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.

 

There would be more high level players if they'd consider that the tournament isn't only for scottish players btw.

KEKW, where was that ever stated anywhere?

Is Battle of Africa also for African players only?

 

KEKW, where was that ever stated anywhere?

Is Battle of Africa also for African players only?

I wish

 

KEKW, where was that ever stated anywhere?

Is Battle of Africa also for African players only?

I only saw scottish organizer, battle for scotland and thought it's pretty obvious. If oGN hosts Battle for France, I'm confident I'd not be able to play there. If Nacho hosts King of Americas, living in China is likely excluding you from it.

 

I only saw scottish organizer, battle for scotland and thought it's pretty obvious. If oGN hosts Battle for France, I'm confident I'd not be able to play there. If Nacho hosts King of Americas, it's not for Chinese players...

Here's a piece of advice, maybe read the post which would have taken a grand total of 5 minutes.

All of these player miraculously worked it out.

You are absolutely in the wrong 100%, due to your own shortcomings. Don't even try to shift the blame on to someone else here.

Anyway, hope to see you in the next one 11

 

Here's a piece of advice, maybe read the post which would have taken a grand total of 5 minutes.

View attachment 201307

All of these player miraculously worked it out.

You are absolutely in the wrong 100%, due to your own shortcomings. Don't even try to shift the blame on to someone else here.

Anyway, hope to see you in the next one 11

*players
pepehappy

 

I only saw scottish organizer, battle for scotland and thought it's pretty obvious. If oGN hosts Battle for France, I'm confident I'd not be able to play there. If Nacho hosts King of Americas, living in China is likely excluding you from it.

I have to admit that I also thought it was only for scottish players so I didn't sign up for that reason 11

My bad. It was a nice tourney to watch.

 

In b4 next one is called "International Battle for Scotland: Dracken and Nicov Edition".

 

Don't worry we can have a Nicov vs DrackeN showmatch on BfS settings

 

I think people don't really understand what T90 is trying to do with this league. It's meant for longevity and so he is prioritizing effort and commitment from the community rather than just skill. It’s for the people who spend alot of time playing and try their best to improve and reach new heights. If you are a superskilled player and don't want to play much, you have basically every other big tournament to choose from.

I think the long term planning is a system for the broad playerbase where people can feel that there is an official way to progress and actually make some money for it. One of the main advantages to the promotion/relegated system most of the world has is that if the dedication (and skill) is there, you can climb the ladder. In the main american sports, its not sports that need a business model to survive, it is JUST a business. It's a franchise. NHL is where the best hockey players are, but the AHL (the second teir) is just a trash league, and it's only existence is to be a farm system for the NHL. If you are an american and want to be a hockey player, for most people, it's the NHL or bust. That breeds elite players, but not a broad playerbase. In Europe, you have people who want to play, because they want to play, and maybe they are in a division 4 team and one year they make it to division 3, that's a big big thing for them. That stuff promotes a large player base, where playing is the main thing, and not go big or go home. The more people interested in a sport (or esport) the better for everyone, so the more you promote the players who arent the top 8/16, the better.

I don't know if this is what T90 had in mind but he did say that having these two league, promotes the top 48 people instead of the usual 16ish and that he wants to do AOE stuff for the coming many many years… so for the game to survive 20-30 more years you need a broad ass playerbase.

 

I was on Fire's stream earlier where he was actually appreciating the league for valuing A/B tiers and keeping the scene active.

Sitaux was in the stream. I understand Sitaux is upset but what's the point of disrespecting other players like Valas, saymyname, bruh etc. It seems childish to me.

The ATP page even has a ranking of players based on S tier events only. If T90 chose this ranking instead of that, I assume he knows what he wants to incentivize through this league. Why not trust the organizer? Starting from the next season, performance in this season would only matter anyway and ATP points would become meaningless for this league.

 

Sitaux was in the stream. I understand Sitaux is upset but what's the point of disrespecting other players like Valas, saymyname, bruh etc. It seems childish to me.

While I agree with your point, coming to post this here serves no purpose other than to stir **** up/kickstart drama. I don't think this is the place for that.

 

Why do tournaments that no one cares about matter? Such a joke.

 

Yes, T90 has stated that he wants to support more players than just top 10 or top 16. Titans League relegates quite actively players in this format, but it rewards more usual top 50 player than other tournament formats. Should be goof for competitive scene in AoE2.

ATP like any other ranking method is not perfect, but it is better than most. Rewarding participation in smaller tournaments adds interest from players to sign-up theses and be active.

In this case ATP is not good players like Sitaux, who has had success in S-tier tournaments and other invitation method he could have been qualified to the platinum league. Because any rating system is not perfect, a good practice in my opinion is to have always some tournament spot for open qualifiers.

 

While I agree with your point, coming to post this here serves no purpose other than to stir **** up/kickstart drama. I don't think this is the place for that.

This is exactly the right place for it, this is aoezone

 

It's meant for longevity and so he is prioritizing effort and commitment from the community rather than just skill.

I think this is really a critical point. The league is explicitly designed for players who want to show up every week to play. It is not for the Tiger Woods types who show up only for the big money. ATP is a perfect way to seed positions in the tournament, as it shows both skill *and* the desire to show up a lot, even when the money is not big.

 

I truly have no clue how anyone is defending the extremely arbitrary ATP system which includes numerous mistakes and baffling final results. Even seeding by rating alone is far more objective and is at least easily controlled by players actively playing on the ladder.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

Spoiler: Tournament details

OnlyBans: 0.8 modifier (winner receives 800 points)
-$3200 prizepool
-Diverse map pool
~5-6 top 10 players participated
-Falsely claimed in ATP sheet that it was an invitational tournament

Master of the Circus: 1.1 modifier
-$1000 prizepool
-Arena only (LUL)
-3 top 10 players participated
-Top 16 was arbitrarily seeded by arena players

The Resurgence: 1.5 modifier
-$10000 prizepool
-Diverse map pool
~6-7 top 10 players participated

Holy Cup: 1.3 modifier
-$15000 prizepool
-Strange but diverse maps
-10/10 top 10 players participated

Master of Hyperrandom: 1.0 modifier
-$830 prizepool
-1 map that no one plays
~4-5 top 10 players participated

Can anyone explain why tiny tournaments that attracted much less attention from top players and likely had far less stringent preparation by them are not weighted far lower than the top tier tournaments? Can anyone explain why OnlyBans, a clearly more competitive tournament than both Master of.... events, was weighted lower than them? It's just largely arbitrary, and the weighting needs to be shifted farther towards bigger events for this system to make any sense whatsoever.

 

I was on Fire's stream earlier where he was actually appreciating the league for valuing A/B tiers and keeping the scene active.

Sitaux was in the stream. I understand Sitaux is upset but what's the point of disrespecting other players like Valas, saymyname, bruh etc. It seems childish to me.

The ATP page even has a ranking of players based on S tier events only. If T90 chose this ranking instead of that, I assume he knows what he wants to incentivize through this league. Why not trust the organizer? Starting from the next season, performance in this season would only matter anyway and ATP points would become meaningless for this league.

So I went back and watched this vod...

I can understand Sitaux's frustration. It's a new method of seeding a "big" event. I know it has been used in a couple of events previously, but I think I'm right in saying this is the first S tier event which will be using ATP. And because of the nature of it, there is no way for anyone to significantly improve their seeding between the time of this being announced to when it gets seeded. Moreover, I don't think there was much of a heads-up that it would be used in the future, so players wouldn't have known to enter A and B tiered events more to improve their ATP ranking. I completely get why someone might feel they have been hard done by to not be considered in the top 24, despite having finished in the top 8 of KOTD4.

That being said, Sitaux made a joke about how ATP is "forcing you to bash noobs in small tourneys". I just want to point out that these small tourneys have been won by the following players:

• ACCM x5
• TaToH x5
• Mr_Yo x3
• Vinchester x3
• Villese x2
• Babaorum x1
• Barles x1
• DauT x1
• dogao x1
• F1Re x1
• Hera x1
• Nicov x1
• The_Dragonstar x1
• TheViper x1

These are not uncompetitive events. Any player who is winning these tournaments is doing so by playing against great players, and any players who people feel are undeserving of such a high ATP rating are probably playing out of their minds in these events and they absolutely deserve some recognition of that.

 

OnlyBans: 0.8 modifier (winner receives 800 points)
-$3200 prizepool
-Diverse map pool
~5-6 top 10 players participated
-Falsely claimed in ATP sheet that it was an invitational tournament

More than half of the players skipped the qualifiers, therefore there is a significant reduction in available points due to a setting that is uncompetitive. Don't you complain about invitationals most of the time?

Master of the Circus: 1.1 modifier
-$1000 prizepool
-Arena only (LUL)
-3 top 10 players participated
-Top 16 was arbitrarily seeded by arena players

The number of top players is not a relevant metric, and if it was why stop at 10? Why not count the number of top 20/30/40 players? It is entirely arbitrary. The -0.1 negative for being a single map is included.
Otherwise, the format had all the hallmarks of being an open competitive event, lots of players, no invites etc.

The Resurgence: 1.5 modifier
-$10000 prizepool
-Diverse map pool
~6-7 top 10 players participated

Holy Cup: 1.3 modifier
-$15000 prizepool
-Strange but diverse maps
-10/10 top 10 players participated

Master of Hyperrandom: 1.0 modifier
-$830 prizepool
-1 map that no one plays
~4-5 top 10 players participated

As above, open competitive events are generally going to perform better instead of events with large numbers of invites.

By your logic, Hera's Tournament Champions League should be worth 2.0x, as it has 4/4 top players, $10k+ prize pool and has good maps...

 

I'm not going to pretend that the modifier system is perfectly accurate for all events. That is why there is ongoing discussion and tinkering trying to improve it. As has been mentioned many times I am looking at making the larger tournaments more valuable, and reducing the impact of smaller events (like in the ATP thread) but it won't just be perfect in a single iteration.

But it tries to be an objective record of settings that I (and others) believe to be competitive, trying to foster more events to follow these competitive hallmarks.
Rather than editors subjectively giving bonuses for 'reasons' including personal biases, and potentially causing drama or pissing off tournament hosts.

 

Appreciate the thought behind this, but I have to say I can't disagree more strongly with this reasoning.
a) I appreciate this sentiment, but it does not address my main concern of those spots being unearned. I think in general a league like this is great for putting a spotlight on new talent, but relegating 1/3 of the top league without the replacements having to beat or even play anyone in the top league is just astounding.
b) 'Now that the ridiculous system has unfairly demoted a player in place of someone who does not deserve the spot, so now they can quit and take a break!' Seems to make my point for me rather than yours. As earlier discussed, if taking a break and coming back and maintaining top levels of competition are a concern, I'd much rather see a more direct way for top competition to go directly back to platinum league.
c) Again, I just don't think that 'it might be a good thing for people who deserve to be in platinum league to get demoted to gold, so they can beat up on the lower competition to earn more money' is a good argument. None of these points hit against my main concern that we are very likely to relegate people out of platinum in favor of people from gold who would not be able to win against the people they are replacing. If this tournament aims to have the highest levels of competition, I don't see anything here that tells me why that is the case. If that is not one of the goals, then fine, but then every complaint of undeserved spots and player frustration that comes with it is very well fair in my eyes.

a) I disagree that they are unearned, The players just spent a month earning their promotion.
b) If you wish to understand it like that, be my guest.
c) If players are being relegated out of platinum, they were unable to win against the people they played against. Why does it matter if player A loses most of their games, or if player B loses most of their games?

 

c) If players are being relegated out of platinum, they were unable to win against the people they played against. Why does it matter if player A loses most of their games, or if player B loses most of their games?

While I agree with you and not the guy you're responding to, this overlooks the fact that there is a a range of different ways one can lose most of ones games. You can have a group where half go 3-2 and half go 2-3 with every set going to the last game or u can have a group where the bottom two players lose 5-0 and 4-1 with almost every set being a stomp. So there can very much be a difference between how player A and player B lose most their games.
I don't think this is a good counterargument to his point.

I think a better counterargument is to point out that (at least imo) there is not a huge dropoff in skill between the bottom 8 of the top 24 and the best 8 of "the leftovers". As has been quite adamantly argued by everyone here calling the seeding utter shite: lots of players below the cutoff are extremely good.

 

More than half of the players skipped the qualifiers, therefore there is a significant reduction in available points due to a setting that is uncompetitive. Don't you complain about invitationals most of the time?

Kinda funny that a tournament admin doesn't understand that seeding players based on their 1v1 ratings is not the same as an invitational, lmao

View attachment 201312


The number of top players is not a relevant metric, and if it was why stop at 10? Why not count the number of top 20/30/40 players? It is entirely arbitrary. The -0.1 negative for being a single map is included.
Otherwise, the format had all the hallmarks of being an open competitive event, lots of players, no invites etc.

Of course it's a relevant metric, it gives an idea of the difficulty of reaching a good result in a given event. If no top players signed up, Then how much is a 1st place even worth? I got first place in a tournament before, but it obviously wasn't very notable cuz I didn't have to beat anyone good to get there.

As above, open competitive events are generally going to perform better instead of events with large numbers of invites.

By your logic, Hera's Tournament Champions League should be worth 2.0x, as it has 4/4 top players, $10k+ prize pool and has good maps...

You are incapable of distinguishing between actual invitationals and tournaments seeded by 1v1 rating where any top level player and many lower level players easily qualified for. Pretty wild

 

More than half of the players skipped the qualifiers, therefore there is a significant reduction in available points due to a setting that is uncompetitive. Don't you complain about invitationals most of the time?

That's a weird understanding of "invitational" though. The top28 habe been determined by ladder rating iirc. In that regard, every tourney (or the qualifier) is "invitational". If they had just made a cut after the top 32 ranked players (like almost every tourney makes a cut somewhere), would it still be considered "invitational"?

 

That's a weird understanding of "invitational" though. The top28 habe been determined by ladder rating iirc. In that regard, every tourney (or the qualifier) is "invitational". If they had just made a cut after the top 32 ranked players (like almost every tourney makes a cut somewhere), would it still be considered "invitational"?

I would say this is more of a documentation issue than an understanding issue. On the liquipedia page for OnlyBans, it says "Invited" (vs. Battle for Scotland, which says "Top 32 signed-up players" and which bears no such penalty). I had to dig around in the OnlyBans Discord to discover that they meant essentially the same thing. I don't blame the ATP admins for assuming that "Invited" meant "invited" rather than "top 28 signed-up players".

 

I would say this is more of a documentation issue than an understanding issue. On the liquipedia page for OnlyBans, it says "Invited" (vs. Battle for Scotland, which says "Top 32 signed-up players" and which bears no such penalty). I had to dig around in the OnlyBans Discord to discover that they meant essentially the same thing. I don't blame the ATP admins for assuming that "Invited" meant "invited" rather than "top 28 signed-up players".

If I see this correctly, the one updating this information on liquipedia and the ATP admin are the same person
Anyway, it was not meant to blame anyone. If everyone agrees that it was not invitational, this should be an easy data fix.