I think perhaps there will be two "20" events this season. However, they will not be run at the same time, and neither one really deserves the "20" name.

At this point in time, the first event is mostly decided. It can be changed if better ideas are presented, but I will lay out the current state of it:

Perhaps some of you remember Szeweningen's Champion's League idea? It ended up not working out as expected when the 2v2 template in Round 2 was not well liked. With his advice, I have worked up a repeat of the Champion's League that will hopefully run smoothly. Here is the basic format for it:

There will be multiple divisions, just as there is a [20A], [20B], etc. How many divisions depends on the amount of players interested. There will be 16 players in each division.

Round 1: This round will consist of 4 groups of 4 players. Players will be divided first based on tiers, then one player from each tier will be placed in a group randomly. Each player will play in two 1v1 games versus every other player in their group. The template will be decided out of a pool of an even number of templates, where each player will veto the same amount of these templates. The templates that are left standing will be the templates the games are played on. This will result in a total of six 1v1 games for each player. For 2v2, each player will veto 2 templates out of the 10 that are given as options. This means that there will be two templates remaining. On each template, the players will play a total of three games, with each other player in his group being his teammate for one of these games. Since there will be two 2v2 templates, this results in six 2v2 games being played. There will be 12 total games played for each player in Round 1. Tiebreakers will be handled in a Strategic 1v1 game between the two players.

Round 2: The top two players from each group in Round 1 will advance to Round 2. Group A will consist of the top finishers in Group A and Group C of Round 1, and the second-place finishers of Group B and Group D of Round 1. Group B will consist of the top finishers in Group B and Group D of Round 1, and the second-place finishers of Group A and Group C in Round 1. Round 2 will be played in the same manner as Round 1. This means a total of 12 games being played in Round 2.

Semifinals: The top two players from both groups in Round 2 advance to the semifinals. This means that the semifinals will have four players. The top player in Group A from Round 2 will play a semifinal matchup against the second-ranked player from Group B, and the top player in Group B from Round 2 will play a semifinal against the second-ranked player from Group A. Each semifinal matchup will be a best of seven series. There will be 3 1v1's played, 2 2v2's played, and 2 3v3's played. The team games will be played with alts (alts will be provided if you need them). In this round, the 3v3's will both be played on the Europe map. The 1v1's and 2v2's will likely be decided based on vetoes again.

Finals: The two semifinal winners advance to play in the finals. This series will be nearly identical to the semifinals. The winner of the final will be crowned as the Warlight Champion!


This could all be changed, but this is the basic outline for what I am planning at the moment. Once this event reaches the semifinal and final stages, I will see whether it is a good idea to have another season of this, and/or if we should continue with the traditional [20] leagues, and/or if we should start the idea of the [12] (calling it this for now) league.

I'm way too tired to read into this too much and need sleep, but:

First point would be in vetoing, you assume each player vetos unique templates. If, once a template is vetod, you must choose another, whoever gets first pick is at a major disadvantage in comparison to last as they are picking 2 out of 10, instead of the last player picking 2 out of 4.

With picking templates in subsequent rounds, I assume it is the same as follows above with round 1? If so, since there are less vetos, which templates are removed or to people just get more vetos?

Second point, using alts and forcing alts is not a great idea, just throwing it out there.

Third, coincidentally, if there is a 3-way tie, RR or...?

How to progress from C to B and B to A?

Great theory in concept and I know it's just a basic outline but I also think it will take too long. Each subsequent round can not start until the previous round is fully complete. Time could be an issue. Tiering is good but harder since it's quite opinionated.

The problem is also repetition... people wanting to come back for more and do it again, something that wasn't present the first time.

Vetoing would be be anonymous (via mail) I assume but what if two players veto on the same template...?

I would definitely be willing to play.

I think the ideal scenario would be a Swiss-system tourney for the 1v1s and either a Swiss with alts for 2v2s and 3v3s or random teammates. Of course, Warlight doesn't have native support for Swiss tournaments, which is a significant problem.

I think the simpler the tournament design, the better. I'm also skeptical that the competition will be successful if it is run manually. It's much more likely to work if we use Warlight tournaments or a CLOT. The problem with a CLOT is that it's a significant amount of work to create one, and it doesn't seem worthwhile without some guarantees that it will actually be used.

JSA's idea seems cool but I have two issues:

1) that looks like more admin work than my idea. I also don't see how you can put that in a CLOT easily with your setup. I did something similar in a USA cup, and I think I just stopped making the tournaments after a few rounds as it was an admin nightmare and took a long time.

2) It only accommodates 16 players, would you be doing more sets of this?

@Chris

There will be multiple divisions, just as there is a [20A], [20B], etc. How many divisions depends on the amount of players interested. There will be 16 players in each division.

If someone has to manually create these games (which seems to be the case for the majority of them), I can't really see this working. The admin will lose the interest required to create dozens (hundreds?) of games.

Would it be bad to just have 2 leagues? Both are run the same way but 1 league is only 1v1's and the other league is only team games....

Also for whoever was curious about boots in 20C. It was mainly AWESOMEGUY + RA getting booted and they were on the same team. The majority of 1v1 boots were due to vacations.

As bad as it sounds, I am to the point where I am only really playing WarLight for an odd game here and there and some randomly yearly tournaments.

I would love to create something like this for the community which is why I really want to get the ball rolling on this idea. I think the idea of randomized teammates would be new, fun, and consistently different. I personally don't mind having to set up games manually and admin it. Even if it is a lot of games, I am online quite frequently just to pop in so I might as well do something useful.

@Turtle I think 2 leagues would be bad. There is already the P/R league and separating the league would not accomplish the goal (that at I see from this) is to attempt to determine who are the top WarLight players overall, not just strat 1v1 or whatever else.

I would play in a random team league for sure, as long as we had divisions to keep it from being bad teammates.

How I envision it is a 12-player tiered system similar to the P/R league. 3 up, 3 down which also keeps each season different in opponents, but allows people to work their way up. The P/R system is definitely the way to go in terms of balanced competition and avoiding bad teammates.

Edited 10/15/2015 18:17:55

i like the concept of a promo/Relegation league. but the rule that you Need to start from scratch if you don't Play one season is stupid. i could join and get booted and would lose less than i do when i'm honest and say that i can't Play.

What if you could reserve a spot for 1 season? For example, if you were in the top 16 and didn't wanted to skip one, you could have 4 people move up and next season, 4 move down to compensate. The only thing is that it could only be max one season. It may get complicated but I do not see an other alternative.

yeah, i left promo league in division C. came back after a season off, started in H :(

I don't know how you make that work though in promo environment though. If you hold a spot and come back, what happens with people already in division? You displace them? Seems very messy.

Another option is you just seed everyone based on total points earned in league from start. So you'd climb from earning points, but then if you leave for a season you don't start at 0, just where you left off (but other people would have gotten points the season you missed). So you might drop a division or something.

Holding slots is a pain, as you can see from 1v1 promo league. I think it would be easier to just do total points career in league. Top 12, next 12, etc.

Career pts would be unique to this league too as I am not aware of anyone else doing that. I have also never like how someone going 6-0 in B moves up 1 spot and someone winning H with a 3-2 record moves up 1 (or more if there are drop outs).

Edited 10/15/2015 18:48:49

But you have to do something to start it out (divisions). Not sure if you assign like JSA did. Vote with a panel. Make it all random and let it sort out on own for league 2.

Hasn't the 20 league always been an invitational toruney? In that case, so it shall remain.

There is already a promotion/relegation league, I think there's no reason for 20 to become a copy of that

I assume JSA would continue having invites only.

I really, really like the idea of career statistics. It's something we are now doing in our league here (sports league but same idea).

As for the invitational only, from what I know, 20 started out as 20 great players all playing games against each other. Once the 20 league started, there was so much interest along came 20A, 20B, 20C, etc. all the way to proving grounds. How is that not a P/R league?

It may be a different name but the idea is still the same. As well, if it's invite only, you lose out on finding great new players that weren't invited. Just my honest opinion.

I think people are a little confused what the original intent of 20 was. It was to take 20 interesting players and play different formats and different templates to broaden understanding of Warlight as a whole, as such they originally played templates that were brand new and invited not just players based on their skill level, but based on how they played stylistically.

We don't do that anymore. The 3 templates we had were Strat ME 0% WR, Strat ME 2v2 0% SR, and Europe 3v3. That's boring as hell. I played mainly because I found 20B to have really interesting players as a whole (MotD, Bjarke, BraaK, Oh Noes, GreenTea, I had at the start not played many games against them), but the templates were boring. I didn't expend any effort playing the 3v3 and neither did my partners, probably because we were all burned out on playing Europe 3v3 on a competitive level so we just picked and didn't talk unless we needed a transfer or attack for expansion. So if we're to continue the league, let's rotate templates, teammates, and do something more original. Let's actually think up new innovative templates, and add people based on their stylistic differences.

It is atm, a competitive P/R League with confusing rules on promotions/relegations, boring templates, and some players who are absolutely burned out/bored with the format.

Edited 10/15/2015 22:49:34

So if we're to continue the league, let's rotate templates, teammates, and do something more original. Let's actually think up new innovative templates, and add people based on their stylistic differences.

+1

This is the essence of what I was trying to get at. The community as a whole is more involved than what it once was. Instead of being dominated by top players, everyone is contributing more so they should be included. Have something like 3 or 4 solid templates, and then at the end of a season, the template that was used becomes ineligible for the next season and is replaced with a new template. Keeps it up to date with templates and not always Start ME or Europe.

To address the confusing rules on P/R, you can just go career stats.