L97 Tournament X: League 97 Championship 2014

For its second year, League 97 will again finish the season with a championship event. This year's League 97 Championship will closely resemble last year's event. Sign ups for the championship event will open in early November and battling will start near the end of the month. Like the year before, the championship is split into both a preliminary qualifier and a playoff bracket. Top performers from the first four L97 tournaments of 2014 receive an automatic invitation to the playoff bracket, while all other players are welcome to compete in the preliminary qualifier for an invite to the playoff bracket. The top 20 players will compete in the bracket for the championship! Read closely as details for all players can be found on this page.

***Please be sure to take note of all RED text on this page!!

Important Dates/Information

Tournament Coordinator: Penguinqwert

Signups Open: Saturday, November 1

Signups Close: Wednesday, November 26; 11:59 NST

~~Qualifier Begins: Friday, November 28; Noon NST~~
AQ Scrimmage Begins: Friday, November 28; Noon NST

~~Qualifier Ends: Sunday, December 7; 11:59 PM NST~~
AQ Scrimmage Ends: Sunday, December 7; 11:59 PM NST

Main Event Begins: Friday, December 12; Noon NST

Scrimmage Scoreboard

Click on the image below to view a larger version.

Bracket Last Updated: Dec 8, 16:35 NST

Rules

This tournament uses standard L97 rules. Please familiarize yourself with the League 97 rules by clicking here.

Tourney Format

***Due to poor attendance numbers, this event's format has been revamped. Please be sure to read all RED text on this page. You may ignore anything that has been crossed out. The event format has been revamped to ensure a small but enjoyable tournament for those participating.

Like the year before, the 2014 L97 Championship will be broken into two components: the preliminary qualifier and the playoff bracket. Players that finished in the top eight of at least one official tournament this year automatically qualify for the playoff bracket and may compete in the Automatic Qualifier Scrimmage (AQ Scrimmage). Read the next few sections carefully to understand the tournament protocol

Preliminary Qualifier

Players that did not finish in the top eight of an official L97 tournament this year will compete in the Preliminary Qualifier. Although players in the Preliminary Qualifier must earn a playoff spot, they can feel comfortable knowing that they will not have to face the highest performing competitors during this phase of the tournament. This year, all players participating in the Preliminary Qualifier will be in one large pool. To minimize the time commitment of battling in the Preliminary Qualifier, players in the Preliminary Qualifier will battle each opposing player a single time. Players should make their best effort to schedule times to battle their opponents. Scoring during the Preliminary Qualifier is as follows:

Win: 3 Points to the victor
Draw: 1 Point to each participant

The number of playoff spots available for players competing in the Preliminary Qualifier is determined based on the number of Automatic Qualifiers signed up for the championship event. Spots not claimed by an Automatic Qualifier are available for players competing in the Preliminary Qualifier. iDB expects that 8 to 12 spots will be up for grabs in the Preliminary Qualifier. These remaining playoff spots will be awarded to players in the Preliminary Qualifier based on their point totals. Should one or more players be tied at the cutoff point for the playoff bracket, the following tie-breakers will be used in order:

Head-to-head Match-up
Preliminary Qualifier Win %
Sudden Death Battles

Automatic Qualifier Scrimmage

The Scrimmage replaces the Preliminary Qualifier and the the Automatic Qualifier Scrimmage. All battlers will be provided a "schedule" or "list" of roughly six opponents to battle. These match-ups will be three battles each. The schedules will be partially random, partially by design in an effort to ensure that all battlers will have mostly similar-strength opponents. By doing so, the playoff committee will have numerous head-to-head match-ups to use in deciding how to rank the field. All participants should be aware that they must complete at least one of their assigned sets during the Qualifier to avoid being dropped from the event. Qualifier match-ups will be posted once signups for the event close.

Players that have finished in the top eight of an official 2014 L97 event automatically qualify for the playoff bracket, provided they sign up for the event. Players that automatically qualify for the championship playoff bracket are listed in the table below.

Automatic Qualifiers

Vexatory Okay__ Toon_link_dancing Mopardude

Jadorelamode Limp_101 Pisha1 Dafinsrock

Cashe322 Aerenity Penguinqwert Eileen10

Xskimdlove Dubs824 Labmom953 Chusker

Markaldo Redoctopus75 Neodetta18 Drazu

Player that automatically qualify for the playoff bracket are welcome to participate in the Automatic Qualifer Scrimmage (AQ Scrimmage). The AQ Scrimmage is a pool consisting of the automatic qualifiers that will factor in the seeding of the playoff field. Since automatic qualifiers are guaranteed a place in the playoff bracket, they may opt out of the AQ Scrimmage by mailing Penguinqwert. Automatic qualifiers with small resumes could face a drop in seeding for opting out of the AQ Scrimmage (See next section). Like the Preliminary Qualifier, players in the AQ Scrimmage will battle each other exactly three times.

Playoff Seeding

Battlers that have completed at least one of their Scrimmage sets are invited to the Playoff Bracket. Battlers that have not finished any sets will be considered absent and will not be placed in the Playoff Bracket. ~~Once the Preliminary Qualifier and AQ Scrimmage come to a close, the playoff committee will assign a seed to each player that earned a spot in the playoff bracket.~~ Each member of the playoff committee will produce an individual ordering based on merit. Playoff committee members will consider performance in the ~~Preliminary Qualifier and the AQ~~ Scrimmage as well as performance in past (iDB) L97 events. After every committee member has produced an ordering, each player's highest and lowest ranking will be dropped. The remaining four rankings will be averaged and players will be seeded by this average.

Only in the event of a tie in ranking will all six rankings be averaged. Any further tie in ranking will be decided by the tied party's most recent head-to-head match-up (excluding ties). If no decisive match-ups between the tied party's exists, the player with the higher career win percentage will be seeded ahead of the player with the lower career win percentage. Any further tie would be decided by a coin flip.

The members of the 2014 playoff committee are listed in the table below.

2014 Playoff Committee

Penguinqwert	Neoskulltula	Pisha1
Toon_link_dancing	Tamora_dawn	Schezan

Playoff Bracket

The playoff bracket will be made available once the playoff committee has seeded the field. The playoff bracket is single elimination, best-two-of-three battles. A third battle is unnecessary should a player win the first two battles of a match-up. Players that are tied after three battles will continue to battle until a player wins a battle to break the tie. Players that lose a match-up are eliminated from the event, however, the two players that lose in the semi-finals will be paired to distinguish third and fourth place.

The playoff bracket will contain 20 spots, however, the playoff structure is subject to change to accommodate a large turnout. The table below lists the number of playoff spots as determined by number of signups. iDB currently expects a turnout as described by the first row.

~~Playoff Structure~~

# of AQ Signups	# of Qualifier Signups	# of Playoff Spots
< 13	< 25	20
13 - 20	< 25	24
<13	25 - 100	24
13 - 20	25 - 32	24
13 - 20	33 - 100	28

Current Signups

#	Username	Pet
1.	Toon_link_dancing	Grybe
2.	Wdsimmonds316	Babe1971
3.	Heaven_men	Flurose
4.	Fuzzysano	FurballOfD00M
5.	Pisha1	Cingulotomy
6.	Ruuff	PGtips
7.	Dafinsrock	ReeLoed
8.	Junis19	Dekzan
9.	Markaldo	Neptuwne
10.	Lavaaug	Reject753
11.	Duke_sloth	Xeas
12.	Tamora_dawn	Tamora_The_Legend
13.	Labmom953	SteviesBaby007
14.	Count_von_finnigan	Dragnet
15.	Neoskulltula - WITHDRAWN	Plankbeard
16.	Bluelightningduo - WITHDRAWN	L97_Newest_Legend
17.	Neodetta18	TransMeercafied
18.	Mopardude	Jaquanda
19.	Redoctopus75	Malkuths
20.	Schezan	Schezan
21.	Njt9497 - WITHDRAWN	Furnost
22.	Vexatory	Bashing
23.	Twokplusone	TwoKplusone
24.	Nalare (Ekspert)	Moredhel
25.	Lawrencedy1	Libi_212_L97
26.	Soopaa_beast	Bunmori
27.	Kauto	Mycoxaflopin
28.	Okay__	KendrickL
29.	Penguinqwert	Odigbo

World Rankings

Since this is the championship event, the rank points awarded for this event will be greater than typical events. ~~All~~The battlers who make it to the field of 20 in the bracket will be awarded rank points at the conclusion of the event, with more rank points being awarded to those battlers who make deep runs in the tournament. The rank point awards for the championship event are as follows:

Point Distribution

Place	Rank Points
Champion	50 points
Runner-Up	30 points
3rd place	24 points
4th place	18 points
Quarter-Finalist	12 points
Field of 16	6 points
Field of 20	3 points

Bracket

Seeding

Seed	Name	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	Avg.
1.	Vexatory	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
2.	Toon_link_dancing	2	2	2	3	2	3	2.25
3.	Okay__	3	3	4	2	3	5	3.25
4.	Penguinqwert	4	6	5	5	4	6	5
5.	Pisha1	5	4	6	4	5	8	5
6.	Dafinsrock	7	5	3	7	8	4	5.75
7.	Ekspert	6	7	11	6	7	12	7.75
8.	Mopardude	9	8	10	8	6	13	8.75
9.	Labmom953	10	9	7	9	9	10	9.25
10.	Tamora_dawn	8	11	13	10	10	7	9.75
11.	Neodetta18	13	10	8	11	11	2	10
12.	Soopaa_beast	12	12	9	15	12	14	12.5
13.	Kauto	16	14	12	18	14	15	14.75
14.	Ruuff	17	19	14	19	13	11	15.75
15.	Markaldo	14	16	20	16	21	9	16.5
16.	Lavaaug	18	20	15	17	16	16	16.75
17.	Schezan	15	17	21	12	15	22	17
18.	Redoctopus75	11	21	18	13	22	17	17.25
19.	Infamousoulja_2	21	18	17	14	18	21	18.5
20.	Junis19	19	13	19	22	17	19	18.5
21.	Twokplusone	20	15	16	23	20	20	19
22.	Wdsimmonds316	22	22	23	20	19	23	21.75
23.	Duke_sloth	23	23	24	21	23	18	22.5
24.	Fuzzysano	24	24	22	24	24	24	24
25.	Lawrencedy1	25	25	25	25	25	25	25

Bracket Battle Log

Redoctopus75 dropped out; Duke_sloth advances
Junis19 defeated Twokplusone 2-1-1
Fuzzysano defeated Lawrencedy1 2-0-1
Kauto defeated Junis19 2-0-0
Penguinqwert defeated Kauto 2-0-0
Infamousoulja_2 defeated Wdsimmonds316 2-1-0
Schezan defeated Fuzzysano 2-1-1
Tamora_dawn defeated Ekspert 2-0-1
Dafinsrock defeated Neodetta18 1-0-2
Infamousoulja_2 defeated Ruuff 2-0-0
Pisha1 defeated Soopaa_beast 2-0-1
Penguinqwert defeated Pisha1 1-0-3
Markaldo defeated Duke_sloth 1-0-1 (Duke_sloth timed out)
Lavaaug dropped out; Schezan advances (Lavaaug account access trouble)
Toon_link_dancing defeated Markaldo 2-0-0
Mopardude defeated Labmom953 2-0-1
Vexatory defeated Schezan 2-0-0
Okay__ defeated Infamousoulja_2 2-0-0
Toon_link_dancing defeated Tamora_dawn 2-0-0
Okay__ defeated Dafinsrock 2-0-1
Toon_link_dancing defeated Okay__ 1-0-2 (Okay__ to 3rd Place Match)
Vexatory defeated Mopardude 2-0-0
Penguinqwert defeated Vexatory 1-0-3 (Vexatory to 3rd Place Match)
Toon_link_dancing defeated Penguinqwert 2-1-2
Okay__ defeated Vexatory 2-0-0

Trophies

Trophies will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place. Participation medals will be made available for all players who complete a battle, ~~and Qualifier medals will be awarded to all 20 players to earn a spot in the bracket. In addition, medals will be awarded for winning the qualifier pool(s).~~ Under the revamped format, an Outstanding Scrimmage Performance medal will be awarded by the tournament committee. This medal will replace qualifier pool trophies.