2021 Summer Invitational Group Stage

Welcome to the Group Stage for the 2021 Summer Invitational. This stage will be made up with 4 groups of 4 players each. Games will be played round robin style with each player in a group playing each other player in a BO3. The top 2 players in each group will advance to the finals.

Date: July 17th
Start Time: 14:00 UTC
Chat: /join #summer
Challonge: https://challonge.com/cyvwxmts
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/faflive
Tournament Directors:
Overall: Swkoll
Group A TD: HintHunter
Group B TD: HintHunter
Group C TD: Kite
Group D TD: Morax

Maps:
There is a pool of 10 maps and maps will be selected using a veto and pick system. This means each player has 2 vetos, with the lower seed in the group vetoing first in an alternating pattern.(ie lower seed, upper seed, lower seed, upper seed). Next the higher seed will select the first map, the lower seed the second map, and if necessary the higher seed will select the third map. 5 of the maps are the same for each group and 5 maps are different for each group.

We will be using the same faction veto system as used in LoTS and in previous invitationals. After a map is picked, both players will secretly send 2 factions, in order of preference, that they would like to play, and 1 faction they would like to veto to their group's Tournament Director.

To clarify map picking and faction veto:

1. Figure out which maps are in your group, they are the 5 "All" maps and the 5 maps specific to your group.
2. Lower seed (as shown by the position in the group) vetos first map
3. Higher seed vetos next map
4. Lower seed uses last veto
5. Higher seed uses last veto
6. Higher seed then picks the first map to play from the list of maps in the pool that have not been vetoed
7. Players send 2 factions that they would like to play and 1 veto to their group's TD
8. Lower seed picks the second map following the same rules
9. Players send 2 factions that they would like to play and 1 veto to their group's TD
10. In the event of a tie, higher seed picks the tie breaker map
11. Players send 2 factions that they would like to play and 1 veto to their group's TD
12. The winner reports the results (including losses and tie games) to their group's tournament director in the #summer channel

Map Pool:

Players:

With the following substitutes:

1. Lucied
2. Demonstreamer
3. Eternal
4. hybrid
5. Sheikah

The challonge is now up! An important note: in order to get challonge to display the games in the correct order, 3rd and 4th seed had to be swapped in challonge. The actual seeding order can be found in the table above (ie Blast_Chilled is still the high seed vs Jip)

Congrats to

• Tagada
• Blast_Chilled
• Tex
• Turin
• Paralon
• Zlo
• Yudi
• archsimkat

for making it out of the group stage!

These players should send me a map for the playoffs within the next 48 hours for inclusion in the map pool.

The substitutes for next weeks are

1. Adjux
2. Se7ven

I asked my tournament directors to collect data on the faction vetoes and picks for each game and I've compiled the results below. For reference I've include the % point change since the 2021 Spring Invitational Group Stage. Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding.

1st Pick:
Aeon: 7% (+2%)
Cybran: 24% (+6%)
Seraphim: 43% (-5%)
UEF: 26% (-4%)

2nd Pick:
Aeon: 17% (+7%)
Cybran: 15% (-5%)
Seraphim: 26% (-9%)
UEF: 41% (+6%)

Veto:
Aeon: 29% (+13%)
Cybran: 8% (-3%)
Seraphim: 46% (+3%)
UEF: 17% (-13%)

Players successfully vetoed their opponent's 1st pick 36% (-4%) of the time.

There's been no balance patch since Spring Invitational so pick rates are relatively similar. Overall there has been a slight decline in the popularity of Seraphim in both 1st and 2nd pick, but it remains the dominant faction. Another change is that Cybran and UEF are now 1st picked at about the same rate instead of UEF having a clear lead. The popularity of vetoing Aeon has increase dramatically and has become the 2nd most vetoed faction despite being first picked only 7% of the time.

In fact, despite 25 Aeon vetoes being submitted, not a single one successfully stopped an Aeon 1st pick.

Thanks to HintHunter, Kite, and Morax for helping TD and collect this data.

Everyone is somehow simultaneously scared of both playing Aeon and playing against Aeon.

Some stats must be off cause I veto'ed Aeon against Blast and his first pick was Aeon.

No one wants to go through their vetos, then find out that their mapgen map had generated a giant pond in the middle. I.e, the map that Petric and I had.

That being said, aeon scary.

me and my opponents looked at the generated map before sending vetos to TD

Edit: i mean looked at the preview in lobby

@tagada Can @Blast_Chilled confirm? The logs I have say his 2nd pick was aeon.