Greetings, fellow squidkids. I hope you're all having a wonderful time playing Nintendo's newest IP in Splatoon. If you're not enjoying it, I don't know what you're doing reading this, but I digress.
Take this as my thoughts on how a tournament should be run. Feel free to disagree with me down below. These are my thoughts that I feel I should express.
A little bit on me: I'm the leader of a large squad (or clan for those of you who don't like to keep up with current vocab. Don't worry, I'll try to make that a section somewhere below) called Inkopolis Underground. I also TO with EndGameTV, and we hosted our first tournament, a sucessful tournament hosting a total of 36 teams and also hosting 5 Japaneese Teams. So, I feel like my thoughts are valid. I'm not saying they're law, and don't follow these as such, but this is what you should base things off of.
I am a HUGE proponent for experimentation in tournaments. So if you feel like you can run a tournament successfully, try something new. I should always be around here to bounce ideas off of if you need another opinion.
I don't mean to shy people away from trying to run their own tournaments, just be sure that you can sucessfully do so, you've talked with other sucessful TOs, and you have thought about everything that I mention below.
Keep in mind that this is from the viewpoint of a COMPETITIVE tournament. Feel free to ignore this if you're going for something more casual. If you want to attract all the top teams, keep reading.
Without further ado, let me get started with my longpost.
Part 1: Tournament Structure 101.
You need to decide the best structure and ruleset for your tournament. I'd hope that this would be a given, but I'm also going to dive in the types of things you should discuss here.
First, get a team together of a few people to help you. One person alone is not nearly enough to run a tournament. 3-6 T.O.s, depending on the size of the tournament, should be enough. You can, of course, have more.
1A: The Bracket
How are you going to run your bracket? Just about any style here would work at this point. I would, however, be wary of a Single Elim tournament, as someone has to bite the bullet of only playing one match, leaving many people unhappy.
1B: The Rules and other miscellaneous things
You have to discuss many things as far as rules go. A few things you should have on your checklist are:
1C: Planning a tournament.
Try to plan around other tournaments that have already set dates. If you suspect that a group may set a tournament for a date, get in contact with that group and work something out. We're a supportive community.
The first talk of InkStorm a week or so after the August update. The information was released on September 12th. That's right, we took a whole month to plan things. We had the date set very far in advance.
Generally, weekends are preferred cause that's when you don't have to worry about work and school and other real life stuff.
1D: The gametype selection.
Most tournaments have been using a halo-style rotation. That's great, but maybe you want to try something different? I'd run it by the community first if you're planning something HUGE, but experimentation is okay, especially this early.
Note: IoS used mode striking. BIG no-no. Even going on the fact that we've already banned Turf (or, as I like to call it, Turf Hell), teams would still be playing Rainmaker chicken.
Don't do smash, as the community will frown upon you. Read up before you make your decision.
1E: Registration.
How will you do this? Through google? Squidboards thread? Your own website? Many things to consider with this as well, such as
Actually spend the time to make your thread look nice. It's unprofessional if it doesn't and people won't take you seriously. This includes:
Part 3: Tournament day
ACT PROFESIONAL
I can't stress this enough. It's okay to have fun, but try not to make people mad with the way you act or the way you come across.
HIGHLY recommend that you use discord. It gets very cramped in skype, and Discord is something that everyone participating in your tournament should have access to as long as they have a computer with internet.
Part 4: Post-tournament.
Accept feedback from your participants. Even if you don't plan to run another one, share what you've learned with other T.O.s. We're only trying to build a community.
That about wraps it up for me. Fellow Established T.O.s, please let me know if I should add anything/give your thoughts below. I think this is a good general idea for how we should act.
If you're interested in running a tournament and you want feedback from other T.O.s, I'd highly suggest you join the unofficial Squidboards Discord server and ask to be added to the T.O. room.
It pains me to see ****ty tournaments pop up. PLEASE make an attempt to make it look neat. Thanks.
Take this as my thoughts on how a tournament should be run. Feel free to disagree with me down below. These are my thoughts that I feel I should express.
A little bit on me: I'm the leader of a large squad (or clan for those of you who don't like to keep up with current vocab. Don't worry, I'll try to make that a section somewhere below) called Inkopolis Underground. I also TO with EndGameTV, and we hosted our first tournament, a sucessful tournament hosting a total of 36 teams and also hosting 5 Japaneese Teams. So, I feel like my thoughts are valid. I'm not saying they're law, and don't follow these as such, but this is what you should base things off of.
I am a HUGE proponent for experimentation in tournaments. So if you feel like you can run a tournament successfully, try something new. I should always be around here to bounce ideas off of if you need another opinion.
I don't mean to shy people away from trying to run their own tournaments, just be sure that you can sucessfully do so, you've talked with other sucessful TOs, and you have thought about everything that I mention below.
Keep in mind that this is from the viewpoint of a COMPETITIVE tournament. Feel free to ignore this if you're going for something more casual. If you want to attract all the top teams, keep reading.
Without further ado, let me get started with my longpost.
Part 1: Tournament Structure 101.
You need to decide the best structure and ruleset for your tournament. I'd hope that this would be a given, but I'm also going to dive in the types of things you should discuss here.
First, get a team together of a few people to help you. One person alone is not nearly enough to run a tournament. 3-6 T.O.s, depending on the size of the tournament, should be enough. You can, of course, have more.
1A: The Bracket
How are you going to run your bracket? Just about any style here would work at this point. I would, however, be wary of a Single Elim tournament, as someone has to bite the bullet of only playing one match, leaving many people unhappy.
1B: The Rules and other miscellaneous things
You have to discuss many things as far as rules go. A few things you should have on your checklist are:
- A DC Rule
- Redos? No Redos? Same weapons?
- A host rule
1C: Planning a tournament.
Try to plan around other tournaments that have already set dates. If you suspect that a group may set a tournament for a date, get in contact with that group and work something out. We're a supportive community.
The first talk of InkStorm a week or so after the August update. The information was released on September 12th. That's right, we took a whole month to plan things. We had the date set very far in advance.
Generally, weekends are preferred cause that's when you don't have to worry about work and school and other real life stuff.
1D: The gametype selection.
Most tournaments have been using a halo-style rotation. That's great, but maybe you want to try something different? I'd run it by the community first if you're planning something HUGE, but experimentation is okay, especially this early.
Note: IoS used mode striking. BIG no-no. Even going on the fact that we've already banned Turf (or, as I like to call it, Turf Hell), teams would still be playing Rainmaker chicken.
Don't do smash, as the community will frown upon you. Read up before you make your decision.
1E: Registration.
How will you do this? Through google? Squidboards thread? Your own website? Many things to consider with this as well, such as
- Player limit
- Captain info needed
- Skype? Discord name? NNID? Squidboards account?
- Player info needed
- Timezone: does it affect your tournament?
Actually spend the time to make your thread look nice. It's unprofessional if it doesn't and people won't take you seriously. This includes:
- Asthetics (how it looks)
- Consistency (headers, info, everything)
- EVERYTHING is in the OP, not just a few things and you'll explain the rest later.
- Grammar ('hey guys i doing a tournament' doesn't look professional)
Part 3: Tournament day
ACT PROFESIONAL
I can't stress this enough. It's okay to have fun, but try not to make people mad with the way you act or the way you come across.
HIGHLY recommend that you use discord. It gets very cramped in skype, and Discord is something that everyone participating in your tournament should have access to as long as they have a computer with internet.
Part 4: Post-tournament.
Accept feedback from your participants. Even if you don't plan to run another one, share what you've learned with other T.O.s. We're only trying to build a community.
That about wraps it up for me. Fellow Established T.O.s, please let me know if I should add anything/give your thoughts below. I think this is a good general idea for how we should act.
If you're interested in running a tournament and you want feedback from other T.O.s, I'd highly suggest you join the unofficial Squidboards Discord server and ask to be added to the T.O. room.
It pains me to see ****ty tournaments pop up. PLEASE make an attempt to make it look neat. Thanks.
