Results:

1000-1500 bracket:

1. Darkym
2. Wesh
3. Cast_Away0

500-1000 bracket

1. TheoPhysicist
2. Javi
3. Deusinho

Hello everybody!

• Do you get excited when watching these dank FAF ladder streams?

• Are your friends tired of playing you 1v1 because you crush them all the time?

• Do you dream about being in next year’s Legends of the Stars?

Look no further, we’ve got a tournament just for you!

On Sunday December 27, 2020, at 10:00 am EST (15:00 UTC) we’ll host a 1v1 tournament for players with a rating of 1500 and below.

The goal of this tournament is to let any player have the chance to experience the joy and excitement of being in a competition.

While there is no money in this tournament, you’ll have a chance to an awesome avatar (icon displayed by your name in the chat client)!
In addition, your matches have a chance to be reviewed by streamers and will allow you to get valuable feedback, and perhaps even get a free coaching session!

Therefore, this tournament will be open to any player* that on the day of the tournament:

• Has a ladder or global rating of at least 500, but no more than 1500**.
• Has been a member of the FAF community since at least December 1, 2020.

If we have enough players, the competition will be separated in a <1000 and a >1000 division. Top 4 of each division will get an avatar (to be decided).

Tournament Rules and Regulations

• Double-elimination, with players seeded according to rating.
• Each round is best of one, with 5x5 and 10x10 maps from the current ladder pool being assigned for each round. Final match will be a best of three, with the player in the winner bracket having a 1-0 advantage.
• Registration closes midnight EST the evening before the competition.
• Report to the Tournament Director 15 minutes before the tournament or you forfeit your matches.
• If there are any technical issues before the first 5 minutes of play have passed, you can restart the game, otherwise disconnects will lose the game.
• Draws will be replayed on the same map
• All tournament code-of-conduct rules apply.

Sign up through this Google Form

If this is your first ever FAF tournament, please continue reading for more information.

What to expect of a tournament
It’s pretty simple, the tournament will consist of a series of custom matches with the maps (and possibly settings) specified by the tournament.
You’ll have to be online a little before the tournament to get ready, join the designated chat channels, and get prepared to play. Check the challonge link and find your opponent, create or join the match and play. Afterwards, report the result to the TD and wait for your next match.
Due to the nature of RTS games, you may have to wait in between matches. Depending on the type of tournament, and accounting for delays, you should probably schedule about 45 minutes per match. For a typical 16 player double elimination, that would be around 5 matches. Of course, if you lose two fast matches, it could be as fast as 30 minutes for the entire competition!

How to join/create games on the day of the tournament
Check if no game with your name exists, then create a custom, unmodded, game (UI mods are generally allowed). Name it according to the tournament, and your opponent's name. Set the correct map. Close all unused slots (may be designated in the forum post), and wait for your opponent.
Double check map version, options, faction and color, X up and go!

Reporting results
Report the result of the match to the TD by writing the result in the competition channel. If possible, add the link to the replay in the vault.
Write the result clearly as <player1> <score1> - <player2> <score2>, so it can be recorded to Challonge.

Where do I see who I play next?
The competition is generally listed in Challonge. Follow the link on the forum post. You can find the bracket, the results that are already known, and the next matches.
Once you know who your next opponent is, you can start playing!

Any questions? Post below!

* We’re flexible. Contact Conorach if you have questions.
** We can talk about it if you accidentally ended up a few points higher.

Lessons learned:
Perhaps this deserves its own post, but here's some info for future reference:

• registering through google form let me put everyone's details in a spreadsheet.
  Added with that, the rating of players, let me quickly sort and filter and copy-paste into Challonge.

Even though registration was closed officially the night before the tournament, there were two or three people that signed up on the morning of the tournament, requiring us to recreate the brackets.
At 10am, we had removed the people who hadn't shown up at that moment yet, but as we recreated the bracket, at least one of them still appeared (late), and we had to re-add. In the chaos, two more players got re-added even though they weren't present. Also one player from the < 1000 bracket got accidentally moved up to the wrong group, requiring further tweaks.
All in all this was very chaotic and stressful, lead to confusion, and more waiting time for all the participants that had been ready since 20 minutes before the official start. I will not allow late registrations in the future, and prepare the brackets carefully on the day off, and if people don't show up, so be it. It will be much less work and stress for the TD, and less confusion for the players involved.

Finally, around 15 minutes after the original start time, everything was prepared and the tournament could start. This isn't very bad as delays go, but it is still annoying. Some people wake up very early to be ready, and others are staying up late, and delaying it isn't helpful for anyone.

The most effort went into keeping track of the scores. Luckily Wondersheep was there to help me enter all the information and bring attention to issues or questions. I will try to think of a better way to deal with this in the future, since it's pretty hectic when there's about 16 different games going on and people are reporting in chat, in personal chat, in various formats, as well as looking for the next opponent and asking questions.

• Separating the participants into two groups
  This helped tremendously with the speed of the tournament. The total duration was around 5 hours. I would even split up the groups further in the future. In this case, it could have been 3 groups of < 16. The benefit is that ratings are closer and this will make more fun matches, as well as speeding up the tournament further.

• Map picks
  I think this went pretty well. Based on FTX' advice, I picked smaller, faster maps for the loser's brackets, since they always end up having to play more matches. This tends to cause delays where the winner players are waiting for the losers to catch up. There weren't many draws, which helped with the flow too.
  Of course, the downside of losing early is that you have very limited variation in maps. Also there's no tactical component for players to pick maps they're good at or have practiced on, but I don't think that is an issue for games that aren't top-tier rated.

Anyway, overall very successful. Can't complain

Dear everyone,

We had a great tournament today.
Winners and runners up are announced in the original post.
Thanks a lot to the streamers, Endranii, Farms/FTX and Matri and everyone who helped organize and run the tournament, in particular Wondersheep.

Finally, thanks to the almost 50 players that registered and showed up for this tournament! It is amazing to see so much enthusiasm and effort. You all did a wonderful job whether you won or lost.

We'll reach out to the winners with avatars etc. later this week.

See you at the next tournament!

-Conorach

I'd like to sign up please.
Conorach: ~1450 custom rating, 1650 2v2

I would like to say: Amazing job on the tournament prep. Very detailed screenshots, instructions, descriptions, etc. Really looking forward to trying my hand against the AI.

Cheers!

I think there is a wide range of viewers too and they all like something different.
I think its great to have a variety of casters. A combination of an analytical one and a fun/background/flavor one might be good.
When you have a cast where two casters are both trying to analyze what is happening, it becomes hard to follow. If any, the second caster could point out action happening out of the main window if the main caster isn't noticing it, but otherwise it works.

I think nobody will watch an 8 hour stream in one sitting, but people will join and leave throughout.
It's just terrible for the casters, so be sure to have a good rotation after every few matches.
In addition, even if the tournament takes 4 hours, there's a lot more content to go through afterwards, since theres 4-8 matches being played at the same time on average normally

Conorach (~1380 ladder, 1425 global)

Poor Demon, played so much he just passed 1500 like last week :[

Conorach (1500ish)

I think the ranking cap makes sense. As a 1400~ player I would love to see different divisions (say 2500 - 3000, 3000-3500, and 3500-4000 or so) of teams to join. Would be neat if the winning team from a division gets included in the next higher division (I guess that's slightly inconvenient if the tournament is supposed to play on that day). Can have overall winner and divisional winners that way too.
Otherwise, you could also completely randomize the teams (eg a 3v3 tournament) where you sort high + mid + low players together for the duration. But then again, it sucks to be stuck with a 1500 gap-only player :[

Conorach (1500ish)

I'll join! 1500 rating.

I'd like to sign up please.
Conorach: ~1450 custom rating, 1650 2v2

I would like to say: Amazing job on the tournament prep. Very detailed screenshots, instructions, descriptions, etc. Really looking forward to trying my hand against the AI.

Cheers!

I think there is a wide range of viewers too and they all like something different.
I think its great to have a variety of casters. A combination of an analytical one and a fun/background/flavor one might be good.
When you have a cast where two casters are both trying to analyze what is happening, it becomes hard to follow. If any, the second caster could point out action happening out of the main window if the main caster isn't noticing it, but otherwise it works.

I think nobody will watch an 8 hour stream in one sitting, but people will join and leave throughout.
It's just terrible for the casters, so be sure to have a good rotation after every few matches.
In addition, even if the tournament takes 4 hours, there's a lot more content to go through afterwards, since theres 4-8 matches being played at the same time on average normally

ARtillery shells still have vision? Or was that changed too?

I'm in. the amount of fuckery this will get us is going to be hilarious

Sorry @KeyBlue I have to withdraw my application. the Mrs. has planned something for us that weekend \o/

Poor Demon, played so much he just passed 1500 like last week :[

Conorach (~1380 ladder, 1425 global)