Spring 2020 1v1 Champions League

[captainmeme]

SIGNUPS ARE NOW CLOSED

Official Challonge Bracket

Greetings! Spring is upon us, and that means the return of the 1v1 Champions League: A tournament which is designed to be run bi-annually for the very best 1v1 players. This tournament format has been taken from the fairly successful UEFA Champions League, adapted for Diplomacy, and features only the 32 best 1v1 players. If you don't qualify this time, there's always time to improve your rating for next time - and these games should hopefully be just as fascinating to follow for everyone else!

This tournament shall be played exclusively on the France vs Austria map, as that is the most balanced 1v1 variant on webDip.

Entry is free, as long as you qualify - which requires you to be either the defending champion (RoganJosh), or one of the top 32 highest ranked 1v1 players by FvA Elo to enter. The winner of this tournament will receive 1000 webDip points. Everyone else will receive... Nothing. There are no prizes for second best here, it's winner takes all.

A link to the 1v1 Elo (adapted to remove bots, and increased to a 12-month dropoff) can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Note that as this is a France vs Austria tournament, we will be using FvA ranking, not overall 1v1 ranking.

More information to follow.

[captainmeme]

The 32 entrants will initially be seeded into four pots - The top 8 in pot one, 9-16 in pot two, 17-24 in pot three, and 25-32 in pot four. A group stage will then be drawn, where each group will contain one player from each pot. The defending champion will always be the top seed. There shall be 8 groups in total (Groups A-H). Within these groups, each player will play the other twice (once as France, and once as Austria). These games will be played simultaneously. A win will be worth 3 points, a draw worth 1 point, and a loss worth nothing. The top two players will then advance to the knockout stage. In the knockout stage, you will once more play two games against your opponent (one as France, one as Austria). The player with the most wins will advance - draws are worth nothing. The losing player will be knocked out. In the Round of 16, the group winners will be seeded, and the runners up unseeded, so all Round of 16 ties will be a winner against a runner up. You will not play anyone from your group in the Round of 16. From the Quarter Finals onward, there will be no seeds.

Group Stage Tiebreakers:
If the tie is between 1st and 2nd place, a coin flip will determine who is seeded as first for purposes of the second round playoffs (as this is not a distinction worth playing another game over).
If the tie is between 2nd and 3rd place, the player with the better record against the other will progress. If that measure is tied, the player with the better record against the 1st place player will progress. Finally, if that measure is tied, the two players will play one game with randomly assigned powers, with the winner advancing in the case of a victory and France advancing in the case of another tie.
If the tie is 3 or 4 way, each player in the tie will play one game with randomly assigned powers against each of the other players in the tie, with the highest 2 scores advancing. If this scoring system again causes a tie:

• If it is another 3 or 4 way tie, advancements will be decided by coin flip (after much bashing my head against the wall).

• If it is a 2 way tie, resolve according to the above methods.

Knockout Stage Tiebreakers: If the two legs do not produce a clear winner (either 1-0 or 2-0), the players play a second set. If that result ties, the players play one final game with countries randomly assigned - if this ties, the player playing France in the final game advances.

Phase Lengths will be 24 hours (longer phase lengths may be allowed at the TD’s discretion, depending on circumstance and whether the sets are ahead of schedule). However, readying up is STRONGLY encouraged, and if you repeatedly fail to ready up and your game is lagging behind others at the same stage, then as Tournament Director (TD) I retain the right to chase you up and demand you ready up if there is not a reasonable excuse not to do so. Obviously readying up is not necessary immediately, but games should ideally be progressing at a rate of at least a few phases per day.

Each player will get one week of total pause time, which can be split up throughout the tournament. If a pause is required, please send the TD (myself) as a message and I will pause the game for you, as long as you have pause time remaining. Please do not pause without letting me know. Further pauses will be considered on a case by case basis, but will likely be denied if the games are already behind schedule.

A CD will result in a loss for that game. NMRs will not be punished, though this being a 1v1 tournament, they will almost certainly lead to a loss anyway. Replacements will be called up for anyone who CD's or drops out during the group stages. If a player drops out or CD's midgame in the knockout stage, they will forfeit that match. If a player drops out prior to a game beginning in the knockout stage, then the player they last knocked out shall instead be recalled to the tournament, as they will be deemed to have lost the game unfairly due to doping, bribery, fielding an ineligible player, or some other terrible sporting blight upon the world.

Games will cost 5 points to join, as that is the minimum bet. Being an unranked game, these points will still be returned to you at the end of the game. Games will be FP and Non-Anon, for the benefit of spectators and to allow maximum Global arguing for the rest of us to enjoy.

The TD retains the right to force draw games that are stalemated after one year of stalemate, should the players involved not draw it themselves.

Signups will be open until 11pm GMT on Wednesday 25th March. Groups will be seeded immediately after signups close, and games will begin as soon as possible after this.

PM's are going to be sent to the top 50 players to encourage as many of them to sign up as possible. Lower ranked players are also free to sign up

CaptainMeme (1v1 Champions League Tournament Director)

Adapted from the Winter 2017 CL writeup, credit to Hellenic Riot!

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Slight update:

If you are not in the 1v1 Elo because you haven't played in the last year, but were ranked highly in the past, you're still welcome to sign up. I will take your last available FvA Elo and use that.

(Ninja Edit - you can find all the All Time (no dropoff) botless Elos here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing)

However, the top 32 ranked players in the 12-month dropoff spreadsheet (excluding myself) will automatically be accepted into the tournament if they sign up. They have priority in the case of too many signups.

[captainmeme]

Group A

genghiz
goldfinger0303
Obscurity
Claesar

Group B

Foxcastle
dipperjay
rdrivera2005
hhgttg42

Group C

badivan1
nguyenmt
Bonaparte23
bigchungus69

Group D

theoneandonly
whaskell
teccles
hodo2002

Group E

MadMarx
stranger
czechveck
gianluc

Group F

RoganJosh
CCR
SpaceDip
JEccles

Group G

mhsmith0
bozotheclown
Your Humble Narrator
Josafina

Group H

SplitDiplomat
swordsman3003
svkrIs
DollarMenuDino

[teccles]

Awesome, thanks for organising!

Who is in "the top 32 ranked players in the 12-month dropoff spreadsheet (excluding myself)"? I can read it as either ranks 1-33 excluding our wonderful TD, or ranks 1-32 excluding our wonderful TD. Asking for a friend who turns out to be rank 33.

[mhsmith0]

fwiw, if we end up having a solid amount of interest, I'm not opposed to creating a "Pot E" and just making the pools into 5-members instead of 4-members.

[RoganJosh]

The list of sign ups is hidden?

@teccles I would be very surprised if all 32 top ranked players sign up

[mhsmith0]

I'm guessing that meme will post signup lists on the challonge site "every so often"

[captainmeme]

Who is in "the top 32 ranked players in the 12-month dropoff spreadsheet (excluding myself)"? I can read it as either ranks 1-33 excluding our wonderful TD, or ranks 1-32 excluding our wonderful TD. Asking for a friend who turns out to be rank 33.

The 32 top players if I'd been taken off the list, so #33 is counted in that. I doubt it'll matter, but I imagine your friend will be happy to hear that anyway

fwiw, if we end up having a solid amount of interest, I'm not opposed to creating a "Pot E" and just making the pools into 5-members instead of 4-members.

Champions League is very specifically 32 players, I'd prefer to keep the same format it's always been run in. I am planning to resume Riot's schedule of running this twice per year though, so anyone who just misses out doesn't have to wait too long to get another chance if they're willing to try to improve their rating in the meantime.

The list of sign ups is hidden?

I'll edit a running signup list into one of the opening posts!

[MadMarx]

FYI - I’m heading up into the Cascade Mountains Wednesday *March* 25th, the day signups close, and I’ll return Sunday March 29th, I won’t have predictable internet, so will likely need to use a few days of pause time from the start...

[captainmeme]

Nice catch, I've fixed the start date :D

No worries on the starting pause, as long as we can get your games started ASAP when you get back it should be fine. The one week of pause time is not a limit, it's a minimum no-questions-asked guarantee; as long as there's a good reason and it's not holding the tournament up too much I'll grant additional pause requests.

[MadMarx]

FYI - In this thread it says in the case of a 4th game ending in a tie that France advances, but when you click to sign up and read the rules it says Austria advances in that scenario.

[captainmeme]

Another good catch! That was down to my own laziness because I copy/pasted the description for the tournament page from HR's writeup on the old tournament site.

I should clarify there - this year we're doing a tiebreaker set in the event of a knockout stage tie (2 games), and then one further tiebreak game if the second set also ties. If the final tiebreak game ties as well, the player playing France in that game advances.

[RoganJosh]

Regarding tiebreakers with randomly assigned powers, there is this issue I raised a while ago that was never addressed:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=724

I might be wrong, but I suspect that the automatic country assignment implemented here on wedDip is currently not random. Maybe some developer can provide some clarity. If not, then you (captainmeme) should randomize the country assignment in some other manner, if this ever becomes relevant.

[MadMarx]

Barely half full, might as well throw your hat in the ring if at all interested, let’s do this!!

[CCR]

Last fva game Oct 2018, Showdown Round 12 Set 158 Game 3. My ratings used to be above 300, or does it count as zero (for not belonging to the 12 month range)?

[RoganJosh]

The way I understood it, you'll be ranked by the last available ELO. And I think it's safe to assume that you'll get a spot, even if it's not guaranteed.

[captainmeme]

you (captainmeme) should randomize the country assignment in some other manner, if this ever becomes relevant.

I'm not sure how necessary this is - the problem seems to be that you can predict the result rather than actively manipulate it - but I'm happy to use some offsite randomiser to determine country assignments in the tiebreaker games.

Barely half full, might as well throw your hat in the ring if at all interested, let’s do this!!

Will likely send out some PMs to player 50-100 on the 12mo list if we don't get more soon; I think I may have set the dropoff to too long a time and it includes a lot of players who aren't here anymore or don't do 1v1 anymore.

Last fva game Oct 2018, Showdown Round 12 Set 158 Game 3. My ratings used to be above 300, or does it count as zero (for not belonging to the 12 month range)?

RJ is correct, the only difference is that the top 32 players on the 12mo list have their places guaranteed if they want them. It looks like that won't actually make a difference at this point!

[captainmeme]

To clarify on that last point - if you look at the signup list in the 3rd post, anyone with a * qualifies automatically, everyone else's qualification is based on their most recent Elo.

[captainmeme]

Given there's one day left til signups are supposed to close and we still have 13 slots open, I'm going to extend signups until Monday (you're welcome MM ) and PM players 50-100 on the 12mo list. Maaaybe making the list 12mo dropoff was too long because it seems a lot of those players aren't here anymore!

[RoganJosh]

Yeah, I think you're right. Overall, the 1v1 scene is smaller now.

Regarding the random thing - it's more principle the practical. Now, I'm not sure exactly how the algorithm works, so this might be completely wrong, but if the algorithm just counts how many times you've played each power in your finished games, then it's easy to manipulate those stats by playing a bunch of bot games. That would be a blatantly obvious "cheat," but still.