LegendoftheStars End-of-the-Year 2019 Championship

[FtXCommando]

Welcome to perhaps the most anticipated FAF event of the year! This year, many people within the community have come together to create a prize pool for the event larger than we've ever seen on FAF. Thanks to them, we've not only been able to match the original prize of the end of the year tournament, but actually surpass it and get to the biggest prize pool FAF has seen so far! Hopefully we can match the increased prize pool with more competition and more publicity for the event! Thanks again everyone that put money towards the tournament, I've credited everyone that kept the tradition going below.

Current Prize Pool:
$1800
Credits:
$500 - AndrewBell
$350 - LegendoftheStars
$350 - Anonymous
$250 - Morax
$150 - Rowey
$50 - Blodir
$150 - FAF Patreon

Now that we covered the financial details, let's talk about the tournament structure.

Basically, the basis of the tournament structure hasn’t changed. It will, as always, feature the best 16 FAF players with those 16 players being decided through various qualifiers. There will be 4 qualifiers to decide the players and the winners of each qualifier will get the LotS Champion avatar for the coming year as well as a potential cash prize (currently in discussion).

The person responsible for directing this tournament will be me. I will be hosting and dealing with issues that pop up during the tournaments and handle the transaction issues and more meta concerns about the tournament. Please do not use this thread to sign up for the various segments of the tournament, those segments will have their own threads for that. This thread will be for pointing out specific concerns as well as for information related to the Official Tournament.

Tournament Structure That Has Changed:

Spoiler: show

Each qualifier will be a single elimination tournament with BO3 matches. I will release the maps for each tournament beforehand in their respective qualifier thread. The tournaments will be seeded based on player ladder rating. I will update the challonge bracket as signups happen. The top 4 players in each bracket will move up to the Official Tournament and be unable to participate in future Qualifier Rounds. Their placement in the Official Tournament group stage rounds will be based on their placement in the Qualifiers. The precise way you will be placed is tedious to explain but rest assured it's done in a way to make brackets competitive while making sure you generally play new people that you didn't see in your Qualifier.

In the Official Tournament, we will have 4 different group stages seeded in the way described above. The group brackets will involve 5 matches. The outcome of these 5 matches will lead to finding out the top 2 players in each group. The top 2 in each group bracket will then move on to a single elimination tournament in which a BO3 will be done for all games and a BO7 for the semifinals and finals. The seeding will work in the way that first place in Bracket 1 will be top seed and second place in Bracket 1 will be 4th place. I will also release maps for both the group stages and the final tournament beforehand. I expect this will be too much to cover in a day and so I plan to have the group stages+BO3 games on one day with the semifinals and finals handled on another date that can be negotiated later on.

Tournament Dates and Times:
LegendOfTheStars Qualifier Tournament #1 - 2.11.2019 at 16:00 GMT
Thread: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=18337&p=179285#p179285

LegendOfTheStars Qualifier Tournament #2 - 16.11.2019 at 16:00 GMT
Thread: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=18357&p=179403#p179403

LegendOfTheStars Qualifier Tournament #3 - 30.11.2019 at 16:00 GMT
Thread: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=18407&p=179751#p179751

LegendOfTheStars Qualifier Tournament #4 - 14.12.2019 at 16:00 GMT
Thread: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=18461

Substitution Qualifiers - 21.12.2019 at 16:00 GMT
Thread: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=18519&p=180514#p180514

Official Tournament: 28-29.12.2019 at 16:00 GMT

Qualifier Tournament Prizes:

Spoiler: show

1st place: $50 + Winner of LotS Qualifier Champion Avatar
2nd place: $30
3rd place: $20
4th place:

Official Tournament Prizes:

Spoiler: show

* First Prize: $700 + A unique avatar (coming soon)
* Second Prize: $400
* Third Prize: $200
* Fourth Prize: $100

The Players:
1. Nexus
2. Espiranto
3. ZLO
4. Turinturambar
5. Tagada
6. ThomasHiatt
7. Adjux
8. Blodir
9. Farmsletje
10. JaggedAppliance
11. Petricpwnz
12. keyser
13. Blackheart
14. TURBO2
15. Isen
16. Robogear

Sub-list:
1. Yudi
2. Death_Squad
3. Blast_Chilled
4. Manley

This tournament will also follow standard FAF tournament rules. Any comments or concerns about the procedures or structure of the tournament? Please post them here.

[FtXCommando]

Group Brackets:


Group 1: Nexus, ThomasHiatt, Petricpwnz, Robogear
Group 2: Espiranto, Tagada, keyser, Isen
Group 3: ZLO, Blodir, Farmsletje, TURBO2
Group 4: Turinturambar, Adjux, JaggedAppliance, Blackheart

[FtXCommando]

The funds for the Official Tournament prize have been accounted for.

[FtXCommando]

Everyone that qualifies for the official tournament, please provide me a list of 7 maps you would like to play. I'll use this collection of maps to see what maps appeal to the most people. I'll still pick the map pool at my discretion but the data points of everyone else's pools will help me in making the decision that pleases the most people while still not just being 7 generic maps.

[ThomasHiatt]

I can't possibly play this game and have anything resembling a decent or happy life. Give my spot in the finals to someone else.

[FtXCommando]

There will be a sub tourney generally operating with the same structure as the preceding qualifier tournaments. In the case that slots open up because of real life events, the sub tournament 1st/2nd/3rd/4th winners will substitute for that person.

This should be hosted on the 21st by Hybrid.

[FtXCommando]

First Day:
For those wondering how Group Brackets will work:



I will be giving out a pool of maps for the group stages (each group will get their own pool). You will either play 2 BO3 rounds (if you win or lose your first two) or 3 BO3 rounds. This means your group stage could have a maximum of 9 games. Only 2 of the 4 people in each group will move on to the Official Tournament Bracket.

The Official Tournament Bracket will function like any regular challonge bracket. The RO8 will, like the group stages, be a BO3. The bracket will be seeded so that the winner of Group 1 faces the loser of Group 4 and so on. It will, however, utilize the map pool for the Official Tournament Bracket rather than the Group Bracket map pools. After this BO3, we should have the 4 finalists that qualify for prizes this year.

This means that, over the whole day, you will play between 6-12 games to qualify for the 2nd day.


Second Day:
This day is a lot more simple than the preceding day. It will be a BO5 between the quarterfinalists followed by a BO7 for both the final and the semifinal. This day will still use the same map pool that was used for the RO8 games.

This means that, over the whole day, you will play between 7-12 games to win the whole tournament.

[keyser]

no point playing "keyser vs Farm" in your example right ?

[FtXCommando]

no point playing "keyser vs Farm" in your example right ?

so petric beat farm -> petric is 1-0 farm is 0-1
jagged beat keyser -> jagged is 1-0 keyser is 0-1

In order to resolve who is 4th and who is still competitive, keyser and farm need to play
since keyser beat farm, keyser is now 1-1 and farm is 0-2

this means that farm is irrefutably 4th place

the petric/jagged game gives petric a score of 2-0 and jagged a score of 1-1

this means that petric is irrefutably 1st

so now keyser and jagged need to play to decide who will be 2-1 and who will be 1-2 which in turn decides who moves on as 2nd place.

[armacham01]

This is a standard method for breaking down a larger tournament into 4-person chunks, where 2 players will advance and 2 players will be eliminated.

Each of these 4-person chunks consists of a series of five 2-person contests. Here, FtX has chosen that each of these contests will be in the form of a Best of 3 (BO3).

Each BO3 has a winner and a loser. After the BO3 is over, you don't worry about whether it was 2-1 or 2-0. You are either the Winner of a BO3, or the Loser of a BO3.

In the example above, the first BO3 between Farms and Petric is the "A" match. The winner from this match (in the example, petric) moves on to the "Winners' BO3" and the loser (Farms) moves on the "Losers' BO3."

Similarly, the BO3 between keyser and Jagged is the "B" match. Same as with the A match, the winner (Jagged) moves on to the "Winners' BO3" and the loser moves on to the "Losers' BO3"

(Obviously, the A match and the B match should be symmetrical in terms of: what happens if you win and what happens if you lose)

The winners BO3 is between Petric and Jagged. If you win the "Winners' BO3" then you have won two BO3s. Win two BO3s: you get to move on. So that person (in this example, Petric) moves on in first place.

The losers BO3 is between Farms and keyser. If you lose the "Losers' BO3" then you have lost two BO3s. Lose two BO3s: you're out. In this example, Farms lost both BO3s, so he is eliminated, he leaves this round in 4th place and will not continue in the tourney.

That leaves Jagged and keyser. Each has won 1 BO3 and lost 1 BO3. We need a final BO3 to decide who advances and who is eliminated. The person who wins advances out in 2nd place. The person who loses this BO3 is eliminated, in 3rd place.

So you have five 2-person contests (A, B, Winners, Losers, Final). Each of these 5 contests is in the form of a BO3. The only way to move on is to win two BO3s and the only way to be eliminated is to lose 2 BO3s.

Any 2 of the players can be in the Final match, depending on who wins and who loses the BO3s. So you can have both players from the original A match having a rematch in the final match. Or you could have 1 person from A and 1 person from B. Or a rematch of "B."

This format guarantees that you will play at least 2 of the other people in your 4-person "chunk" before it is determined whether you move on or are eliminated.

There is quite a bit of leeway in terms of losing games without being eliminated from the tournament. For example, if you win your first set 2-1, lose the winner's match 0-2, and win the final match 2-1, you would have played a total of 8 games, with 4 wins and 4 losses. And you still get to move on.

Since exactly half of the people move on, and half are eliminated, each time this happens the total number of tournament participants are cut in half. Which is obviously a good thing in terms of: moving the tournament towards completion.

So this is how the tournament will be narrowed from 16 people to 8 people.

After that, there are no more group brackets in the tournament.