In hindsight I suppose it was a bit odd that the previous week’s announcement about Alliance Tournament XX included CONCORD, the high sec police force, as the sponsor. Not only is the line up of the player available CONCORD ships pretty sparse, CCP hasn’t been keen to make new AT prize ships, opting rather to re-use past prizes with some tweaks. That there are no past CONCORD prize ships was probably a clue I should have twitched to.
So the first post this past Friday about the rules for ATXX showed up allegedly defaced by the Guristas.
I’m just rolling this for all further ATXX posts…
And it wasn’t just the tournament logo. They were alleged to have gone through the rules and made their own annotations.
Guristas have opinions
The defaced “original” rules remain posted for your perusal.
This led to a revised set of rules being posted later in the day. It included this statement from the head of the IGC:
Earlier this week, we announced our partnership with the CONCORD Assembly to be the premiere sponsor of the Alliance Tournament XX, which will be hosted later this year. While we are grateful for the generous donation of special assets provided to us by CONCORD for the tournament, a decision has been made to move away from CONCORD as our managing partner at this time. We are thankful to the team at CONCORD for their continued support of capsuleer tournaments and look forward to working with them again in the future as our business relationship develops.
It is with great pride, then that we announce our new sponsorship deal for the upcoming Alliance Tournament and our new managing partner, the Guristas organization! This partnership, and the significant financial investment made by the Guristas, will aid the IGC in successfully delivering our flagship tournament at the highest level as we move into our third decade. This commercial agreement will continue to enable us to provide a premiere level of support for the many capsuleer alliances partaking in our 20th anniversary games.
The Gursistas themselves had a press release about the change:
Yeah, we’re happy for the business. This tournament has just been a little too corporate the last few years – not that we expect any better from the Minmatar and Gallente. This one is going to have some actual class, like a real tournament should. We’ve got a lot to celebrate, it being 20th event and all, and we think people are going to have a real good time. One way or another.
We saw their little announcement yesterday. Why do you think we agreed to this? Come on, be serious. We’ve been watching the tournament for years and it makes us sick to imagine Panaja Paukonsuo handing a championship trophy over to alliances with some logo of weird mythical creatures again, or whatever runner-up alliance it was that had a proud parent submit their child’s artwork as a logo rebrand for this year. How about we get Estamel Tharchon herself up there on the stage to shake hands and kiss babies instead – maybe we’ll get her to wear the Guristas rabbit ears, too. That’d be a laugh.
So no, we’re not letting the CONCORD dorks slap their name on the 20th-anniversary tournament. Tell em’ thanks for the ships, though; we’ve got some really wild ideas for them. Give the people what they want, you know.
That is one for the lore fans… and for that portion of the EVE player base desperate for any mention of rabbit ears for player. I mean, if Estamel Tharchon can wear rabbit ears… bunny ears… then why can’t we… or our ships… or our Upwell structures?
Anyway, the revised rule set indicates that the main changes from the previous year are:
This tournament is now sponsored by the Guristas. As such, the previous CONCORD directives have been rescinded, reducing multiple pirate faction ship costs instead. Gallente-sponsored ships from ATXIX have had their costs restored.
The top 4 winning teams from ATXIX have been invited back by the IGC and will have no cost of entry.
The PLEX Silent Auction Buy-ins have been removed this year, and the entry cost has been increased from 3,000 PLEX to 4,000 PLEX.
Flagship rules have been adjusted to allow prize ships from the previous three alliance tournament to be fielded. Additionally, several previously restricted ships are now allowed.
The point system has been overhauled. The new point cap per team is 200 points, and multiple ships now have new unique point values.
Boosters that don’t directly impact the tournament, such as Cerebral Accelerators, are now allowed.
Instead of 4 total bans submitted to the referee, 2 bans will be submitted by both teams and then shared, followed by 2 additional bans from each team that will also be shared.
Several new ship hulls from the Equinox and Havoc expansions have been added to the tournament.
The rules go on to the details, including the full ship point value grid, all of which is too much to replicate here.
As a reminder, the clock is ticking on team registrations, which must be submitted by this Friday, July 5th. Do not tarry. The dates for ATXX:
22 June – Pre-season begins & signups for Thunderdome access open27 June – Rules announced, team registrations open, Thunderdome opens28 June – Recruitment for commentators/analysts begins- 5 July – Team registrations close
- 9 July – Team roster (and mercenary) submissions open
- 19 July – Feeder tournament format announcement & team draw
- 1 August – Roster (and mercenary) lock concludes (ad submission deadline for the Feeders)
- 24 & 25 August – Feeders tournament broadcast weekend 1
- 31 August & 1 September – Feeder tournament broadcast weekend 2
- 4 September – Post feeder roster lock begins
- 17 September – Post feeder roster lock concludes & flagship submissions begin
- 24 September – Flagship lock deadline (ad submission deadline for the main tournament)
- 19 & 20 October – Alliance Tournament XX weekend 1
- 26 & 27 October – Alliance Tournament XX weekend 2
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