ISML 2020

ISML 2020 was the 13th edition of the International Saimoe League. The competition began in 2020 July 1 and ended in 2021 February 10. The returning champions were Mikoto Misaka and Lelouch vi Britannia, champions of the ISML 2011 Main Tournament and Male Exhibitions respectively.

The tournament's regular season, which was contested by 96 characters, underwent a major overhaul as it was changed into a three splits system: Split 1 involved groups of six, while Splits 2 and 3 lasted 3 periods each, and was contested between groups of 16 contestants. This year also saw the return of the preliminary rounds, which are meant to reduce the number of qualified nominees to fit within the regular season's capacity, and the exhibition gems, which are contested between the best performers of each period who have won fewer (or zero) ISML awards.

As with most ISML tournaments, 2020 was characterized by the clash of several voting factions representing popular shows; in this edition it's between Kaguya-sama, Raildex, and Oregairu, who benefited from having new seasons airing that year. These shows earned the lion's share of gem awards as well.

The female division ended with Yukino Yukinoshita winning the Tiara against Misaka, foiling the latter's quest for a repeat championship just after she was unbanned from the champions rule. Coincidentally, the final match happened at the eve of the Chinese New Year, so the results were timed to release on the midnight of February 11 in Beijing Time. The event resulted in a massive amount of attention in the ISML Tieba forums mostly due to Chinese Railgun fans wanting her to win a second tiara, and also caused the official ISML Discord server to receive an influx of new users who are just here to see the results.

Meanwhile, the male division was dominated by Kaguya-sama's male protagonist Miyuki Shirogane, who led the tournament in nominations, voting numbers, and percentages, and finished the regular season undefeated and untied. He defeated Bunny Girl Senpai's Sakuta Azusagawa, who was making his second consecutive finals appearance, by just 30 votes to secure this year's Scepter, making him the third male champion to complete a perfect season and becoming the first-ever debutant to achieve such a feat regardless of sex.

Useful links:
 * ISML 2020 charter (rules and format)
 * Moegirl article (Chinese)
 * [Starryrainynight's ISML 2020 results document] (download link, Chinese)

Major Format Changes
Preliminary Period
 * The preliminary round and seeding rounds return in ISML 2020 since its last appearance in ISML 2015. Unlike in 2015, these rounds will have a completely new format.
 * Preliminaries are split into two rounds, which are contested between characters who scored low nomination votes. The exact range of rankings for each round vary per gender. Voting format is the usual approval and range voting used in multi-man matches.
 * The seeding rounds are also held at the same time, which will determine each contestant's seeds that are used to group the contestants in the regular season. These seeds only apply to Split 1 (the first group stage). Again, same voting format as the preliminary rounds.

Regular Season
 * Participants increased from 72 to 96.
 * ISML 2020's regular season still use the single round-robin group stages. However, the number of stages were dramatically changed; it will use the Three Splits format instead of the seven periods last year.
 * Split 1: Aquamarine. 96 characters are split into 16 groups of 6 members.
 * Split 2: Topaz, Amethyst, Sapphire. 64 characters are split into 4 groups of 16.
 * Split 3: Emerald, Ruby, Diamond. 32 characters are split into 2 groups of 16.
 * As a result of the change, the wildcard rounds were reduced to just two: at the end of Splits 1 and 2. No wildcard round is given after Split 3 since only the top 8 characters from each group will advance into playoffs.

Exhibition Gems
 * Lesser counterparts of necklaces and pendants. Last seen in ISML 2014, the exhibition gems were finally re-introduced this year, with males being awarded these gems for the first time in ISML history.
 * They will use the same format as the main gems: instant-runoff voting (IRV).
 * Before the tournament proper, there were several suggestions made for the potential names of male exhibition gems from each period, such as "Dog Tags". The staff ultimately decided to assign just a single accesory for each gender: Bracelets for females, and Rings for males.

Schedule
''All voting rounds begin and end at 10:00 UTC (18:00 Beijing, 06:00 New York). Results are displayed ~12 hours after voting ends. Assuming there's no delays, each round will last 3 days from voting, results, and waiting time. Gem rounds last ~5 days.''


 * Nominations: July 1 - 8
 * Preliminaries: July 22 - August 2
 * Aquamarine: August 7 - September 2
 * Topaz: September 5 - 24
 * Amethyst: September 29 - October 16
 * Sapphire: October 21 - November 7
 * Emerald: November 13 - 29
 * Ruby: December 4 - 21
 * Diamond: 2020 December 26 - 2021 January 12
 * Playoffs: 2021 January 19 - February 11

Nominations
The main tournament will consist of at least 120 contestants per gender.
 * Subtracting all directly qualified contestants (14 female and 6 male), this means that only the top 106 females and top 114 males will qualify.
 * Contestants will advance to these stages according to their rankings:
 * Regular season: Top 64 females and top 72 males
 * Preliminary Round 2: Females ranked 65-82, and males ranked 73-90.
 *  Preliminary Round 1: All remaining contestants.
 * If last place is tied, all relevant contestants will qualify as well.
 * Nomination tiebreakers (except last place):
 * ISML Career regular season wins
 * ISML Career Main tournament wins
 * Newest anime media release
 * Staff selection

Rules
Nominations lasted from 2020 July 1-7.
 * nominations last seven days
 * Each voter is given a ballot with 24 entries. To nominate a character, simply type its name AND its series. Name order / spelling / language / aliases don't matter as long as it's clear who you're referring to.
 * All characters must make their animated debut on December 31, 2019 or earlier.
 * Ballots must fulfill several important conditions in order for their nominations to be counted; failure to meet all of them will result in a voided ballot.
 * Invalid entries are discarded independently and will NOT void your entire ballot unless it fails to meet the minimum requirements below.
 * IMPORTANT CONDITIONS:
 * Must represent at least eight (5) anime series (spin-offs and crossovers do not count as separate series)
 * Must nominate at least two (2) males and females each
 * Four (4) characters maximum per series/franchise. Don't exceed this limit, otherwise the staff will discard all of these characters because they can't choose.
 * ISML champions from 2012-2019 CANNOT be nominated because of the champions ban rule; they will be placed in a separate tournament of champions instead. They are as follows:
 * Female: Kanade Tachibana,  Ruri Gokou,  Kotori Itsuka,  Eru Chitanda,  Shana,  Megumi Katou,  Rem, and  Violet Evergarden.
 * Male: Kazuto Kirigaya*,  Houtarou Oreki*,  Hideyoshi Kinoshita*,  Accelerator,  Sora,  Koro-sensei,  Hachiman Hikigaya, and  Rimuru Tempest.

Regular Season
To view the group draw, detailed tables, and the results of all regular season matches, click here.

The regular season is divided into 3 splits, with each split subdivided into one or more periods. Contestants are divided into several groups that will play a single round-robin tournament. Every period lasts 5 matchdays, with the exception of Aquamarine, which lasts 8 matchdays (but a contestant still plays 5 matches in that period).

Tiebreakers:
 * 1) Wins (if tied, draws will be counted)
 * 2) Head-to-head record
 * 3) SCVPD (Cumulative vote points difference, split only)
 * 4) SCVP (Cumulative vote points, split only)
 * 5) Staff selection

Gem Rounds
For rules and full results, see ISML 2020/Gem Rounds.

This section will display a truncated result of all gem rounds - each contestant's final scores only. The format is instant-runoff voting, which means that one contestant with the lowest votes is eliminated with their voters' choices being added to other contestants, until only two remain or a contestant scores more than 50% of all votes.

Playoffs
Format:
 * Good old 1v1 Single-elimination tournament. Characters are seeded based on their final group position in Split 3.
 * Bracket order: A1-B8, B4-A5, B2-A7, A3-B6, B1-A8, A4-B5, A2-B7, B3-A6
 * Winner of the final match claims the Heavenly Tiara (females) or Lapis Scepter (males) and declared as the champion.
 * All losers except the runner-up will play consolation matches in order to rank players 3rd and below.

Final Rankings (1-20)
'Final rankings from each gender will only display 1st-20th. For full rankings and statistics, see ISML 2020/Consolations & Final Rankings.'

Trivia
Main Tournament
 * Thanks to a perfect storm of Railgun T's broadcast and vocal support, Mikoto Misaka's performance in 2020 is the most successful a returning champion has ever done, having won a necklace and reaching the finals.
 * After winning the Ruby necklace round, Mashiro Shiina set a new record for most necklaces with 8, breaking Shana and Kanade Tachibana's previous record of 7 necklaces.
 * Mashiro's semi-final streak was broken after she lost in the quarter-finals to Mai Sakurajima, her first such loss since her debut in ISML 2013, and second overall. Quarter-finals is her worst result, a testament to how consistently powerful Mashiro is in the tournament.
 * This doesn't come without notice however, as the ISML Tieba had a loud and mixed reaction when the results were released.
 * A Certain Magical Index and Kaguya-sama have the most number of awards won for this year, with 5 posters each. However, Kaguya-sama is the most successful overall because they won the Scepter (male championship).
 * Toaru / Raildex (5) - 2 main gems, 3 exhibition gems
 * Kaguya-sama - 3 main gems , spring seasonal , Scepter

Vote benchmarks: The following contestants were the first to exceed a certain number of votes.
 * Female:'
 * 4000: Kaguya Shinomiya, Aqua 2 (vs.  Sora K. 4007 - 1471)
 * 5000: Kaguya Shinomiya, Aqua 5 (vs.  Alice Z. 5227 - 1307)
 * 6000: Kurumi Tokisaki, Sapp 3 (vs.  Haruno, 6376 - 1868)
 * 7000: Mikoto Misaka, QF (vs.  Rin, 7344 - 4366)
 * 9000: Final (Yukino vs Mikoto, 9725 - 9507)


 * Male:
 * 4000 votes: Two characters, Aqua 6: Miyuki Shirogane (vs. Eren, 4785 - 1385); Yuu Ishigami (vs.  Mochizou, 4615 - 1150)
 * 5000: Gilgamesh, Sapp 1 (vs.  Takashi, 5259 - 1899)
 * 6000: Miyuki Shirogane, Ro16 (vs.  Taki Tachibana, 6388 - 3752)
 * 8000: Miyuki Shirogane, SF (vs.  Ishigami, 8107 - 5307)

Incidents
Enkidu name change
 * During the Aquamarine period, the name of Enkidu from Fate/Grand Order was changed to "Kingu (Enkidu)" after several fans and an ISML Tieba thread sent complaints claiming that the character displayed in the icon isn't really Enkidu, but a different character with an identical appearance named Kingu. The claim was primarily based on the differing eye colors between the two characters: in the game's official art, Enkidu is depicted with green eyes, while Kingu's eyes are purple.  In addition, these characters are considered different because of plot reasons.
 * In this wiki, the character will be named "Enkidu" (with quotes) to reflect this change.

Sapphire Gem recount
 * The Sapphire gem round was completely re-counted because of staff errors and complaints from voters. The results were changed as follows:
 * Pendant winner went from Kiyotaka Ayanokouji to Gilgamesh
 * Bracelet winner went from Iroha Isshiki to Chino Kafuu
 * In Male Wildcards, Conan Edogawa and Kousei Arima were replaced by Willem Kmetsch and Kiritsugu Emiya who advanced instead.

Amethyst bracelet poster change
 * During the playoffs, the poster for the Amethyst bracelet was changed due to possible copyright concerns. The former image used a fan art of Yui Yuigahama made by the user @yamazacky (やまざき), and originally posted on Twitter. The original lmage can be found here. The poster was changed to another Yuigahama picture from the official Oregairu materials.

Winner's Gallery
Necklace & Tiara