Introducing the RTS Triathlon, tune in June 5th at 15:00 UTC on faflive for a unique RTS event! Featuring 4 teams each with 1 player from the Beyond All Reason, Planetary Annihilation: Titans, and Forged Alliance Forever communities.

The RTS triathlon is a 2v2 tournament where the 2 players unfamiliar with each game will be coached by a player experienced with that game. The coaches will cast each game after it is completed.

Teams will play a single elimination tournament with a bronze match. Each round is a 3 game series where each game is played once.

The teams:

Team Scone:
Dubhdara - BAR tournament sponsor and streamer
JaggedAppliance - Top FAF player, streamer, and caster
Marshall - PA caster and moderator

Team Subathlon:
Hershey - BAR caster and streamer (twitch)
TheDuelist - FAF caster and streamer
^FeH^ FuRy ReGoNe - Top Level PA Player, Supcom 2 Veteran

Team Procrastinators Unite Tomorrow:
skynet - BAR developer
Willow's Duality - FAF caster and streamer (twitch)
Ian Gitax - Top PA player

Team Super Delicious:
Requiem - BAR caster and streamer (twitch)
harzer - FAF streamer
Orb - Experienced RTS player and PA tournament winner

People who are interested in following the event are welcome to join the official discord. Thanks to IceXuick for the promotional art.

The maps:

Team Scone vs Team Subathlon: MoonQ20XR XR
Team Procrastinators Unite Tomorrow vs Team Super Delicious: Folsom Dam BAR Remake
Bronze Match: CenterRock Remake
Finals: Supreme Crossing

FAF:
Team Scone vs Team Subathlon: Adaptive Archsimkat's Valley
Team Procrastinators Unite Tomorrow vs Team Super Delicious: Twin Rivers
Bronze Match: Chiron
Finals: Seton's 10x10

PA:
Team Scone vs Team Subathlon: Shard
Team Procrastinators Unite Tomorrow vs Team Super Delicious: Ulmost
Bronze Match: Canyon
Finals: Seton's Clutch

Hello and welcome to the Supreme Computer Cup! Ever wondered how the various AIs of FAF compare? Well I have, and I'm hosting this tournament to get to the bottom of it. This is a 1v1 round robin BO1 tournament between AIs and AIs and AIs and Players. Every AI will play every player and every other AI on classic FAF maps. AIs will be given 1 point for a win and .5 points for a draw. The AI with the most points wins.

The number of players for this tournament is uncapped and I am especially interested in lower ranked players participating. If you are 0-1000 rating, please sign up by posting below. Players above this rating are welcome to sign up as well.

I am also hoping to get a number of AI devs interested and perhaps some new people interested in AI development. I have linked some resources to help new AI devs get started below. The hope with posting this tournament well in advance of its start date will give new AI devs enough time to create a viable AI. AI devs please sign up with the name of your AI below.

All players that finish the tournament will receive the Tournament Participant avatar and the winning AI dev will receive a eternal glory and new avatar:

Date: June 26th
Time: 15:00 UTC
Chat: /join #computercup
Tournament Director: Swkoll

AI Development Resources:

• AI Tutorial
• AI Markers Tutorial
• Example AI mod
• AI Development Discord <-- very active

General Rules:

1. Games are limited to 45 minutes long. Games that go over 45 minutes are considered a draw and participants should move on to the next game.
2. Games will be played with all default settings except Observers: On
3. Unlike typical tournaments, draws will be counted as draws and not replayed.
4. Participants will report results in the #computercup irc channel after each game.

AI Dev Rules:

1. No cheating AIs (no AIXs). This is to encourage the development of AIs that can compete with human players on an equal footing. For the purpose of this tourney, cheating is considered to be doing anything a player could not theoretically do without cheating themselves (ie resource bonuses, map vision cheats, banned exploits). There is no restriction on the apm of your AI.
2. AI Devs are limited to 1 AI for the entire tournament.
   3. AI Devs (or someone else they designate) must be available the day of the tournament to manage their AI through the AI vs AI matches and troubleshoot any issues.
3. Final AI versions must be uploaded to the vault on or before June 25th at 23:59 UTC, modifications after this point must have the approval of a Tournament Director.
4. AI devs can choose which faction their AI will play for each map or have it play all random.

Would you like to contribute a prize pool for this tournament?
You can donate via Paypal to support this tournament.

Map Pool:
Cobalt Valley
Summer Duel
Theta Passage - FAF version

Open Palms - FAF version
Polar Depression
Saltrock Colony

Crossfire Canal - FAF version
Emerald Crater
Point of Reach v4

Human sign ups:

1. Askaholic
2. NapSpan
3. FemtoZetta
4. Jip
5. Protect
6. Hemfast
7. ButelkaOlejku
8. coufounazeer
9. CowGod
10. gonglinyuan
11. RandomWheelchair
12. Dankmemes
13. graftod666
14. maudlin27
15. MajorTrouble
16. IAMTHEPLOKOKIOPO
17. Fury

AI Sign ups:

1. RNGAI (creator relentless): RNG Standard, Requires AI-Uveso to be active
2. AI-Swarm (creator Azraeel): Swarm Terror, Requires AI-Uveso to be active
3. SACUAI (creator Skouby)
4. AI: DilliDalli (creator Softles)
5. AI-Uveso (creator Uveso): Adaptive
6. Sorian AI (creator Sorian): Adaptive
7. Marlo's Sorian AI edit (creator Marlo) : Requires AI-Uveso to be active

Instructions for the tournament:

1. Join the #computercup irc channel, you can do this by clicking the "+" in the chat window and typing "#computercup"
2. Check what group you are in (below), this will determine which maps you play vs which AI. This ensures every AI plays each map a somewhat equal amount of time and players get different maps each game.
3. Starting at 15:00 UTC, everyone is going to start playing their games vs AI using this chart below from top to bottom. Everyone's first game is vs RNGAI, then AI-Swarm etc.
   
4. Each AI mod will need to be downloaded from the vault (guide). Some AIs will require AI-Usevo to be active to work (RNGAI, AI-Swarm, Marlo's Sorian AI edit). If AI-Usevo is on please enable "Ai Map Marker Generator": "Autogenerate Always" in settings. (guide) Sorian AI is built into the client and does not require downloading.
5. Host each game, all games should use default spawns (slot 1vs slot 2), you can pick whatever faction you would like, AIs should be played on random, except for DilliDalli and Marlo's Sorian AI edit whose faction picks can be found in the chart where Yellow is Seraphim, Green is Aeon, Cybran is red, and Blue is UEF. (hosting guide)
6. Play each game and report the result in the #computercup channel (ie won vs Sorian AI)

Group 1:
IAMTHEPLOKOKIOPO
MajorTrouble
Group 2:
Protect
gonglinyuan
Group 3:
FemtoZetta
CowGod
Group 4:
graftod666
Dankmemes
Group 5:
NapSpan
Hemfast
Group 6:
Jip
ButelkaOlejku
Group 7:
Askaholic
coufounazeer
Group 8:
maudlin27
Fury
Group 9:
RandomWheelchair

Happy holidays! 2021 was a year of records for competitive FAF. There was a record number of 10 1v1 tournaments with prize money, up from 5! A record of 20 players received prizes in 2021, up from 18 last year. A record total prize pool total of $3958.06, up from $3297.01 in 2020! A record amount earned by any player in one year, Tagada with $1038.73, up from Nexus with $905 in 2020!

This year’s tournaments bring the total FAF tournament prize winnings to $13846.22. 56% or $7803.25 is from the Legend of the Stars World Championships and 19% or $2612.06 is from the Seasonal Invitationals.

The highest earning players this year are Tagada with $1038.73 across 6 tournaments, Nexus with $870 across 5 tournaments, and TURBO2 with $335 across 3 tournaments.

1v1 tournaments continue to have steady growth as the decline in the LotS prize pool was more than made up for with significant growth in the Seasonal Invitationals prize pools and other tournaments.

There were 4 new players added to my dataset this year bringing the total number of tracked players to 47 with two "new" players, Tex and Yudi, passed $100 in winnings. This graph shows the cumulative earnings of every player with >$100 in winnings.

I have graphed the rankings of players based on their cumulative 1v1 tournament earnings over time. Players first appear on the graph in the year where they exceed $100 in relevant winnings. Often a player will win some money in a year, but they will end up going down in the ranking as other players surpassed them. For example, Adjux has won prize money in almost every year since 2014, and his ranking has fluctuated between 2nd and 5th.

Competitive 1v1 Tournaments with prize pools in 2021:

• 2021 Spring Invitational
• 1v1 Mapgen Tournament
• 2021 April League Invitational
• 2021 June League Invitational
• 2021 Summer Invitational
• King of Crazyrush
• 2021 August League Invitational
• 2021 October League Invitational
• 2021 Fall Invitational
• 2021 Legend of the Stars World Championship

Disclaimer:
For the purposes of this post a “1v1 competitive tournament” is a 1v1 FAF tournament that is open to top players. This excludes showmatches, team game tournaments, modded tournaments, and tournaments restricted to low rated players.

See my previous post for more information. If anyone wants the dataset, feel free to message me on discord.

Hello and welcome to the 2021 Fall Invitational Tournament. The 2nd annual Fall Invitational is a top level 1v1 tournament featuring a series of invited players and an open qualifier to find the top 16 players on FAF. For those who are not familiar, there will be series of invites sent out to previous tournament winners, and an open qualifier on October 16th to fill the remainder of the 16 slots. This is followed by a group stage on October 23rd where the top 8 players will advance to a single elimination playoff bracket on October 30th-31st whose winners will receive prizes and glory, including LoTS qualification points! (See here for details)

All tournaments will be casted on twitch.tv/faflive starting at 14:00 UTC.

What’s changed?
Special maps such as crazyrush and hardffa will be put into their own category for the Group Stage and Playoffs rather than being considered normal 5x5s. The map pool in the Group Stage will be increased to 11 (from 10) maps to compensate. Morax's new faction vetoing tool may be used for the group stage and playoffs.

Would you like to contribute to the prize pool?
You can donate via Paypal to support this tournament and receive a fancy avatar!

Prize pool:
$735.04 total
• 1st: $310, Fall Invitational Champion Avatar, 20 LotS points, 8 invitational points
• 2nd: $150, Faction Face Avatar, 15 LotS points, 6 invitational points
• 3rd: $100, Faction Icon Avatar, 12 LotS points, 4 invitational points
• 4th: $55, 10 LotS points, 2 invitational points
• 5th-8th: $20, 6 LotS points, 1 invitational point
• 9th-12th: $10, 2 LotS points
• 13th-16th: $0.01 (US only), 2 LotS points

Donated by:
$350 - FAF funds
$150 – Swkoll
$100 - Morax
$90 - Lord Voldemort
$20 - archsimkat
$20 - Yudi
$5.04 - WolfSAW

The schedule:
October 15, 2021 - Deadline to accept invites
October 16, 2021 - Open Qualifier
October 23, 2021 - Group Stage
October 30-31, 2021 - Playoffs

All events will start at 14:00 UTC.

The qualifier:
This is an open qualifier, all players who have not received invites are welcome to participate. It will be a double elimination tournament with BO1s and BO3s in the winner's bracket and BO1s in the loser's bracket. Maps will be selected by myself from a pool for each round. Players will be seeded by ladder rating at the time of signup.

The group stage:
This will consist of 4 groups of 4 players playing a round robin style tournament with the top 2 of each group advancing. Games will be BO3s. Groups will first be seeded by Invitational points, then the qualified players will get to pick their group. Maps will be chosen by players from a pool of 11 using a veto/pick system with 2 vetoes each, players will make alternating vetoes and picks with loser seed vetoing first and higher seed picking first. Faction veto will also be used.

The playoffs:
This is a single elimination tournament with all BO5 matches expect for the championship match which will be BO7. Maps are chosen by players in a pick/veto system from a pool of 15 with 3 vetoes each, players will make alternating vetoes and picks. Players advancing from the group stage can submit one map to the finals bracket map pool (subject to Tournament Director veto). Faction veto will also be used. There first two rounds of the Playoffs will be played on Saturday and the 3rd place and championship match will be played on Sunday. The 3rd place match will start at 14:00 UTC and the championship match will follow it.

Invitational points:
Invitational points have been updated with results of major tournaments since the Summer Invitational, all players have lost 25% (rounded up) of their points for decay, and then 8 points were given for 1st place in the Summer Invitational, 6 for 2nd, 4 for 3rd, 2 for 4th, and 1 for 5th-8th. 2 points were also given for 1st and 1 point for 2nd in the August League Invitational. First place in Mini LoTS #1 has also received 1 point. The 1st and 2nd place in the October League Invitational have also received 2 and 1 points respectively. This produced the following list of 14 invites:
21- Tagada
15- Nexus
12- Petric
6- ZLO
5- TURBO2
5- Paralon
4- Tex
3- Blackheart
3- Espi
2- Adjux
1- Yudi
1- Turin
1- Blast Chilled
1- archsimkat

Accepted invites:

• Tagada
• Nexus
• Petric
• ZLO
• TURBO2
• Paralon
• Tex
• Blackheart
• EspinoTorreto
• Adjux
• Turinturambar
• Blast Chilled
• archsimkat

I've recently compiled a spreadsheet of every high level 1v1 FAF tournament I could find with a prize pool. For the sake of simplicity, I've defined this as 1v1 tournaments that allow high level players to participate. This excludes teamgame tournaments, rating restricted tournaments, showmatches, and tournaments with weird formats. If anyone wants the raw data, feel free to msg me on discord.

To the best of my ability I've cataloged every tournament that meets the above definition with a prize pool since FAF was created. A full list is below and I know that I've missed things so if you have tournaments that I missed please send them to me. I might expand this dataset to include all FAF events at some point.

The juicy stats:
There has been $10337.76 given away since 2012 in high level FAF 1v1 tournaments, with $4,222.01 in 2020 and 2021 so far.

Prize money by year:

Early FAF was dominated by no prizepool or low prize pool tournaments. There are dozens of random blitz tournaments for avatars littered throughout the forums. We started to see serious tournaments for 1v1s starting in 2015 with the $500 Prime Commander tournament. Then in 2016 we had the 1st year of LoTS which has been huge for high level 1v1 tournaments.

LoTS has accounted for $6333.25 in FAF prize pools or 61.2% of all prize money. For reference, the seasonal invitationals have had a combined prize pool of $1527.01 or 14.7% of the total.

Prize money by player:

I have 43 different players in the spreadsheet, 16 of which have earned >$100. Petric is the highest earning player with $2028.15 earned across 11 tournaments. Nexus has the most tournaments with winnings with 12. The top 4 earning player, Petric, Nexus, Blackheart, and Adjux account for a majority (57.5%) of all earnings.

Current tournament list:

• IMBA Cup
• IMBA Cup II
• Grand Masters Cup
• The Universal Resurrection Cup
• Prime Commander 1v1 Tournament
• 2016 LoTS
• 1st 2017 Blitz
• 2017 LoTS
• The Galaxy Cup 2018
• 2018 LoTS
• FAF Masters Cup 1v1
• 2019 LoTS
• 1v1 All Welcome
• Blitz Tournament Series
• 2020 Summer Invitational
• 2020 Fall Invitational
• 2020 LoTS
• 2021 Spring Invitational
• 1v1 Mapgen Tournament
• 2021 April League Invitational

Hello and welcome to the Kings of the Leagues, a tournament for 1v1 players in the Silver, Gold, or Diamond Leagues!

This will consist of 3 separate tournaments, one for each league, held on June 11th at 14:00 UTC at the same time as the Summer Invitational Qualifier. In order to handle this number of tournaments, we will be using Challonge to manage sign ups and report results. You must be placed in a league at the time of sign up, if you're not, go ladder! Players in Masters and Grandmasters can play in the Summer Invitational Qualifier.

The format will be double elimination using maps that have appeared on the ladder during Season 2. Each round will have set maps, there will be no map or faction veto. All matches will be BO1.

This is a companion tournament for the 2022 Summer Invitational.

Players must sign up on Challonge and check in on Challonge between 13:00 UTC and 14:00 UTC

Date: June 11th
Start Time: 14:00 UTC
Chat: /join #summerkings
Tournament Directors: Swkoll + NOC_N_O_C_NOC + Inspektor_Kot

Sign up:
Sign up using the links below. You may only sign up for 1 tournament with the league that matches yours at the time of sign up.

• King of Bronze
• King of Silver
• King of Gold
• King of Diamond

Prizes:
1st place: King of League Avatar, 1 training session with Swkoll
2nd place: Faction Face Avatar
3rd place: Faction Logo Avatar

Map pools:

King of Silver
5x5
Cobalt Valley
Desert Arena - FAF version
Firelight
Mapgen 7.5x7.5 - Tournament
Stickleback Ridge
Theta Passage - FAF version

10x10
Auburn Canyon
Dry Canyon v2
Regor IV Highlands
Open Palms

20x20
Crossfire Canal - FAF version
Point of Reach v4

King of Gold
5x5
Desert Arena - FAF version
Mapgen 7.5x7.5 - Tournament
Stickleback Ridge

10x10
Arcane
Auburn Canyon
Loki - FAF version
Mapgen 10x10 - Tournament
Open Palms
Regor IV Highlands

20x20
Crossfire Canal - FAF version
Point of Reach v4
Roanoke Abyss

King of Diamond
5x5
Desert Arena - FAF version
Mapgen 7.5x7.5 - Tournament

10x10
8 - Badlands_v4
Arcane
Amoor
Loki - FAF version
Mapgen 10x10 - Tournament
Polar Depression

20x20
Crossfire Canal - FAF version
Mentor
Point of Reach v4
The Bermuda Locket - FAF version

Do not sign up using this thread, use the sign up links.

Note: King of Bronze has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

Hello and welcome to King of Crazyrush, a 1v1 Double Elimination Tournament that will determine once and for all who is the best Crazyrush player.

All matches will be a BO1 on crazyrush. All standard tournament rules apply, 1500 unit cap, draws are replayed, players are seeded by ladder rating, no faction veto will be used.

This tournament is sponsored by Pryanichek. Thanks to them for supporting this event.

Date: July 31st
Start Time: 14:00 UTC
Chat: /join #crazyrush
Challonge: https://challonge.com/2culqng1
Tournament Directors: TBD

Prize Pool:
150€ Total
1st - 80€ - King of Crazyrush avatar
2nd - 40€ - Prince of Crazyrush avatar
3rd - 20€
4th - 10€

Final Results:
1st - Paralon
2nd - Petric
3rd - Tagada
4th - Wifi_

All players 1500+ ladder rating are guaranteed a spot. If there are more than 16 1500+ rated players signed up, a 32 player bracket will be used, otherwise a 16 player bracket will be used.

Sign up by posting below

Signups:

1. Tagada 2390
2. Petric 2360
3. Tex 2275
4. Paralon 2210
5. TheWheelie 2122
6. ZLO 2064
7. Blast_Chilled 1921
8. YUNG-96Noob 1920
9. archsimkat 1869
10. Free_Francias 1836
11. harzer99 1789
12. Rezy-Noob 1769
13. Wifi_ 1760
14. Nightmare 1752
15. GrunttiNoob 1733
16. Neytron 1570
17. Javi 1406
18. Exselsior 1316
19. CaptainKlutz 670
20. Alina-Kiss 276
21. Aid 0

Hello and welcome to the 2022 Summer Invitational Tournament! The 3rd(!) annual Summer Invitational is a top level 1v1 tournament featuring a series of invited players and an open qualifier to find the top 16 players on FAF. For those who are not familiar, there will be series of invites sent out to previous tournament winners, and an open qualifier on June 11th to fill the remainder of the slots. This is followed by a group stage on June 18th where the top 8 players will advance to a single elimination playoff bracket on June 25th-26th whose winners will receive prizes and glory!

All tournaments will be casted on twitch.tv/faflive starting at 14:00 UTC.

What’s changed?
There is now a series of companion tournaments for players in the Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond Leagues! See how you stack up to the rest of the division at this end of season event!

The qualifier is now restricted to players in Masters, Grandmasters, or those with a ladder rating of 1800+ at time of signup.

We will be using captains for the group stage, the players with the top 4 highest invitational points will act as captains taking turns picking the remaining 3 players in their groups. The player with the most points will get Group A and first pick. Group B captain will pick second with following picks made using a snake system.

Group stage and playoffs will now use a veto down system for the last map pick rather than letting the better seed get an extra map pick.

Would you like to contribute to the prize pool?
You can donate via Paypal to support this tournament and receive a fancy avatar!

Prize pool:
$594.69 total
• 1st: $239.69, Summer Invitational Champion Avatar, 8 invitational points
• 2nd: $120, Faction Face Avatar, 6 invitational points
• 3rd: $100, Faction Icon Avatar, 4 invitational points
• 4th: $55, 2 invitational points
• 5th-8th: $20, 1 invitational point

Note: residents of countries under sanction by the US, EU, or Germany may be ineligible to receive cash prizes.

Donated by:
$300 - FAF
$150 – Swkoll
$75 – Dragun101
$69.69 – Milchshake

Results:
1st - Yudi
2nd - TURBO2
3rd - grimplex
4th - ZLO
5-8th - Archsimkat
5-8th - BlastChilled
5-8th - SilentNoob
5-8th - Turin

The schedule:
June 10, 2022 - Deadline to accept invites
June 11, 2022 - Invitational Qualifier and Kings of the Leagues
June 18, 2022 - Group Stage
June 25-26, 2022 - Playoffs

All events will start at 14:00 UTC.

The qualifier:
This is an semi-open qualifier, players who have not received invites and are in Masters, Grandmasters, or have 1800+ ladder rating are welcome to participate. It will be a double elimination tournament with BO1s and BO3s in the winner's bracket and BO1s in the loser's bracket. Maps will be selected by myself from a pool for each round. Players will be seeded by ladder rating at the time of signup.

The group stage:
This will consist of 4 groups of 4 players playing a round robin style tournament with the top 2 of each group advancing. Games will be BO3s. Groups will be chosen by a captains system. The players with the top 4 highest invitational points will act as captains taking turns picking the remaining 3 players in their groups. The player with the most points will get Group A and first pick. Group B captain will pick second with following picks made using a snake system.

Maps will be chosen by players from a pool of 11 using a veto/pick system with 2 vetoes each, players will make alternating vetoes and picks with loser seed vetoing first and higher seed picking first. For the last pick players will resume vetoing from the remaining maps until only one map remains with lower seed vetoing first. Faction veto will also be used.

The playoffs:
This is a single elimination tournament with all BO5 matches expect for the championship match which will be BO7. Maps are chosen by players in a pick/veto system from a pool of 15 with 3 vetoes each, players will make alternating vetoes and picks. Players advancing from the group stage can submit one map to the finals bracket map pool (subject to Tournament Director veto). For the last pick players will resume vetoing from the remaining maps until only one map remains with lower seed vetoing first. Faction veto will also be used. There first two rounds of the Playoffs will be played on Saturday and the 3rd place and championship match will be played on Sunday. The 3rd place match will start at 14:00 UTC and the championship match will follow it.

Invitational points:
Invitational points have been updated with results of major tournaments since the 2021 Fall Invitational, all players have lost 25% (rounded up) of their points for decay, and then 8 points were given for 1st place in the Fall Invitational, 6 for 2nd, 4 for 3rd, 2 for 4th, and 1 for 5th-8th. First place in LotS received 4 points, 3 points for 2nd, 2 points for 3rd, and 1 point for 4th. 1 point was also given for the winner of the Mapgen Blitz. This produced the following list of 14 invites:

28- Tagada
20- Nexus
10- Petric
8- Espi
7- TURBO2
5- Tex
5- ZLO
4- Paralon
3- Blackheart
3- Adjux
1- Yudi
1- Jagged
1- Turin
1- Grimplex

Accepted invites:

• Tagada
• Nexus
• Espi
• TURBO2
• Tex
• ZLO
• Paralon
• Turin
• Yudi
• Grimplex

This idea is so cripplingly terrible it's actually kind of amazing. Councilors can already subdivide responsibilities as they desire. This would create so many tiny independent fiefdoms that prevent any sort of meaningful collaboration or progress that the project might just collapse.

Can you imagine a world where their are 3 different moderation leaders each with different policies and rules? It would be insane.

Congratulations to team Super Delicious for winning the Triathlon!

The final standings are:

1. Team Super Delicious
2. Team Subathlon
3. Team Scone
4. Procrastinators Unite Tomorrow

Thanks to all the players and streamers who made this event possible. Thanks especially to Dragun, ptaq, and Marshall for helping me organize this event, to IceXuiqk for helping with graphics, and to Blodir for providing music for the stream.

The Schedule:

February 25th-26th - Game Team Release Weekend - No Tournaments

March 11th-12th: Rainbow Cup VI Day 1 and 2
March 18th: Rainbow Cup VI Day 3

April 8th: Spring Invitational Qualifier
April 15th: Spring Invitational Group Stage
April 22nd-23rd: Spring Invitational Playoffs and Finals
April 29th-30th - Game Team Release Weekend - No Tournaments

June 24th-25th - Game Team Release Weekend - No Tournaments

July 22nd: Summer Invitational Qualifier
July 29th: Summer Invitational Group Stage

August 5th-6th: Summer Invitational Playoffs and Finals
August 26th-27th - Game Team Release Weekend - No Tournaments

September 30th: Fall Invitational Qualifier

October 7th: Fall Invitational Group Stage
October 14th-15th: Fall Invitational Playoffs and Finals
October 28th-29th - Game Team Release Weekend - No Tournaments

November and December: Legend of the Stars World Championship

Last year's schedule (partial): https://forum.faforever.com/topic/4802/faf-2022-tournament-schedule

Welcome to the Playoffs for the 2022 Legend of the Stars World Championship Playoffs. This stage will be a sudden death, single elimination bracket with the top 8 players who advanced out of the group stage. RO8, Semi Finals, and Bronze Match will be BO5 and Finals will be BO7.

The Playoffs will be broken up between 2 days to allow more games to be cast on FAFlive. Day 1 will take place on December 17th and feature the RO8 and Semi-Finals and Day 2 will take place on December 18th and feature the Bronze Match and Finals.

Players get 3 map vetoes each using the same rules as the group stage. Faction veto will be used.

Date: December 17th and December 18th
Start Time: 15:00 UTC
Chat: /join #lotsplayoffs
Challonge: https://challonge.com/opa1ftvj
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/faflive
Day 1 Casters: Swkoll and Archsimkat
Day 2 Casters: Swkoll and Farms
Tournament Directors: Swkoll, NoOneCares

Map Pool:
7.5x7.5 Mapgen
Desert Arena - FAF version
Theta Passage 5

10x10 Mapgen
Badlands
crash site
Last oasis
Niflheim
Twin Rivers

15x15 Mapgen
Forlorn Fjords

20x20 Mapgen
Crossfire Canal - FAF version
Ditch - FAF version
Point of Reach v4

@rottenbanana They should be done tomorrow evening.

StormLantern has been subbed out for Jagged, subs have been updated.

Welcome to the Group Stage for the 2022 Legend of the Stars World Championship Group Stage. 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 playoffs.

The Group Stage will be broken up between 2 days to allow more games to be cast on FAFlive. Day 1 will take place on December 10th and feature Groups A and B and Day 2 will take place on December 11th and feature Groups C and D.

Date: December 10th and December 11th
Start Time: 15:00 UTC
Chat: /join #lotsgroups
Challonge: https://challonge.com/opa1ftvj
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/faflive
Day 1 Casters: Endranii and Farms
Day 2 Casters: Endranii and Willow's Duality
Tournament Directors: Swkoll, NoOneCares
Group A TD: Swkoll
Group B TD: Noc

Groups:

Groups were selected by a draft of the top 4 invited players picking from the remaining players in a snake draft. The pick order was:

Rowan
StormLantern
Tex
Shen - Arch
Espi
Blast_Chilled
ZLO - Harzer
Turin
Banani
Grimplex

The based on the qualifiers, the substitutes are:

1. WoundedElkNoob
2. Asmodeus
3. lkvxnw4q8hrtpnd
4. SpikeyNoob

Maps:

tl;dr 3 alternating vetoes each, low seed vetoes first. High seed picks map 1. Low seed picks map 2. Players veto down for the last map.

There is a pool of 11 maps and maps will be selected using a veto and pick system. This means each player has 3 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 players will resume vetoing maps until only 1 remains with the lower seed vetoing first. 6 of the maps are the same for each group and 5 maps are different for each group.

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.

For mapgen, both players can enter the lobby and view the map prior to sending in their vetoes. Each player now gets 1 reroll, but must use the rerolled map. Specific mapgen maps will be vetoable as if they were normal maps.

For tiebreaks and scoring, we will use the challonge system of tiebreaks. In the event that 2 positions are perfectly tied by those metrics, a BO1 will be played between the tied players with players vetoing down to 1 map, lower seed vetoing first.

To clarify map picking and faction veto:

Figure out which maps are in your group, they are the 6 "All" maps and the 5 maps specific to your group.
Lower seed (as shown by the position in the group) vetoes first map
Higher seed vetoes next map
Lower seed vetoes next map
Higher seed vetoes next map
Lower seed uses last veto
Higher seed uses last veto
Higher seed then picks the first map to play from the list of maps in the pool that have not been vetoed
Players send 2 factions that they would like to play and 1 veto to their group's TD
Lower seed picks the second map following the same rules
Players send 2 factions that they would like to play and 1 veto to their group's TD
In the event of a tie, players veto down any of the remaining maps until 1 remains with lower seed going first
Players send 2 factions that they would like to play and 1 veto to their group's TD
The winner reports the results (including losses and tie games) to their group's tournament director in the #lotsgroupschannel

Map Pool:

Player Cards

With Thanks to:
Javi - Finalising Design
Fichom - Icons & Card Border
NOC - Images & Quotes
Swkoll - Micro, Macro, Chaos values

sign ups are now closed

Map pool posted

I haven't done the full stats, but upwards of 70%+ of series in this format are 2-0. While the longest series is the limiting factoring in a tournament like this, the length of the 2-0 series matters a lot because they are vastly more common. My back of the envelope math is that I'd expect you'd add 20 minutes to a 2-0 series by swapping a 5x5 for a 20x20 on average, and a 2-0 series will be a binding constraint about half the time.

@thewheelie There's probably some implicit psychological advantage to being up 1 game in a BO3, but I think it's quite small and not worth making the tournament longer to correct for it. The loser's bracket having 0 5x5s is definitely a much larger disadvantage for player's who prefer smaller maps.

@bulliednoob One of the biggest complaints I've received over the years is that tournaments last too long, so I when I design tournament formats I try to optimize for tournament speed while preserving competitiveness. If I did a BO3 that was in the order of 20km -> 10km -> 5km, I'd expect it would add on average about 10 minutes to each BO3 round, adding about 30-40 minutes to overall runtime. Considering that this format can run between 6 to 7 hours already, I'm not inclined to do anything to extend that length.

I also do not think the current order favors players who do better on small maps in a significant way. If you are going to win the BO3 you still need to win 2/3 map sizes, no matter what order they are played in. I'd argue the fact that the loser's bracket contains about half 10x10s and half 20x20s with no 5x5s favors players who are better at big maps in a much more significant way.