Welcome to the 12th International Baseball Slam, hosted by South Newlandia and Tikariot!
The Format:
The twenty participating teams will be grouped in five groups of four. Each team will be playing each opponent in three-game series, once home and once away, for a total of 18 group stage games. The group winners will advance to the Quarterfinals, while the second-placed teams and the best third-placed team will be competing in a Round of 11 to complete the field for the Quarterfinals. All knockout matches will be best-of-three series, except for the championship, played in a best-of-five series. The tiebreakers 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.
Groups:
Group A:
Abanhfleft Revolution All-Stars
The Jovannic U21 Red Princes
Daskel U18 Junior Daskies
Tikariot U21s
Group B:
Inner AginanaUsordia Lions
Loyola University Blue Thunder
Sarzonia Junior Stars
Super-Llamaland U11s
Group C:
Terre Septentrionale U24 Nordiques
Newmanistan U16s
Ethane Red Kites
Arminhos de Lisander
Group D:
Cassadaigua U18s
Kohnhead U21 Pandas
Grearia Dolphins
Quebec U22s
Group E:
Hampton Island Over-50s
South Newlandia U22s
Nova Anglicana Lions
Falisiand U22s
Schedule:
Note that the cut-off times will be between 7 pm UTC and 8:30 pm UTC; which is 3 pm and 4:30 pm EST.
Groups A-C will be scorinated by South Newlandia, while groups D and E will be scored by Tikariot. Both of us will be posting individual cutoffs.
1/10: Group draw
6/10: Series 1 (1@4; 2@3) A-C D+E
7/10: Series 2 (4@3; 1@2) A-C D+E
8/10: Series 3 (2@4; 3@1) A-C D+E
9/10: Rest day
10/10: Series 4 (4@1; 3@2) A-C D+E
11/10: Series 5 (3@4; 2@1) A-C D+E
12/10: Series 6 (4@2; 1@3) A-C D+E
13/10: Rest day
14/10: Round of 11 (Games 1 and 2) SNL half TKT half
15/10: Round of 11 (Game 3) SNL half
16/10: Quarterfinals (Games 1 and 2) SNL half TKT half
17/10: Quarterfinals (Game 3) SNL half TKT half
18/10: Rest day
19/10: Semi-finals (Games 1 and 2) SNL half TKT half
20/10: Additional rest day
21/10: Final (Games 1 and 2); 3PPO (Games 1 and 2)
22/10: Final (Games 3 and 4 if necessary); 3PPO (Game 3, if necessary)
23/10: Final (Game 5 if necessary)
The group draw will be conducted live on the NationStates Sports Discord server, starting around 7 pm UTC.
Please note that if one round of the knock-outs, for example the Quarterfinals (as happened in IBS11), becomes unnecessary because all games are already decided, that day will simply turn into an additional rest day. The schedule will remain the same, but there will not be a cutoff that day.
RP information:
You may begin posting Rosters and Roleplays now. A roster is typically a list of the players in your team, but you can go into as much detail as you like. Here are some examples from IBS11:
OK roster
Good roster
Very good roster
As the IC hosts of the knockouts, Tikariot and South Newlandia have a few rules about roleplays of the host nations that we hope you to follow. Namely, there are no pandemics in either South Newlandia or Tikariot, and we would appreciate if you could keep it that way. You can still have things like empty stadiums or travel bans for your own nation, but others not want to roleplay about pandemics at the moment. The other rule is to please not kill anyone in our countries without permission. Most things can be talked about; if you have an interesting idea that you aren’t quite sure about, it never hurts to send us a telegram or a message on discord.
Because the Group Stage isn’t held in the host nations ICly, you can also include information about your home stadium, or stadia. You should also include a Roleplay Permission Box, so your opponent knows what they can Roleplay about:
My opponent, if they RP first, may do the following:
Choose my runscorers: Yes/No
Choose my lineup: Yes/No
Follow my pitching rotation: Yes/No
Godmod scoring events: Yes/No
RP injuries to my players: Yes/No
Godmod injuries to my players: Yes/No
Eject my players: Yes/No
Godmod other events: Yes/No
Use DH at home: Yes/No
You are pretty much able to do as you please if you are the first one roleplaying a game, but be aware that each nation has a set of rules, called RP Permissions, and they look like this:
Choose my runscorers: Yes/No (Can they choose who scored your runs?)
Choose my lineup: Yes/No (Can they pick a starting lineup at will for you, or must they stick to what you have created?)
Follow my pitching rotation: Yes/No (Can they opponent choose any pitcher, or are they supposed to follow your rotation to a tee? It can be good to check their prior game RP to see if they mentioned their starting pitcher for the next game as well).
Godmod scoring events: Yes/No (This allows the opponent to be very detailed and specific when describing how scoring events transpired).
RP injuries to my players: Yes/No (Is the opponent allowed to say your player got hurt? Some nations will say yes with a disclaimer of only saying they are hurt, and not saying what was hurt or how badly someone was hurt.)
Godmod injuries to my players: Yes/No (Can the opponent completely do whatever they please in regards to injuries)
Eject my players: Yes/No (Is the opponent allowed to eject your players?)
Godmod other events: Yes/No (Other events refer to unusual or crazy things, such as, perhaps, the outfielder's arm was suddenly able to extend 50 feet and they took away your potential HR. Some nations that may be open to crazy things but do not want to be caught off guard may add a disclaimer to TG them any ideas first)).
Use DH at home: Yes/No (Every baseball fan's favorite argument. Is the DH used at your home stadium?) (You are allowed to follow whatever rule you prefer for your own home games, but for the away games, you will need to follow the preferences of your opponent. In knockout games, the better seeded team will get to choose in games 1 and 3 (and 5), while the lower seeded team gets to choose in game 2 (and 4). For more information on the Designated Hitter, look here.)
Other: (Are there nation specific tendencies that you want your opponent to abide by? List it here). An example is: Newmanistan is very aggressive on the basepaths and speedy baserunners are commonly looking to steal both second and third. Contrary, South Newlandia rarely steals bases, and typically has contact hitters. This is the place to put that information.
Note: If your opponent has roleplayed the game before you, you are expected to roleplay it the same way, although you still can have some flexibility: For example, did your opponent RP a three run double, in one inning.... that really should have been called foul? Did the umpire blow a called strike three on the opponents’ big slugger before they hit the big homer? Those are things you can still have flexibility with.
(Special thanks to Newmanistan for letting us use his explanation from the WBC49 thread)
If you have any questions, please feel to ask them! Both Tikariot and South Newlandia are reachable by Telegram or on Discord, or you can answer your question in the signup/OOC thread for all to see.