16 finishers will advance to the playoffs.
 * Players are ranked by points earned over the course of the regular season: 3 points for a win, and 1 point for a draw. A loss adds points based on the formula
 * Example: Player A wins against Player B with a score of 6969 - 4200. While Player A gets the 3 points, Player B won't get nothing for his loss; instead he gets ( 4200 / 6969 ) = 0.603 points (rounded to the nearest thousandths).

If there is a tie among two or more players, they are broken in the following order:
 * 1) Wins
 * 2) Head-to-head record 
 * 3) Higher Point-weighted Strength of Schedule of All opponents (PSAO) - basically: the total of your opponents' points times a percentage.
 * 4) Higher vote difference (VD)
 * 5) Total votes earned (VF)
 * 6) Staff selection

Format
Format
 * Phase 1 (Stella and Nova) - Swiss-system format.
 * Round 1's match-ups are decided using their regular position ranks as seeds. Seed order follows the usual 1v16, 8v9, 4v13 etc. order.
 * After each and every round, players will be matched up against players with the same record as theirs.
 * The tournament continues until a set amount of rounds has been played. In ISML's case, it's 4 rounds.
 * After 4 rounds have passed, players will be ranked in this order:
 * Wins
 * Quality wins (QW) - wins against players with the same or better record than theirs
 * Regular season rank
 * Top 8 of each division will advance to Phase 2, while the rest will say goodbye to their championship dreams.
 * First-placed girl of each division is awarded the Sapphire circlet (Nova) or Diamond circlet (Stella).

Tiara Playoffs

 * Single-elimination bracket
 * N1-S8, S4-N5, S2-N7, N3-S6
 * S1-N8, N4-S5, N2-S7, S3-N6
 * All losers except the runner-up will play consolation matches to determine their final rankings.
 * Winner of the final match claims the Heavenly Tiara and the championship.

Bold : Necklace Winner

Winner's Gallery
Necklace & Tiara