Rapture here – Squidboards GM, one of our head admins, and SQSS Head TO/Organizer – back with another SQSS wrap-up.
We just had our second SQSS event this past weekend, with a whopping 78 teams registered to play. Ultimately, after DQ’s/no-shows, we had 65 teams actually participate, so we’ve seen both an increase in players/teams registered and actual participants. Really awesome to see the series growing thus far!
Our winner this month was Silver Sanction | Saikai, defeating Ethereal 4-2 in Grand Finals. This is Saikai’s second SQSS victory, making them the undefeated SQSS champs and the only team to have a SQSS victory under their belt.
The SQSS September wrap-up was much longer, but this time I’ll keep things brief for you all.
SQSS October Wrap-Up
SQSS October was our first big step in improving the series. We introduced a new tournament structure, moving away from double-elimination to a two-phase tournament consisting of a group stage and then a single elimination bracket.
This change seemed well worth the trouble. More teams got to play more games, and the tournament seemed to move at a swifter pace despite a larger number of teams compared to last month. We’ll likely be sticking with this tournament format for the foreseeable future.
We also introduced a new free agent system, hoping to cater to players without teams. We’re happy that this meant more players got to participate, but we’re not particularly happy with the implementation and execution. Free agent no-shows created a lot of mix-ups and issues, and although we were able to help out a bunch of free agents in getting them onto other teams if their initial team no-showed, we couldn’t help everybody. We’re going to be revising the current Free Agent system and see how it can be better executed for next month.
Regarding rosters – to help teams be better prepared and available for their matches, for SQSS November we’ll be bumping up the maximum roster size from 6 players to 8. We don’t see the harm in giving teams more players to field, to a reasonable extent. However, this also means, SQSS November will have much stricter substitution time limit and delay rules. It should take no more than a minute or two to swap out players for substitutes. Now, with 8 players on your roster, there’s no reason why you can’t have at least one sub ready at all times for an immediate, swift substitute.
Quick Shoutouts
Just want to spend a little time throwing down some shout-outs.
This event wouldn’t be possible without the combined efforts of Jordan (InkTV) and Kbot helping me throughout the entirety of the event. Our three-man team somehow ran this immense event in the span of an afternoon. I can’t be more proud of their hard work and dedication to making the event an amazing experience. Thank you both for working with me on this event, and hopefully many more!
Then there’s the InkTV staff and casters, who put on an awesome broadcast that we’re very grateful to have. And our remaining Squidboards staff who pitch in however and whenever they can.
And, of course, to Silver Sanction | Saikai for taking first place in their second-straight SQSS event. Who will topple these squids? Who will end the streak? Is it even possible!?
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Be sure to stay tuned here on Squidboards, on Twitter, and on Discord for updates regarding SQSS October, future contents and events, and much more.
We’ll have the date and details for SQSS November very soon, so stay tuned!
-Rapture
