I think that ISML holds loser brackets to give voters more chances to vote for losing favorites and I think enable losers to rejoin the running competition against characters they had previously lost to or never had a chance to face.


Some of this changed from last August when I first started. Last year there were never any of these nova/stella divisions, and a total of 50 girls. Competition was more personal with one on one's. Well, right now, there's 144 girls, but only 72 will make it through preliminary, which ends in the first half of April. Then these 72 girls will be divided into nova and stella, and within these brackets of 36, I assume that the one one one matches begin. There are these sort of "competing seasons" in which the highest ranking girls enter a free-for-all competition for that season's "necklace," which is pretty much a award for triumphing that season. There used to be 12 seasons, one for every month, but this year there will be 5, but still monthly. At the end of the year, if thing's have not changed, the top 16 girls will enter the elimination period and compete for the "heavenly tiara" which basically shows the grand winner. Fate Testarossa, Katsura Hinagiku, Mio Akiyama, and Misaka Mikoto have thus far earned the heavenly tiara. Statistics seem to be dependent on both amount of votes gained in a season as well as how much wins the character has.



THIS provides a much better explanation: http://www.internationalsaimoe.com/rules/