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The 1st Tea Cup
Hosted by TeaFarmers
With technical support from Poafmersia
The 1st Tea Cup
Hosted by TeaFarmers
With technical support from Poafmersia
The inaugural edition of the Tea Cup, a friendly tournament for the sport of association football, known to some as the sport of soccer, is upon us. This is a tournament that aims to create a platform for teams to come together to play football on friendlier terms, while experimenting with various funky formats to spice up the tournament as a whole.
For all editions of the Tea Cup, information regarding scorination details, including the formula used will be kept constant. Information regarding how RP Bonuses are awarded, as well as the tiebreakers used (if any), will largely be kept the same from tournament to tournament, though there might be changes to suit the theme of the tournament, or to test our new things. The biggest change between editions will be the format - as far as possible, the organisers want to use a different format for every edition of the tournament.
Format
For this edition, to start things off, we will use a more standard double-stage format - a round-robin group stage + knockout stage.
For every match in the round-robin, if the size of the group is less than or equal to 6, it would be the double round-robin, with the home stadium determined by the country which is designated as the home team for the match. If the group is larger than 6, then it would be single round-robin, held in TeaFarmers. The number of groups, rather than the size of the groups, will be prioritised based on the list below, although the minimum size of a group is 4.
1) The number of groups is a power of 4 (2/4/8/16)
2) 6 groups
3) 12 groups
4) 10 groups
5) Odd number of groups
The knockout stage will comprise of a double-elimination bracket. Teams that lose in the upper bracket drop to the lower bracket; teams that lose in the lower bracket are eliminated. For the grand finals, to ensure that the game is finished on time, there will be no extra time or penalties; the team that came through the upper bracket will win the tournament in the event of a draw. The exact format will depend on the number of groups. Sample formats can be found below:
12/14 teams - 2 groups of 6/7. Top 2 qualify for Upper Bracket Round 1; 3rd and 4th qualify for Lower Bracket Round 1.
16/20 teams - 4 groups of 4/5. Top 2 qualify for Upper Bracket Round 1; 3rd qualify for Lower Bracket Round 1.
24/28 teams - 4 groups of 6/7. Top 2 qualify for Upper Bracket Round 1; 3rd and 4th qualify for Lower Bracket Round 1.
The bracket for the knockout stages will be published after signups have closed and the number of participating teams are confirmed. If 2/4/8 groups are used; group stage rematches are avoided for as many rounds as mathematically possible. If 6/10 groups are used, teams will be guaranteed to not face a group mate in the first round.
For the knockout stages, it will be held in Teafarmers, as per the stadium assignments published at the end of the group stages.
Tiebreakers
For the group stage, the default tiebreakers will be used:
1) Points (3 point for a win, 1 for a draw)
2) Head-to-head Points between tied teams
3) Head-to-head Goal Difference between tied teams
4) Goal Difference
5) Match Wins
6) Coin Flip (OOC: Scorinating draw-off match(es) between tied teams)
If there is a need to tiebreak teams that are not in the same group, for seeding purposes/to decide which team enters the knockout stages:
1) Position in the group
2) Points (3 point for a win, 1 for a draw)
3) Goal Difference
4) Match Wins
5) Coin Flip (OOC: Scorinating draw-off match(es) between tied teams)
RP Bonus
Because this is a rank-less tournament (WCC ranks will not be used), RP Bonuses will be very generous, scored between a scale of 0 to 8. The scale is created such that it would be easy to achieve 5-6 bonus points a day, but difficult to attain the maximum 8 points. Teams who submit rosters will be given RP bonuses up to half the amount of RP bonus allowed for 1 matchday (0 to 4). Unlike daily RP bonus, it is easy to achieve the maximum roster bonus of 4. In addition, such teams will be given an additional base bonus of 6 (regardless of quality of roster), to separate teams who roster from teams who don't roster.
Just like the recent World Cup, a form of degrading bonus will be used so that nations won't be obliged to RP every cutoff for the sake of doing so. From Cutoff 2, nations will be guaranteed a floor, determined by 35% of the average of the previous 2 RP bonuses (or 35% of cutoff 1's RP bonus for cutoff 2), rounded to the nearest 3 decimal place, as the bonus rank added for the cutoff. Should the RP bonus given be higher than the calculated bonus rank floor, the RP bonus will be added to your rank instead.
Example: A nation gets an RP bonus of 4 for cutoff 1 and 6 for cutoff 2. Their bonus rank floor for cutoff 3, will be 35% * ((6+4)/2) = 1.75. Should they produce an RP worth 1 RP bonus, 1.75 rank points will be used for that cutoff. For cutoff 4, their bonus rank floor still uses the RP bonus (not rank bonus) for cutoff 2 and 3, which is 35% * ((6+1)/2) = 1.05.
Scorination Details (same for all editions)
The Tea Cup will be scored with the SQIS formula with additive modifiers in the xkoronate 0.3.3, with max rank set to the rank of the highest-rank team for that cutoff. When the matches are not held in Teafarmers, home advantage will be turned on. Poafmersia, although it is the "host" team for the tournament, will not get any home advantage bonus for matches held in Teafarmers. Teams will be allowed to submit a style modifier between -5 to +5, with one change in style modifier allowed by sending a telegram/discord DMs to the host nation, supported by a linked IC RP post. Teams that do not specify a style modifier will be assumed to have a modifier of 0.
Schedule
For this tournament, the round-robin group stage will be scored using double scorination. Typically, the knockout stages will be scored using only single scorination; however, because the lower bracket has more matchdays than the upper bracket, to eliminate matchdays where upper bracket teams have no fixtures, this time round, the knockout stages will be scored using a mix of double scorination & single scorination. Below is an expected schedule: (Times are in AEDT, or UTC+11. This is 3 hour later than the time in Perth, 10 hours later than the time in Munich, 17 hours later than the time in Houston from the 6th, and 21 hours later than the time in Hawaii.)
6th Nov, 2am: Sign-ups Open
16th Nov, 2am: Sign-ups Closed
17th Nov: Groups & Format Confirmed
20th Nov, 11pm: First cutoff
Signup Rules/Schedule (same for all editions)
Starting with the posting of this post, signups will be open for 10 days, ending exactly 240 hours (10 days) after the post is made. Late signups will only be considered should more teams be needed to create better numbers for the first stage of the competition. The groups/fixtures for the first stage will be published after numbers are confirmed.
Users are allowed to sign up a maximum of 2 nations. Should 2 nations be linked to the same (group of) OOC users, the links must be declared in the signup post. This thread will be used for signups, as well as for asking questions about the given format/tiebreakers. Questions/Signups made over other means will be ignored.
Signups (17):
1. Poafmersia (This OP is also the signup post of Poafmersia)
2. Ziwana
3. HUElavia
4. Hopal
5. Sixty-ninE X
6. Amenria
7. Canadian Dominion
8. Baker Park
9. Fort McKinley (Puppet of Baker Park)
10. Qasden
11. Burikinia
12. Saterun
13. Delaclava
14. Catalaonia
15. New Al-Khabir
16. Featherstonehaugh Cholmondeley
17. Loyo
18. You?
