LegendoftheStars End-of-the-Year 2020 Championship

FtXCommando

LotS 2020

Challonge: https://challonge.com/kxba6dnz

Welcome to perhaps the most anticipated FAF event of the year! This year's LotS will mostly work similar to the way last year's operated. However, there will be a few minor changes to the way that map selection/faction selection operate and there will also be more of a coordinated media coverage attempt of the event both in streams as well as in casts.

Event LiveCasting:

The Event will be getting covered through a new FAF streaming channel called FAFLive.

Link: https://www.twitch.tv/faflive

One of the biggest problems we've had for LotS is that everyone that could cast the event is, well, a participant in the event. On the otherhand, those that aren't playing such as Gyle often do not have the ability to actually stream any of the games due to real life concerns. Therefore, me and Morax will be working together in order to cover the events. We wanted to create a channel that can cover the event and hopefully include things like player interviews to give the event more color than it has in the past. We want to move beyond simply identifying players in the game as "red vs blue" or "cybran 1 vs cybran 2."

Casts:

I'm going to be working with both English and Russian casters in order to ideally give more interconnection between the variety of channels covering FAF. I got this idea after looking at the Russian side of FAF and seeing how they'd often shout out one another and quickly build up interest across casters, creating a more active casting community in general. The caster gets more views and incentive, and the audience gets more games to watch.

So essentially I'm collecting a list of people interested in covering the event and I'll be curating lists of games for them to cover. I hope to give everyone a unique, good game so that people have an incentive to watch some of the smaller casting channels.

Currently we have:

Gyle
JaggedAppliance
Willows Duality
Endranii
Kenosis

If you're interested in covering the event, PM me about your channel and I'll add you to the list.

Current Prize Pool:

$2200

Interested in Donating?

Contact me on the Forums/Discord/FAF Client.

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.

Qualifiers:
Each qualifier will have a signup system based on their ladder rating in which a maximum of 16 players can play per qualifier. If more people sign up, they can act as a substitute for players that failed to show up on time but they will not be guaranteed a slot in the bracket itself. The players will be seeded by their ladder rating within the bracket itself. The bracket will also be a Single Elimination Bracket in which every matchup plays a BO3 to determine who will be knocked out and who will progress to the next stage.

Each qualifier will also consist of a map pool of 15 maps. It will be 4 5x5 km maps, 6 10x10 km maps, and 5 20x20 km maps. In order to select the maps played for each BO3, the two participants in each bracket stage will discuss amongst themselves which maps they would like to veto. Each player will be given the right to 3 vetoes and the bottom player in the bracket will be given the first veto. Each player will also submit vetoes sequentially. Once the list is down to 9 maps, the players will be given the right to pick which of the nine they wish to play. The bottom seed will be given the right to pick the first map and the top seed will pick the second. The players will then report the list of maps alongside the two they pick to the Tournament Director. The Tournament Director will pick the third map from the list of potential maps in the case of a tie. Do note if a segment of the tournament is lagging behind the rest of the tournament, the Tournament Director reserves the right to require the players to play different maps from their chosen maps in order to speed their section up.

Both players will also message the Tournament Director the 2 factions they pick to potentially play in their first game alongside the faction they wish to veto in that first game once they have decided on the first map. They will repeat this as their games go on in their BO3. A veto only applies to their opponent, so it is perfectly viable to pick a faction and veto it. If players deviate from their given factions, then they will forfeit the round on that map. A faction selection is final once given to the Tournament Director and cannot be edited later on. If a map was picked by a player in a preceding round and then picked again in another round, they are able to pick a different faction if they so wish.

So for instance, player A and player B went through their vetos and picks. They report the 9 maps available as well as the two they pick to play. Then player A reports that he will be banning aeon on the first map while picking to play 1. aeon 2. cybran. Player B bans aeon and picks 1. cybran 2. uef. The match is then cybran v cybran on the first map.

The qualifier threads and their map pools will be disclosed two weeks before the intended date of play in order to give proper planning time as well as to encourage prep between players.The actual announcement for the tournament that discloses the dates of the tournament and how it will operate will be released in late September.

Each qualifier will end with the players first to fourth qualifying for the official tournament. The position in the qualifier and the qualifier that a person qualified in will be utilized to seed players in the group stage of the official tournament. There will also be a substitute tournament in the case of absences.

December 12th (Part 1) of the Official Tournament:

Similar to the qualifiers, Part I of the Tournament will have the rounds done in a BO3 format. It will follow the same rules of the qualifiers specified above. However, each group stage will be done through Round Robin format. Only the top 2 in each group will move on to the next day of the tournament. The map pools for each group will be announced at the conclusion of the fourth qualifier. They will still consist of 15 maps, but the maps themselves may differ between each group. The games in the group stage will also be seeded by placement as shown in the chart above. Once the group stage begins, the veto and pick process will work as it did in the qualifiers.

December 19th (Part 2) of the Official Tournament:
With the group stage completed, the tournament will now be down to 8 players that will progress into the final bracket of the tournament. These players will be playing a Single Elimination Bracket with some minor changes to the way the qualifiers operated. The map pool will once again consist of 15 maps given out at the end of the group stage section. This day of the tournament will have 2 BO5s in which once again players will have 3 vetoes bringing them down to 9 maps to pick from for the BO5. They will follow the faction submission rule of Part I of the Official Tournament and then proceed to pick two maps each. They will pick in the order of Bottom Seed -> Top Seed -> Bottom Seed -> Top Seed and play in that order. If a tie happens, the players will veto down to the last map and play that map.

December 20th (Part 3) of the Official Tournament:
The final day of the Official Tournament will have 4 players left. These 4 players will be playing a single BO7 each to decide placements. The two competing for first will be the victors of Part II. Both of these rounds will consist of the same 15 map pool and each player will be given 3 vetoes at the start. Each player will pick a map from the 9 maps left with the Bottom Seed picking first and also vetoing first. If the games come down to a 3-3, then the players will use a final veto with the Bottom Seed veto'ing first to bring the 3 maps left down to 1. They will then play that last map.

Map Selection:
Will try to consist of a fusion of both good, classic maps as well as more experimental maps that are not commonly played. Each pool should have a combination of gameplay while also consisting of maps both well known as well as unknown. It is up to the players to decide which maps they hate and which maps they want to play through the veto/pick system. The map pool selection is merely there to provide the optimal variety.

Tournament Dates and Times:

LegendOfTheStars Qualifier Tournament #1 - 10.10.2020 at 14:00 GMT
Thread: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/310/legendofthestars-2020-qualifier-tournament-1

LegendOfTheStars Qualifier Tournament #2 - 24.10.2020 at 14:00 GMT
Thread: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/376/legendofthestars-2020-qualifier-tournament-2

LegendOfTheStars Qualifier Tournament #3 - 7.11.2020 at 14:00 UTC
Thread: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/460/legendofthestars-2020-qualifier-tournament-3

LegendOfTheStars Qualifier Tournament #4 - 21.11.2020 at 15:00 UTC
Thread: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/549/legendofthestars-2020-qualifier-tournament-4

Substitution Qualifiers - 28.11.2020 at 15:00 UTC
Thread: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/610/legendofthestars-2020-substitution-qualifier

Official Tournament: 12.12.2020 & 19-20.12.2020 at 15:00 UTC

Qualifier Tournament Prizes:

1st place: Winner of LotS Qualifier Champion Avatar
2nd place: Faction Face Avatar
3rd place: Faction Face Avatar
4th place: Faction Logo Avatar

Official Tournament Prizes:

First Prize: $700 + A unique avatar (coming soon)
Second Prize: $450
Third Prize: $300
Fourth Prize: $150
Fifth-Eighth Prize: $75
Ninth-Sixteenth Prize: $35

The Players:

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

Sub-list:

keyser
Yudi
Seven
Morax

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

Just so people are aware, I will be livecasting (hopefully with a consistent cocaster if I'm able to work out details with candidates) in the FAF Discord. We're going to have a private Casting channel where I will be able to drag in people for interviews after games. So if you're interested in taking part during the livecast, make sure you're in the Discord so I can just ping you.

tatsu

This post is deleted!

H-master

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

Just so people are aware, I will be livecasting (hopefully with a consistent cocaster if I'm able to work out details with candidates) in the FAF Discord. We're going to have a private Casting channel where I will be able to drag in people for interviews after games. So if you're interested in taking part during the livecast, make sure you're in the Discord so I can just ping you.

Cool, will you upload it on youtube afterwards?

FtXCommando

I'll ask anihilnine about uploading it to the FAF youtube, I don't have my own.

FtXCommando

After a talk with some people I've decided to adjust the prize pool distribution and instead distribute the funds allotted for qualifiers into the top 16 for the official tournament.

FtXCommando

So after the first qualifier, I've come to the unfortunate realization that it's not really going to be possible to micromanage players themselves while also casting the event. After talking with some people, it's more likely than not that the bottleneck for the event is going to be having people available to cast and ideally I'd like to have at least one consistent caster for the event. It's difficult for me to ensure that consistent caster exists unless it is, well, me.

Since I do not wish to put casting the event into the chance of fate and hope people will simply exist on the day to cast it, my only real options are:

Revert the rules to last year's LotS in which no faction veto existed and map picks themselves were more automated. I'd rather not do this as faction mirrors and the fact this often led to minimal map variation both seem like negatives that I'd like to avoid.
Find 1-2 people to assist me in managing the tournament. I mainly need people to get me through the beginning RO16 as that was what really stopped me in my tracks for an hour during the casting of the event. If I can get a person (or ideally 2) that is willing to be around for the first 2-3 hours of the event to take some of the workload at this stage, it would smooth out the experience and allow me to actually stream the event myself.

If you have any interest in learning how to TD and helping me out, just send me a message on Discord/FAF/Forums and I'll let you know what you have to do.

FtXCommando

Group A
Tagada
JaggedAppliance
Blin
Blodir

Group B
Nexus
Turinturambar
Paralon
archsimkat

Group C
ZLO
Blast_Chilled
Espeperant
Petricpwnz

Group D
TURBO2
Blackheart
Bullydozer
Swkoll

This list will reflect your seeding in the Group Stage.

nine2

To watch LOTS:

Streams:
FAFLive

Casts:
Endranii
Willow's Duality
Gyle
Jagged Appliance

JaggedAppliance

The second qualifier was played yesterday and it took about 8 hours to complete. 3 BO3s and BO5 final is far too much to be reasonably played in a single day. The format would be great if it was split over 2 days but it's a crazy format for a single day tournament, especially considering it is only a qualifier for the real thing.

FtXCommando

I plan on making the final a BO3 and will likely be doing a BO1 for the RO16 where I choose some late game predisposed 10x10 map (badlands, twins, loki) for future qualifiers.

I’d really rather keep things to a single day rather than multiple for the qualifiers. Hard to ask people to reserve two days for the tournament (and I can’t even do that myself but that’s less of a problem now that I have assistant TDs).

The adjustment in games should lower the tournament time by 60-90 minutes which is closer to my intended target time.

nine2

L.O.T.S. Qualifying Tourny - Round 2 - Match 2 - ZLO Vs Turinturamber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uePz2nSbeP0
by Gyle

FtXCommando

To clarify some stuff about how the Official Tournament will end up going:

First, here is a layout of how Group Stage performance will result in placement for the RO8.

LotS RO8.png

Second, as you should know, the Group Stage itself will be a round robin. This results in potential situations where ties can happen and where tiebreakers will be needed.

The first way to address ties will be by using point differentials. Essentially if someone is able to win 2-0, they will gain 2 point score differential in their group. If they win 2-1, they only get 1. If you have more point differential with a person you tied, you rank higher than them.

If points and overall performance are both tied, then a tiebreaker game will be used. There are two scenarios for this.

For example, say in Group A you have a situation where:
Player 1 wins against Player 3 and 4, loses to 2
Player 2 wins against Player 1 and 4, loses to 3
Player 3 wins against Player 2 and 4, loses to 1
Player 4 loses to everyone

This means there will be a 3 way tie. In this situation, the person that performed the best in their qualifier will advance as seed 1 from their group. This means that in Group D, the person that got 1st in Qualifier 4 is considered the top seed.

Then, the two other players will play a BO1 on a map that will be decided by the TD. Then, the winner gets the 2nd seed and the loser fails to move on.

In the case of a 2 way tie all that will happen is a BO1 game to determine who gets which seed.

MrBeast

I have a question about the main tournament. Will the maps that will be played be known in advance and is it possible to announce them 5-10 minutes before the start of the tournament in order to avoid completely nerdy builds for each maps in the games. I don’t know if I’m wrong, you can say something in the opposite direction.

FtXCommando

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

I have a question about the main tournament. Will the maps that will be played be known in advance and is it possible to announce them 5-10 minutes before the start of the tournament in order to avoid completely nerdy builds for each maps in the games. I don’t know if I’m wrong, you can say something in the opposite direction.

I will be announcing group bracket maps after the final qualifier (not the sub qualifier). I will announce the maps for the RO8 tournament itself after that, unsure of the exact time as of yet.

Prep shouldn’t be discouraged, it’s what separates the best from the great. The tournament will operate with the same veto/choice system so prep will still involve a strong knowledge base of a good quantity of maps.

nine2

FAF Cast 4 - LoTS Qualifiers - F-odin Vs archsimkat Game 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k26KPmOyaZM&feature=youtu.be
by Endranii

FtXCommando

The Group Brackets are finalized. Subs will be able to fill in if people fail to show up/resign prior to the tourney date. A reminder that if you forfeit your placement in the tournament, you also forfeit your ability to claim your piece of the prizepool.

People that have made it into the Groups can give me 6 maps that they would like to play in the Group Stage through PM on FAF/Discord/Forums. I will take their preferences into account while making the 15 maps. However, I need the map picks by this Wednesday.

In addition, I'm still looking for 1-2 additional TDs that could help manage the group stages. If you have an interest, message me. You will be responsible for keeping track of the faction picks and map picks of the 4 players in a specific group.

FtXCommando

Group A TD - f1lthycasual
Group B TD - Morax
Group C TD - Se7ven
Group D TD - Angelofd347h
HintHunter will operate as a substitution TD in the case someone is not able to make it for the tournament

FtXCommando

So some final adjustments to the tournament format following some realizations during the qualifiers:

There will be a rule enforced to keep anyone that isn’t EITHER a caster OR a TD out of the observers. I will be talking with moderation to take action and both force close your client through admin tools and ban you from FAF if necessary. Please do not make me do needless work because you feel obligated to be a nuisance during FAF’s largest event.

If you’re a player, feel free to kick them before the game begins, though I know it’s hard to tell who is and isn’t a caster so the burden isn’t on you.

I will be making the tiebreaker map in the various best ofs be decided by a sequential veto from the rest of the pool left between the players in the series. This means bottom player begins with first veto again, then top player, and so on for 3 rotations until the 7 maps are reduced to 1.

FtXCommando

In addition, I should announce maps sometime later today when I get home.