International Basketball Championships 31 [SIGNUPS]

[Newmanistan]

I guess we probably should.

[East Lemyone]

IM in

[East Lemyone]

IM in

[Rwekazaland]

Rwekazaland are trying it again. WE ARE IN!

[International Basketball Organization]

Here's a belated update of signups.

Also, the host bid deadline has been moved to 22nd January 2021 23:00 (UTC+8). Check the time and date here.

[Nateros Sill]

Why not? Been wanting to get into RP a little

[Delaclava]

Sure, let's go Phoenixes.

[Sarzonia]

Sure, let's go Phoenixes.

Yay!

[Savigliane]

back

[Marigred]

In

[United Volcano Isles]

Puppet of Northwest Kalactin.

In.

[Northwest Kalactin]

Puppet of Northwest Kalactin.

In.

Yup.

[Delaclava]

31st International Basketball Championship ~ Delaclava

Regarded perhaps more as an early pioneer of international basketball than a high-performing program, Delaclava became just the third nation, after Dancougar and Secristan, to host an International Basketball Championship, organizing the seventh edition. Delaclava was also a host and participant in early editions of the NSCAA competitions, but the professional Phoenixes never made a great impact in competition, enjoying several finishes in the top eight. With the re-establishment of the Delaclav national team, the Phoenixes have obtained a respectable 11-9 record over the past two editions, and the 20th-ranked basketball nation undoubtedly has the infrastructure and enthusiasm to bring the world’s best squads together for another thrilling IBC.

Format: As of the writing of this bid, there are 56 signups. The planned field size is 60 teams. If there are more than 60 signups if and when this bid is selected, puppets who signed up later and/or are identified as “numbers” puppets will be cut. If there are fewer than 60 signups, 54 and 56-team fields will be considered. The below sets out a planned competition format with 60 teams.

The tournament will consist of three competitive stages:
- Qualifying Round: 10 groups of 6. A double round-robin phase will be played, where games are played at home/away. There will be daily scorination, with one off day after the first half of the Qualifying Round.
- Final Group Stage: The top two teams from each group will be invited to Delaclava and split into four groups of five, and a single round-robin phase will be played. There will be daily scorination, with one off day after the end of the Qualifying Round and before the start of the Final Group Stage.
- (Consolation Group Stage: Ten other teams will be invited to Delaclava, consisting of third-placed teams from the Qualifying Round. This is intended as a non-competitive phase, with the main purpose of providing additional RP opportunities. They will play two groups of five, followed by single-elimination playoffs that determine their final ranking. There will be daily scorination alongside the Final Group Stage until this phase is completed.)
- Finals: The top two teams in each group of the Final Group Stage will advance to the quarterfinals, and a single elimination bracket will be played to determine the 31st International Basketball Champion.
- (Additional playoffs will be contested by teams eliminated in the Final Group Stage and in the Finals to determine their final ranking.)

In both the Qualifying Round and the Final Group Stage, standings will be determined by Wins, head-to-head record, overall point differential, head-to-head point differential, then RP bonus.

CTEs and withdrawals in the course of the tournament will be processed in accordance with the protocol in the Guide to Sports Roleplaying. In this case, all matches in the Qualifying Round and Final Group Stage are considered “published fixtures” at the time of the group stage.

At all relevant stages of the tournament, Delaclava will be seeded by its rankings, and not placed in Pot 1.

Role-play: RP bonus will be cumulative and non-decaying, with the exception of a 25% reduction at the conclusion of the Qualifying Round. The bonus will be applied directly into the ranking (vs. using the xkoranate RP function). A high quality of role-play will be encouraged, and points on offer for RP will be calculated so that an unranked, high-level RPer would have a comparable rank+RP to a high-ranked, inactive player by the conclusion of the tournament. Consistency and clarity will be rewarded - a player who posts of decent quality every day will accumulate more bonus than a player who irregularly produces long posts.

Scorination: xkoranate 0.3.3. The RP cutoff window will be 6pm-7pm US Eastern time (0200-0300 UTC). Scorination frequency and off days are described above.

Hosting Experience: In addition to the 7th International Basketball Championship, Delaclava has hosted the 55th World Cup, 44th and 46th Cups of Harmony, 72nd Baptism of Fire, 11th, 15th, and 39th World Bowls and 4th Baptism of Iron, 31st AOCAF Cup (so we're good at hosting 31st editions), and numerous minor tournaments.

[Zeta Reka and Hugeltaldom]

basketball

[Hannasea]

Provisional puppet signup. Puppet of Græntfjall. May be excluded if you need to make numbers work better.

[Lisander]

Provisional puppet signup. Puppet of Græntfjall. May be excluded if you need to make numbers work better.

Preconfirming Aristian Republic under the same conditions of Hannasea.

[Aristian Republic]

That's it.

[Graintfjall]

I think I do have a vote, for once.

I don't have a strong objection to the bid but I am a bit concerned the format will go on too long. The IBC hasn't always been the most heavily RPed tournament. Just my double round robin group stage format alone probably went on too long last time and experienced significant RP drop-off, and that was just MD10 - at which point this tournament would only just be entering its second phase. Why have that second group stage at all?

[Sarzonia]

That was also my concern with the bid. I clearly have full confidence in any bid from Delaclava and will happily take part in any tournament he runs, even if it's a sport I know nothing about, but I don't like the second group stage.

[Banija]

I do think Delaclava is a solid host, and I think he'll be a good thing for this tournament.

Although I have two concerns about this bid-

#1 I share the concerns above that this would be too long. 18 cutoffs over (I think) 21 or days is a lot of cutoffs. It would get really tiring. It would be hard to remedy this while keeping the two group stages, but FFR ran a World Bowl a few tourneys back where he had both group stages single round robin- that may be a fair remedy to this. Alternatively, 2/48 may be a good solution if we kept the first group stage at 10 games, I think both would help avoid burnout.

#2 Not sure about the consolation group stage attracting much RP attention. Who knows? Idk if it's ever been tried. My gut tells me it wouldn't be that highly RP'd... But if it's something we've never tested, it is certainly an innovative idea, and it would definitely be more akin to the FIBA World Cup, where they have a consolation group stage to place everybody. So I'm skeptical, but curious.

Otherwise, it's a very strong bid from a very strong potential host. I look forward to NSS basketball being back soon

[Delaclava]

Thank you all for the input!

I do think this is quite a large IBC field, and takes a little more creativity to handle than the relatively simple 32/48-team fields down to a 16-team knockout that we've enjoyed the past few editions. It is my opinion that a cut-down from 56-64 teams to 16 is too drastic, and going from 60 to 20 is a more ideal ratio. The second group stage also allows the top 20 teams to get more competition against each other.

I am certainly appreciative of the concerns regarding the length of the competition, which is why I have finalized a field of 60 after I determined that it would shorten the length by several days. And a few of us on Discord have discussed the potential merits of a 2/48 first group stage. I personally do not perceive a three-week tournament, with some off days and mainly daily scorinations, as unusually long; however, I am certainly willing to try alternate-day scorination for the first group stage, if more of the field will stay active longer in the competition.

Regarding the consolation stage, I'm willing to put in the small amount of extra grading and scorination work to see if this is worthwhile And whether it is a success or a flop, we will at least have that data point going forward.

[Neo-Futurist Wyoming]

If a filler Puppet of Southwest Easnorth is needed let us known

We're in for now.

[Drawkland]

I'm actually pretty warm to the idea of a second group stage. The first seven or so IBCs (and maybe a few afterwards, I haven't done a deep check for all of them) all featured two group stages. That's why the original IBC ranks were so ridiculous, because they were originally designed to fit tournaments with multiple group stages, and they became way more stratified once you made them only work for regular playoffs (especially single elimination). I digress on that though.

My point is that the second group stage has happened before (in fact, the last IBC Delaclava hosted featured it), and I doubt it'll be any sort of detriment.

I don't have a strong objection to the bid but I am a bit concerned the format will go on too long. The IBC hasn't always been the most heavily RPed tournament. Just my double round robin group stage format alone probably went on too long last time and experienced significant RP drop-off, and that was just MD10 - at which point this tournament would only just be entering its second phase. Why have that second group stage at all?

#1 I share the concerns above that this would be too long. 18 cutoffs over (I think) 21 or days is a lot of cutoffs. It would get really tiring. It would be hard to remedy this while keeping the two group stages, but FFR ran a World Bowl a few tourneys back where he had both group stages single round robin- that may be a fair remedy to this. Alternatively, 2/48 may be a good solution if we kept the first group stage at 10 games, I think both would help avoid burnout.

I have no issues with the length of the tournament. A standard American sport tournament usually lasts 10 cutoffs for the group stage. Only the top nations will qualify for the "real" second group stage, so you could think of it as an extended playoff. In a standard series-format WBC, the playoffs alone can last for up to 12-15 cutoffs depending on how the results pan out, which ends up with a grand total well beyond 20 cutoffs if you include the group stage. Nobody ever complains that the WBC takes too long, though.

I don't think that 2/48 would be necessary for such a relatively "short" group stage, at least compared to the World Cup Qualifiers. The reason 2/48 was used for those is because the Qualifiers can often reach up to 3 weeks in length just for the "group stage", where RPing every day is almost a necessity if you expect to move to the next level. The IBC is not nearly such a cutthroat environment. This IBC will probably reach 3 weeks in length from start to finish, and half of the field won't even be playing for the last week or more. I'm not sure 2/48 is a valid solution, nor is the tournament length an issue that needs fixing. But I am just one guy, so I understand if I'm the only one who thinks this.

#2 Not sure about the consolation group stage attracting much RP attention. Who knows? Idk if it's ever been tried. My gut tells me it wouldn't be that highly RP'd... But if it's something we've never tested, it is certainly an innovative idea, and it would definitely be more akin to the FIBA World Cup, where they have a consolation group stage to place everybody. So I'm skeptical, but curious.

I have perhaps a strange take on this. For American sports, it's much more common to see nations coast through most of the group stage. Obviously this isn't ideal, but it's a fact that it's rarer to see everybody RP as hard as, say, the World Cup. I think that the second group stage actually gives nations with shots at the championship more opportunities to write and obtain bonus. It's like the playoffs, each game is really important, but if you lose on MD1 of the second stage, you still have chances to write and build bonus and possibly take a deep shot.

I think that a trap a lot of nations (even myself) fall into in American sports group stages is perhaps a lack of motivation to build bonus. If you're already in a good position to qualify for the playoffs, you perhaps don't have as much motivation to RP more often, since you're likely to make a run no matter what. However, that apathy for the group stage comes back to haunt in the playoffs themselves, when you're playing with a lower bonus than you could or should be. The second group stage here would probably act as better motivation, since it's a direct precursor to the playoffs and it's easier for one to perceive this as a way to directly help their playoff performance. I'm sorta spitballing here, but I reject the notion that it wouldn't be highly RP'd. I feel like it would be an equal level or perhaps even higher than the group stage, at least among the nations that qualify for this stage.

Of course, it is the IBC. The activity level is impossible to predict, and the best guess is "low." But this is about to be (I think) the largest IBC of all time by participant numbers, so maybe this will be one of the most active RP-wise. I think the second group stage (for both the finals and the consolation) will end up benefitting this IBC edition as a whole.

[...] it's a very strong bid from a very strong potential host. I look forward to NSS basketball being back soon

[...] I clearly have full confidence in any bid from Delaclava and will happily take part in any tournament he runs, [...]

Also I agree with all of these. Delaclava is a competent host who no doubt will deliver a great IBC no matter the circumstances. I have to say I support the bid in its current form.

[Delaclava]

With the deadline for bids having passed, will we see the voting get under way soon?

[Ethane]

I sign up