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.

 

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 also thought it was a documentation issue up until robo came here and doubled down on it being an invitational when it obviously wasnt

 

Battle for Scotland, a B tier $600 tournament finished yesterday. Not a single big or even medium size channel streamed the final.

It was streamed by multiple channels on Youtube. There was a combined viewer peak of ~2,600 (including TaToH POV, ~1000).

 

If the discussion was that let's review ATP system and suggest improvement then we would largely have a constructive discussion.

Here an immature system which is full of personal bias (modifier for tournaments) is being used to create spots for a good tournament this diluting it's quality.

After 7 pages it seems admins are hell bent on this so it is what it is.

 

If the discussion was that let's review ATP system and suggest improvement then we would largely have a constructive discussion.

Here an immature system which is full of personal bias (modifier for tournaments) is being used to create spots for a good tournament this diluting it's quality.

After 7 pages it seems admins are hell bent on this so it is what it is.

Unfortunately aoe2 is now being ruled by minorities(the same small group of friends that have or are working for microsoft), from game development to tournament events, t90 already adopted this system which is wrong and will reduce the income of aspiring players cause now the heavy weights will need to participate more in low profile events to farm tournament points, if memb adopts this system, then such awful system will be the norm and every single event will adopt it, damaging the most the already wannabe be pro players, who have to play for nothing and find so hard to go fulltime in a game ruled by sponsored players that don't need to work to live and are past the age of studying.

The main point of gold league was that and with sitaux and f1re on it, it already killed the competition and will vanish any chance for a 2300 player to finally make some decent money.

 

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.

While C-tier is mostly casual/fun event, B-Tier tourney should reward the next generation of pros players, not actual pro players. I think it's important to give them space to grow because they won't understand anything from game vs Viper/Tatoh/Villese or whoever in the TOP20, and it's obviously not fun for them to get clapped in qualifiers. But this concern have been already adressed in the ATP ranking thread and it looks like change will be made to consider less B-Tier tourney in the future.

 

Unfortunately aoe2 is now being ruled by minorities(the same small group of friends that have or are working for microsoft), from game development to tournament events, t90 already adopted this system which is wrong and will reduce the income of aspiring players cause now the heavy weights will need to participate more in low profile events to farm tournament points, if memb adopts this system, then such awful system will be the norm and every single event will adopt it, damaging the most the already wannabe be pro players, who have to play for nothing and find so hard to go fulltime in a game ruled by sponsored players that don't need to work to live and are past the age of studying.

The main point of gold league was that and with sitaux and f1re on it, it already killed the competition and will vanish any chance for a 2300 player to finally make some decent money.

Who doesn't enjoy being paid by microsoft? Hands up please, we need to find the leakers and saboteurs.

 

Unfortunately aoe2 is now being ruled by minorities(the same small group of friends that have or are working for microsoft), from game development to tournament events

It's not a closed group. robo already said that if someone is interested to run the silver league, he is welcome. I think it's a great way to start if you want to organize tourneys

 

Who doesn't enjoy being paid by microsoft? Hands up please, we need to find the leakers and saboteurs.

I love being paid by Microsoft but I still said no to them at first.

They're actually geniuses over there, they don't just want to kill it, they want to do it with style. You wouldn't kill a small pig right? Where's the fun in that? You want to make it as fat as possible first.
Similarly they (we) are making it grow first. In this way people get their hopes up, pro players quit their normal jobs and go full time, fans dedicate their time to create all sort of thriving communities, etc.

So here's the key, the idea is slightly different than with the pig. The animal is made bigger to create more meat. In aoe2's case though, the only idea behind making it grow is to crush the spirits of all fans and players, so they don't have any meaningful power left and don't even try to revive it again.

It took some convincing, I'm not gonna lie. Robo and Nili tried for a while but I wasn't really buying it. It was only when T90 flew me to Florida that I reconsidered. He was shirtless and cutting down trees, sweating like a beast. That night he made me a man and I just couldn't say no at that point.

 

Who doesn't enjoy being paid by microsoft? Hands up please, we need to find the leakers and saboteurs.

Imagine having to actually do work to earn a living. Everyone knows tournament admins just sit around all day yelling at people telling them to stop having fun.

 

It's not a closed group. robo already said that if someone is interested to run the silver league, he is welcome. I think it's a great way to start if you want to organize tourneys

No, you don't understand, bill gates has their family and if they host a tourney they're never gonna see them again D:

But on a more serious note, no end of people host tourneys without microsoft links or support and gradually build a following, like @LidaKor did with organising and running two pools and empire wars duos which were both well run and successful, and casting smaller tournaments consistently for years. Sure, he got "links" to microsoft and support afterwards, but that was after years of hosting events and putting in the work. The reason we see most big tourney's are linked to certain groups of people is because if you put in a **** ton of work, like lida and others did, you're likely to find yourself alongside the other people who put in the work, and microsoft is searching out those people.

There's only so many dedicated reliable tourney admins so it's no surprise they show up in multiple places, cos the rest of us just shitpost and complain 111

 

Everything that was discussed the previous sites of this Thread, has brought down from Dave and Bulletchen in the Last Episode on their Podcast. Dave was mentioning that is somehow not fair to Reward Players that are more or less invisible to the scene over more than half a year, with the Top Seeds in a tournament based on Results they made couple of years ago.

Do you have the link to that podcast episode?

 

Do you have the link to that podcast episode?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1aB3AvyFkUGgujGQMikqFp should be this one.

 

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?

To a), I guess we will have to agree to disagree. My entire point is that without the gold players proving themselves against competition at the next level, it is at very best questionable that they deserve to be there. Just saying that they earned the promotion does not address this point at all.
To c), Likewise if we don't even first judge that a player promoted from gold can even beat the player he is replacing, why should we have any more hope he can beat the platinum competition? In previous posts I've even been saying it would be slightly more tenable to auto promote the semi finalists + from gold league and the bottom of each group from platinum league. But 1/3 of each league moving with no competition against each other just seems wildly un-competitive IMO. Making people who lose in gold quarter finals prove they deserve to move up by competing against the 2nd bottom of each platinum group seems more than fair IMO.

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.

The way I am thinking about this, I agree that there might not be a huge skill difference between players #17-32. This is why I would much rather they face each other directly to fight for the last spots in platinum league, rather than have those 8 spots be a rotating door where it is at best unclear the replacement player is in any way set up to have a greater chance of success than the prior player.

I am just not hearing any arguments for why having at least some of the relegated players face the potential promoted players to determine those spots is not more competitive and better for the league. There's a reason why pretty much every game has some sort of last chance qualifier system, and doesn't just auto relegate anywhere near as large of a percentage as 1/3 of a league every season. If the organizers disagree than it just is what it is I guess, and I will still enjoy and support the league happily. I just want the best show possible, and if the complaints about seeding are bad now I expect things to be even worse when replacing 1/3 of a league with players who only faced lower seeded competition.

 

Who should be higher seeded in tournaments, someone who won 2 arena tournaments for a total prizepool of $2k, or someone who won KotD4 with a prizepool of $77.5k? the answer may shock you. Well unless you are the creators of ATP or one of their many fans then the answer is the arena champion should be higher seeded of course

 

Where can I see the seeding?

 

Where can I see the seeding?

here sir https://discord.gg/Nj6XEWq2dz

 

While I am not a big fan of the curret ATP rankings (too many well intentioned but subjective modifiers), I can understand its purpose.

When you are making a list of countries, you can rank them by population, GDP, exports and the list would look different everytime. It depends on what context you are using the ranks for.

Viper can play AOE4 the entire year, come only for one big S tier tournament, win it and still everyone will agree he's the GOAT and will be in top 3 atleast in most ranks. But when you are making a list of Tournament points, he might be "punished" because he didn't play anything other than just that one. tournament. While someone who has been grinding the entire year participating in various tournaments and having decent results might be "rewarded" in the Tournament points ranking.

Now, which rank do you take for the tournament depends on the organizer and the things he wants to incentivize (grind + tournament performance vs skill). While some organizer might prefer having the best skilled players for their tournament, someone might want players who have consistently played throughout the year. Each has its own pros and cons I guess.

Also, for this league atleast, it's not a seeding per se (as in seed 1 is not going to play seed 24) but a group of 24 players who will play against each other.

Having said that, the ATP currently has flaws, which needs to be corrected soon for it to be taken more seriously. It's sad that some players are facing the brunt of the teething troubles. However, I would still say this is a good start.

 

I’m not gonna be too harsh in case they send me straight to the gold league, but heres one of my opinion about the ATP system.

I think using this system might cause the seeding to be way off the reality compared to the player actual skill and current level. Just bacause one havent been in a lot of A tier or B tier tourneys I don’t think they should be punished for it.

Most top players wont participate in A-B tourneys because simply in AoE we dont have big enough prizes to make it worth in these tourneys when it comes to time invested. Playing / scheduling, putting time off for potential practice to potentially win 300-400$ Over 4-5 week period is what makes it mostly unattractive. Not only that, these tourneys often have weird settings with ****ing dinosaurs jumping on ur monk in the middle of the map, maybe not that bad, but you get the impression.

What should be focused on is ladder/S tourney performance combined with top player opinion on each rank. On top of that, a qualifier potentially. Nili is in my opinion one of the best when it comes to fair seeding.

I could make severeal more points, but id rather speak vocally about it rather than typing. If we keep using the system in the future were going to have some problems IMO. Looking fwd to the tourney regardless

 

Not only that, these tourneys often have weird settings with ****ing dinosaurs jumping on ur monk in the middle of the map, maybe not that bad, but you get the impression.

Can you elaborate which tourneys you are referring to? From the top of my head I can only remember Banano Open, which is not even listed on Liquipedia, and maybe Sink or Swim, which - while it didn't have any real gimmicks - used mainly maps that are rarely ever played by most players.
Other than that, tournaments that come to my mind would be HOLY Cup and maybe Mangrove Shallows Cup, but they were literally S-tier events.
In contrast, there are a multitude of A- and B-tier events going on regularly with perfectly "normal" settings. Hence I don't think the notion of lower tier events having weird settings is correct at all.

top player opinion on each rank

That is feasible for a small group of players (e.g. 8) up to a maximum of ~16 players. Behind that the judging would be as wrong as any other system and on top of that it would be entirely subjective with no possible justification for the outcome.

 

Just bacause one havent been in a lot of A tier or B tier tourneys I don’t think they should be punished for it.

Are they rly punished or isn't it more like rewarding those who did participate in those A/B Tier Tourneys?
As you said those A/B Tournaments apparently aren't worth it in terms of prize money, so isn't this technically just giving them something back because they participated in those smaller Tournaments even though it wasn't worth it?

Imo those A/B Tournaments are an important part of aoe2 and it would be a shame if we miss those.
Top 30 Players participating in those increases the coverage of those smaller Tournaments.

Not only that, these tourneys often have weird settings with ****ing dinosaurs jumping on ur monk in the middle of the map, maybe not that bad, but you get the impression.

Are they rly that weird?
I think there are a lot of A/B Tier-Tournaments with normal settings and even if they're a bit out of the box, most of the time they still seem competitive (atleast what I've seen).

 

Just a question, If every event adopted these rankings then how would someone with no ranking points currently ever qualify for an event in the future and therefore how would they ever get any ranking points?

 

Just a question, If every event adopted these rankings then how would someone with no ranking points currently ever qualify for an event in the future and therefore how would they ever get any ranking points?

The vast majority of S-Tier events have qualifiers.

 

The vast majority of S-Tier events have qualifiers.

But if they simply adopted this system which is my point there wouldn't be a qualifier

 

But if they simply adopted this system which is my point there wouldn't be a qualifier

This particular event doesn't have a qualifier, which is why they are using the system to determine the players.

In events with a qualifier, I assume the ATP ranking would only be used to determine tournament seeding/invitational spots.

So it's not an either/or type of situation.

 

But if they simply adopted this system which is my point there wouldn't be a qualifier

I guess you'd get in by playing B-tier events, who wouldn't have all the top players in them. That would be quite similar to tennis, where you have to play many smaller tournaments first in order to qualify for the top tourneys.

Anyway, I agree that it would make sense to keep a few spots open for other methods, e.g. like it is done for RMS Cup, where at least 4 players will get into the qualifier based on ladder rating.