T90 Titans League | Announcement

Announcement | Handbook | Maps | Questions & Answers | Registration | Discord | Schedule​

The ‘T90 Titans League’ is a recurring league that aims to provide a consistent high-level stage for pro players to hone their skills, and give newcomers a chance to prove their ability and advance into the upper echelon of players.

For this inaugural season, the winner of the Platinum League will earn an invitation to the Red Bull Wololo Legacy event in October.

There will be a Silver Qualifier for Season 2 later this year after RBW Legacy, and before Christmas. The exact dates & details are yet to be confirmed.

Format

The 48 highest ranked players on the 1v1 ATP Rankings who sign up will be placed into two divisions of 24 players. Within these divisions, players will be seeded into groups of 6, and play a 3 games series against each of their 5 opponents over 5 weeks. At the end of this group stage, the 1st placed player will advance to the quarterfinals, while 2nd & 3rds meet in the Ro12 of the playoffs, while the lowest 2 players will be relegated.

Every player in both divisions will earn prizemoney for every game that they win, as well as bonuses for their placement at the end of the league.

Before the 2nd season begins, there will be a large open single-elimination qualifier to determine which players will replace those who are relegated.

Prize Money

The prize pool of $22,500 has been sponsored by Microsoft.

Platinum League: $17,300​

1st place: $2,100
2nd place: $1,400
3rd & 4th place: $1,000
5th - 8th place: $500
9th - 12th place: $200
13th - 24th place: $150

Plus $40 per game won in the group stage (a maximum of $600 if you win all 15 games)

Gold League: $5,200​

1st place: $200
2nd place: $160
3rd & 4th place: $100
5th - 8th place: $80
9th - 12th place: $60
13th - 24th place: $40

Plus $20 per game won in the group stage (a maximum of $300 if you win all 15 games)

Timeline

Sign-Ups: June 03rd - June 24th
Seeding: June 25th

You can see all the signed-up players on the registration page.

Platinum League​

Spoiler

Group Stage: June 27th - July 28th
Round 1: June 27th - July 01st
Round 2: July 04th - July 08th
Round 3: July 11th - July 15th
Round 4: July 18th - July 21st
Round 5: July 25th - July 28th

Playoffs: August 05th - August 07th
Ro12: Friday 05th August
Quarterfinals: Saturday 06th August
Semifinals & Final: Sunday 07th August

Gold League​

Spoiler

Group Stage: June 27th - August 05th
Round 1: June 27th - July 01st
Round 2: July 04th - July 08th
Round 3: July 11th - July 15th
Round 4: July 18th - July 21st
Round 5: July 25th - July 28th
Extra Week: August 01st - August 05th

Playoffs: August 12th - August 14th
Ro12: Friday 12th August
Quarterfinals: Saturday 13th August
Semifinals & Final: Sunday 14th August

All group stage matches will be played & broadcast on weekdays (Monday - Friday) to avoid clashing with RMS Cup 2.

Maps

T90 Titans League will feature

• Arabia
• Atacama by Mr ED
• Cross by TheMadCADer
• Fortified Clearing by Chrazini
• Gold Rush
• Golden Swamp
• Houseboat by Yo_Dan
• Jungle Swamp by TheMadCADer
• Ravines
• Serengeti
• Yucatan replaced by Arena

Start practicing today by downloading the map pack here or by searching for “T90 Titans League - Map Pack” in the in-game mod workshop.

The map pack is edited and maintained by Chrazini.

 

That classment looked broken at the first second I saw it.

But I understand its goal

 

Hello guys i been checking the ATP system and the way is added the players in liquipedia in KOTD4, and i see that you guys consider we invited 16 players, sorry but that is wrong, we made a seeding based in tournaments performance that is as valid as any other system, so considering 16 players invited that is wrong, they are qualified according to a seeding, in redbull they invited players in the last edition because they won previous editions, that a invitation, but we didn´t invite players for winning previous editions, we made a rank of players according to their performance in last year on S-Tier events, which for us is the best system, i respect that @robo and @Tarsiz you want to use ur system but we didn´t invite players, they qualified according to our rank system, so KOTD4 should point more.

Also i dont know if this is the place to debate but KOTD4 (everyone played it) point 1.9 and WWC, The Open Classic or Resurgence point 1.7 and 1.5, sorry but the argument about the only 1 map, when the map is arabia it make also no sense, because arabia is the map that players play 90% of the time during the whole year, instead to point less should be the opposite point more.

I point this things out because for me the rank you made for the Titans League, im sorry but is definitly not accurate of the actual top 20 players, obviously is my opinion, but again for me KOTD (ofc im not objetive) but according to 90% of the top players is the most competitive and basically it counts less than Empire Wars that nobody plays on the daily basis.

I know that you want to give points for all events, A, B and so on but seriously players that achieve TOP 8 in S Tier events and get out of 24 spots is kinda crazy.

I dont like to post because is other tournament organizer, but i want to support the league, i want to hype as much as i can, i want to promote and help to make it bigger, but i really believe is hard to do with this system.

 

I said in my message that there is no perfect system.

Side point, when you say that, this is exactly what I was telling previously: you discard the shortcomings of both systems as equal and on that basis decide ATP is good enough, but when you look in detail its shortcomings are clearly bigger than tourney elo if you want to seed players according to their form/strength. (which, again, is not necessarily what T90 is going for and that i totally get)

 

Reading this, it seems like one of the biggest issues is a lack of standardisation across tournaments with regards to seeding methods. ATP has been a year in the making, but it seems like it's use for seeding here has caught some by surprise and it doesn't give players much of a chance to improve their seeding before the tournament starts compared to using ladder elo, for example. No seeding or ranking system is perfect, but long term ATP should be the answer to this lack of standardisation (imo). If players are clear on how to improve their seeding for *every* tournament going forward, I think that's a good thing. There will be teething issues as I think this is the first time it will have been used, but long term I think this can lead to a better and more competitive tournament scene.

 

There will be teething issues as I think this is the first time it will have been used

Was used for Resurgence and Holy Cup

 

Fwiw, tournament most of the time ask players to be active to some degree to register for tournaments, asking them to have played a certain amount of ladder games in a certain period of time for example. What it means is that Riut would actually need to be active again before he can even register to said tournaments, and only at that point what I said regarding his ranking applies.


I don't really think you can say that sitaux complaining that ATP doesn't rank him really accurately is "pure bias".

I'm not really impressed that you 1) totally misrepresented what I actually said initially and 2) continue to pull out little tid bits in each post.

I don't really know why you're getting hung up on RiuT, he just doesn't deserve to be in any top ranking currently. End of story. edit: This is one shortcoming and there are other names there too which are questionable. As I have said already two ranking systems that have different aims.

Well when you benefit from going to 30+ to the top 15, the bias is absolutely undeniable. I've already said I sympathise with the players as ATP is unfamiliar and the nature of ATP being used means there is basically zero time to correct your ranking and it's already too late.

 

Well when you benefit from going to 30+ to the top 15, the bias is absolutely undeniable. I've already said I sympathise with the players as ATP is unfamiliar and the nature of ATP being used means there is basically zero time to correct your ranking and it's already too late.

Showing that someone has a bias is not enough to invalidate his arguments.

 

I don't really know why you're getting hung up on RiuT

You are the one talking about Riut in the first place.

there are other names there too which are questionable.

Less than in ATP, is my point. Again, you discard the shortcomings as more or less equal when they are not.

Well when you benefit from going to 30+ to the top 15, the bias is absolutely undeniable.

You think that a player regularly finishing top 16-8 in S tier tournaments and regularly going semis or better in A and B tier tourneys, overwhelmingly considered at least top 20 if not top 16 from people around the community, and currently ranked #12 in another at least as accurate ranking method, is biased when complaining about being seeded top 30 in a tournament where the 24 cutoff is extra important, isn't that bias as well?

(I see I've been slowly sucked into aoezone madness today without noticing. I'm just gonna head out now, no point of going further into a discussion that will just lead to more bitterness and will go nowhere constructive. @paradox303 if you want to continue the discussion you can still send a private message, I don't want to pollute this thread any more than that. Good luck to T90 and robo for the event! I'm sure it will be awesome.)

 

Visible cup awards too many points considering that no top 16 player actually took part on the event (because we were NOT allowed to play it) thus making it easier to succed on it.

Overall I just heavily disagree on "rewarding players just for the sake of participating in a lot of tournaments", while in my opinion it should be rewarding for actually having good performances in tournaments with a very tough competition.

It feels like it doesnt matter whether you are top 16 in every single tier S tournament, you just gotta farm a lot of points on smaller tier A/B tourneys.

 

Meanwhile I was expecting to have 0 ATP points yet somehow I got 15 points for some reason and can't check where from Sadge

 

I think the ATP ranking has a lot of potential but right now its so inaccurate regarding so many players. Fire 29 of the world? sitaux 31???? daniel 32??? vivi 35?? MBL 20?

It shouldn't be the only system to seed players. Not only you risk making them face way stronger opponents than they should in early rounds but, especially in this case, you just send them down to the gold league and affect the prize they can achieve. I don't know why this tournament is completely ignoring the tournament elo OR highest/current elo in ranked games. Ideally seedings should be done mixing at least 2 out of 3 methods and not just sticking to 1 of them.

I wont speak for myself because I do believe that I deserve a lower tournament/ATP rating due to recent tourney results, but this system does impact vivi in a way that I would consider unfair. A lot of tourneys now are organized through Discord/ posts on aoezone that leads to google forms or other websites, which vivi may not have access to, and therefore cannot sign up. He may actually have been interested in some of the B/A tier tournaments but might not have been aware or able to sign up at all, and thus affecting his ATP rating, and I think most would agree that he is not 35th in the world.

 

I agree that ATP isn't perfectly representative, but neither is any other ranking system, they all have pros and cons and benefit different players in different ways. I'm a little less worried about it due to the promotion and relegation system. If someone deserves to be in platinum, they will win gold league and be promoted (and probably earn more money than the bottom players in platinum who get belted every week).

ATP has some issues that I'm looking into adjusting at the moment, basically making large tourneys worth more, and smaller tourneys worth less, (https://www.aoezone.net/threads/aoe2-tournament-points.182163/) but I don't want to make major changes until after TTL seeding is over, as that would imply that the changes were made to favour certain players over others.

The current system may not be perfectly fair, but tell that to the players who miss out on Plat/Gold purely because the system is changed to benefit other players.

If there are more suggestions on how to improve ATP specifically that aren't related to TTL I'd be happy to keep discussing it in the other thread.

I will quote this again, as that thread is a better place to go to and discuss the pros/cons of the ATP rankings and how to improve them that are not directly related to TTL.

Visible cup awards too many points considering that no top 16 player actually took part on the event (because we were NOT allowed to play it) thus making it easier to succed on it.

Overall I just heavily disagree on "rewarding players just for the sake of participating in a lot of tournaments", while in my opinion it should be rewarding for actually having good performances in tournaments with a very tough competition.

It feels like it doesnt matter whether you are top 16 in every single tier S tournament, you just gotta farm a lot of points on smaller tier A/B tourneys.

As above, I am aware that 'smaller' tourneys are worth too much compared to 'major' but am refraining from changing the process until after seeding is concluded for the above reason.

Meanwhile I was expecting to have 0 ATP points yet somehow I got 15 points for some reason and can't check where from Sadge
View attachment 201289

Fixed, thanks

 

Fixed, thanks

<3

 

I wont speak for myself because I do believe that I deserve a lower tournament/ATP rating due to recent tourney results, but this system does impact vivi in a way that I would consider unfair. A lot of tourneys now are organized through Discord/ posts on aoezone that leads to google forms or other websites, which vivi may not have access to, and therefore cannot sign up. He may actually have been interested in some of the B/A tier tournaments but might not have been aware or able to sign up at all, and thus affecting his ATP rating, and I think most would agree that he is not 35th in the world.

I can't speak for all organizers, but if any of the Chinese players are unable to sign up through the prescribed method I would happily make an exception if they asked, and get them to provide the information through private message.

I think the bigger issue is that they are reliant on Mr_Yo to some degree to notify them about tournaments. It might be an idea for the Chinese players to pool some money each month and pay someone to assist them with finding tournaments, translating the rules, and helping them with sign-ups/scheduling.

 

Having 3* Gold Leagues isn't really feasible, due to time & monetary constraints, as well as the format/settings issues it would bring up. How do the top 24 (3*8) get cut down to the Top8 to enter platinum? Is it the best 2 from each league, plus a playoff from the others for the remaining 2 spots?
A larger playoff for all 24 players?

In theory down the line, the silver qualifier could be expanded into another 24-player Silver League, and a bronze qualifier be incorporated, but that would require increased funding, resources and evidence that the format is working and people want to see it.

You don't need to explain weaknesses of an unfinished example of an idea, nor you need to justify for practical constraints. I hope my overall thought came across: If you want to support a below-top-level playerbase, then you are targeting for quite many people potentially, therefore having limited spots will limit the effectiveness of the measure.


Anyway. As I only contributed "critically" in this topic so far, I want to highlight again, how absolutely great the idea behind this league is, I am really looking forward to it.

 

Also i dont know if this is the place to debate but KOTD4 (everyone played it) point 1.9 and WWC, The Open Classic or Resurgence point 1.7 and 1.5, sorry but the argument about the only 1 map, when the map is arabia it make also no sense, because arabia is the map that players play 90% of the time during the whole year, instead to point less should be the opposite point more.

While this may hold true for ranked games, where indeed top players mostly grind Arabia (with the exception of clowns and Bugum, who would probably Nomad if it's in the mappool), the overwhelming majority of tournaments (pretty much every tournament except for KotD) have a variety of maps, and not only Arabia. If the intention is to seed players for tournaments in which several maps will be played, then it's entirely reasonable to consider a single-map tournament as less valuable, and the popularity of that map in ranked games is absolutely irrelevant.

If anything, the problem would be seeding people for KotD (or any other single-map event) according to that ranking, because it doesn't matter, say, how good dogao or F1Re are on Islands, or whether Capoch punches above his weight on hybrid maps (which might have led them to get better results in some tournaments), as they'll be playing only Arabia.

 

You don't need to explain weaknesses of an unfinished example of an idea, nor you need to justify for practical constraints. I hope my overall thought came across: If you want to support a below-top-level playerbase, then you are targeting for quite many people potentially, therefore having limited spots will limit the effectiveness of the measure.


Anyway. As I only contributed "critically" in this topic so far, I want to highlight again, how absolutely great the idea behind this league is, I am really looking forward to it.

Totally understood. At the moment if it were to be expanded I think we would continue to add more leagues below the current ones, which reinforces the unique aspects of the league, mostly being promotion/relegation.
This could become an issue if players want to skip a season, now it would require a much larger time investment to get back to their space, but that's an issue that could be explored if/when it becomes likely.

 

So going on topic, I want to say that a professional ongoing league has always been my number one petition for competitive aoe2. So I'm really grateful to T90 and the rest of you guys who are making this one possible <3


I've been wondering though. Is this Titans League THE ONE? Or is this a test for an upcoming even bigger league? (or neither )

Whenever I envisioned such a league I always thought that it'd be a good idea if all the big streamers would be included in the project instead of it being linked specifically to just one of them. Otherwise we know how egos go, there will always be people wishing failure on others because they dislike them, past beef, etc.
I know we don't live in a perfect world where everyone loves each other, and maybe what I'm saying is hard (impossible?) to do. But I still wanted to share it.

So anyway, I wish the best possible success to this league so the project keeps growing, regardless of it being T90's work or maybe a shared effort in the future.

 

I absolutely agree with Sitaux.

First of all I love every player so please consider the names below written as what it is, examples.

I think something should be changued in ATP ranking because for example Barles earned 250 points in Red Bull Wololo V (which i think we all can conclude it was the biggest tourney of aoe history, even if it was in EW mode) being the first contender eliminated without winning a single serie or
Kasva/BadBoy earning 130 points for being eliminated in first round of the HolyCup S-Tier, but winning their qualifier brackets over the same people who later win A or B Tier tourneys and get the same or more ATP points.
For example, BadBoy had 100 points for being eliminated in 5-8h place in the World Rumble Series (Quarterfinals) vs Miguel. The Semifinals were composed by Miguel. Belgium, Dragonstar and F1re.
Those players could not reach the HolyCup tourney because they were eliminated in the qualifiers; qualifiers that like I said before, Badboy and Kasva could won and reach the major tourney.

I know there are a lot of settings, maps and civs in every tourney that makes them unique (and of course personal issues of every player in that period they're playing those tourneys) but I'm not really seeing how being the last of a big S Tier like Red Bull or Hidden Cup (For example Dogao with 160 points) its worth the same as being 5-8th in A Tier like King of Americas 3 (Dogao with 160 points again).

In conclusion, I think the problem is coming in the ATP ranking system as its not giving the real weight in terms of points to the S tiers.

Your post has too much "ifs", first of all, I consider Sitaux better than 30%(counting me) of the platinum league players yeah. But seeding doesnt work like this, you find a system and you use it for the tourneys.

For example, you used Holy Cup as an example, but if you see there i missed first day coz i was super sick and lost in the second day(which was one day after), its not Hallis fault, he just went there and won me.

Then, on KOTD4, I played the RO32 vs Villese because my seeding in the tournament was bad, I was probably playing close to my peak of the game there, and I would say i would have won like many of the other matchups, mainly because people were focused on AoE4 back there, but I would never come to a forum to blame seeding because i felt this was unfair(which i didnt think so).

Then on WWC, again I felt I was playing one of my best games, and I had to face DauT in round of 32, I lost to him in the same score that villese and vinchester lost later, don't you think that I asked myself if I shouldnt be higher because of that? We can't change the structure of a whole tourney because one or two players felt they felt system was unfair with them.

I don't really understand how sitaux is seed25 and what made Running higher than him. I think this is the only mistake there in my opinion, so the argument that the system is broken doesnt really work for me.

 

Most people can agree the seeding isn’t perfect.

The important thing here are the settings of the tournament and the fact promotion and relegation are built in.

If you think you deserve to be in Platinum you absolutely have every right to go in and prove it while playing in the Gold league (still has a very good standard of competition too).

The prize pool is also still very good. If this was a one and done tournament I would potentially be more concerned, but there should be enough incentive there for people to prove they deserve in platinum (and also in the many other tournaments throughout the year that contributes to ATP).

 

Your post has too much "ifs", first of all, I consider Sitaux better than 30%(counting me) of the platinum league players yeah. But seeding doesnt work like this, you find a system and you use it for the tourneys.

For example, you used Holy Cup as an example, but if you see there i missed first day coz i was super sick and lost in the second day(which was one day after), its not Hallis fault, he just went there and won me.

Then, on KOTD4, I played the RO32 vs Villese because my seeding in the tournament was bad, I was probably playing close to my peak of the game there, and I would say i would have won like many of the other matchups, mainly because people were focused on AoE4 back there, but I would never come to a forum to blame seeding because i felt this was unfair(which i didnt think so).

Then on WWC, again I felt I was playing one of my best games, and I had to face DauT in round of 32, I lost to him in the same score that villese and vinchester lost later, don't you think that I asked myself if I shouldnt be higher because of that? We can't change the structure of a whole tourney because one or two players felt they felt system was unfair with them.

I don't really understand how sitaux is seed25 and what made Running higher than him. I think this is the only mistake there in my opinion, so the argument that the system is broken doesnt really work for me.

The fact is that you had the possibility to play those tourney, what you did in it regards you.
There, a player who diserves it (and probably others) won't be in it cause of a unfair ranking system.

 

The fact is that you had the possibility to play those tourney, what you did in it regards you.
There, a player who diserves it (and probably others) won't be in it cause of a unfair ranking system.

same argument to win golden league and 6 months later participate in platinum league

 

From now on people will prioritize B-tier tournaments more than S-tier

 

I think the only objectively perfect method of seeding is send out a poll to everyone who is upset on aoezone and ask them to seed everyone

 

I think the only objectively perfect method of seeding is send out a poll to everyone who is upset on aoezone and ask them to seed everyone

Just use their best time of full deforestation on Forest Nothing, shows everything you need to know about their skills!