The Kinitaria and Legalese host bid for the 52nd Baptism of Fire
And yes, with that bloody weird format again...
About Legalese: Legalese is a northern Atlantian Oceania nation with a wide-ranging history. Internationally, it is most known for its presence in the World Cup Community, having been the tri-host of World Cup 22, as well as hosting AOCAF 5, co-hosting the 11th and 13th Cups of Harmony, as well as the ninth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and forty-second Baptisms of Fire. Amazingly, Legalese has never performed well on the pitch, having only one Cup of Harmony trophy, as well as only two World Cup qualifications on merit.
About Kinitaria: Kinitaria, located in southern AO, was once a nation left devastated by civil unrest, economic crisis, and the collapse of a decades-old dictatorship. Since then, incredible work has been carried out by the government and people of Kinitaria to give the country both military and economic strength, while maintaining a high standard of living. Kinitaria is home to some 145 million people, largely concentrated in the south and south-east of the country, typically around the capital of Mi'ato and the sprawling industrial towns and cities in the south-east. The far north of the country sees its landscape dominated by towering peaks and wide valleys, while the south-east enjoys a much more peacable and agricultural way of life. The nation is also home to a modernising infrastructure, with the government currently in the process of revamping the nation's road, rail and sea transport en masse. A high-speed rail link is being developed between the major cities of Kinitaria, and subway systems can be found in Mi'ato and Kinitaria's second city, Serenberg, with future developments planned for other areas of the country. The highest position in the Kinitar state is that of Premier of the People's Council, the holder of which effectively functions as head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. This position is currently held by General Radovan Kucinič, who assumed the post recently following a successful career in the armed forces and on the back of his predecessor's terrible approval rating. His style of governance remains, as yet, largely unknown. Historically, Kinitaria has been almost totally isolated from the outside world, a process which has only really seen any reversal in the past ten to twenty years. As such, a Kinitar culture and language developed which is largely different to that of any foreign country. Such an isolationist streak has also made many Kinitars averse to the pressures of globalisation, which is reflected in the nationalistic streak stamped through Kinitar politics.
From a footballing perspective, the Kinitaria national team have won one major honour - the Baptism of Fire 47 - and tend not to do very well in other competitions, having failed to ever qualify for a World Cup or advance beyond the group stage of an AOCAF. Domestically, Kinitaria boasts a league which is recognised worldwide, with a widespread football pyramid aimed at developing football at every level that it's played. A range of modern stadia and excellent training facilities have been developed throughout the country in recent years.
Format: The co-hosts have decided to utilize the Casaran-system format, feeling that it is a system that lends itself well to the Baptism of Fire. For those unfamiliar, the Casaran-system tournament works like the traditional group-stage format in that the tournament takes place in two stages, only with a different format in the initial stage.
Rather than a multi-group round-robin opening, the initial stage is known as the Casaran stage. The Casaran stage utilizes a single-table format, pairing teams day-by-day based on their current results. The opening matchday will be determined by a random draw, where all teams will be assigned to one of the many stadia made available for the competition in Kinitaria or Legalese. For the remaining four matchdays – yes, there will be five in total for the Casaran stage - teams are “bracketed” by points, and paired within these “brackets”. This format helps keep better performing teams (which in the BoF is largely the RPing teams) together in the competition, but provides an opportunity for all to pick up some experience all the way through the end of the Casaran stage.
For more specific details on how Casaran works, as well as the sort order (generally known as “tiebreakers”, but in this instance, cannot be considered such, as will be clear shortly), please click on the spoiler:
As stated above, the Casaran phase will consist of five matchdays. After the fifth matchday, all teams ahead of or level on points with the “cutoff team” will advance to the knockout phase. The “cutoff team” (i.e., the number of teams desired for the knockout phase) is the team finishing in the following position, depending on the number of entrants:
If less than 40 entrants: the team positioned eighth (using the sort order) will be the cutoff team.
If between 40 and 64 entrants: the team positioned sixteenth will be the cutoff team
If greater than 64 entrants (an unlikely proposition): the field will be split into two regions, each running a separate Casaran phase; the team positioned eighth in each region will be the cutoff team for that region, keeping the minimum number of advancing teams to sixteen.
Note: the format requires only that the number of teams be evenly divisible by two, with any number over 64 (again, unlikely at the current count) being preferred to be divisible by four (to keep the regions level, as neither can have an odd number – one region will be given two extra teams if a divisible of four is unattainable in this situation that’s about as likely as Audioslavia winning a World Cup*)
The knockout phase will then commence, most likely with an opening round (which will not factor into the KPB outcome for the tournament) to whittle the field down to either eight or sixteen, depending on the cutoff team position. Teams will be seeded by their final table position, and re-seeded after the opening round, with the remaining rounds following a fixed order (i.e., if in the Round of 16 the #1 plays the #16, the winner plays the winner of #8 v. #9 no matter what happens); if the regional format is used, teams will remain separated by region until the BoF Championship and Third-Place Matches.
Scorinator: Just as the first Baptism of Fire was an opportunity to debut a new scorinator, we hope the 51st Baptism of Fire will do the same. Scorination will be done using PowerScore, a scorinator created by Legalese out of the struggles dealt with during the 42nd Baptism of Fire (which like the original Casaran –system tournament, CoH XXX, used NSFS v.2, which allowed for custom fixtures). It initially was an excel scorinator, and used as such for AOCAF 34, before its successor was created using a HTML and CSS interface, and is powered by javascript, allowing for easy browser use. It is designed to scorinate, auto-pair fixtures, and detect impermissible matchups, and uses a proportional threshold formula that provides a little more predictable results than those found by the current scorination formulae, but still keeps things interesting, and provides the usual balance between the three R’s (though rank is meaningless for the BoF). Style modifiers will not be utilized for this bid.
We look forward to your questions, and thank you for reading.
*that joke used to be funny, alas. Qazox, then?
(Thanks - as you can tell, it's been fixed - my mistake)
