I had an idea and realized it is broken. I wanted to share just because it might inspire some of you, and maybe something good comes out of this.

So, time limit is what we are used to. It is simple to understand and guarantees the length of a map. Schedule-wise there is the unknown of BO3/5 which still screws things up, but at least the length of the continuous play is fixed. Other advantages of tl?

Now imagine this: a mega pickup limit, say set to 15. Since mega spawns every 35 seconds, this guarantees a minimum of 8 minutes and 45 seconds played, but:
- There are always delays, so the match will be longer. Tuning the number, one could obtain roughly 10 min of play on average.
- Picking mega would now add another dimension. As usual, it boosts your health and prevents your opponent to stack, but it also makes the match shorter.
- As picking mega is the only thing that makes the game end, committing to the item will be important for both players. A player with item control but less frags on the scoreboard will have the dilemma of picking one of the last megas – therefore making the game closer to its end - or chasing the opponent. Similarly, a player with lower stack but more frags, will have the challenge of talking the last megas without giving away too many frags.
Things may get broken for the following reasons
- comebacks may be harder. The player coming back would have to guard the mega area, while the other may pacman all armors, and briefly build enough stack to bully inside the mega area.
- matches may get longer. I don’t really see a full deadlock, but still, players may start delaying pickups early, making maps way more longer than 10 minutes.
- It may not adapt to all maps equally well.

Thoughts?

Edit:

Alternatives:
- The game ends as soon as one of the players reaches X mega pickups (say 10).