To hasten (or perhaps shorten the process) so the queen can be crowned, and start the male heroes contests to appease the out crying voices for equality, here might be something you could consider. Take the winning % differentials for each of the seven rounds into consideration in the pairings.
The two winners with the largest percentage differential over the runner up gets a 1st round playoff bye. Round 1 is made up of 1 v 1 brackets of possibly 6 other brackets made up of the other winners and runner ups.
So based on the charts.
- Morgan La Fey and Layla are the ones with the highest win % in their rounds, they automatically advance to round 2. It is what it is, they are just “that” much more popular than the runner ups in their round, don’t fault @Razor for putting them where they were.
- 6 other 1 v 1 brackets are made up of:
Natalya, Belith, Delilah, Hawkmoon, Elena (Other winners of their round)
Isarnia, Athena, Zeline, Li Xiu, Hel, Brienne, Guinevere (Runner Ups of the 7 rounds)
To prevent any sort of rematches of the earlier rounds, the match ups of the 6 brackets in the first round will be randomized and @Razor or @Roxy_TM can put 12 names in the proverbial hat and draw (so Natalya will not face Isarnia immediately in the first round, for example).
To speed things up, you can probably run 2 brackets at a time with limiting factors like 1. shortened number of total voters (e.g. instead of 100, use 50), 2. time limit (e.g. each battle rounds will open for 3 days and automatically close), or 3. limited number of votes per person (instead of 7, each get 3).
Just thought it would be nice to incorporate all the number ones and twos of each round with a slight advantage to two of them for the odd number of rounds, and them being the more popular of their rounds.