EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/RuR9n.jpg)
Teams are announced!
http://www.valor.hostei.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=30
In order to view your team's board, please sign up and PM me at the Valor forums!
Note, this doesn't mean you still can't sign up to join in!
Learn to play the game, meet similarly minded people, compete regularly!
Being a beginner in the starcraft 2 community can feel very isolated. Unless you have a friend who plays the game, its difficult to find a practice partner of your level and its difficult to find any sort of "meaningful" competitive environment where you regularly play against names that you know and recognise. Beyond playing for the sheer joy of the game, this gives you no reason to continue playing aside from collecting achievements and advancing up an impersonal ladder.
Valor is a team league for lower league players that attempts to remedy this. Interested players will be assigned a team. Teams of players will practice and train with each other in preparation for weekly matches against over teams. These are hosted in a BW Proleague-style format with a league table to track teams' rankings.
If the GSL is Premier League football, then Valor is sunday league pub football.
Who is eligible to play in Valor
Anyone is eligible to apply to join one of the Valor teams, so long as they possess a valid EU battle.net account.
Please note that diamond rank players are not eligible to play in the weekend ranked team matches. In spite of this, we'd welcome diamond players to join in with our midweek "social" events and to act as mentors and coaches, if you want to have some fun and meet some new people.
We'd encourage anyone in the lower leagues who wants a taste of competitive Starcraft to sign up and give Valor a go. Rules will be put in place to ensure that players of a wide range of skill levels will participate in the weekend ranked matches, not just the same platinum/gold players each week.
Note that the ranked matches will occur every weekend during the afternoon/evening GMT.
Signing Up For Valor
To sign up, either send an email to valorsc2 (at) gmail (dot) com, post on this thread or drop me a PM here on the teamliquid.net forums with the following information:
- CharacterName.Identifier
- TL.net Id (if via e-mail)
- Race Played (P/Z/T/R)
- League (Bronze -> Diamond)
- Where you live and what timezone that is (e.g. UK, GMT)
Optionally, you may also include an e-mail address. If you do so, you'll be automatically subscribed to our mailing list, so we can give you updates and reminders about the week's events. You can opt out of this at any time by sending an email to valorsc2 (at) gmail (dot) com with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line. If you sign up by email, you won't be subscribed unless you ask to be subscribed.
The number and nature of the teams will be determine by the warmth of the response. I hope to assemble the teams around about Thursday
It is highly, highly recommended that you sign up to our forums at http://www.valor.hostei.com if you intend to play. When the teams are set up, each team will have its own board to communicate in secret on, good for organising training. We simply won't be able to cope confined to a single TL thread.
EDIT: The forums are down, temporarily, as the hosting company checks the site for malicious or illegal content. There isn't any, so it should be back up in a couple of hours.
Rules and Format in spoiler
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Rules
Anybody attempting to breach the following rules can and probably will be banned permanently from all Valor events.
The Format
Each weekend, each team will play a best of 5 match with another team.
1 point is awarded to each team for each win they gain and an extra point is awarded for an overall victory. For example, if the red team defeats the blue team 3-1, the red team will gain 4 points, the blue team will gain 1 point.
Anybody attempting to breach the following rules can and probably will be banned permanently from all Valor events.
- No use of external programs to gain an advantage, such as maphacks and drophacks, will be tolerated
- No smurfing. Don't misrepresent your skill level in order to be given easier access to the tournament.
- Valor aims to be a friendly and accepting community. Excessive bad manners are prohibited in Valor events. If you think you may have gone too far, you probably have: keep calm, play nice and have fun.
- All replays for all Valor events need to be sent to valorsc2 (at) gmail (dot) com by at least one of the participants.
- Valor events may be streamed and/or team-mates may be allowed to observe their allies during matches. Abuse of this by communicating with any of the players will be dealt with harshly.
The Format
Each weekend, each team will play a best of 5 match with another team.
- Before each match, the maps will be made known to the teams. Before the first game is played, each team will submit which player they intend to send out to play on each map.
- Maps will be drawn from the official battle.net 1v1 map pool.
- No single player may play twice in a single week, unless the match goes to a fifth set "Ace" match, for which any player is eligible.
- If it is possible on the day, Teams must name players from at least 3 different leagues in the first four matches
- If a team cannot assemble a squad of at least 4 players on the day, teams may play their lowest ranked member twice, at the discretion of an admin.
1 point is awarded to each team for each win they gain and an extra point is awarded for an overall victory. For example, if the red team defeats the blue team 3-1, the red team will gain 4 points, the blue team will gain 1 point.
How to stay in contact with Valor
Asides from posting on this thread and the Valor forums, you have a few ways of keeping in touch with the staff and other players.
Battle.net: channel Valor on the EU server. If Valor is full, please visit Valor2.
IRC: channel #ValorSC2 on quakenet. You can use http://www.teamliquid.net/irc/ to log in.
Email: If you want regular e-mail updates on Valor events, please send a message with the word "subscribe" in the subject line to valorsc2(at)gmail(dot)com
Twitter: Follow us on twitter @ValorSC2
When battle.net chatrooms come into existence, hopefully over the next few days, you can also hopefully use #Valor to stay in touch.
Week 0 Events
This week, I hope to assemble the teams and give them some time to gel and get to know each other. Therefore, there will be no ranked match this week. However, there is going to be three fun events designed to pull everyone together and get them playing.
Saturday, Jan 15 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) - Team Monobattles!
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Time: 19:00 GMT
Date: Saturday 15th January
Who: Any and all who desire to participate
Meet: Chat Channel Valor (preferred), #ValorSC2 on irc.quakenet.org or check-in with BlueSorc.795 Teams will be given individual chat rooms to go to when formed.
This week we won't be hosting a standard league match in order to give you time to get to know your team-mates and fit in a bit of practice. To help you with that, we'll be hosting a small mini-tournament of team monobattles.
What is a team monobattle?
Work together to come up with some solid/crazy unit combinations. We'll be playing a mix of 2v2s, 3v3s and 4v4s depending on who turns up.
Hang around afterwards to play some games with your team mates!
Turn up for check-in at #ValorSC2 on irc.quakenet.org. For those without an irc client, you can use the web client at http://www.teamliquid.net/irc/.
If, for whatever reason, you can't make it into IRC, you can message BlueSorc.795 on battle.net.
Organise with your team beforehand how you are going to communicate during games. I recommend either using skype or the team liquid teamspeak server (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173048). You are strongly encouraged to play a few practice games with your team-mates after the tournament is finished.
Good luck, have fun! Any further questions, please post below.
Date: Saturday 15th January
Who: Any and all who desire to participate
Meet: Chat Channel Valor (preferred), #ValorSC2 on irc.quakenet.org or check-in with BlueSorc.795 Teams will be given individual chat rooms to go to when formed.
This week we won't be hosting a standard league match in order to give you time to get to know your team-mates and fit in a bit of practice. To help you with that, we'll be hosting a small mini-tournament of team monobattles.
What is a team monobattle?
- Each of your team must declare, in the first 30 seconds of the game, publicly to all, the single combat unit you will be using for the entire game
- All races may produce workers and buildings (including cannons and spine crawlers)
- Zerg may produce queens and overlords
- Protoss may produce observers
Work together to come up with some solid/crazy unit combinations. We'll be playing a mix of 2v2s, 3v3s and 4v4s depending on who turns up.
Hang around afterwards to play some games with your team mates!
Turn up for check-in at #ValorSC2 on irc.quakenet.org. For those without an irc client, you can use the web client at http://www.teamliquid.net/irc/.
If, for whatever reason, you can't make it into IRC, you can message BlueSorc.795 on battle.net.
Organise with your team beforehand how you are going to communicate during games. I recommend either using skype or the team liquid teamspeak server (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173048). You are strongly encouraged to play a few practice games with your team-mates after the tournament is finished.
Good luck, have fun! Any further questions, please post below.
Sunday, Jan 16 3:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) & 20:00 GMT (+00:00) - 2v2v2v2 FFAs!
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Time: 15:00 GMT & 20:00 GMT
Date: Sunday 16th January
Who: Any and all who desire to participate
Meet: Chat Channel Valor (preferred), #ValorSC2 on irc.quakenet.org or check-in with BlueSorc.795
This week we won't be hosting a standard league match in order to give you time to get to know your team-mates and fit in a bit of practice. To help you with that, we'll be hosting a bunch of 2v2v2v2 FFAs.
The map pool will consist of Abyss, Forbidden Planet and High Ground. Any suggestions for other maps to play on, welcome.
Work together and hope for good spawn positions!
Hang around afterwards to play some games with your team mates!
Turn up for check-in at #ValorSC2 on irc.quakenet.org. For those without an irc client, you can use the web client at http://www.teamliquid.net/irc/.
If, for whatever reason, you can't make it into IRC, you can message BlueSorc.795 on battle.net.
Organise with your team beforehand how you are going to communicate during games. I recommend either using skype or the team liquid teamspeak server (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173048). You are strongly encouraged to play a few practice games with your team-mates after the tournament is finished.
Good luck, have fun! Any further questions, please post below.
Date: Sunday 16th January
Who: Any and all who desire to participate
Meet: Chat Channel Valor (preferred), #ValorSC2 on irc.quakenet.org or check-in with BlueSorc.795
This week we won't be hosting a standard league match in order to give you time to get to know your team-mates and fit in a bit of practice. To help you with that, we'll be hosting a bunch of 2v2v2v2 FFAs.
The map pool will consist of Abyss, Forbidden Planet and High Ground. Any suggestions for other maps to play on, welcome.
Work together and hope for good spawn positions!
Hang around afterwards to play some games with your team mates!
Turn up for check-in at #ValorSC2 on irc.quakenet.org. For those without an irc client, you can use the web client at http://www.teamliquid.net/irc/.
If, for whatever reason, you can't make it into IRC, you can message BlueSorc.795 on battle.net.
Organise with your team beforehand how you are going to communicate during games. I recommend either using skype or the team liquid teamspeak server (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173048). You are strongly encouraged to play a few practice games with your team-mates after the tournament is finished.
Good luck, have fun! Any further questions, please post below.
Thanks for taking your time to read this. It would be fantastic if this took off and was a success, so please flood me with sign-ups, register on the forums and contribute to your teams.
I'd love to hear any and all feedback about anything Valor related. Drop me a PM, visit our forums at http://www.valor.hostei.com or send an email to valorsc2[at]gmail.com. I'll read and try and respond to any and all emails you send me!
Valor needs help! - If you'd like to help admin, stream or cast Valor events, or write match reports for them, please get in contact with me here on team liquid or at valorsc2[at]gmail.com. No experience necessary, if you've ever wanted to try out casting or running a tournament, here's your opportunity to give it a go.
