ISML 2017

ISML 2017 was the 10th edition of the International Saimoe League contest. This tournament marked the return of ISML 2008 champion Fate Testarossa's eligibility into the Main Tournament.

It was the first edition where previous year's necklace and pendant winners that didn't win Tiara / Scepter were granted automatic qualification into the main tournament, bringing the total number of direct invites to 20  (14 female, 6 male). In addition to that, the necklace and pendant rounds from this year onwards will be decided through Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV). The wildcard rounds were also introduced in this edition, giving next-worst contestants another chance at survival.

Megumi Katou controversially won the Tiara against Main Tournament debutant Emilia because a group of Chinese conspirators admitted to having rigged the match using voting bots in Megumi's favor. In the male division, the release of the Assassination Classroom spin-off series Koro-sensei Quest gave the eponymous teacher all he needs to win the year's Scepter against Hachiman Hikigaya, who was making his second appearance in the final.

Rules & Tournament Format
Qualification
 * 120 characters will play in the main tournament. However, 14 (female) or 6 (male) of these slots are pre-occupied by Direct Invites.
 * Hence, only the top 104 females and top 116 males with the most nominations will qualify.
 * Last-Place Tiebreaker: The ISML staff gives priority to characters who haven't appeared in the ISML tournament yet.

Elimination Stage / Playoffs

 * Single-elimination bracket.
 * Surviving players are seeded using the Cumulative Vote Percentage (CVP) stat earned throughout the regular season. Note that seedings are subject to change by the staff without prior notice.
 * Seeding Order: 1v16, 8v9, 4v15, 5v12, 2v15, 7v10, 3v14, 6v11.
 * All losers (except the runner-up) will play consolation matches to determine their final rankings.
 * The winner of the final match claims the grand prize: Heavenly Tiara for females, and Lapis Scepter for males.

Nominations
To view nominations by anime, see the results page.

Format
Nomination Ballot Rules:
 * Eighteen (18) nomination slots.
 * Must nominate AT LEAST 5 valid characters
 * Must have AT LEAST 3 valid anime series/franchises represented.
 * Must nominate AT LEAST 1 valid male and 1 valid female character.
 * Note that you NEED to fulfill these three criteria above when nominating; otherwise your entire ballot will be VOIDED, meaning ALL of your nominations WILL NOT COUNT towards the results,
 * All nominations have equal weight and have no ranking.
 * Each nomination must have a COMPLETE name of the character (any order, language, or spelling, and diacritic usage is allowed) and its anime source (any language is acceptable; shorthand titles like those used for those notorious long light novel titles are allowed).
 * If a character doesn't have the anime source next to it (and vice versa), only that entry will be DISCARDED (aka doesn't count). However, they will NOT VOID your entire ballot.
 * Slight misspellings are generally accepted, so long as they are understood by the staff.
 * Each nomination must be unique:
 * Multiple entries with the same character name but different language / spelling / name order will only count as ONE nomination towards that character.
 * Example: If you enter "Shinobu Oshino" in one entry and then "Oshino Shinobu" in another, both entries will only count as one nomination for Shinobu.
 * Aliases, Nicknames, Alter-egos, Secret identities, and Alternative forms will only count as ONE nomination towards that character they represent.
 * Example:  "Shinobu Oshino" and "Kiss-Shot-Acerola-Orion-Heart-Under-Blade" will only count as one nomination for Shinobu. Pls don't do it; it will only waste slots.
 * A ballot can only be submitted once. Incomplete ballots can be submitted, however, you CANNOT save it for later. Remember, once your ballot is submitted, that's it. That's why you need to plan your nominations carefully; it's one of the reasons why the nomination stage lasts a week. 

Results
''In the ISML website, characters with the same number of nominations are displayed in "ISML Alphabetical Order". However, this order is inconsistent, so this wiki will alphabetically order them by family names instead.'' (ISML 2017 archive link.)

Female ''Since this year had very few votes, this wiki will not include contestants below the tiebreaker threshold. ''

Male For male characters, appearances from male exhibition tournaments (2011-2014) will be counted for continuity purposes. RD - This year will be their Regular season debut (first appearance). OLD (Old Debutant) - Character's anime series is at least two years old at the time of their qualification.This means that the character has had chances to get past ISML nominations, but failed. [Note 1] Akko (LWA) qualifies over Alisha Diphda (Tales) because she didn't play in an ISML match yet (failed to qualify in the 2016 seasonals). [Note 2] Saiki K. is considered "old" because of an ONA (Web animation) adaptation that was released in August 4, 2013, three years before the TV series was aired.

Regular Season
To view all of the regular season matches and all group results in every period, see ISML 2017/Regular Season.

Format:
 * Players are divided into groups of six (6).
 * Single round-robin format.
 * Contestants are awarded points after each match:
 * 3 points for a win
 * 1 point for a draw (very rare)
 * A loss adds points equal to (Votes for / Votes against).
 * Example: Luffy loses 4200 - 6969 against  Ash. While Ash gets the full 3 points, Luffy gets 0.6027 points (rounded off) as consolation.
 * Eight (8) top-ranked contestants will qualify for Necklace (female) or Pendant (male). Criteria used are discussed in the "Gem and Wildcard Rounds" section below.
 * 5th placed contestants in each group will play in the Wildcard rounds for one more chance to stay in the competition.
 * Last-placed (6th) contestant in each group is eliminated outright. If there are not enough fifth-placed players to complete the wildcards, they will select players with the highest Cumulative Vote Percentage (CVP) among the last-placed ones.
 * After each period, the remaining contestants are re-drawn into different groups, and their points are reset to zero.
 * Number of Players: 120 > 96 > 72 > 64 > 52 > 40 > 32 > 24. (divide each number by 6 to determine the number of groups)
 * Aquamarine and Topaz eliminates 24 players.
 * Amethyst - Ruby eliminates 12 players.
 * Diamond eliminates 8 players.

Gem and Wildcard Rounds
Qualifying Criteria for Necklace / Pendant: 
 * 1) Group position
 * 2) Points
 * 3) Wins
 * 4) Votes earned (VF)
 * 5) Vote difference (VD)
 * 6) Whatever the fuck the ISML staff smokes
 * 7) Gem Winners are banned from participating in further gem rounds.

All Necklace / Pendant rounds use the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) format.

Wildcard rounds either use Single-transferable vote (STV), Approval Voting or Range Voting.
 * The Wildcard STV is similar to IRV, the only difference is that multiple contestants are accepted rather than just one. Contestants earning a majority vote automatically qualify for the next period, and their votes are redisdtributed to their second choices like an eliminated cotestant would. The counting ends when all of the qualifying spots are filled, either through majority or by elimination process.
 * In the Approval Voting format, voters may choose any number of contestants they wish to advance. Contestants with the highest number of votes (Number varies) advance, and the rest are eliminated.
 * Range Voting (aka Score voting) is similar to Approval voting, but instead of a single "Vote me!" button, there's a slider where voters can input their desired scores for each contestant.

Characters eliminated outright in groups are arranged by Cumulative Vote Percentage (CVP) (Not shown here) in descending order.

Ruby
No Ruby Wildcards: Bottom 2 teams of each group are eliminated.

Diamond
No Diamond Wildcard:   The final group stage meant that only the top 4 finishers of each group advanced to the playoffs, and the rest are eliminated. For this reason, this wiki will display the results of the Diamond group stage.

Tiebreakers:  Points (3W, 1D, Loss=VF/VA)  > Wins > Head-to-head record > Votes For (VF) > Vote Difference (VD).

Females

Males

Seedings
Top 4 finishers from each group are seeded using the Cumulative Vote Percentage (CVP) earned during the course of the entire regular season.

Female Seeds



Male Seeds



Exhibition Filler Matches
Topaz
 * Misaka 10032 > Enju Aihara > Tsumugi Kotobuki > Kotomi Ichinose > Mayaka Ibara > Claire Rogue > Suigintou (17003 - 15384 - 11391 - 10943 - 10840 - 9917 - 8602)
 * Sesshomaru > Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti > Satoshi Fukube > Ruka Urushibara > Saito Hiraga > Reinhard von Lohengramm (11594 - 10020 - 9981 - 9810 - 8969 - 4216)

Diamond
 * Ryou Fujibayashi > Tsukasa Hiiragi (2431 - 2261)

Playoffs
 * Hanayo Koizumi > Iori Minase (2184 - 1414)
 * Keroberos > Luna (Sailor Moon) (2522 - 1080)
 * Fujibayashi Kyō > Momo Belia Deviluke (1626 - 1579)

Winners' Gallery
Necklace & Tiara