Welcome, everypony, to the second running of the Equestria Cup! Once again, the tournament is being hosted in the Pony Republic of Equestrian States. Although the World Cup qualifiers will be occurring, the Ministry of Sports has decided to proceed with the tournament on schedule. The island nation is ready to host both visitors for the Equestria Cup and World Cup, so the airports and seaports of the cities are expected to be operating at full capacity.
As we saw in the last tournament, anypony can take home the cup if they show the determination and skill needed to win!
Participating Nations
Group A
The first listed Group A game for any given matchday will be played at Sky-High Coliseum in Cloudsdale, the second at Elements Stadium in Ponyville, the third at Manticore Park (aka "The Jungle Abode") in Everfree, and the fourth at Filly Financial Stadium in Fillydelphia. (One Exception: MD1 - Equestrian States vs. Sanian Confederacy at Equestria Dome in Canterlot)
The Unified Pony
Yesopalitha
Alkoul
Ceffyltir
Sanian Confederacy
Equestrian States
The Everfree Forest
Salvarity
Lykosia
Group B
The first listed Group B game for any given match day will be played at Derby Field in Manehattan, the second at the Ponylands Dome in Manechester, the third at the Maple Bowl in Trottawa, and the fourth at Apple Orchard Park in Appleoosa.
Greater Pony Herd
Hobbiest Republic
Conclespia
Legokiller
YellowApple
Krumbia
Kingdom of the Polar Bear
Shrillland
Tryienne
Since 18 nations are signed up, there will be two groups of nine, where teams play each other in round robin play. Each team will have one day off. At the end of the group stage, the top four teams from each group will go to the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinals, the winner of Group A will face the fourth-place team of Group B, the runner-up of Group A will face the third-place team of Group B and so on. Following the quarterfinals, we have the next logical step: the semifinals. The losers of the semis go into a third place match, while the winners go through to the final. The winner of the final takes home the Equestria Cup!
Tiebreakers in the group stage are: Head-to-head results, goal differential, and total goals for.
I will be using xkoranate 0.3.3 with the SQIS formula to scorinate. RP Cutoffs will probably be around 8:00 PM UTC (3:00 PM EST) every day.
New to Sports RPing? This part's for you.
Edited from the Baptism of Fire 45 Thread
First, you'll really want to read the Guide to Sports Roleplaying.
Second, more specifically speaking, here's how this tournament will work: a scorinator (which is a computer program that weighs different factors in order to generate scores for sports games), in this case xkoranate 0.3.3, will produce results on a daily basis. In order to improve the odds that the scorinator will be kind to you and your team, you are encouraged to leave an in-character (IC) post, at any time, detailing the events that are surrounding your team, your team's fans, your team's coach... your team's... well... anything, really! This post will be evaluated by the host and plugged into the scorinator as a bonus. The most important things to take into consideration while writing your RP will be quality, creativity, and length, in that order.
Need RP ideas? Think about this example. Let's say you've created a roster for your team, and you've decided that a earth pony striker named Blazing Saddle is the best player on the squad. You can go with the most "conventional" type of RP, and write about Bazing's performances for the team from the perspective of a newspaper match report. That's fine. But you can also take different approaches to Blazing's Equestria Cup experience; you could write about his experience on the field first-person, or you could write from the perspective of a fan hurling abuse at him, or you could write about an opposing player sizing him up before the game, or you could do a statistical analysis of his performances... you could even write about his personal history, long before he ever came to the Equestria Cup!
The sky is pretty much the limit when it comes to RPing. In fact, the only limit is this: don't violate any RP permissions from other teams. What are RP permissions? Well...
My opponent, if they RP first, may do the following:
Choose my goalscorers Y/N
Godmod scoring events Y/N
RP injuries to my players Y/N
Godmod injuries to my players Y/N
Hand out yellow cards to my players Y/N
Hand out red cards to my players Y/N
Godmod other events Y/N
Copy and paste this box into your roster, when and if you post one. Bold, italicize, or otherwise indicate your responses to all these questions, so that your opponents know how far they can go when they're talking about your team.
What does not belong here in this thread, you ask? In short, almost anything that isn't In Character (IC). Relevant questions are acceptable, though it would be more appropriate to send a telegram. Everything else should go in the Equestria Cup Discussion Thread (Don't be afraid to bump it). If you make enough Out-of-Character (OOC) posts in this thread to sufficiently annoy the host, you risk having your RP bonus reset, scuppering your chances of winning your next match. Posting things such as 'cannot RP now, will RP here later' will be considered OOC remarks. In addition to being totally unnecessary (as in sports RPing the order in which teams make posts does not matter), they are exceptionally confusing for both hosts and fellow players to try and keep track of. Pointless comments like "LOL, I pwn'd the Hobbiest Republic" will also annoy the host and almost guaruntee a RP bonus reset.
I will be adding more information here as needed, as well as adjusting for new sign-ups in the next few days. Good luck everypony!
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