IBS XII Discussion Thread (Signups Closed)

[Nova Anglicana]

Welcome to signups for International Baseball Slam XIII: The Twelfth Edition! This is the second edition of the revival of the IBS, a minor baseball tournament between WBCs previously run by Gregoryisgodistan and Super-Llamaland. I brought this back as a way to keep up baseball enthusiasm between WBCs and allow for new nations or nations that do not traditionally compete in the WBC to try out baseball RPing.

To signup, simply post your nation name and a nickname, in the following format:

Nova Anglicana Lions

If you wish to enter a domestic club team, your signup should look like this:

Domestic club team name + nickname (nation name)

Example: Vinovium Gunners (Nova Anglicana)

Please note that if you want to send a youth team, "U[age]s" is an acceptable nickname.

Host bids are welcome, and this is a good chance for nations to host their first event, though it is not recommended you bid unless you have at least some experience RPing in this subforum. Hosting previous events is by no means a prerequisite, but at least participating and actively RPing so you get a feel for how things work probably is. Your bid won't be rejected as long as it includes all required information, but bids by brand new users are unlikely to win.

The host bid deadline is set for Friday, September 25th at 11:59 PM (midnight) EST (UTC-4). Host voting may begin early if we have only one host bid, no other likely bidders, and significant interest. After that, we will vote on hosts and then the tournament will be turned over to the host(s). Signups will remain open through the end of the host voting, but any nations who sign up after host voting starts are ineligible to vote, as will the bidder(s).

Here is the winning bid from IBS X, by Schiltzberg and Frenline Delpha.

Here is the winning bid from IBS XI, by Super-Llamaland.

The bids should resemble those two bids in format, somewhat, and include similar information. Please note that previous editions of the IBS have used both the series format and the single-game format. Both are acceptable in host bids.

There were previously IBS ranks. However, in the spirit of keeping up interest and allowing for more fleshed-out roleplaying, we will not be using ranks, instead saying that no senior national teams of nations that are ranked in the WBC will be competing. Instead, established nations should feel free to send backup national team squads, college all-stars, domestic minor leaguers, U18/U21 squads, a domestic club team, or some other collection of players. Have fun with it and use this tournament to flesh out your baseball worldbuilding! Nations not ranked in the WBC or competing in a baseball event for the first time should feel free to enter a senior national team if they so choose.

EDIT: It is possible for ranks to be used for this edition, but that should be informed by a community consensus, I feel. TG me or message me on Discord if you have a strong opinion about ranks. If you are bidding, please abide by the community consensus on ranks. If we decide to use them, then you must use them. If we decide not to, you may not.

Puppets are allowed at a maximum of one per nation and must be confirmed by the master nation, but in the end, it is up to the host whether to include them or not. This post also acts as a signup for Nova Anglicana.

Signups

1. Nova Anglicana Lions
2. South Newlandia U22s
3. Cassadaigua U18s
4. Tikariot U21s
5. Sarzonia Junior Stars
6. Super-Llamaland U11s
7. Kohnhead U21 Pandas
8. Quebec U22s
9. Arminhos de Lisander
10. Hampton Island Over-50s
11. Terre Septentrionale U24 Nordiques
12. Grearia Dolphins
13. Ethane Red Kites
14. The Jovannic U21 Red Princes
15. Abanhfleft Revolution All-Stars
16. Newmanistan U16s
17. Daskel U18 Junior Daskies
18. Falisiand U22s
19. Inner AginanaUsordia Lions
20. Loyola University Blue Thunder
21. You?

Host Bids:

1. South Newlandia/Tikariot
2. You?

IBS I: hosted by Shadowbourne/Super-Llamaland, championship: Costa Luna beats Shadowbourne 3-0.
IBS II: hosted by Sangti, championship: Gregoryisgodistan beats Sova Empire 3-1.
IBS III: hosted by Super-Llamaland/New Wolfopolis, championship: Gregoryisgodistan beats Nova Anglicana 3-1.
IBS IV: hosted by Gregoryisgodistan, championship: Gregoryisgodistan beats Arana 3-1.
IBS V: hosted by New Wolfopolis/Oakbrook and Calvarie, championship: Super-Llamaland beats Orennana, 3-1.
IBS VI: hosted by Noboru Taiyou, championship: Gregoryisgodistan defeats Abanhfleft in double-elimination final
IBS VII: hosted by Patistan, championship: Gregoryisgodistan beats Super-Llamaland 3-2
IBS VIII: hosted by Gregoryisgodistan, championship: Gregoryisgodistan beats Nova Anglicana 3-0
IBS IX: hosted by Nova Anglicana, championship: Southern Democratic States defeats United States of Devonta 3-2
IBS X: hosted by Schiltzberg/Frenline Delpha, championship: Coconut Isle defeats United States of Devonta 4-1

IBS XI: hosted by Super-Llamaland, championship: Tikariot defeats Terre Septentrionale 3-1

[South Newlandia]

IN!
South Newlandia U22s

[Cassadaigua]

Cassadaigua U18s shall return.

[Tikariot]

TIkariot U-90s.

Wait, U21s. That was it.

[Sarzonia]

Sarzonia Junior Stars (Under 21 national baseball team) return

[Super-Llamaland]

Super-Llamaland U11s are in!

[Tikariot]

Super-Llamaland U11s are in!

U11s??

[Kohnhead]

Kohnhead U-21 Pandas

[The Royal Kingdom of Quebec]

Quebec U22s

[Lisander]

Since our baseball scene is so poor, we're going with the one and only national team. Arminhos de Lisander are back to action.

[Hampton Island]

Time to give the young'uns a lesson.

Hampton Island Over-50s will compete.

[Hannasea]

With the HBL refusing to release their players, the indepedent Hannasean Association of Non-Aligned Baseball Clubs (HANABC) will step up to the plate and send a team.

For the purposes of entry the team will compete under the name "Hannasean Independent All-Stars".

[Terre Septentrionale]

Terre Septentrionale U-24 Nordiques

[The Grearish Union]

Grearia Dolphins are in!

[Tikariot]

Elephants and Snowy Owls: The South Newlandia/Tikariot bid for IBS12

Tikariotian national info:
Tikariot is a nation in Rushmore with about 29 million inhabitants. The Tikariotian citizens enjoy great social equality with a strong social welfare network. The relatively high income taxes are used to subsidize healthcare and education and special care is taken to preserve the environment in the very diverse biomes of Tikariot. The fourteen provinces stretch from Nordic and partially tundra climates in the north eastern province of Viljamark to hot and humid Acrassia in the far west with both majestic mountain ranges and fertile grasslands providing for a big variety of industries. The biggest cities are Tikariot City, the capital Port Rhovanyon, Alcassar and Avanaroch. Tikariot's biggest and most popular sport is football, with the Tikariotian Premier League as its highest level. The national team also enjoyed some early successes, winning the first edition of the IFC and reaching the quarter finals of the Baptism of Fire 73. Their debut on the international stage, though, came in baseball and started things off with a bang, winning the International Baseball Slam and causing a huge surge of interest in baseball, which was followed with a trip to the Round of 16 at the World Baseball Classic, prompting the federation to get together with South Newlandia to bid on the twelfth edition of the International Baseball Slam, with Port Rhovanyon's Oceanview Park, Fort Viljan's Tundra Dome, Alcassar's Ben Farhad Park and Tikariot City's Viathyn Park Stadium as locations for matches.

South Newlandian national info:
South Newlandia is a small island in Esportiva and has about four million inhabitants, making it one of the smallest Esportivan countries. South Newlandia is allowing their citizens and non-citizens a lot of rights and opportunities, except if you want to open a business. Additionally, the government is providing lots of funds for the environment, healthcare and education, thanks to high taxes, especially on rich people. Most of the inhabitants are atheist, but everyone is free to follow their own religion, as long as it is not harmful to other people in the country. The climate is usually fairly warm, but not too hot, and weather extremes are rare. In recent years, baseball has seen a boom in South Newlandia, following the relative success of the baseball team known as the Elephants, in the World Baseball Classics 48 and 49, reaching the Round of 16, as well as the U-22 team reaching the semi-finals of the most recent International Baseball Slam. The biggest cities in South Newlandia are Elephant Valley near the West coast, also the capital, Newport on the East coast, Walstreim near the Southeast coast, and Ratzupalfu near the centre of the country. These four cities all have at least one team in the South Newlandian Baseball League and each of them has hosted World Baseball Classic group stage games before. If this bid wins, the playoff matches would be played in the stadiums of these four cities. Over recent tournaments, South Newlandia has built a multi-sport rivalry with Tikariot, a team they just can’t seem to win against. The two rivals now join forces, and bid to host a tournament together.

Format:
We plan to run the tournament in groups of four again for a total of six group stage scorinations, with each of those being a series of three games. Each team will play each other team in a group six times, three times at home and three times away. Here are our formats for different numbers of signups, depending on how many teams sign up:
16 signups: 4 groups of four, top two in each group advance to the Quarterfinals.
20 signups: 5 groups of four, best team in each group advances to the Quarterfinals, second-placed teams and the best third placed team play in a “Round of 11”.
24 signups: 6 groups of four, top two in each group and the four best third-placed teams advance to the Round of 16.
28 signups: 7 groups of four, top two in each group and the two best third-placed teams advance to the Round of 16.
32 signups: 8 groups of four, top two in each group advance to the Round of 16.
These are our preferred formats, but we will make larger and smaller amounts of signups work as well and we will guarantee the top two finishers in each group of four a place in the knockouts under any circumstances.

The playoffs will be held in South Newlandia and Tikariot in a single elimination bracket, consisting of best-of-three series, except for the final, which will be best-of-five. This bracket will be seeded, with no reseeding in between rounds. Teams that played against each other in the group stage will only be able to play against each other starting with the second knock-out round. We currently plan to cutoff almost every day, with a few rest days in between.
The tiebreakers for both group stage advancement and playoff seeding will be, in this order: Group Stage placement (only for Playoff seeding), wins, H2H results, H2H run differential, overall run differential, RP Bonus (IC coin flip), OOC coin flip. There will not be any one-game playoffs. If a tie between multiple teams must be broken and one team wins the tiebreaker at any stage, while the remaining teams are still tied, the tiebreakers start at the top of the list again to break the tie between the remaining teams.

We also will not use ranks for the tournament to give all nations an equal chance to compete, but for the group draw, teams will be seeded based on performance in the most recent International Baseball Slam. If you choose to sign up a different team from the same nation (E. g. you signed up a U21-team last time, and send a college team now, or the other way around), you will keep your seeding, unless you notify us that you don’t want that.

Scorination and RP Bonus:
As already mentioned, we plan to run the tournament in groups of four with each of those being a series of three games. We will be creating the correct group table by scorinating three concurrent double round-robins, and using the Table Generator function in xkoranate to compile the results. Both of us are aware that this is not a particularly easy tournament to scorinate, but we have both already run multiple tests, and are sure that we are able to do this correctly. We will be using the most recent version of xkoranate, 0.3.3, with the adjusted NSFS formula. After multiple tests with both the regular, stock-built NSFS and the adjusted formula, we have determined that the adjusted formula is better suited for a small tournament with short knockout stages. We will input the bonus directly in the “ranks” function of xkoranate. The RP bonus will be cumulative, and, because there are no ranks, generous. There is special emphasis on the roster bonus, with the maximum available roster bonus being three times the maximum available bonus for a roleplay. Every roster post consisting of at least a list of names and positions will be given bonus equivalent to the maximum RP bonus for a match day at minimum. Boni will be awarded for quality over quantity. All RP boni will degrade by fifty percent at the end of the group stage, except for the roster bonus, which will remain intact, to emphasize playoff roleplays. Cut-offs will likely be between 7 pm UTC and 8:30 pm UTC; which would be 3 pm and 4:30 pm EST. Additionally, we will add RP prompts for every scorination. Following or not following them does not impact a user’s RP bonus, it is merely meant as possible guidance for newer nations.

We will also offer some insight into the RP bonus via TG only and only for the own nation, e.g. if there is a series between South Newlandia and Tikariot, Tikariot will only be able to get information on the RP bonus for Tikariot RPs, none others.

Host experience:
Yes, we are both very inexperienced hosts, but we both have domestic newswires where we scorinate different sports, including baseball. Both of us have been occasionally hosting international friendly matches, too. We are aware that new hosts typically bid with an experienced co-host, but we do feel ready to host a tournament. Tikariot has previous RP rating experience from a wrestling e-federation, where the rp rating directly decided the winner and loser, which will be an advantage for a tournament like this as well.
If we run into problems, we are also not afraid to seek help from the experienced members of the community. If you have any additional questions about our bid, please feel welcome to ask them below.

[South Newlandia]

We are already at 13 sign-ups, quite a bit more than we had for the IBS11 in the same time-frame. We do not expect this to happen, but if we reach more than 32 sign-ups, we would be placing the group-winners into the Round of 16, and play a preliminary round with the second-placed teams and the best third-placed teams to complete the field for the Round of 16.

[Ethane]

Ethane Red Kites

[The Jovannic]

The Jovannic U21s: The Red Princes

[Abanhfleft]

The Abanhfleft Revolution All-Stars will return. Why they will, no one really knows.

[Newmanistan]

Newmanistan U16's in

[Hannasea]

With apologies (and this is no way a reflection of the host bid!) I withdraw.

[Nova Anglicana]

Signups have been updated and are still open! We have 16 nations, but can we get to 20 or 24? Also, host bid deadline is this Friday, so if you're interested in bidding, please get one in soon.

[Daskel]

Daskel U18s (Junior Daskies) are in!

[Falisiand]

Falisiand U22's will participate again

[Nova Anglicana]

Today is the hostbid deadline, so if you want to host, get that bid in!

Also, there is still plenty of room to sign up!