Thanks for the clarifications! Now for more questions!
How do byes affect the Opponent's Win % and Opp's Opp's Win %?
Like, just say a player defeats one of those super cool people who earned 2 byes from a Regional or whatever, how do those byes count when calculating those above numbers? Are those byes counted as players, and if so, what would be the eventual ranking of these bye-people (the fake people whose defeat is represented by the bye a person earns)? Do they defeat all of their following hypothetical opponents, ending up with X-1 or X-2 records, or is this just really silly and way too complicated? If this concept is not weird, how do these bye-people compare to real people with the same X-1 or X-2 records, respectively, considering those bye-people only fight 1 or 2 real people?
I only ask this because, according to official TPCi tournament operatiosn guide([1]), Opps Win % is the average of all your opponent's individual win %, as is Opp's Opp's Win %, which seems to get funky when byes are involved (byes are not even mentioned). Does anybody know how this works, or if it is even relevant? {Sorry if this has been asked before, I could not find anything using the Search tool}
[1] Section 3.1.5.1 Determining Tiebreakers.
Also, where is the best place to practice against higher tier players?
I know all practice is good practice, and using a variety of different places is key (PO, GBU at 2 am to fight those ever clever Japanese, various WiFi tournies), but it is even better to play against the strongest possible, especially when planning to go to a tournament as tough as Nationals. Do the super-pro actually play on PO consistently, or is it one of those "you have to badger them on PO once you get enough notierity in the community for them to accept your challenge so they know your not just some random scrubs who thinks he's hot shit because he beat the elite four" type of thing? If not PO, is there some other medium by which high level players practice, or do high level players not really need to practice due to their level of understanding of the game? I am definitely not ready to compete against these type of players, but I am curious for the future if I start to get decent at the game.