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Grand Finals are finally here! (The road thus far)

Road to the finals:
Nitram's Rams had attendance problems throughout the groupstage missing either phrenic or TheEvilDog which was a big reason they went overlooked as a contendor for the title.
They started of their season with a 1-2 loss against Zero's Heroes where both maps lost was with 30 frags or less. In their second game they defeated Carapace's Nutcases 2-1 after surprisingly dropping dm3 by a large margin they came back to take e1m2 by 7 frags and then a comeback dm2 win with 40 frags after Nitram let go of the breaks and carried his team to victory with 84 frags while his mates stood at 45.

On day 2 of groupstage Phrenic was not able to attend and Nitram's Rams only managed to get a single map win in their remaining 2 games, falling 0-2 to Murdoc's Muppets and 1-2 to En_karl's Snarl.
It looked like the season was over for the team and their chance to reach the playoffs now lied in the hands of Carapace's Nutcases, they had to beat Zero's Heroes for Nitram's Rams to be able to make the playoffs.
After a 2-1 win for Carapace's Nutcases it was still unclear for most of us which team had made the playoffs or not and alot of people figured that since Zero's Heroes beat Nitram's Rams in the groupstage that they would be the ones to make the playoffs, but no such rule was to be found (HAHA ZERO HAHAHAHA), instead it was frag difference which decided and there Nitram's Rams had the clear advantage.

After the change of the playoff-system Nitram's Rams were to be faced against ParadokS' Rocks, at the time the only undefeated team in the draft and considered one of the favorites alongside Milton's Milita to make the finals.
However, having phrenic back meant that this team was far from a pushover and they showed instantly that they deserve some respect by taking map1 dm3 in a rather convincing fashion.
But after losing the next two maps (including a dm2 blowout) the tides had turned and it looked like ParadokS' Rocks would be able to take this one home as expected.
But the two superstars of ParadokS' Rocks was performing below their standards and even though the 4th round pick rkd played superduperamazinglygreat getting 67 frags on both e1m2's (and 8/1 rl stat and more dmg than para) they weren't able to seal the deal and Nitram's Rams could take home the last dm2 with over 100 frags and make it to the semifinals.

In the semifinals it would be alot easier for Nitram's Rams, facing a handicapped En_karl's Snarl who was missing Krab.
For En_karl's Snarl to have a chance at the now rolling and confident team of Nitram's Rams then En_karl would've had to put up yet another amazing performance like we saw in the earlier stages of the tournament, but such performances don't always come out and it didn't this night either and Nitram's Rams had made it to the finals.

Noticeable: Nitram has averaged 73.6 frags per map so far and has topfragged for his team in every single map they've won, being perhaps the most consistent out of all captains able to always put up a strong performance. This team doesn't win games on even team performance but rather on how well the other 3 can support Nitram.

Milton's Militia have had a strong presence and put up convincing performances throughout the tournament.
They started of their first game a bit shaky, escaping with a 2-0 win against Dimman's Dimension that easily could've gone 0-2 instead.
Diki being a questionmark before the tournament regarding his activity showed that he was rusty, getting only 41 and 45 frags in the first game.
Luckily however for Milton's Militia they were able to face Darkki's Bliss without key player Fix and the unpracticed team didn't stand a chance against Milton's Militia where Milton managed a 131 frags dm2, highest in the tournament.
On day 2 of the groupstage Milton's Militia suffered their one and only loss so far against ParadokS' Rocks in a dramatic 1-2 defeat with alot of slowspawning involved.
After taking a convincing 2-0 win against bps' Evilness the 2nd place in Group A was secured.

In the quarterfinals Carapace's Nutcases was waiting, a very strong swede/SD team (practically all swedes are, have been or will be part of SD at some point) with the combination of new up and coming div0 Carapace together with old veteran div0 Razor this matchup was expected to be alot tighter than what actually became of it.
Carapace's Nutcases just weren't able to shut Milton down and by now the rust on Diki from the groupstage had mostly shaken off, not to mention Skillah's solid and consistent play throughout the tournament with a 61.4 frag avg.

In the semifinals waited Murdoc's Muppets, the second highest seeded captain, just after Milton (what were we admins thinking putting murdoc there lol!?) and also the groupwinner of the very tough group B.
Yet again a surprisingly easy win for Milton's Militia where Diki now really starts to show that he's just not a tVS player by name but he can really back that tag up.
Just individually too strong on all positions compared to Murdoc's Muppets in this game, there was nothing they could do but watch Milton's Milita head to the finals.

Noticeable: Diki had a rough start, he had a good map here and there in the 2nd day of groupstage, showing what he's really capable of and in the playoffs he has started to come into form and could very well be the key to leading Milton's Milita to a victory.
Also keep track of Skillah in this game, haveing played consistently very good this far, will he keep it up in the finals or will we see some "skillah" quad moments?

Interestingly enough, arguably the 2 best Captains in the tournament have made it to the finals (maybe we should make their draft order even worse next season mohahah) and their wins have mostly been lead by strong "single hand" performances from the captains, taking on most of the responsibilites and armor/weapon/powerup pickups while alot of other captains tried to go with more of a "teamplay, get everyone involved" tactic.
Perhaps something for captains to think of come next draft.

Don't forget to check upcoming games and my game predictions! and plz commentate, you don't have to have anything to discuss just tell me I'm awesome =)

Playoffs moved/changed

There has been some friction this week regarding the draft playoff schedule, wildcard games and easter. We, the admin team, accept our fault on not taking into consideration the effect of easter week/weekend. And we hope some of the teams delaying last Thursday's wildcard came will take some blame upon themselves as well.
To make a long story short this is how it's going to be.

The playoffs structure has been changed to a straightup quarterfinals with ALL teams participating. The playoffs has further more been pushed one week. This means we are scheduling all 4 quarterfinals games this Sunday.
There won't be option to move/delay etc. If one or more teams are not able to play, there will unfortunately be walkovers.

Lets keep the focus on the action instead though.
With this move, we provide action for all teams in playoffs from next Sunday - this means the respective winners of each group, won't have to sit idle for 2 weeks waiting for their next game.

We will contact team captains ASAP to sort out schedules for this Sunday - playoffs bracket will be updated as well. Goldrush betting for current playoff game will be nullified and new one's will be added tonight. Hopefully rkd will have some nice match predictions as well.

We are sorry for the inconvinience. Both to the spectators who will not experience draft action tonight but also to those teams who were dilligent enough to actually show up on all scheduled matches. Special thanks here to Dimman's Dimension and Carapace's Nutcases.

For a quick temporary text overview of the quarterfinals here goes:

ParadokS' Rocks vs Nitram's Rams
Murdoc's Muppets vs Darkki's Bliss
Carapace's Nutcases vs Milton's Militia
Dimman's Dimension vs en_karl's Snarl

Stay tuned for more info!

Group games over

2nd week of group games were really crucial for some teams, as nothing was yet decided after week 1. Group B was particular tight and could go either way.

Darkki's Bliss had to redeem themselves as well fighting against bps' Evilness to stay in the playoffs.

Group A

Practice Rounds from last week:
para: 13
milt: 5
dimm: 0
dark: 3
bps: 5

As you can see from the practice rounds we picked up from stats.quakeworld.nu, Para's Rocks have been very active. They came prepared and really wanted to end up on the first place in the group. Although this was contingent upon them being able to overcome Milton's Militia, who also managed to get a few rounds in during the week. Not a small feat, considering last week's games where Milton was dominating the field. On the first map (DM3) it was looking really tight, although Para's team had the lead throughout the match. With about a minute to go and a 20 frag lead the first map was in the sack.... OR WAS IT?? If someone could check those demos for me and tell me who did NOT slowspawn, giving Milton's team the first map win with a single frag lead, it would be much appreciated!

Having to fight Milton is tough enough, but with a 0-1 after what looked like a solid round it was getting tense. On the 2nd map (DM2) it would not be Milton who would run the show, but rather Diki putting in the work and doing what he could, to try and close this with a 2 mapper. the "pro's" were just too solid and a fairly tight but solid win for the rocks put them at odds going into a E1M2 decider.

A small 16 frag margin would decide this week's first match in another very tight round. ParadokS and Kingpin was a solid duo here, backed nicely by rkd and votary for a win.

So probably the most important game of this group today was Darkki's Bliss vs bps' Evilness. Who was most likely to end out in the cold?
Both teams managed to get a little bit of practice during the week. Although fix did not participate in Darkki's practice sessions. They had a chance to warmup even more as they had agreed to face ParadokS' Rocks at 17:00 CET to play the game they neglected last week. However they were not able to show up here either and eventually had to forfeit that game (the only WO so far in the draft).
bps also got 5 rounds played and looked determined to show that their lineup deserved a 2nd chance in the draft. Last week's games did not look good and beating Darkki this Sunday was alfa omega!

bps lead his team through a tough first map (DM2) top fragging but only wining with about 40 frags. Seeing fix on the bottom is a rare sight and Darkki's team had to work overtime trying to come back from this. Darkki took a hold of the reigns and delivered a stellar performance on the DM3 leading his team into a tie. Due or die for both teams on another E1M2 decider. As you all know that is not for the faint of heart. Both teams were fighting for their lives and it showed. Darkki pulled out a few more rabbits from his hat giving another great performance. living up to his captain status. Another really close decider game in this draft went in darkki's Bliss favor and unless bps would show a big upset in their next game against Milton's Militia, it looked like Darkki was safe for now and bps had to make miracles to stay in the game.

Sure enough, Milton's Militia went on in their next game to face bps' Evilness which looked like an easy 2-0 victory for the militia and this was the definitive end for bps and his evil satanworshippers this season.

dimman's Dimension had to face ParadokS' Rock's in their first game this evening, which turned out to be a power demonstation from a very 'rock'solid lineup (pun intended). A DM3:294-119 / DM2:295-153 was really out of the norm for the usual tight games we have seen so far. Perhaps dimman's lack of practice with his team during the week was an important factor for them in this matchup.

Dimman's 2nd game this evening was against Darkki's Bliss who came from a fresh win against bps, securing his team in the playoffs. Playing with a sense of relief against Dimman's team, who wanted to redeem themselevs after their game against ParadokS' Rocks' turned out to be another bitch slapping. This time dimman did the slapping and once again we saw fix bottom fragging on DM3. Eventhough E1M2 wasn't total domination it was clear however the whole match was controlled by Dimman's team. Unless fix finds a glimmer of his old form Darkki's Bliss will have a very hard time against Carapace's Nutcases this Thursday in the wildcard game.

Group B

Practice Rounds from last week:
murd: 7
karl: 0
cara: 7
nitr: 0
zero: 7

phrenic gave us quite the scare yesterday when he announced that nitram's HD had crashed and he himself would not be able to participate this sunday, leaving Nitram's Rams completely handicapped with both the captain and 1st. pick unable to play. I think it was a very cruel 1st. April fools joke and you should all go slap him. Cause indeed nitram showed up and gave us some great action tonight.

With 0 maps played during the week for nitram and 7 for Murdoc's Muppets, nitram's rams was under a lot of pressure. They had 2 really tight games last week winning 2-1 over carapace's nutcases and losing 1-2 to zero's heroes. Well this weeks games did not look any easier. In what people have dubbed 'the group of death' we saw murdoc picking the longest straw as they took down nitram in just 2 maps. DM3 was kind of close but murdoc just seemed to have that extra gear closing the deal. nitram really put up a great performance here but his team was lacking unity and quality. Having 0 pracs played the last 2 weeks really does make a difference. Worth mentioning as well is the absense of phrenic. nitram's first pick in the draft, which probably had an even bigger effect for nitram this cold Sunday night.

Nitram's second game was against en_karl's Snarl. The team that surprised us all last week with some great games and en_karl really showing us his (what's better than 'A-game'?) skills. But nitram is no pushover and with a solid performance from molecule, en_karl got a wake up call losing DM2 with over 120 frags. Noteworthy is that krab was unable to play tonight and the remaining of this season. This means en_karl's snarl will have to field knave in all remaining matches unless they take in a player from the free agent pool. Combined with 0 maps played during the week en_karl's team must be considered weakened for this 2nd part of group stage.

Next map was E1M2 which is usually a surprise to see in the 2nd map. Another close game where everyone had to sacrifice blood sweat and tears to survive, en_karl was happy enough taking down a 12 frag win for a tie.

A rare DM3 decider where en_karl was very strong last week was going to be an interesting matchup. This is undoubtly nitram's strongest map and many consider him a one man army here. With en_karl's team lacking krab, having to substitute with knave for this entire match spectators were in for a treat as this was going to be tight. The scores did not disappoint and a 195-184 win for en_karl's Snarl sealed the deal. In a very even match a few more quads and 3-1 pent's for en_karl most likely turned the scores his favour.

This put Nitram's Rams in the dangerzone for being eliminated before the playoffs. If zero would win his game against Carapace's Nutcases this would push nitram outside in the cold.

Lacking krab tonight was perhaps even more evident in the matchup between en_karl's snarl and carapace's nutcases. An impressive DM2:360-118 & E1M2:298-195 win for the 'crazy dudes' showed us that this pure 'SD' lineup is a strong contender in the playoffs where they are clear favourites against Darkki's Bliss.

Last game in this group would be Zero's Heroes vs carapace's Nutcases. This would turn out to be a controversial game as well, but we'll come back to that later.
With 7 maps pracced for each team during the week and zero's lineup complete with StrikeR on the field again, this was shaping up to be a very tough games for both sides. Noway to predict the outcome here. What's more fitting than a 2 frag win on DM3 in the first map? Cara's team seemed to have more red armor control and more quads, but the 3 penta's for zero managed to keep the scores very close to the very end. never the less a 1-0 map win for Carapace's nutcase.

DM2 was the choice of the heroes, and the feared DM2 duo of zero and StrikeR had to play up to their reputation to pull their team into a tie. Not less due to the fact that heroes was fielding a brand new player. pooll from Poland was chosen from the free agent pool at the expense of nepra who had not been online the last few days.

Another close map where no player really stood out from either team, zero's Hero's managed to pull a 21 frag victory, despite cara's team taking 13 out of 20 quads. 30 and 29 rls dropped respectively... must have been like playing with weaponstay :D

Heading into the decider zero was confident his team was secured the playoffs spot. Even if zero would lose this decider they would be on par with nitram's point and mapscores. And seeing zero's Heroes won over Nitram's Rams in their group game it was all good nomatter the outcome of this last map.

This decider was pretty close up untill the last 5 minutes or so when the nutcases were pulling more and more away getting a solid YA control and several nice quad runs in, winning this map 245:206 and thereby the match.

Quote from #draft.admins:

[22:49] <]SR[zero> heeeeeeh
[22:49] <]SR[zero> hawt stuff!
[22:49] <]SR[zero> we'r in the playoffs!
[22:49] <]SR[ParadokS_> everyone said u are not in playoffs
[22:49] <][rkd> no you're not :D
[22:49] <]SR[zero> WAT?'
[22:50] <][rkd> To separate teams with equally many points, MW, ML & +/- are used.

So there you have it, as the rules state it's not the internal match result between 2 teams that are equal in points, that decide who will move on, but map wins and fragscore.

To be honest we copied the rules from EQL system and I would admit this was an 'oversight' from admin's part to not correct this, as we would probably have chosen the alternative solution.

Unfortunately for zero's team such a critical rule cannot be changed after the fact. I'm sure however Nitram's Rams are praising the higher powers and doing the happydance now as they still get their day on stage Thursday when they face off against Dimman's Dimension in what is looking to be the tightest wildcard games of the 2.

Playoffs

Without further ado you can head over to the playoffs tree to see who meets who and when.
We will be in contact with all the affected teams and do what we can, to make sure all teams are showing up. If there will be any schedule changes we will post it here as soon as we have new information.

Hopefully we can scrounge up some live commentary and stream for Thursday as well covering one or both matches.
Goldrush Games will be added Monday afternoon by the all powerful goldrush-daytrader danny murdoc!

First week over

Wtih a total of 10 teams having to play at the same time we did expect some irregularities. But to see 9 teams ready to go on time was a positive surprise.

Not all teams had a chance to get some practice rounds in before the official games, mostly due to our delayed live-stream draft on Wednesday. That wasn't visible tonight though, as all teams seemed pumped and ready to fight at 18:30.

Group A
Let's get it out of the way quickly then. Darkki's Bliss had problems fielding their lineup as both Trash had PC problems shortly before deadline and fix decided to do a houdini an hour before as well without giving sign of life.

Fix being Darkki's first choice in the draft this was naturally a big blow for their team. Due to delays they were not able to field a team against ParadokS' Rocks. Trash however did come back in time for them to play against Milton's Militia. Without fix though it was a blowout victory for Milton's team and tonight's biggest victory.

Milton was about to have another easy game against Dimman's Dimension as dimman did not show up for his team in time either. With car trouble setting him a map behind, Milton took a comfortable first map win, where Moltas noticeably stepped up and had a very good round.

Dimman showed up for 2nd map and was determined to turn it around. Moltas had another good round, but Purity with a shady connection and some rust in the old bones woke up, topfragged and Milton's Milita barely took home this victory with a 3 frag margin.

Will be exciting to see how Milton fairs next Sunday against the remaining teams. Lets hope they have full strong lineups to give this unstoppable warrior a run for his goldrush-money.

bps' Evilness had a rough night dropping 0-2 games to both Dimman's Dimension and later to ParadokS' Rocks. The latter ended with a fullstart on DM3 for Para's team and it was Rock'N'Roll for the next 20 min as tonight's 2nd big victory was logged.

This however was not the trend as the majority of tonight's game were very tight and where turnovers and comeback's were exchanged multiple time in several rounds.

ParadokS' Rocks have decided to open a small window for Darkki's Bliss as they will try to get the game played during the week, rather than taking the WO right out. If however both teams are not able to play this game, the WO for Para's team will be granted.

So unless Darkki can get the game played AND win over Para's Rocks, it will most likely be Darkki vs bps next Sunday, fighting over the coveted playoff spot.

Group B

With en_karl being absent from the live stream draft pick, and arguably having a weak seeding list, en_karl's Snarl was one of the teams no one picked as a winner. From the poll What team will go all the way?, he got 5% of the votes and the goldrush betting wasn't going his way either.

But his team was indeed the big surprise tonight. En_karl really stepped up and lead his team to victory in the first game. With 2 epic performances,winning 2-0 over Murdoc's Muppets, as many thought to be one of the top 3 contenders this season, with a very strong teamplay oriented lineup. I wonder if Murdoc will get hate-mail from goldrush betters after this debacle.

en_karl's late game was against zero's hero's facing a fierce DM2 combo of both zero and StrikeR. En_karl took the challenge head on, fueld by the confidence from the first game and although they did not win it was only a 10 frag loss.

StrikeR had to bail during 2nd and 3rd map due to previous engagements leaving zero and his merry men to pickup the slack and close this game with 1 more map win. 'Monkey see, Babymonkey do', and so they did. karl had lead the way and both niw and krab stepped up in this game as they took a comfortable win on E1M2.

Many considered both niw and krab weak choices for en_karl, but this team seems to work more like a well oiled machine working in unity and is actually leading this group heading into next Sunday's matchups.

On the other end of the scale we got Carapace's Nutcases. However his last place in the groupstages thus far might be misleading to most. With a lineup consisting of purely current and former SD players this almost feels like a clan among mix teams. Cara's first game was against Murdoc's Muppets and a nailbiting E1M2 ended with a 5 frag win for the Muppets which could really have gone either way. Murdoc's team seemed little more dominating on the following DM3 giving out a 0-2 loss to the nutcases.

The last match of the night was played between Nitram's Rams and Carapace's Nutacases.

Carapace wanted to show that his team belongs in the top tier and gave a great performance on DM3. Razor, despite having major ping and PL issues, had no problems keeping up either. Time for another nailbiter on the next map - you guessed it - E1M2. Another crazy 7 frag difference match went against Carapace on what must seem to be his nemesis map so far.

The decider was no oneside affair either, as both teams were fighting for the win to the very end. Nitram must just have felt unstoppable as he continuously plowed through those nutcases. We actually saw some pretty nice play from both rst and carapace this round but nitram was just here, there and everywhere.. usually with QUAD.

This group seems wide open still and it's really hard to say what's gonna happen next week. Carapace will however have to work extra hard to try and stay in the game for the playoffs and at the same time it seems evident Murdoc need's to lose at least another game next week.

Upcoming games and more...
We have already added upcoming games for next Sunday. Match predictions and goldrush additions will most likely be added during Monday.

Demos for all games can be found on http://demos.quakeworld.nu/ untill we find a more permanent solution directly implemented on the draft site.

Finally a great 'THANKS' goes out to all the players that showed up and wanted to play your hearts out. We saw so many tight games and comebacks. There was a lot of whine from the spectators though "How can we run more ezquake clients so we can spec multiple games simultaneously?" was a common request :)

We sincerely hope you will all be as enthusiastic next Sunday when we will settle the scores, send 2 teams out on the railings and the rest into an epic playoff.

Links:
Live Stream Show - youtube.com
Finalized Teams and free agents
Goldrush
Demos
Schedule

Salvation 2012 - Live stream show over!

There was some issues apparently with xSplit broadcaster and twitch.tv so it did not record 1 full session :(

Zalon saved me though, downloaded, re-edited and uploaded to youtube

Somehow xsplit/twitch dropped about 10min, so unfortunately last part of bps' intro and whole zero's intro is not included. *sadface*

Groups are finalized as well, check the links to the right side for more info.

Links:
Live Stream Show - youtube.com
Finalized Teams and free agents
Goldrush
Schedule

Livestream postponed

We agreed on rescheduling the live stream to Wednesday 19CET. All captains should be available except Bps. We are trying to get him on the show anyway otherwise we'll have to find a workaround.

Throw away your popcorn and get some new one.. the show goes on Wednesday 19CET!!

Live Draft starting soon!!

Shows starts 20:00 CET

Live stream : http://www.twitch.tv/paradoks_sr
Live updates on docs : google docs

Updates relayed to IRC @ #draft.qw

Changes in the rules section

Draft order
The drafting order has been slightly changed. We now use a system with 5 Seed Groups, rather than 3. The picking order has been updated aswell to accomodate this, making the lower seeded captains have an edge on the higher seeding ones.

Swapping players
A swap is permanent through-out the season. If you wish to replace one of your players, he is added to the free agent pool eligible for any other team to be picked up, with their swap.

Maps to win
All games are BO3, except for Quarter Final, Semi Final and Grand Final, which are BO5. Hopefully this added amount of action will not interfere with the schedule as it puts more responsibility on the teams to get their games going on set out times without much delay between the games. This is of highest importance during the Quarter, Semi and Grand Finals. Make a note in your calendars!

Walkover and VOID
The only change made here is the fact that we call the old MUTE game (0-0 maps, 0 points awarded) VOID instead. So VOID is now the correct terminology.

So we suggest you read the rules once again and make sure you understand everything new to this tournament. Should there be something unclear you are welcome to bring forth your questions in the #draft.qw channel on QuakeNet, IRC.

Livestream tomorrow!

We have prepared a great shows for you guys. The hosts will be myself
Image:flag_dk.gif (ParadokS) and Image:flag_nl.gif Purity.

We count on having a complete lineup of 10 captains joining us to help make this a memorable night. The show will last approximately one hour and will be streamed in 720p for your viewing pleasure.

In the unfortunate situation that you will not be able to stream this live, due to bandwidth or hardware limitations, you will be able to follow the live picks via a textbased solution at our Google Docs location and on IRC @ #draft.qw where we will relay picks live as well.

We invite everyone to join us in one fun and exciting evening. Will YOU be the one picked for the draft? I know I'm dying to find out! :)

Links:
Live Stream

Pre-season update

New captain - replacing one silent ninja for another
So first of all, we changed one of the captains. Striker opted out in favour of moltas - mainly because striker won't be available the 2nd. week of group games. He is signed as a regular player though, so captains will have to take his 2nd. week absence in consideration when picking. Yeah it's not easy being the bossmen!

So here is an updated list of captains:

Confirmed captains:

Milton
murdoc
nitram
ParadokS
zero
bps
carapace
moltas
Darkki
en_karl

The list above is the seeding order as well. Which brings me to the next point.

Picking order / random picks
Fed wrote:

1) Unbalanced teams
Each captain get to pick only one player from the pool (in round 1). The other 3 players will be assigned to the team randomly. This will probably result in unbalanced teams.
Let's say a total of 100 players sign up. 30 of those are division 1-2 material, rest div 3 and worse.
With the current picking model, a team can be "lucky" and get 5 div 1 players while an "unlucky" team will consist of 2 div 1 player and 3 total newbies.

I know this was answered in the forum but I'd just like to make it doubly clear on the way captains pick players.

Obviously it's a little more complicated trying to make it fair/interesting when 10 captains have to pick, as opposed to just 2. So we did our best to work out a system that should be satisfactory for most.

There will be NO random picks or players sent to teams. All picks are done manually by captains and they have 100% control over which players they want. Where the random factor comes in is in which order the captains within each seed-group get to pick. If you are really interested please read through the captain seed groups and the rules section concerning this.

Live Stream for draft-pick night
We are doing everything we can to have all captains present at the same time to make fair teams. Two of the captains were not able to participate on Sunday the 18th. We have confirmed however that Monday the 19th. should be ok for everyone.

We will do some preparations for this event so I can't give much more details right now. We will however make an update over the course of the weekend with more info. Preliminary I would say we
launch the show at 19:00CET and captains will pick players at 19:30CET. This is not set in stone as I will try and coordinate with captains and co-hosts.

Stay tuned for more!

Player overflow and free agents
Well as the bright mathematicians in the community have pointed out, there are 10 captains, who only need to pick 40 players to complete their teams. Obviously they will try to pick the best players to fit in their lineup.

We encourage all interested div1 and top div2 players that has not yet signed up to do so. We wish for the highest possible quality and activity level for this first season. As has been mentioned before, players not picked this season will still be available as free agents, and I'm sure this will be utilized by one or more captains during the season.

For those mid div2 and the rest who feel left out of the party, I can only say this. I hope you enjoy following the show nevertheless and we will take feedback during and after the season to look into possibly extending the draft concept to include more players.

Salvation 2012 is taking signups!

The admin team has asked the creme de la creme of 4on4 players in the QW scene today, if they would act as captains for their own team in a draft tournament. We have confirmed 10 captains to spearhead this endeavour and hope you are as excited as I am, and will signup to teamup with these great players for the most intense and tight tournament in years!

We all know the endless 4on4 mixes going on in to the wee hours in the morning on Foppa.dk servers. When mixing and matching players with very wide skill gaps, often the captain mode is enabled to create the most fair teams. We just scaled this up to give you the HOTMIX tournament of your life.

We made a few adjustments to the picking order as this is not 2, but a whopping 10 captains that need to take their turn and make their favourite picks among YOU guys! I won't bore you with the technical details of who picks when here, but you can study it over in the rules section.

This will be an epic event taking place only little more than a week from now streamed live over twitch.tv and relayed to IRC as well. All captains are invited directly on the stream to join our hosts. Don't be shy now. We will however do our best to tame these beasts of QuakeWorld during the event to try and get a smooth flow. More info on this later next week. Just remember captains.. no takebacks, no do-overs.. and no crybabies!

A maximum of 4 players will be selected by the captains for each team. Hopefully there will be some free agents left (which means we got a lot of interest and signups), but do not be discouraged if you are not one of the chosen ones. As a free agent, you are still eligible to participate in the tournament. If a player in a team, for some unforeseen reason, has to leave. It is then possible for the captain to recruit a replacement. In fact, if he thinks that a free agent might be a better suit than one of the current players in his roster he is also free to make a trade. More on this in the rules section as well.

Tournament format and schedule
The 10 teams will be split into 2 groups of 5.. The top team from each group will go directly to semifinals. The 2nd place finish will go to the quarter finals. Here come's the twist, we call it the wildcard games. 3rd and 4th place finishes will have to fight the 4th. and 3rd. place finishes from the opposing group, for the remaining 2 slots in quarter finals.

From here on it's a straight shoot to the championship and your claim to fame!

Schedule and timeframe
Where this tournament differs from EQL and other similar tournaments in the past, is in a strict schedule. We have a rather short season of about 1½ month. To make this go as smooth as possible we hope you will accept the terms and conditions. We try to have most games played on Sunday 18:30 / 20:00 / 21.30 CET, with a possible catchup day Mondays between 19:00 and 22:00 CET.
This makes it easier to do live streaming/commentating and other related management activities. It should also make it easier for spectators to tune in if we are somewhat consistent. Hopefully alleviate some stress between players and teams when it comes to scheduling and tactics of delaying games to the end season.

Be sure to check our exact schedule in the useful links section just below for detailed info.

Useful links
Signup
Updated seed list of signed players and captains
Schedule and timeline.
Discuss the format or make suggestions in our forum
IRC channel #draft.qw

Admins
murdoc
ParadokS
carapace
zero
rkd

Credits
all of the above for collaborating on everything from concept, rules, lobbying for captains and voulenteering for a project that I personally think will enjoy great success in the near and distant future.
swiNgah for helping with awesome graphics and help on coding.
Zalon for hosting and backend assistance.

PS: Interesting article regarding draft Why draft leagues? Are clans obselete?