Pan-American Team League: Discussion

Pan-American Team League, PATL, is just as it sounds. It is a "proleague"-esque type of tournament that features ONLY Players and Clans from the Americas, facing off each week for the simple sake of saying "Look, my Clan is better and we can back that up because we're the better players."

This, in my mind, is to help invigorate the BW scene and cause friendly competition among BW players. Back in the 2000 - 2008 era of BW, Clan Wars were a VERY common thing and it was 98% of the time done for FUN and "epeen". Clan Pride. My Clan beat your Clan, etc. "Wow NonY is good on Team Media, I want to beat him in the next CW." etc.

This fostered friendly competition among Clans/Teams to help other Clans BEAT rival Clans. It was HEALTHY and HELPFUL in order to ensure players continued to strive to be better. It also didn't hurt if Clan X beat Clan Z giving Clan Y a chance to reach the Play-Offs because of the point system that will be used as explained later.

There is drought of that competitive spirit in our current era of BW besides the CPL which has been having a successful go of things thanks to it's Admins and ACTIVE participants.

To put it simply. I want to see more players from the Americas showing up as some of the strongest players in BW. Right now as it stands, name some of the top foreign BW players. ssizky. Eonzerg. Dewalt. etc etc. Nobody from the Americas. LET'S CHANGE THAT. I remember when people would easily throw out names like Louder, InkA, Future, Jumperer, Machine, LzGaMeR, Nyoken, DinOt, CastrO, DracO, NonY, JP, IdrA, KawaiiRice, etc.

-Better Americas Players
-Enjoyment of scheduled Clan competition
-People always show up and are encouraged to continue doing so, striving to be better.
-Removing the need of "walk-overs" or the feeling of "Wow I took a night off from life to be here and my guy didn't show and I don't get to play, what a waste of time." by including opportunities for Subs.

I'll be following a "ProLeague" format, with some twists.
Clan Wars will be Best of 5 matches. With each match being a Best of 1. Each Match is worth ONE point. The Clans/Teams at the end of the Season with the most points move on to the Play-Offs.

All games to be played on US-West or US-East. Each week there will be a designated "Home" Clan/Team and a "Vistor" Clan/Team. The "Home" team will select the desired US-W or US-E server.

So it looks like this:
3 - Bo1 1v1s
1 - Bo1 2v2
1 - Bo1 Ace Match if needed
(5 matches total)

Edit: Some people would like Bo3. Let's let the polls decide!

Poll Closed
Bo1 Format will be used going forward. The matches will officially be held on Sundays at 10am PST.

Clan "A" will decided which of their players will play in the 1v1s and the 2v2. Clan "A" will send me their lineup. Clan "B" will send me theirs. I then release the lineup and the Clans can then prepare their players for the released MUs. ACE players are decided as needed by Clan Leaders if the matches extend to the 5th match.

To break it down. The following is an EXAMPLE and does not adhere to TRUE facts or stats.

Clan [light]'s Clan Leader, Xeris, receives the Map Lineup from the Admin, PsyonicReaver. Match Point, Circuit Breaker, Hunters and Heartbreak Ridge as the ACE map. Xeris knows Machine does really well on Match Point and decides to play his Zerg there. Knowing that most Clans play Terrans on that map. His hope is that Machine will "snipe" a possible Terran player from the opposing Clan and get an easy win for the [light]. Xeris will play Louder on Circuit Breaker because he knows Louder is a great, all-round player that can handle himself. LzGaMeR and Nyoken will play in the 2v2. If things hit the fan and it goes to the ACE match, Xeris knows IdrA will be around if he needs to use him, arguably his BEST player.

The winners of the Play-Offs will be crowned the Champs of the PATL Season 1.

I've managed to secure funding of prizes for participants via a bonus check from my company that I was NOT expecting. So you heard it here first guys, this is coming from ME personally. Edit: And also from Vortex[eMg] - he donated an additional $100 as well.

$150 to the winning team / This will be split EVENLY among team members, the more members per team, the less each individual person gets but obviously MORE bragging rights.

$75 to 2nd place team.

$50 to 3rd place team.

If I am able to secure additional funding from private donors or crowd funding, I'll update the prize pool accordingly.

1. Standard tournament rules apply as listed on https://iccup.com/en/starcraft/sc_tour_rules.html, https://iccup.com/en/starcraft/sc_ladder_rules.html and according to all Modern Blizzard Sanctioned tournaments. Most of you should know these by heart already.

2. Once Lineups have been submitted, they are LOCKED to those race Match-Ups on those maps. If a player fails to show for their match but a clanmate is online, they can "sub" themselves into that match but playing as THAT player's race. That means NO RACE PICKING and RANDOM is not allowed.

TO ALSO CLARIFY, one player could possibly sub for his entire team and even doing 1v2 or 1+1AI v 2. The caveat to that is it can only be done ONCE per player per season.

Example:
Louder[light] didn't show up for his match vs Artosis[media]. It was a PvT on Circuit Breaker. Luckily Machine[light] is online and can "sub" for Louder. Sadly he can't play his preferred race of Zerg since the MU was submitted as PvT on CB. Machine will have to play as Protoss vs Artosis' Terran.

3. Clans must have AT LEAST 3 players to enter and participate. (No Smurfing to bolster your numbers, if you get caught you will be disqualified and removed from PATL.)

You could, if you want, have a "B" team and a "C" team and so forth all bearing the same Clan tag. These teams would all be seeded into the PATL to play against each other and other Clans.

Example:
[light] has 20 members of their clan. The odds of EVERYONE getting to play each week is low. Xeris wants everyone to have fun and play. He decides to retain his top 4 best players as [light] Team "A" his next 4 as [light] Team "B", etc and so forth. OR if he was CRAZY he could split his "best" players among multiple teams filled with his "mediocre" players. This would foster more friendly competition inside the Clan and against other Clans. That's Xeris call to make as Clan Leader.

4. When the PATL starts players are "locked" to their Clan/Team, THEY CAN NOT MOVE TO A NEW CLAN/TEAM DURING THE CURRENT PATL SEASON. Only Players from Team "A" can "sub" for Team "A". You can NOT get players from Team "B" to sub for Team "A".

You can recruit new players and remove players from teams as needed but you can NOT swap them between sub-teams every other week to better your odds. I'll get tired of that real quick and lock players down to a single team for the rest of the season. If it's a once per season thing, that's fine.

If a player TRUELY defects from one Team to another Team I'll consider that on a case by case basis but if it happens every other week... I'll get tired of that real quick and lock you down to just one team the rest of the season. If it's a once per season thing, that's fine.

5. English is PREFERRED but NOT required to participate. I am fluent in Spanish, if any Spanish Players/Clans need help organizing, contact me via PM.

6. Players MUST LIVE AND RESIDE in the North, Central or South Americas to participate.

Casters Interested
Greth
Sayle
Schamtoo
EsportsJohn
.gypsy
FlashFTW
HerbMon
Gorgonoth

People offering assistance (Admin)
Eywa-
Qikz

You know I also want to take this moment to thank someone that is not part of our community anymore but is the person that taught me HOW to run tournaments, even if it does not make you popular at times. I watched him run many, many tournaments over the years and if I hadn't, I don't think I would have the heart to attempt this.

Duran "Xeris" Parsi. Thank you.

This guy. This guy has done SO much for the American scene between 2002 and 2014 and it's really sad that there isn't a Liquipedia page on him. He has run SO many tournaments big (NASL) and small (Yankee League).

He used to run weekly, monthly, yearly tournaments ALL the time and I have no idea how he did it. He was considered by MANY players the best Admin to run any tournament, he was often consulted by WCG on how to run the USA tournaments.

He also took a chance on me to cast Yankee League when it first started, arguably him giving me that opportunity lead me to being noticed more and more around the community as a caster. I worked hard to promote myself but I will admit. If Xeris never took the chance on me, I do not think I would have ever gained the popularity that I did that allowed me to participate in the casting crew for THREE WCGs in a row.

Xeris. I deticate this League to you. Wherever you are.