The Battle of Favorites! - 11

I. Gameplay.
The core
1. During tournament everyone plays all games with only one chosen favorite town.
2. Game version SoD 4.0 + latest stable HD-mod (HD 5.0 RC43 atm).
3. By default all games are played according to Standart Rules of HeroesWorld Portal, with password-protected saves.
Templates
4. Basic list of templates contains 9 templates and 2 mirrors are added in case opponents play the same towns:
"Random": (1) Anarchy 160% (2) Diamond (3) Mini-Nosta
"Tough": (4) 2SM4d(3) (5) Jebus cross (6) 8mm6a / Mix8mm6lm, +mt_diamond
"Cybersport": (7) 8xm12a (8) Spider (9) 6LM10a, +h3dm1.
5. Template for a certain game is chosen by simple elimination from the whole list.
The opponent who won the coinflip starts with eliminating one of 8mm6a/Mix8mm6lm, and after that decides who starts standart simple eliminating from odd pool.
Trades
6. After chosing template opponents trade for colour pick.
7. In case opponents play the same town after colour they trade for the first pick of starting hero.
Features for certain templates
8.1. Diamond. The opponent who got red colour - eliminates one of towns. If both play the same town - then blue player eliminates one town also. Recent towns should be matched to computer players in any order.
8.2. Mix8mm6lm. Fast roads.
Sim turns
9. No sim turns in group stages and first stages of play-off for lower bracket.
10. Sim turns by default for all BO3 series in winners bracket (intermediate stage and play-off for group winners) and for games from 1/4 in losers brackets (top-12). Sim turns days are
Jebus & Mini-Nosta 117
Anarchy 113 (there is no early meet restart rule so sim turns just help to pass restart stage)
all other templates sim turns = early meet rule = 116 for mid roads / 115 for fast.
Default timer for games with sim turns - standart timer plus 1 minute into the first timer number for every sim turns day.
Example: 18-8-1 with sim turns 117 transforms into 25-8-1.
HD-mod
11. In "More options.." menu when starting game there are 4 marks to be picked: HW Rules, Ban Cartographers, Ban Hill Forts, Rebuild Mage Guild.
On Anarchy one mark to be picked: Rebuild Mage Guild.
And if at least one of opponents plays Tower - one more mark should be picked - Rebuild Library. Attention to Tower players to watch for this.
Variability of Gameplay Rules
12. All Gameplay Rules are default.
Players can make any changes by mutual agreement except towns they play (p.1) and game version (p.2).
In case of changing rules - if possible put this information in your report so it could be taken in consideration for the future kingdom of joy and happiness coming faster.
13. In case there will be any changes in Standart Rules of HeroesWorld Portal - this changes can be introduced into the tournament as well (for unstarted games only) with announcement in both tournament threads.

II. Tournament system.
There are certain goals of this tournament:
- to give players an opportunity to play favorite town and try to prove it's power
- to give bigger number of players an opportunity to get experience of playing vs strongest players of portal
- to keep sport motivation on all stages of tournament as much as possible.
This goals influence the system of tournament.
System of tournament and general timeframes
Group stage (11 weeks) + Intermediate stage (4 weeks) + Playoff double-elimination (22 weeks).
Timeframes for all stages are 2 weeks for a game/BO1, 4 weeks for BO3.
Group stage provides massing and the way for any player to play strongest players.
But to keep sport motivation number of players in groups limited by 5-6 and there are certain rules listed below about advancing players into play-off stage.
The exact number of groups will be fixed when the exact number of players will be known.
So intermediate stage will solve the task to transform number of players from random number of groups to standart playoff double-elimination brackets.
Specific features of intermediate stage also serve to keep sports motivation of players and listed below.
Draw basics
Group stage draw will be based on baskets formed with a help of current HW rating. There are small corrections possible according to most notable tournament achievments.
For the very first play-off games draws will be tending to be done so "higher places in groups" will play vs "lower places" and players from the same groups will not meet.
First stage. Groups.
5-6 players. So all groups will be played in 5 rounds. Fixed rounds schedule.
Win is 3 points. Tie is 1. Technical results give the same number of points.
Player can advance to the winner bracket only from 1st place in the group.
More than 50% of players will have a chance to advance to the lower bracket.
This will be clarified below in Intermediate stage section.
Fixed game schedule.
Numbers in games are baskets.
1 round. 15.12.2018 - 31.12.2018. Games: 3-6, 4-2, 5-1.
2 round. 01.01.2019 - 14.01.2019. Games: 6-5, 1-4, 2-3.
3 round. 15.01.2019 - 28.01.2019. Games: 2-6, 3-1, 4-5.
4 round. 29.01.2019 - 11.02.2019. Games: 6-4, 5-3, 1-2.
5 round. 12.02.2019 - 25.02.2019. Games: 1-6, 2-5, 3-4.
Reserve week 26.02.2019 - 04.03.2019.
By mutual agreement you can play your games earlier but this schedule and deadlines are priority and earlier games in this schedule should be played for the first.
Additional criterias in case players have equal number of points in one group:
- Berger coefficient
- Game between players
- Coinflip
There is additional game(s) possible instead of coinflip but if all the players will be ready and if this will not break group stage deadlines critically.
Berger coefficient
Calculation formula for Berger coefficient in this tournament:
BC = 3*P3 + 1*P1, где
BC - Berger coefficient of certain player
3 - number 3 - number of point for the win here
P3 - Points3 - sum of points taken in group by players vs who certain player got 3 points
1 - number 1 - number of point for the tie here
P1 - Points1 - sum of points taken in group by players vs who certain player got 1 point
All results will be taken in account - no differences technical or not.
Criterias that define result values of players from different groups:
- place in the group
- number of points
(in all cases when there will be points counting in both 6-players and 5-players groups the results vs 6th places will not be counted)
- coinflip.
Second stage. Intermediate.
Final description of intermediate stage will be done when there will be known exact number of players and groups (so will be removed lyric and motivation sentences from here as well). Now there are described principles and example for 120 players and 20 6-players-groups.
Task of Intermediate stage - to get 16 players who advance to the upper bracket and 32 players to the lower bracket.
So we could move forward to the double-elimination play-off.
1st places of groups. Advancing to the upper bracket
20 of 1st places. We have to get 16.
Top 12 get straight pass to the upper bracket.
Lower 8 play one round play-off BO3, it's 4 weeks. 4 winners advance to the upper bracket, 4 losers - drop to the lower.
This system makes impossible for favorite to lose sport motivation in the groups. There is not only necessary to win the group to advance to the upper bracket but it's much better to win all games to get straight pass and minimize the chances to drop into the BO1 grind of lower bracket.
Advancing to the Lower bracket.
All 2nd, 3rd, 4th and some 5th places will play 2 rounds (2x2 weeks) of BO1 to find out 28 more players, who will advance to the lower bracket.
1st Intermediate Round in Lower bracket
All 2nd and 3rd places in groups who got only 1 loss or 2 ties and win all other games in group do not participate in 1st intermediate stage - they go straight in 2nd. (let's say there 20 players like this)
Who participate in 1st stage:
- all other 2nd and 3rd places (in this example also 20)
- all 4th places (20)
- those 5th places who managed in the group to win at least one player who finished at 1-4 places (let's say we have 8 players like this).
So, even if u lost all games in the group except one last - you can get that herokill in last game, got chance to advance to lower bracket, and who knows how much brave things you can do after this.
There is one round BO1, 2 weeks.
In this example 48 players will play. 24 will advance to 2nd intermediate round. 24 will drop out from tournament.
2nd Intermediate Round in Lower bracket
Who participate:
- 2nd and 3rd places who didnt participate in 1st Intermediate Round (we have 20)
- winners of 1st Intermediate Rounds (24).
We have 44 players and we need to get 28 of them in Lower bracket.
For this number of players:
- Top 12 will get straight pass to the lower bracket
- Lower 32 will play 1 BO1 Round, 2 weeks, 16 will advance to the Lower bracket, 16 will drop out from tournament.
Intermediate stage will take 4 weeks.
After this there will be 16 players in Upper bracket and 32 in Lower and tournament will go to the regular final stage.
Third stage. Double-elimination Play-Off.
Always BO3 in Upper bracket. 4 weeks.
Always BO1 in Lower bracket. 2 weeks.
Grandfinal BO5 starting with 1:0.
Play-off will take ~ 22 weeks.
Total.
Total tournament duration ~ 37 weeks (11+4+22).
Starting 15.12.2018. Finishing ~05.09.2019.

III. Game deadlines. Controversial situations. ODD (russian abbreviation that means "fixed time to play").
General.
1. Every game will be given a deadline (last day game should be finished). Players should make reasonable efforts to finish the games to the deadlines. As a finish of the game considered the report in this thread by one of players (or the message to Organizer about controversial situation in the game - proceeded particularly).
2. First day of each Round is TUE. Draws when necessary will be made in the night between MON and TUE.
The only exception from this - 1st Round of Group stage.
3. During first 2 days of the round (TUE-WED) players should contact each other and try to deal about time to play the game. Perfect if they will be able to follow this simple steps to reach this:
(A) to give each other timeframes about comfortable time to play
(B1) to look at this information and find common periods comfortable for both
(B2) if there are no crossings - to find compromise
if there is difficult to find compromise - remember the basics:
- if possible equal comfort for both
- if equality is impossible default playing time is weekdays 19-24 msk, weekends 12-24 msk.
4. If you can't play for a big period of time (travelling etc.) you have to inform asap Organizer and all your opponents. We will try to delay your games in case it makes sense.
Requesting and giving ODD.
5. In case the communication with opponent doesn't provide result - from THU (3rd day of current Round) player can ask Organizer for ODD - Fixed Time to play.
6. The request is being sent to Organizer and there should be argument(s) - what are certain difficulties in communication with this certain opponent.
Right after messaging the Organizer player should immediately inform his opponent also about the fact of request (no arguments, just inform of the fact ODD requested). If later will be cleared there wasn't immediate message to opponent - ODD can be canceled.
7. Giving ODD will base on same steps listed above (A,B1,B2, just Organizer will replace opponents especially on steps B1 and B2).
8. All ODD will always be fixed in the night from THU to FRI and cover the period FRI-THU for a week ahead.
- the request for ODD should be sent not later than 14:00 THU.
- all information about comfortable time to play (at upcoming week) players should send to Organizer not later than 23:00 THU, absence of information considered as lack of time to play.
- ODD will be given not later than 02:30 FRI. Time always is moscow.
ODD will be given as a period (19:00-23:30 for example) together with a maximum absence time (doesnt matter is it being late or stopping game before the end), default absence time is 30 minutes. The excess considered as non-appearance.
9. The agreements made by opponents about time to play in last 4 days before deadline (including the deadline day) considered as ODD. Non-appearance in this last days considered as non-appearance at ODD.
10. In all situations related to ODD given by Organizer - there is only one contact tool - private messages on this forum. Ignoring PM here considered as lack of time to play and may lead to techloss.
Situations of non-appearances in-time.
11. Every player has a right on limited number of non-appearances to ODD according to any force majeures in RL:
+ 1 during Group stage
+ 1 when Intermediate stage begins
+ 1 when player reaches 1/4 in any upper or lower bracket of Play-off.
12. New non-appearances to ODD lead to technical losses.
13. In case the game is not finished in time, and none of opponents asked for ODD, technical tie can be given as a result to the game.
14. In case both opponents proposed reasonable amount of time for ODD (at least 12 hours in default time to play), but there is still impossible to contact them and give reasonable ODD - technical tie can be given as a result of the game.
15. In case of technical result:
- in all cases game was not started - report should not be posted
- in cases game was started - report should be posted and will be confirmed (by opponent or referee) if technical result is win/lose (not tie).
The situation, power ratio in the game doesnt matter and will not be taken in attention.
16. Those who will be late with registration to the tournament will be proceeded particularly. There are 3 options possible:
(A) Those with very low rating can be added to groups with 5 players
(B) Those with higher ratings will be merged to new groups(s)
(C) Let's hope we will avoid this option.

IV. General.
1. The Battle of Favourites! is Official and Regular Tournament of HeroesWorld (HW).
2. The access to the Tournament granted for the players, registered on HW, and played at least 5 regular games with confirmed reports to the rating.
3. The access to the Tournament is not granted for the players, mentioned in the Black List.
4. The access to the Tournament is not granted for the players, who didnt confirm any reports about own losses.
5. The potential participant should deal with unconfirmed reports by himself, contacting his past opponents, referees of past tournaments and AK (Appeals Committee). In a very outstanding situation there is a sense to message Organizer before Registration closed about controversial situation (it gives hope but not guarantee the access to the Battle of Favorites).
6. Organizers: Al Feyn (ICQ 567626766), one additional vacation available
Referees: Sanin (ICQ 423164784), Xocenk (ICQ 703804372), Al Feyn (ICQ 567626766)
Technical issues: registration, draws, deadlines, ODD are being solved by Organizers (with a help by Referees possible).
Controversial gameplay situations, other sutuations of breaking HW rules are being solved by Referees.
7. The highest Court on HW is AK (Appeals Committee).
Any Player, Organizer or Referee can ask AK for the help and the decision of AK will be final.
8. Players for every games should post in this thread report and confirmation created in automatic mode. Players should keep daily saves of all games and immediately send this saves to referees or AK by first request.
All games taken in rating.
10. Organizers keep the right to decline the access to the Tournament for the player who made problems in tournaments in the past (based on certain information from referees of those past tournaments).
11. Organizers keep the right to make changes and additions to this Regulations in outstanding cases.


The Winner of this Tournament and 2nd and 3rd place will be granted with medals to HW profile


Medal designers: RAPER and ColdRain.

Winners of past Battles of Favorites!:

"Battle of Favorites! - 1" (2008 г.) - Dudge (Necropolis) - История турнира
"Battle of Favorites! - 2" (2009 г.) - Pit for LM (Conflux) - История турнира
"Battle of Favorites! - 3" (2010 г.) - Сатир (Fortress) - История турнира
"Battle of Favorites! - 4" (2011 г.) - Maretti (Castle) - История турнира
"Battle of Favorites! - 5" (2012-13 г.) - GoD (Rampart) - История турнира
"Battle of Favorites! - 6" (2013-14 г.) - Pit for LM (Conflux) - История турнира
"Battle of Favorites! - 7" (2014-15 г.) - Pit for LM (Necropolis) - История турнира
"Battle of Favorites! - 8" (2015-16 г.) - HellLighT (Necropolis) - История турнира
"Battle of Favorites! - 9" (2016-17 г.) - FireToSky (Tower) - История турнира
"Battle of Favorites! - 10" (2017-18 г.) - Dave_HUN (Dungeon) - История турнира