Welcome to the 70th edition of the Baptism of Fire, hosted by the Kingdom of Saintland and the Federation of Free Republics. This tournament is sponsored by the True Church of Iesus Christus and the Salvation Circle who encourage all players, coaches, other national team staff and fans to visit a cathedral during your stay in Saintland or the Malifornia Charter Society (which will, collectively, host all group stage matches). The Baptism of Fire is the first tournament of every World Cup cycle and, fittingly, it is the first WCC tournament for those nations that enter it. This is the one tournament where there are no rankings and everybody enters on an equal footing. This is the tournament where every single nation enters with a realistic chance to win it all. Here, the only things other than luck that affect your chances of winning are posting a roster and roleplaying (RPing) and you can earn a roleplay bonus for every day of the Baptism of Fire.
Please refrain from "reserving" posts in this thread if you are not the host. Doing this is counterproductive as it means the host might not see your roster or RP that you edit into a reserved post. In addition, purely OOC posts (posts that do not contain a roster or RP) should be placed in the World Cup Discussion Thread or on the NS Sports Discord. You can also ping the host on Discord if you're RPing right before cutoff and need extra time to finish your RP.
Group Draw
Cutoff Time: 9 PM - 11 PM EDT
NOTE: As both host nations are OOCly the same person, there will be a single cutoff. I will alternate which nation cuts off on a daily basis.
Saintland
St. Petrus Group
Starcom Racing
Western Bjornaic
Bernegastad
Pius Desurongcrandis
The Aurian Plains
Tulize
Tornado Queendom
San Félix
St. Paulus Group
Abercontin-Jereaux
Lepolanatnessffiria
West Phoenicia
Spensar
Petrisi
San Carlos Islands
Bolgano
Aurevbush
Free Republics
El Fierro Group
Shatla
Port Ember
Kandonica
Caras
Saciu
Amurbia
Timuria
Los Martires Group
Lavize
Cheetahs and Reptiles Coalison
Orestea
Terre Septentrionale
Lashnakia
Amuaplye
Hapilopper
San Hacienda Group
New Karelograd
The Orion Islands
Zealandiana
Paratan
Asdia
The Szcerkina Federacy
Bliuji
Note: Asdia's NS nation is Dabberwocky
Schedule
Saturday, July 13th: Matchday 1 (1v8, 2v7, 3v6, 4v5)
Sunday, July 14th: Matchday 2 (8v5, 6v4, 7v3, 1v2)
Monday, July 15th: Matchday 3 (2v8, 3v1, 4v7, 5v6)
Tuesday, July 16th: Matchday 4 (8v6, 7v5, 1v4, 2v3)
Wednesday, July 17th: Matchday 5 (3v8, 4v2, 5v1, 6v7)
Thursday, July 18th: Matchday 6 (8v7, 1v6, 2v5, 3v4)
Friday, July 19th: Matchday 7 (4v8, 5v3, 6v2, 7v1)
Saturday, July 20th: Round of 20 (13v20, 16v17, 15v18, 14v19)
Sunday, July 21st: Round of 16 (1v16/17, 8v9, 5v12, 4v13/20, 3v14/19, 6v11, 7v10, 2v15/18)
Monday, July 22nd: Quarterfinals
Tuesday, July 23rd: Semifinals
Wednesday, July 24th: 3rd Place Match & Final
Teams in groups of 7 have a bye whenever they would be facing the 8th listed team.
Note: The top 4 in each group advance. For seeding purposes, all games against 8th place teams will be excluded with 1st place teams seeded 1-5, 2nd place teams seeded 6-10 and so on. Teams seeded 13 through 20 will play in the Round of 20. The knockout rounds will not be reseeded though group stage rematches will be avoided where possible. If you are looking for the list of tiebreakers, they are available in the host bid.
New to NS Sports?
If you're new to NS Sports, we recommend reading the Guide to Sports Roleplaying, if you haven't already. If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask on the Discussion Thread.
First off, the roster is, at its simplest, a list of the eleven players in your team's starting lineup and any reserves that are also on your team. There's no limit on the number of players that you can include on the roster or even on what sorts of teams you can send. Past World Cup participants have sent teams that are all-male, all-female and mixed gender. They have sent teams comprised of humans, aliens, sentient ponies, monks, kids with magical powers, kids without magical powers, snakes, jumping beans, elves, immortal beings from another reality and anything else you could possibly imagine (most send teams of humans, of course). In addition to the names of your players, you can other information on your players such as their background, their club teams, their physical appearance, their strengths and weaknesses on the pitch and anything else that might be of interest. Rosters may also include the identity of the team's manager/head coach, assistant coaches, formations, tactics and anything else that you want your opponents to know about your team.
Additionally, you have the option to set a style modifier and RP permissions within your roster. A style modifier is a number between -5 and +5 and can include up to 3 decimal places (technically you can include more decimals, but we'll round it to 3 places because the scorinator can only handle that many). Negative numbers are defense-oriented while positive numbers are offense-oriented. A team with a style modifier between -0.001 and -5 is going to score fewer goals and allow fewer goals than normal while a team with a style modifier between +0.001 and +5 will score more goals and allow more goals. A style modifier closer to 0 reflects a team that is more balanced between offense and defense while a modifier closer to -5 or +5 reflects a team that more heavily emphases defense rather than offense or vice versa, respectively. If you don't indicate a style modifier, you will be automatically assigned a style modifier of 0.
The RP permissions box is intended to inform your opponents of what you are willing to let them do and what you aren't willing to let them do, should they roleplay your match before you do. Please copy and paste the following somewhere into your roster:
- Code: Select all
My opponent, if they RP first, may do the following:
Choose my goalscorers: Yes/No
Godmod scoring events: Yes/No
RP injuries to my players: Yes/No
Godmod injuries to my players: Yes/No
Hand out yellow cards to my players: Yes/No
Hand out red cards to my players: Yes/No
Godmod other events: Yes/No
Choose my goalscorers means exactly that: allowing your opponents to choose who scored your goals should they RP the match before you do. Almost everybody allows this since it is very difficult to write a match report without identifying the goalscorers. Godmod scoring events refers to goals that are unlikely to happen in reality. RP injuries to my players allows your opponent to injure your players. Godmod injuries refers to more unrealistic or more severe injuries and to choosing the length of an injury. Even if your opponent allows serious injuries, I'd suggest asking them via TG before killing off, seriously injuring or arresting any of their players or other characters. Yellow cards and red cards are part of the sport of football/soccer. The referee hands out yellow cards as a warning to players who aren't following the rules, with either a second yellow or a red card resulting in the ejection of that player from the remainder of the match and his/her team playing the remainder of the match a man/woman down. Allowing your opponent to hand out cards to your players lets do just that. You may grant them the ability to hand out unlimited cards, limit the number of cards that they can hand out or disallow them altogether depending on your team's style of play. Finally, godmod other events allows your opponents to RP things that aren't likely to happen in reality or flat out impossible in reality that don't involve scoring or injuries. This can include any number of events from blizzards to fan riots to protesters streaking across the pitch to the home nation's Army covering the field in mud to a portal opening to another dimension.
The scores themselves are produced by a program called a scorinator, which is designed to generate random numbers and turn them into scores. This tournament will use a program called xkoranate and a formula called NSFS to produce scores. This program determines who wins and who loses and also by what score. The 3 factors that go into determining who wins are rank (non-existent in this tournament), RP/roster bonuses and randomness. The rankings used for the World Cup and Cup of Harmony are called the KPB rankings and are based off of the results of the last 3 World Cups, last 3 World Cup qualifying rounds, last 3 Cups of Harmony and last 2 Baptisms of Fire to have been completed. RP bonus is added to your ranking by the host based upon whether you RPed and also the quality of the RP, as perceived by the host. Finally, the randomness factor (also known as "Margaret") is the luck of the draw. No matter how much stronger one team is as opposed to another, there is always a chance of an upset. Finally, the cutoff is the time set by the host when RPs will no longer count toward that day's RP bonus and will now count toward the following day's RP bonus instead. This is also the time when the results for the current day's matches will be posted. in tournaments where there are multiple hosts, it differs by host so be sure to check your host's cutoff time rather than their co-host's time.
Finally, roleplays (RPs) are posts that tell a story, either the story of the entire match, part of the match, your team's preparation for the match or even something wholly unconnected with the match. They can take the form of a narrative report, a newspaper/magazine article, play-by-play commentary or anything you can imagine. Creativity is encouraged. You can RP in isolation or you can RP in collaboration with your opponents, other group mates and even nations that are not part of your group. The only things you are bound by when RPing are the result and whatever facts your opponent has established about the match, if they RPed first (and even then, you can still RP a different take on the same events). Personally, I'd suggest looking at RP as a collaborative endeavor rather than a competitive one. If you stick around for the long term (and we hope you do), you're going to win some matches and you're going to lose some. While everybody who signs up for the World Cup does so with the hope that this will be the cup when they finally win it all, those that stick around for the long term tend to be those that enjoy RPing and the sense of community here for their own sake in addition to winning and most of them also started here, at the Baptism of Fire.