Ran a real good REV2SDAY bracket today.
Once a month we switch up the format to break things out of the typical competition grind. We've run random select, 2v2 teams, play as your opponent's main, play as your bracket demon, and a bunch of other nonstandard play formats.
This week the theme was "alternate timeline"; we had everyone take the Guilty Gear Character Quiz and play as whoever you matched highest with that wasn't your main character. I got...Elphelt. Managed to get 4th with her, not bad.
We run these kinds of events to make sure folks are having fun, but it's also intended to get people more comfortable with picking up new characters instead of staying too-narrowly focused on their immediate competitive goals. Long-term, it's better for a player's growth to learn how to play the entire cast of a fighting game with some degree of comfort, so that you can lab out how to deal with their stuff by yourself, and also so that you can better empathize with the person you're playing against and understand their own particular method of playing that character.
Our bracket ended over two hours ago and the 'kids' are still mashing with their new side characters. I'm so proud.