The room was rather plain. A simple wooden podium with a royal blue screen behind it was place at the front of the room, with around 100 seats placed in rows in front of it. Above the royal blue screen hung the flags of both Legalese and Erathore. Along the walls were football pictures from both nations, as well as several team kits.
Marcello Dizarino, the great goalkeeper of Erathore and new President of the Erathore Football League, took a deep breath before entering the stage to no more then a few stray claps. He was tall, standing around 6’3’’ and in relatively good shape. He wore a simple blazer with an EFL logo on the breast pocket. He walked towards the podium in calm, purposeful strides; hoping to draw attention away from his fidgeting hands.
Dizarino glanced down at his notes before looking up to address the crowd:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to Eliodoro, the capitol city of Erathore and home to several football teams. I know that you don’t know of us and I’m not particularly surprised. We’ve only competed in one World Cup, the 54th hosted by The Babbage Islands and Cassadaigua, where we barely missed qualification from the Interzonals. We’ve participated in some other smaller non-World Cup Sanctioned tournaments and are even hosting one right now. We have never won anything minus the 9th Aeropeg Invitational, in which Juvillian Martinax, my old club and one of the best in Erathore, won. Thus it may come as a surprise when I say, with pride I must admit, that the Free Empire of Erathore and the Legalese Football Association hereby submit a bid for the 42nd Baptism of Fire.
[Now let’s head back to OOC for the purposes of laying out the bid]
If the Erathore & Legalese bid is accepted, the 42nd Baptism of Fire will welcome a new format never before attempted in BoF history: a power-paired round robin! All entrants will compete in a single table, and will be randomly drawn into their pairings for the first match day. All following match days in the group phase will be done using power pairings to match teams of similar positioning in the standings. The technical details of the pairings follow in the spoiler.
The round-robin phase will last for six matches, before giving way to a knock-out phase, which will consist of (at least) the Quarterfinals, Semifinals, the 3rd Place Playoff (to be held in Erathore), and the Baptism of Fire Championship (to be held in Legalese). Due to the nature of the competition, all teams level on points with the team that is eighth in the standings (using tiebreakers to sort the order) will advance to the knockout phase, with a single play-in round used to pare the teams down to the eight. Teams will be seeded for the play-in round (if necessary), and will be re-seeded for the quarterfinal, however all brackets will be fixed from that point.
We believe that the power-pairing format (which has also been called Swiss-system format) provides a number of good benefits to the competitors in the Baptism of Fire, the most important being that it is more likely to pair teams who consistently RP - and RP well - than nearly any other conceivable format. This also means that every match is important, either in the immediate (i.e., eligibility for the knockout rounds) or in the near future (since for even the teams out of the running for the knockout stage, a game against a similarly-placed opponent is possibly the difference in which pot you end up in for the World Cup Qualifying draw). This format was used for the 30th Cup of Harmony, and was considered by many of its competitors to be the most competitive and interesting CoH in memory. We feel that given a chance, it will do wonders for the Baptism of Fire.
Scorination will be done using NSFS v.2.0.7, which due to the need for custom fixtures to run this properly, is a necessity. The rank-based formula will be used, with the max points value set at a level to create an appropriate scale for the allocation of RP points. Style modifiers will not be used, for a variety of reasons.
With regards to RPing: in most competitions, RPing is the only way to participate in a tournament, and to encourage that, a bonus that enhances the chances of the RPing team is added. However, for the Baptism of Fire, it is the only way a team can improve their chances of winning, and will be treated as such. The first RP posted by a team will provide a significant boost to the team’s scoring rank, to give teams who participate better odds. The other portions of the formula are designed to balance consistency and quality - posting with quality is strongly encouraged, and is rewarded at a greater value to low-quality RPs churned out daily - but of course, quality and consistency together is what will make the difference.
We look forward to answering your questions, and thank you for your time and consideration!
