2023 AoE 2 Nations Cup [$18,622 Prize Pool]

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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For TG tournaments that are registered on Liquipedia it should be.

It should be the biggest DE tournament in term of players, biggest Nations Cup, and most teams in the at least 11 years I followed competitive AoE 2 online.

I think when I hosted the 2020 AOElympics I researched and at that time it already was the biggest one I could find and that were fewer than 600 players.

 

the virgin 50k USD MS money 1v1 tournaments vs the chad community founded Nations Cup

 

the virgin 50k USD MS money 1v1 tournaments vs the chad community founded Nations Cup

Four more months of potential donations could change that sum still, though

 

Is it the biggest tournament ever yet in number of signed up players? It has to be right?

Depends a bit on what you count. Some RBW qualifiers had ~1k signups, just that a few hundred of them were invalid and some more didn't check in

 

Depends a bit on what you count. Some RBW qualifiers had ~1k signups, just that a few hundred of them were invalid and some more didn't check in

Still over a week to get 1k+ players total for Nations Cup too, though

 

base on fact, actually this tournament is much more S than so called 'S-Tier' $100k The Grand Melee.

 

Depends a bit on what you count. Some RBW qualifiers had ~1k signups, just that a few hundred of them were invalid and some more didn't check in

some RBW has 1k signups, but not 1K players, because lot of players signuped for Qualifier 1, also signuped for Qualifier 2, they are same players.

 

some RBW has 1k signups, but not 1K players, because lot of players signuped for Qualifier 1, also signuped for Qualifier 2, they are same players.

RBW3 Q1 had 1044 sign-ups, RBW3 Q2 had 1071 sign-ups.

 

thx for details

 

RBW3 Q1 had 1044 sign-ups, RBW3 Q2 had 1071 sign-ups.

So let's see whether we will get that many.
As for players that actually play, we will only know later, because it will be likely that a few player don't play, especially if a team with many players is out in the first rounds of the qualifier and does not continue in the lower divisions.

 

So let's see whether we will get that many.
As for players that actually play, we will only know later, because it will be likely that a few player don't play, especially if a team with many players is out in the first rounds of the qualifier and does not continue in the lower divisions

It was more of a joke from me initially. The high numbers included people not signing up properly etc. Ultimately RBW Q1 only allowed 256 players and Q2 had 393 players in a 512 bracket. With 125 teams and at least 4 players playing per team, this number will easily be exceeded in terms of players who actually play.

 

ez for Austria

 

It was more of a joke from me initially. The high numbers included people not signing up properly etc. Ultimately RBW Q1 only allowed 256 players and Q2 had 393 players in a 512 bracket. With 125 teams and at least 4 players playing per team, this number will easily be exceeded in terms of players who actually play.

that's also assuming every registered team will play tho. I wouldn't rule out a certain number of forfeits / no show in earlier rounds.

 

that's also assuming every registered team will play tho. I wouldn't rule out a certain number of forfeits / no show in earlier rounds.

I don't think many teams will forfeit completely. But with more than 6 players per team on average, 1/3 could be registered but not needed to play. That way it is different from the 1v1 brackets and easier to just say it is the biggest TG tournament.

 

that's also assuming every registered team will play tho. I wouldn't rule out a certain number of forfeits / no show in earlier rounds.

RBW also had people getting ALs despite checking in, which is not yet considered in the numbers. Anyway, you'd need a lot of ALs to go from 500+ to below 393.

 

On the closed maps and with good preparation Norway is going to be super dangerous

 

There also is a Denmark vs. Sweden show match going on now.
https://www.twitch.tv/streetpeteaoc and maybe more.

 

good preparation

lol, lmao even

 

For the Silver and Bronze League, the following volunteers have joined us as admins:
Huggie, Agent_P97, NegoDrama and Adico
DaisyChain, BigWalt, Mr. Beaver and banztenak_19.
They will be responsible for things like helping out with scheduling problems in the lower divisions, or anything that happens in the Silver/Bronze League matches, and generally be the first contact to ask whether a map is bugged, etc.

 

As of right now, the winning team's players could take home $500 per person(or less depending on number of players etc)
I think that's a respectable amount of money for any pro player.
More money would be better, but I feel $12k feels just high enough for pros to take part in this.

 

The incentive for Nations Cup is never intended to be money, its solely pride and patriotism for your country

 

The incentive for Nations Cup is never intended to be money, its solely pride and patriotism for your country

Don't forget fun, it's probably the reason for 80% of the teams that signed up!

 

As of right now, the winning team's players could take home $500 per person(or less depending on number of players etc)
I think that's a respectable amount of money for any pro player.
More money would be better, but I feel $12k feels just high enough for pros to take part in this.

it's really not for the amount of effort they need to win the NC. Probably easier to place top 16 in any 1v1 event even if your team is op.

 

Nations Cup is not about winning money. Also, this is not a MS sponsored event and payouts for TGs have always been less.

 

It has already been posted on the Discord server and should be updated in the handbook very soon. This is how the 4 divisions will be structured:

The main event will be 32 teams, 16 will be relegated after the group stage.

56 additional teams will play a Swiss style 4-round group stage. The remaining teams will play a KO bracket in the "Wooden League". The group stages decides whether teams then will continue in the Silver, Bronze or Wooden path in the elimination stage.

The 3rd and 4th division will have no prize money, but 10 % of the prize pool will be assigned to the 2nd division top 16.

Seeding of all divisions will be based on the performance in the qualifiers. So teams must be registered by January 28th, 20 GMT and have played in the qualifiers to be allowed to participate in either division.

Qualifiers happen before the divison into the groups and are single elimination.
Round 1 (Ro224): Bo3 -> winners into Round 2, losers into Wooden League
Round 2 (Ro112): Bo3 -> winners into Round 3, losers play an additional series at the same time as Round 3; winners into Bronze League, losers into Wooden League
Round 3 (Ro56): Bo5 -> winners into main event, losers into Silver League

(Group stage team names are just placeholders, the teams will still be drawn, e. g. for the Gold League from 4 pots of 8 teams to put 4 teams in each group.)