LegendoftheStars End-of-the-Year 2020 Championship

Good post @arma473 But I deleted the stat post for now. You included information that specifically linked players to their faction vetos and that is unfair asymmetric information for other players to use.

I also couldn't just delete the segments that had it because people can look through post editions on the forum.

I copied the post into a google doc though, it can be posted at the end of the tournament.

Actually just realized you also put that into the game replay post so I had to remove that too. I saved that one as well anyway, just message me if you want access to the doc I put it into.

Legend of the Stars
End of Year Tournament 2020

Group Stage
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Tournament Director: @FtXCommando

Each of the four groups had a separate round robin tournament to determine which two players would move on to the Round of 8. The round robin format was for each player to play one Best of 3 series against each of the other 3 players in their group.

Participants (Group):

Group A
Tournament Group Director: @f1lthycasual

Series A1
#13360106 - BlinChik (Cybran) vs JaggedAppliance (Cybran) on The Dark Heart, FAF version
#13360305 - BlinChik (UEF) vs JaggedAppliance (Aeon) on TAG_Craftious Maximus

Series A2
#13360124 - Blodir (Cybran) vs Tagada (Sera) on White Fire v2
#13360245 - Blodir (Cybran) vs Tagada (UEF) on Adaptive Archsimkats Valley

Series A3
#13360604 - JaggedAppliance (Aeon) vs Tagada (UEF) on Williamson's Bridge
#13360773 - JaggedAppliance (UEF) vs Tagada (UEF) on Adaptive Archsimkats Valley

Series A4
#13360531 - BlinChik (UEF) vs Blodir (Cybran) on White Fire v2
#13360581 - BlinChik (UEF) vs Blodir (UEF) on The Ganges Chasma

Series A5
#13360946 - Blodir (UEF) vs JaggedAppliance (Sera) on TAG_Craftious Maximus
#13361164 - Blodir (UEF) vs JaggedAppliance (UEF) on desert arena

Series A6
#13361070 - BlinChik (Cybran) vs Tagada (Aeon) on Seraphim Glaciers
#13361259 - BlinChik (Cybran) vs Tagada (UEF) on TAG_Craftious Maximus

Group B
Tournament Group Director: @Morax

Series B1

#13360126 - Paralon (UEF) vs TurinTurambar (Aeon) on crazyrush
Paralon banned Sera, chose Sera and UEF
TurinTurambar banned Sera, chose Aeon and UEF

#13360342 - Paralon (Cybran) vs TurinTurambar (Sera) on desert arena
Paralon banned UEF, chose Sera and Cybran
TurinTurambar banned Sera, chose Sera and UEF

Series B2

#13360158 - archsimkat (Aeon) vs Nexus (Cybran) on Crossfire Canal - FAF version
archsimkat banned Sera, chose Sera and Aeon
Nexus banned Sera, chose Sera and Cybran

#13360368 - archsimkat (UEF) vs Nexus (Sera) on 8 - Badlands v4
archsimkat banned Cybran, chose Cybran and UEF
Nexus banned Cybran, chose Cybran and Sera

Series B3

#13360750 - Nexus (Cybran) vs TurinTurambar (UEF) on Chiron
Nexus banned Aeon, chose Sera and Cybran
TurinTurambar banned Sera, chose Aeon and UEF

#13361010 - Nexus (UEF) vs TurinTurambar (UEF) on desert arena
Nexus banned Sera, chose Sera and UEF
TurinTurambar banned Sera, chose Sera and UEF

Series B4

#13360848 - archsimkat (Aeon) vs Paralon (Sera) on Z-D Rasty Lite
Paralon banned UEF, chose Sera and Cybran
archsimkat banned Aeon, chose Aeon and Sera

#13361007 - archsimkat (Aeon) vs Paralon (Cybran) on Crossfire Canal - FAF version
Paralon banned Sera, chose Sera and Cybran
archsimkat banned Sera, chose Sera and Aeon

Series B5

#13361321 - archsimkat (Sera) vs TurinTurambar (Cybran) on Syrtis Major - FAF version
archsimkat banned UEF, chose UEF and Sera
TurinTurambar banned UEF, chose UEF and Cybran

#13361376 - archsimkat (Sera) vs TurinTurambar (Cybran) on Palaneum
archsimkat banned UEF, chose UEF and Sera
TurinTurambar banned UEF, chose UEF and Cybran

Series B6

#13361330 - Nexus (Sera) vs Paralon (Sera) on crazyrush
Nexus banned UEF, chose UEF and Sera
Paralon banned UEF, chose Sera and UEF

#13361535 - Nexus (Cybran) vs Paralon (UEF) on 8 - Badlands v4
Nexus banned Cybran, chose Cybran and Sera
Paralon banned UEF, chose Cybran and UEF

Group C
Tournament Group Director: @Se7ven

Series C1 - Blast_Chilled vs Espiranto
#13360139 on Syrtis Major - FAF version (Aeon vs Sera)
#13360488 on Finn's Revenge (UEF vs Aeon)
#13360786 on Roanoke Abyss (Cybran vs Cybran)

Series C2 - Petric vs ZLO
#13360111 on Syrtis Major - FAF version (UEF vs Sera)
#13360539 on Crazyrush (Sera vs Sera)

Series C3 - Blast_Chilled vs ZLO
#13361152 on Loki - FAF version (Sera vs Sera)
#13361553 on Roanoke Abyss (UEF vs Cybran)
#13361933 on Crazyrush (Aeon vs UEF)

Series C4 - Espiranto vs Petric
#13361195 on Cobalt Valley (Sera vs Cybran)
#13361476 on Theta Passage - FAF version (Sera vs UEF)
#13361671 on Syrtis Major - FAF version (Sera vs Cybran)

Series C5 - Blast_Chilled vs Petric
#13362231 on Painted Desert Rebalanced (UEF vs UEF)
#13362495 on 8 - Badlands_v4 (Aeon vs Sera)
#13362753 on Red Rocks - FAF version (Cybran vs Aeon)

Series C6 - Espiranto vs ZLO
#13362242 on Crazyrush (UEF vs Sera)
#13362418 on Syrtis Major - FAF version (UEF vs Sera)

Group D
Tournament Group Director: @Angelofd347h

Series D1
#13360108 - Blackheart (Aeon) vs Bullydozer (UEF) on Twin Rivers
#13360530 - Blackheart (Cybran) vs Bullydozer (Sera) on The Ditch

Series D2
#13360086 - Swkoll (Sera) vs TURBO2 (UEF) on Oracle
#13360268 - Swkoll (Cybran) vs TURBO2 (UEF) on desert arena

Series D3
#13360874 - Blackheart (Sera) vs TURBO2 (UEF) on Emerald Terraces
#13361127 - Blackheart (UEF) vs TURBO2 (Sera) on Varga Pass
#13361314 - Blackheart (Cybran) vs TURBO2 (UEF) on The Drunken Sailors Dance

Series D4
#13360815 - Bullydozer (Aeon) vs Swkoll (Sera) on Palaneum
#13360940 - Bullydozer (Cybran) vs Swkoll (UEF) on Varga Pass
#13361147 - Bullydozer (UEF) vs Swkoll (Aeon) on desert arena

Series D5
#13361615 - Blackheart (Sera) vs Swkoll (UEF) on The Ganges Chasma
#13361758 - Blackheart (Sera) vs Swkoll (Sera) on desert arena

Series D6
#13361701 - Bullydozer (Sera) vs TURBO2 (UEF) on Crimson Feud
#13361784 - Bullydozer (Aeon) vs TURBO2 (UEF) on desert arena

Also: here is a search string that you can enter into the Java client to pull up all group stage games (copy it to your clipboard, then in the FAF client, check the box for: display search query, and then paste this into the query input field, and press enter to perform the search directly from the query input field).

id=="13360086",id=="13360106",id=="13360108",id=="13360111",id=="13360124",id=="13360126",id=="13360139",id=="13360158",id=="13360245",id=="13360268",id=="13360305",id=="13360342",id=="13360368",id=="13360488",id=="13360530",id=="13360531",id=="13360539",id=="13360581",id=="13360604",id=="13360750",id=="13360773",id=="13360786",id=="13360815",id=="13360848",id=="13360874",id=="13360940",id=="13360946",id=="13361007",id=="13361010",id=="13361070",id=="13361127",id=="13361147",id=="13361152",id=="13361164",id=="13361195",id=="13361259",id=="13361314",id=="13361321",id=="13361330",id=="13361376",id=="13361476",id=="13361535",id=="13361553",id=="13361615",id=="13361671",id=="13361701",id=="13361758",id=="13361784",id=="13361933",id=="13362231",id=="13362242",id=="13362418",id=="13362495",id=="13362753"

STATISTICS

(This post only contains information that is available from the replay vault.)

There were 54 total matches. None of the matches went to a draw.

How many times was each faction played?
UEF – 38 (35%)
Seraphim – 30 (28%)
Cybran – 24 (22%)
Aeon – 16 (15%)

How many mirror matchups were there?
Total – 11 (20%)
UEF – 5 (9.3%)
Seraphim – 4 (7.4%)
Cybran – 2 (3.7%)
Aeon – 0 (0.0%)

Particular Non-Mirror Matchups
UEF-Seraphim - 11 (20.4%)
UEF-Cybran - 9 (16.7%)
UEF-Aeon - 8 (14.8%)
Seraphim-Cybran - 7 (13.0%)
Seraphim-Aeon - 4 (7.4%)
Cybran-Aeon - 4 (7.4%)

Most-Played Faction
archsimkat – Aeon (50%)
Blackheart – Seraphim (43%)
Blast_Chilled – Aeon/UEF (33%)
BlInChIk – Cybran/UEF (50%)
Blodir – Cybran/UEF (50%)
Bullydozer – No favorite
Espiranto – Seraphim (50%)
JaggedAppliance – Aeon/UEF (33%)
Nexus – Cybran (50%)
Paralon – No favorite
Petric – UEF (38%)
Swkoll – Seraphim (43%)
Tagada – UEF (67%)
TURBO2 – UEF (86%)
TurinTurambar – Cybran/Seraphim (33%)
ZLO – Seraphim (71%)

Comparison to LotS 2019

In the 2019 Group Stage, 41 of 56 matches (73%) was a mirror matchup.

Four of the possible non-mirror matchups were played only a total of 2 times out of 56 (3.6% total): Aeon-Cybran and Seraphim-UEF were each played once. Aeon-Seraphim and Aeon-UEF were not played at all. In 2020, those four matchups were played a total of 27 times out of 54 (50% of all matches).

Map Pool for the Final Stage of the Tournament (Day 2 and Day 3):

5x5
Finn’s Revenge
Adaptive Hardshield Oasis (default settings)
Williamson’s Bridge
serenity desert small (slot 1 and 3)

10x10
Aalhaven
Daroza’s Sanctuary
Festea VII
Open Palms
Red Rocks - FAF Version
Z-D Rasty Lite

20x20
Crossfire Canal - FAF Version
Point of Reach v4
Setons Clutch - FAF Version
The Drunken Sailors Dance (play slot 5/6)
The Ditch

I can't find The Drunken Sailors Dance in the vault, do you mean The Drunken Beetles Dance?

Maybe some dude hid it because they had reports of OG sailor dance being imbal and didn’t realize this was the biass version.

Hardshield Oasis is only adaptive in vault, so what are we playing? and what a spots

DONT BELIVE BH HE IS LIEING

1-2, default settings

Ok I did some final adjustments to make the last 2 days of the tournament similar to the Group Stage.

On Saturday, you will have 2 BO5s (this has not changed). You will get 3 vetos each, bringing the map pool down to 9 (this has not changed). You will do the same veto/pick process, mainly the Bottom Seed going first in both (this has not changed). Then, in the case of a tie, you will veto down and play the last map by a process of elimination. (this has changed).

The BIGGER change comes down to tournament organization. I plan on covering 2 matches of the RO8. This likely will mean that there will be a slight delay between finalizing coverage of the 2nd BO5 and the RO4 BO5s. I will be informing people that they will be able to have some sort of break depending on the time period it will take to get through the 2nd BO5. This will likely be something between 10 minutes and 30 minutes depending on a variety of factors. Either way, feel free to try to use this time period as a break period for food, additional practice, watching replays, whatever. I will ping relevant players in the Discord Channel with how long they have so even if you are away from PC you should know when you need to be back. DO NOT START THE RO4 UNTIL I AND MY COCASTER ARE ENTERING THE GAME. Once we are ready to cover 1 RO4 series, both series can start.

On Sunday, it will still be 2 BO7s. You will basically operate the same as always. I removed the predetermined map selection and instead made it function the same as the rest of the tournament. You will veto 3 maps, go down to 9 maps, and choose the maps from that pool. If a 3-3 happens, you get a final veto and play the map that was kept by both players.

If you make it to Sunday, be aware that the 3rd place match actually happens FIRST. This means that the players in the Final itself are able to arrive about an hour later on Sunday if they wish, but please do not arrive any later than that.

Legend of the Stars
End of Year Tournament 2020
Round of 8 / Round of 4
Saturday, December 19, 2020
Tournament Director: @FtXCommando

Each player in the Round of 8 is matched against one other player. A best of 5 series determines who moves on to the Round of 4. Each player in the Round of 4 is matched against one other player. A best of 5 series determines who moves on to the Finals, and who moves on to the Bronze Match.

Quarter-Finals

Series 1 - Blackheart vs Tagada
#13413101 on serenity desert small (Cybran vs UEF)
#13413225 on Open Palms (UEF vs UEF)
#13413365 on Open Palms (UEF vs UEF)
#13413479 on Open Palms (UEF vs UEF)
#13413625 on The Ditch (Sera vs UEF)
#13414017 on Setons Clutch - FAF version (Aeon vs Sera)

Series 2 - Espeperant vs Paralon
#13413195 on The Ditch (UEF vs Sera)
#13413445 on Adaptive Hardshield Oasis (UEF vs Cybran)
#13413547 on Daroza's Sanctuary (Cybran vs Cybran)
#13413970 on Z-D Rasty Lite (Sera vs Cybran)
#13414159 on serenity desert small (Cybran vs Sera)

Series 3 - Petric (as Fremy_Speeddraw) vs Nexus-
#13413106 on Adaptive Hardshield Oasis (UEF vs Sera)
#13413230 on serenity desert small (Cybran vs Sera)
#13413333 on The Ditch (Sera vs Sera)

Series 4 - JaggedAppliance vs TURBO2
#13413123 on Finn's Revenge (Sera vs Sera)
#13413247 on The Ditch (UEF vs Cybran)
#13413556 on The Ditch (UEF vs Cybran)
#13413817 on Point of Reach v4 (Sera vs Aeon)
#13414031 on Setons Clutch - FAF version (UEF vs UEF)

Semi-Finals

Series 5 - Blackheart vs Espeperant
#13414623 on Adaptive Hardshield Oasis (UEF vs UEF)
#13414720 on Red Rocks - FAF version (Sera vs Sera)
#13414834 on Red Rocks - FAF version (Sera vs Sera)
#13414973 on Open Palms (UEF vs Sera)

Series 6 - Nexus- vs TURBO2
#13414594 on Setons Clutch - FAF version (Cybran vs UEF)
#13414715 on serenity desert small (UEF vs UEF)
#13414892 on Point of Reach v4 (Sera vs Aeon)

Also: here is a search string that you can enter into the Java client to pull up all quarterfinals/semifinals games (copy it to your clipboard, then in the FAF client, check the box for: display search query, and then paste this into the query input field, and press enter to perform the search directly from the query input field).

id=="13413101",id=="13413106",id=="13413123",id=="13413195",id=="13413225",id=="13413230",id=="13413247",id=="13413333",id=="13413365",id=="13413445",id=="13413479",id=="13413547",id=="13413556",id=="13413625",id=="13413817",id=="13413970",id=="13414017",id=="13414031",id=="13414159",id=="13414594",id=="13414623",id=="13414715",id=="13414720",id=="13414834",id=="13414892",id=="13414973"

Legend of the Stars
End of Year Tournament 2020

Grand Finals and Bronze Match
Sunday, December 20, 2020

Bronze Match - Espiranto (Espeperant) vs TURBO2
#13422163 on Daroza's Sanctuary (UEF vs UEF)
#13422553 on serenity desert small (Cybran vs Aeon)
#13422768 on The Drunken Sailors Dance (Aeon vs Sera)
#13422965 on Point of Reach v4 (Sera vs Aeon)
#13423180 on Red Rocks - FAF version (Cybran vs Cybran)
#13423321 on Z-D Rasty Lite (Cybran vs Cybran)

Grand Finals - Blackheart vs Nexus-
#13423584 on serenity desert small (Sera vs UEF)
#13423803 on Finn's Revenge (Sera vs Sera)
#13423936 on Daroza's Sanctuary (UEF vs Cybran)
#13424187 on Adaptive Hardshield Oasis (UEF vs Sera)
#13424307 on Adaptive Hardshield Oasis (UEF vs Sera)

Also: here is a search string that you can enter into the Java client to pull up all grand finals/bronze match games (copy it to your clipboard, then in the FAF client, check the box for: display search query, and then paste this into the query input field, and press enter to perform the search directly from the query input field).

id=="13422163",id=="13422553",id=="13422768",id=="13422965",id=="13423180",id=="13423321",id=="13423584",id=="13423803",id=="13423936",id=="13424187",id=="13424307"

Final Results:

The 2020 FAF Champion is...

Nexus!

.
.
.
FAF's 2020 Finalists:
2nd Place: Blackheart
3rd Place: Espeperant
4th Place: TURBO2

Challonge:
https://challonge.com/kxba6dnz

Nexus has finally broken Petric's 3 year stranglehold on the LotS title where he not only knocked out the past Champion in the RO8 in a total sweep, but he was able to defeat Blackheart in the final who had knocked him out in the Semis last year! Nexus had clearly come into the tournament at tip top shape, being able to go 16-0 across the entire Official Tournament, meaning he did not drop a single game since the start of the Group Stage. Even during the 2nd Qualifier where he managed to take the 1st place, he had only dropped a single game against JaggedAppliance! Overall, he showcased that he was in a league all his own this year and it will be interesting to see whether anyone else on FAF will be able to climb and reach this level of play in future tournaments or if we've entered the Nexus era of tournament domination. Regardless of the future outcome, it's impossible to dispute that Nexus absolutely deserved his placement this year and has shown that he deserves his place in the highest echelon of FAF players.

In addition, Blackheart shows once again that he is a force to be reckoned with and that he is always able to come back to FAF at tournament level performance. He wasn't able to overcome Nexus this year, but he was still able to beat favorites such as Tagada as well as the 3rd place finisher, Espeperant in his Round of 8 bracket. It's certainly evident that he is still a high bar to reach, even amongst the best players.

Finally, Espeperant and TURBO2 both have shown that they are rising stars on the FAF scene ready and able to compete with the more veteran pros like Nexus and Blackheart. In fact, TURBO2 was able to even snatch the first seed in his group away from Blackheart, showing that the margins between these new players and the old guard are quite insignificant! They are both quite new on the FAF scene, only making names for themselves over the last year or so, meaning they have a bright future ahead for themselves where hopefully they'll be able to manage their own LotS victory.

Thanks everyone for participating. I look forward to next year’s major event and hope all of you do too. Congratulations to all LotS qualifiers and especially the top 4 finalists!

Credits and Thanks:

Major Donators:
LegendofTheStars
AndrewBell

Obviously, it's hard to get everyone excited for the big tournament if there is nothing incentivizing it to be big. Both of these guys provided about half the funds themselves, with the other half being provided for by the FAF Patreon itself. Without them, there would be no reason to put in all this work.

Tournament Directors:
Se7ven
f1lthycasual
angelofd347h
Morax
HintHunter

With the new tournament rules, it would basically be impossible to both manage the tournament as well as cover the event itself. Without these guys stepping up to help shoulder the burden of tournament management, it would have been impossible to cover the tournament, especially during the actual event itself when most of the casters that would be willing to join me were actually participating in the event. These guys were far more important than many people realize in creating a good tournament environment.

LiveCasters:
Farmsletje
Tagada
JaggedAppliance
Endranii
keyser
Petricpwnz

All of the livecasters both helped me in covering events (a lot easier if you have someone else to cast with and talk to rather than covering events by yourself) and in covering for me when I was unavailable due to real life issues. In particular, thanks to Petric for making it possible to even have a stream itself, let alone a decent one. He was the one that pushed me to make an official coverage channel and he was the one that made a decent overlay to give it the ever so slight semblance of a professional setup.

Casters:
Gyle
JaggedAppliance
Willows Duality
Endranii
Kenosis

A lot of FAF's exposure revolves around casts. It's thanks to these guys being willing to cover the event that this LotS will hopefully be looked back upon for several years. In addition, it's their work that tends to lead to more and more people getting exposed to high level FAF and hopefully getting invested into the scene. They are probably the reason half or more of this list are even here on FAF to help out.

Promotors:
biass
nine2
arma473

biass greatly assisted in crafting a trailer that could be put on all the major FAF media pages to get everyone excited and nine2 helped spread the word both on FAF through the news page work as well as on other external sites. It's hard for me to find a place for arma because he doesn't exactly fit any category, but I and many others do appreciate the work he does in organizing the tournament games in the threads. In addition, his work analyzing whether changing to tournament rules had their intended impact or not is highly appreciated (at least by me).

Players:
Tagada
Turinturambar
Espeperant
Swkoll
Nexus
JaggedAppliance
Bullydozer
Petricpwnz
ZLO
Blackheart
Blin
archsimkat
TURBO2
Paralon
Blast_Chilled
Blodir

Perhaps the most self-evident of them all. It's thanks to these players both reaching their level of play as well as giving up several weekends of freetime that allows everyone to enjoy the tournament.

There are many smaller contributions that other people made that are also difficult to properly contribute. Whether it's Brutus working around LotS to ensure that no major client issues pop up during the tournament itself so things run as smoothly as possible or Blackheart giving me ideas on how to get rid of the constant issue of mirror games in the tournament. These people are certainly not forgotten and I'm thankful for the effort they put into making a better experience for everyone. I look forward to future tournaments, where hopefully I can apply the lessons from this tournament and make an even better experience for all involved.

A final thing to ruin the tone of the last few messages, but I need paypal addresses to hand out the prizepool. If you cannot use paypal, then you need to PM me so that we can work something out.

Currently I do not have any payment information from:
Blast_Chilled
Blin
Bullydozer

Coincidence that they all begin with B? I don't know. Anyway, just writing this here because sometimes FAF pms get lost so I can't be sure whether they messaged me or not.

Prizes should be given out by the end of the year.

first of all, thanks to ftx for organizing all of this. It requires quite a lot of work and time.

here some feedback from me :

The faction ban : I would require more feedback from players, to see how much it impact/restrict the strategy they wanted to use. But i think it overall achieved its goal, which was to reduce the quantity of mirror matches. I will remind you that mirror matches were one of the biggest issues of the last LOTS.

In that LOTS, several rules/change were introduce that induce needless harm :

  • First requiring participant to display on the leader board.
  • Second decision was to give money of winning the qualification tournament on showing up to the group stage. This induce several players to just show up to the tourney to get the money, but they didn't want to participate in it. While there was players that were motivated, and couldn't play the tourney.

About casting/streaming :

  • The quality of the stream could certainly be improved. Better microphone, sync tools when watching games from the vault. The delay to prevent stream sniping reduced the interaction with the viewers.
  • More streamers could have shown up to not have the same streamers most of the time. I know there was high rated players willing to cast. Although i understand that 1 recurrent streamer with good internet needs to be here to actually host the stream. I'm also disappointed that "famous" caster weren't there to stream part of the tourney, it could have boosted the viewers amount, and changed the way game are being casted.
  • Didn't watch the stream in its integrality yet, but I think it was missing interview of players after matches (when they lost in the tourney for example)

About the play :
I had the feeling the skill displayed was lower than in previous LOTS (maybe I'm wrong). I saw the benefit of removing snipe mod in this one, compared to the previous LOTS. I feel like we miss opportunities to create innovative gameplay (maybe due to balance/map design, maybe players just want to play safe) or at least we lack of bold/surprising/cheezy move/BO/gameplay.

@keyser said in LegendoftheStars End-of-the-Year 2020 Championship:

The quality of the stream could certainly be improved. Better microphone, sync tools when watching games from the vault. The delay to prevent stream sniping reduced the interaction with the viewers.

Regarding delay and sync. I think the best Solution for it would be to fix the live replays and introduce smth like a 20s delay for the casters. (I think this feature was already a thing at one point) This would prevent streamsniping, which in my opinion is only a matter of time to happen when the stakes are high, and would make caster-chat ineraction possible. Replaysyncing would also be great if it worked again.

I was thinking of casting games as well on our twitch. For this it would be nice to reduce redundancy in the games casted by different channels. It is very hard for me to keep track of which games got casted by one channel while casting myself by just looking at the stream. Some sort of organization tool would help a lot in that regard. It would also require for each caster to commit to some sort of a casting plan, maybe plan out one or two games in advance of what you are going to cast then "claim" these games in the shared tool so the other casters can adapt. It would also improve viewer experience if it was visible to see which channel is currently casting which game. I don't think challonge has such a feature but maybe new map banning site that is being tested out atm supports smth like that.

@harzer99 Not sure what you are talking about with delay in live game. Streamer were sometime observing directly in the game, thus stream sniping is possible, and that's why delay in the stream was introduced.
You can obviously cast from live games or replay vault, but then streamers aren't synced and we need to use the sync tool (i heard from JA that it was still working iirc)

Ftx wanted only 1 stream to be available to cater all the viewers. So i don't get your 2nd point.