2023 AoE 2 Nations Cup [$14,270 Prize Pool Currently]

Dear AoE 2 community, this topic (Nations Cup Waiting Room) has hurt me a lot. In summer 2020, I already tried to give the community something similar with the 2020 AOElympics while waiting. Many of us believed the follow-up of the great 2017 Nations Cup would come soon, in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022... But it never came.

Therefore, I am offering you my approach. I will organise the 2023 4v4 Nations Cup, starting in around 5 weeks. Registration will be open until Saturday, January 28, 20 GMT. The qualification stage will begin in the following week.
This will be a tournament for fun and prestige. However, if anyone wants to contribute to a prize pool, you can do so via the tournament's Matcherino page: https://matcherino.com/t/nc23 where you also can see the current donation sum at all times.

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The exact rules and settings will follow soon, but some important key points are:

• The main event will consist of a group stage (8x4 teams) and a double-elimination knockout stage.
• Max. 4 teams from one nation can enter the main event.
• Teams consist of 4-10 players, substition and addition of backup players will be possible at certain stages of the tournament.
• When a team registers, they have to give list of up to 5 maps which they want to have in the tournament. The maps with the most points will be added to the map pool. So you decide a part of the map pool!
• How exactly the qualifying phase works will depend on the number of registered teams; more about that later.
• A Silver League for teams that don't qualify for the 32-team group stage will happen, if we have enough interested teams.

Staff currently are @Huehuecoyotl22, @enmipho, @paradox303, @welcometorapture and @Akkal.

Any questions and discussion, as well as the registration can start on the 2023 Nations Cup Discord now: https://discord.gg/5fBkzfqHhb

Everybody is welcome!

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im hyped for this tournament more than any other

 

"wood league" lmao

 

What great news! I hope the best Nations and players will play the tournament because the community deserves a tournament like this. It's been a long time as huehue said on the post and most of us were expecting something like. I admire the initiative and I will be one of the best supporters of this the way I can.

Just one thing. Let the players (specially the top ones) decide or have the most impact on the rules of playing.

My best regards! Looking forward to more news. Keep on the good work!

 

What great news! I hope the best Nations and players will play the tournament because the community deserves a tournament like this. It's been a long time as huehue said on the post and most of us were expecting something like. I admire the initiative and I will be one of the best supporters of this the way I can.

Just one thing. Let the players (specially the top ones) decide or have the most impact on the rules of playing.

My best regards! Looking forward to more news. Keep on the good work!

Thank you. As you want to support the event, how much are you involved in the Argentinian community?
Do you think there is a chance to reach this guy to promote the event in some way?: https://twitter.com/nico_taglia/status/1617617516146135050

I was already told some Norwegian TV is also interested in the Norwegian national teams, but an Argentinian celebrety might have even bigger reach.

 

Thank you. As you want to support the event, how much are you involved in the Argentinian community?
Do you think there is a chance to reach this guy to promote the event in some way?: https://twitter.com/nico_taglia/status/1617617516146135050

I was already told some Norwegian TV is also interested in the Norwegian national teams, but an Argentinian celebrety might have even bigger reach.

I'm actually not so active and trying to catch the attention of a World Cup Champion is something else but I will surely try right now.

 

im hyped for this tournament more than any other

well said brother

 

Thank you. As you want to support the event, how much are you involved in the Argentinian community?
Do you think there is a chance to reach this guy to promote the event in some way?: https://twitter.com/nico_taglia/status/1617617516146135050

I was already told some Norwegian TV is also interested in the Norwegian national teams, but an Argentinian celebrety might have even bigger reach.

You can ask Carbo, remember he is a pro footballer and surely for him send a message to another pro argentinian footballer is gonna be easier that us.

 

We worked about 7.5 hours last night on checking data, seeding and adding players and teams to the brackets, which will be published on start.gg later today, once we have solved issues with 2 teams regarding some of their player data.

155 teams were registered. The 4 teams directly invited to the group stage are:
Finland A
France A
Germany A
Brazil A

The prize pool has reached $12,000!

 

Qualifiers will be played from 30th Jan onwards right?

 

Qualifiers will be played from 30th Jan onwards right?

Yes.

 

The initial map vote has concluded last night too.
Migration was the most-voted map and the only water map in the top 10. Therefore, Migration will be added to the map pool after the qualifier.
The other 3 maps will be determined from the shortlist until next Saturday, 22 GMT, again by team captain votes..

Closed: Hideout/RF/Michi
Nomad Start: African Clearing/Land Nomad
Other: Frontline/Megarandom

Top 8 votes from the first vote:
1. Migration: 73 points
2. Hideout: 67
3. Regicide Fortress: 58
4, African Clearing: 52
5. Land Nomad: 47
6. Michi: 46
7. Frontline: 40
7. MegaRandom: 40

 

We worked about 7.5 hours last night on checking data, seeding and adding players and teams to the brackets, which will be published on start.gg later today, once we have solved issues with 2 teams regarding some of their player data.

155 teams were registered. The 4 teams directly invited to the group stage are:
Finland A
France A
Germany A
Brazil A

The prize pool has reached $12,000!

Where China

 

Where China

according to seeding list, at number #10 :/

 

according to seeding list, at number #10 :/

Yes, they did not care too much about their seed. For example if they just had added Paladin who has a good TG rating as a 5th player, they would have had a higher seed.

 

Brackets there now: https://www.start.gg/tournament/202...ckets?filter={"phaseId":1291132,"perPage":28},
teams should start scheduling.

And the tournament has officially been declared S tier now.

 

I haven't found where to watch the event... as most Chinese have no access to foreign platforms like twitch and YouTube.( Though qualifiers are not so important as the main event that everyone wants to watch)

 

I haven't found where to watch the event... as most Chinese have no access to foreign platforms like twitch and YouTube.

It is open casting, so hopefully some Chinese streamers will pick up on it too

 

It is open casting, so hopefully some Chinese streamers will pick up on it too

That's fine. And then I can watch one China team's match at another team's live room.11

 

GOD I LOVE NATIONS CUP BRING IT ON

 

Quick PSA, for anybody wanting to follow the NC Matches, I made a google calendar that is being updated by me and some of the other admins as soon as teams announce their schedules.

You can see it by clicking here. If you want, you can also add it to your own Google calendar (so it follows your timezone and settings) by clicking the "+" on the bottom right of the page.

 

The first 9 matches have been played. Scheduling is going quite well (29/38 Round 1 matches have been scheduled or played until now.) https://www.aoezone.net/threads/2023-nations-cup-qualifier-brackets-schedule.185675/
And thanks to robo's big donation ($2000) and many $5-50 donations in the last days, we're now at a $14,241 prize pool.

 

The final 3 maps to be added in the group stage have been voted:
Hideout
African Clearing
MegaRandom

We will be working on a slightly fairer and more interesting version of African Clearing and a custom MegaRandom to be released for testing during the next week.

Sadly no Regicide Fortress this time.

 

I understand the idea of letting people vote for whatever maps they prefer, but as expected the result is an unbalanced mappool:

There are now more nomadic maps than open maps to choose from, and 3 closed maps compared to 1 open map.

Not to mention Megarandom being added simply because enough teams didn't want another open map in the mappool...

 

I would have loved to see frontline or some kind of goofy ahh open map in there instead of megarandom or the hybrid ones/ Hideout ngl
Also kinda weird how everybody hates water and yet in half of the voted maps it's a good strategy to build docks in the dark age

 

I understand the idea of letting people vote for whatever maps they prefer, but as expected the result is an unbalanced mappool:

There are now more nomadic maps than open maps to choose from, and 3 closed maps compared to 1 open map.

Not to mention Megarandom being added simply because enough teams didn't want another open map in the mappool...

View attachment 204697

Hmm.. even if they are lumped together, all of the maps play out a lot differently imo.