Well, as I've recently stated in one of the 2nd tourney threads, I've done a lot of advertising of this upcoming tourney. My primary target groups were experienced gameranger players (mostly Russian/Polish, but not exclusively so) and some strong folks from the Far East (Korea, Japan, China, doggu ). The bottom line is, I think we can count on additional 3 (maybe 4) skilled and reliable teams in this tourney, which is not too shabby.

Scheduling issues: the 2nd tourney overly liberal system was flawed. Lesson learnt. However, I think it's very important not to take it too far in the opposite direction (one week-end only, extremely rigid deadlines, etc.). Some kind of compromise would be ideal.

Also, I think we need a person who will stay in touch with all the teams willing to participate in order to avoid the utter chaos of: "Uhhh, Iz's team still playing?", "Do we need to DQ Zen_God?" (You cannot DQ Zen_God, btw!), etc., etc., etc. I can try to coordinate the process somewhat -- of course, I cannot guarantee it will make a huge difference participation-wise, but my intuition tells me it's worth trying. People like being talked to personally, it makes them feel important  

no no no... its "You cannot defeat the Zen God"

Yes, that's what I referred to 

Scheduling: 

I recommend an aggressively planned tournament schedule. That is, we have 2-4 specific dates (weekends, probably), and very specific times. Teams should be expected to play on those dates and times. 

The gaps between matches needs to be large enough that 3 90-minute games can be played, as well as with a gap in-between. I think everyone can agree that if multiple games run over 90 minutes then they have amnesty regarding appearing to the next match late.

I think that we should aim for at least two matches a day, and at a decent time for the entire world (so 11 AM EST would probably be a good time to aim for since that's afternoon for Euro, not-godforsaken-early-morning for California, but it is also late night for Australia, though it would be hard for Aussie players a ton). 

I think we should do a double-elimination format. It makes the tournament a little longer and more intresting. I suspect we'll be seeing 6-12 teams so if we do single-elimination then it will be too short. 

Demigod Selection:

1) Unrestricted - I think this is better for smaller tournies since demigod restrictions are a way to "even out" the competition and make T2 teams have a better chance against T1 teams, and, naturally, in a smaller tourny less T2 teams will exist so it's not important. 

2) "Draft Pick" - Each Demigod can be played only once in a series of three matches. I think this makes for some really interesting matchups (especially "budgeting" your UB and Rook), but it inserts a LOT of meta-game into the game itself. I think this way will result in a lot of mirror matches, just a series of 3-4 different mirrors over and over in the same order. Third games in a series might be a bit weird as well. This also punished T2 teams a lot. 

3) Restricted - We draft up a slightly modified set of demigod choices. I think that we should add Ereb-Oak-TB to the allowed list of teams. We could remove Sed-Occ-TB as well due to their overly prevalent participation last tourney, and if we do a 4th we might be able to allow them again depending on how it works out. 

yah but 6 teams with single elimination is only 3 games. Pretty boring. 

1v1 tourney.

I still think Rook-Reg-UB was probably the strongest combo in the last tournament, it was just easier to outplay other Sedna-Occ-UBs then risking Rook-Reg-UB though because you have to be supremely skilled to pull it off.  Ereb-Oak-TB would own all combos from last tournament though. 

I think if we do have character selection rules, I'm a fan of not being able to reuse characters in a match.  Specifically, my team picks 3 dgs.  The other team picks 3 dgs.  Next game, my team can't use any of those 3 dgs and so on.  This adds another layer to the strategy imo and should make for some interesting matchups. 

You do understand you are closing the tourney for a lot of quite skilled players this way, yes? Again: Iz, Darz, Kira (I think UB and TB only, right?)... Either restrict these rules to finals only (where it will be McOrcenz vs Pacov's or Zen_God's, most probably - i. e. teams that can pull it off), or just re-consider the DG-picking system. Most people (even skilled players) don't play all DGs on a competitive level. It's a fact. Unless you want an extremely easy stomp all the way to the finals (I believe you don't), it's an extremely unfortunate solution.

Hmm, some thoughts i've had about this....

DG selection, "Draft Pick" is my prefered by far. Best way to test actual and overall skill, most interesting strategy-wise and probably most fun games to watch. I've been trying to come up with an easy mathematical rule for DG selection, but there's always going to be 1 strongest combo as UB-Sed-Occ last time.

That said, adding TB-Ereb-Oak to the last rules wouldn't unbalance it too much and would hopefully spice things up a little, but we would still almost never see DA-Reg (and QoT to a lesser extent) be played . As for "lesser" teams being handicapped with the "Draft Pick" DG selection, well, they could use the old restricted rules if both teams playing a match agree on it.

As for the tourney format, i prefer 3v3s, single/double elimination if there's anything close to 8 teams or more. 1 catch though, instead of having 10+ teams sign up and DQ half of them after the first weekend cos they can't/don't show up, we could allow 4-players teams so it's easier for the teams to actually show up and play, even if it means we had just 4 teams play the tourney instead of 8.

Well, you may add as well:

brasher_01, doggu, mcloover, akumrise, lols_seawolf, dreamcatcher, al-t, ppapanek, quincrane, nastyblade, k5k*, 5j-fox*, tsk-knockout, Archon*, Pangea_2*.

*Interested, but not sure that can make it.

Some of these guys have agreed to speak to their acquaintances in game. I can probably draw in more decent folks from gameranger. There is Eltimes that is semi-retired, but otherwise a gameranger hero, etc.

Wow Eltimes plays on GR?  I haven't seen him in awhile.  good player and nice guy if i remember correctly.

If we do it all in one weekend or at least the round robin portion I'm 100% committed to a third tournament and can promise good internet and to be GF distraction free.

With everyone just committing to one weekend we eliminate many of the problems of the last tourney:

1) People being on all day long with their team mates, just to have no one to play against.

2) Two teams being ready to play but having one team mate not show up and ruin the whole thing.

3) Two teams being available but not willing to play each other cause they want replays or to practice more first.

If you guys don't want to do most of the tourney in one weekend, I'm 100% committed to not wanting anything to do with it.

2v2! Seems only realistic one. 3v3 showed how complicated and few teams there were that actually played.