Monotype Ladder Tour: Rules and Information
Cycle Information, Registration Forms and Playoff Information can be found by scrolling over the Tournaments tab.
To kick off the start of the (northern hemisphere) Summer the Monotype Room will be hosting a Ladder Tournament. We would like to emphasize high-level, competitive play within the Monotype metagame. Overall, events such as the Monthly Official Tours, Monotype Premier League and this Ladder Tournament aim to increase the size, quality and diversity of the Monotype user base. Please note there are some differences between this and the OU OLT; you may find more details on the tournament below.
TL;DR
1. Tournament is broken into 2 stages: 4 laddering cycles, followed by a bracket-style playoffs.
2. To qualify for playoffs you must be in the Top 8 among tournament participants on the ladder during 1 of the 8 laddering cycles.
3. You can only qualify for playoffs once. Once you qualify, your laddering accounts will be disregarded in subsequent cycles, if you chose to make them.
4. Before you start laddering make sure you register your alts that contain the tag: rof## (see number 5 below for what the ## stands for).
5. There are no restrictions on team-building, other than making teams legal on the Monotype ladder. You may change teams as you wish during the tour.
6. DO NOT CHEAT ON THE LADDER! The punishments will be strict and there are no second chances. You have been warned.
7. Aside from bragging rights for winning a very large tour, the prize is a nomination for voice in the Monotype Room on PS!.
Detailed Information
1. The tournament will be broken into two sections. First, a qualification period will run for 66 days, consisting of 8 cycles of 8.25 days. At the end of each cycle the top 4 accounts that appear on the ladder leaderboard at the end of the cycle with the sign-up criteria explained in #4/5 below will qualify for the playoffs, which will be a 32-man, best-of-three, single-elimination bracket style tournament. An 8.25 day cycle ensures cycles will be ending across all time-zones and days of the the week over the course of the tournament, which prevents a location-based advantage.
2. The top 8 from each cycle are selected based on ELO. However, playoff seeding will be done by GXE. The GXE will be taken from the account and cycle that the person qualified in. In the event of a tie, the seeds will be randomly chosen from the tied users.
3. The ladder will not reset after each cycle; instead, each user must create a new alt for each laddering cycle.
4. In order to participate in the tournament, you must sign up with your main account name, accompanied by a required tag. YOU MUST SIGN-UP WITH YOUR ALT BEFORE STARTING BATTLES WITH IT. The alts must be registered on the day of sign-ups or onwards to prevent people from registering an account beforehand and laddering to gain an unfair advantage. It is incredibly easy to check when an account was registered and we will be checking to make sure people comply. Failure to comply will be viewed as cheating (without exception), and that alt will be disqualified. You will be allowed 2-3 alts in your signup for each cycle. Signups will be posted shortly before the start of each cycle.
Note: "Sign-ups" occur here on the Monotype website. You should use the same account for each cycle throughout the tour. "Registering" occurs on the PS! server when you actually create a laddering account.
5. In tribute to our based overlord Nani Man, the required tag will be rof## Main Account, with the first # representing the cycle of the OLT, and the second # being a letter of your choosing. If your main account name does not fit, you may use an abbreviated version of it. You will not be allowed to edit these alts after sign-ups. Below are some examples:
Cycle 1 [8.25 days]
PS!/Forum Username: scpinion
Alts to be used: rof1A scpinion, rof1B scpinion, rof1C scpinion
All of these have to be registered on the day of sign-ups and onwards and can not be edited after you submit them;
your initial sign-up MUST include any and all alts you intend on using
Cycle 2 [Another 8.25 days, new tag]
PS!/Forum Username: scpinion
Alts to be used: rof2A scpinion, rof2B scpinion, rof2C scpinion
6. Once you make the top 8 and qualify (this does not mean making the top 8 at any given point during the cycle, it means being in the top 8 at the end of the cycle), you’re qualified for playoffs. You are free to ladder any other week you wish. However, making the top 8 more than once won’t give a player anything other than personal satisfaction and bragging rights. If a person qualifies again during a cycle after their initial qualification, the newly qualified account will be skipped and the next unqualified account will be selected from the leaderboard to participate in the tournament. This rule also applies to improving your GXE for seeding purposes (i.e. you will not be able to improve it by laddering in subsequent weeks once you qualify).
7. In the case of one person having more than one account in the top 8 during any given cycle, their account with the highest GXE will be the one to qualify and the duplicates will be skipped. Let's say one person in the top 6 holds positions #1, #2 and #3 on the ladder during cycle 1 with the alts he signed-up with. Of these three accounts, #2 has the highest GXE. In this scenario, #2 will be the only account of theirs to qualify and #1 and #3 will be skipped over because they are the same person as #2. In this same scenario, position #4 on the ladder will be the second qualifier of the cycle and so on.
In short, if you have multiple accounts in the top 8 for one cycle then the account with the highest GXE will be selected.
8. Since there is a possibility we will need substitutes for the playoffs, we'll take the 9th and 10th people in each period (so 16 total) and randomize them as subs for the 32 man tournament. The substitutes will be able to qualify for playoffs in future cycles.
9. Given this is a competitive tournament, any instances of cheating will will be met with strict punishments. Cheating includes taking any action to artificially boost your rating, whether you are successful at it or not. To help prevent cheating on the ladder a bot will be joining all rated battles that involve players with a Ladder Tour tag. The bot will take down basic information about the battle and report suspicious activity to the room staff.
Even with the bot patrolling the battles, if you find evidence of someone cheating, please report it.
We can not emphasize this enough: DO NOT CHEAT!
10. Prizes!!! The winner of the Ladder Tour, in addition to the personal satisfaction of winning a very large tournament, will get a nomination for voice in the Monotype Room. This does not guarantee you will be granted voice. Our standards for this promotion: " You will have leeway in the promotion process, in that we won't expect a whole lot from you other than not being actively bad".
You will also get a really cool banner to put in your Smogon signature, should you want to.
This is a Monotype Room sponsored event, which means the tour will not have a corresponding thread on Smogon.
TL;DR
1. Tournament is broken into 2 stages: 4 laddering cycles, followed by a bracket-style playoffs.
2. To qualify for playoffs you must be in the Top 8 among tournament participants on the ladder during 1 of the 8 laddering cycles.
3. You can only qualify for playoffs once. Once you qualify, your laddering accounts will be disregarded in subsequent cycles, if you chose to make them.
4. Before you start laddering make sure you register your alts that contain the tag: rof## (see number 5 below for what the ## stands for).
5. There are no restrictions on team-building, other than making teams legal on the Monotype ladder. You may change teams as you wish during the tour.
6. DO NOT CHEAT ON THE LADDER! The punishments will be strict and there are no second chances. You have been warned.
7. Aside from bragging rights for winning a very large tour, the prize is a nomination for voice in the Monotype Room on PS!.
Detailed Information
1. The tournament will be broken into two sections. First, a qualification period will run for 66 days, consisting of 8 cycles of 8.25 days. At the end of each cycle the top 4 accounts that appear on the ladder leaderboard at the end of the cycle with the sign-up criteria explained in #4/5 below will qualify for the playoffs, which will be a 32-man, best-of-three, single-elimination bracket style tournament. An 8.25 day cycle ensures cycles will be ending across all time-zones and days of the the week over the course of the tournament, which prevents a location-based advantage.
2. The top 8 from each cycle are selected based on ELO. However, playoff seeding will be done by GXE. The GXE will be taken from the account and cycle that the person qualified in. In the event of a tie, the seeds will be randomly chosen from the tied users.
3. The ladder will not reset after each cycle; instead, each user must create a new alt for each laddering cycle.
4. In order to participate in the tournament, you must sign up with your main account name, accompanied by a required tag. YOU MUST SIGN-UP WITH YOUR ALT BEFORE STARTING BATTLES WITH IT. The alts must be registered on the day of sign-ups or onwards to prevent people from registering an account beforehand and laddering to gain an unfair advantage. It is incredibly easy to check when an account was registered and we will be checking to make sure people comply. Failure to comply will be viewed as cheating (without exception), and that alt will be disqualified. You will be allowed 2-3 alts in your signup for each cycle. Signups will be posted shortly before the start of each cycle.
Note: "Sign-ups" occur here on the Monotype website. You should use the same account for each cycle throughout the tour. "Registering" occurs on the PS! server when you actually create a laddering account.
5. In tribute to our based overlord Nani Man, the required tag will be rof## Main Account, with the first # representing the cycle of the OLT, and the second # being a letter of your choosing. If your main account name does not fit, you may use an abbreviated version of it. You will not be allowed to edit these alts after sign-ups. Below are some examples:
Cycle 1 [8.25 days]
PS!/Forum Username: scpinion
Alts to be used: rof1A scpinion, rof1B scpinion, rof1C scpinion
All of these have to be registered on the day of sign-ups and onwards and can not be edited after you submit them;
your initial sign-up MUST include any and all alts you intend on using
Cycle 2 [Another 8.25 days, new tag]
PS!/Forum Username: scpinion
Alts to be used: rof2A scpinion, rof2B scpinion, rof2C scpinion
6. Once you make the top 8 and qualify (this does not mean making the top 8 at any given point during the cycle, it means being in the top 8 at the end of the cycle), you’re qualified for playoffs. You are free to ladder any other week you wish. However, making the top 8 more than once won’t give a player anything other than personal satisfaction and bragging rights. If a person qualifies again during a cycle after their initial qualification, the newly qualified account will be skipped and the next unqualified account will be selected from the leaderboard to participate in the tournament. This rule also applies to improving your GXE for seeding purposes (i.e. you will not be able to improve it by laddering in subsequent weeks once you qualify).
7. In the case of one person having more than one account in the top 8 during any given cycle, their account with the highest GXE will be the one to qualify and the duplicates will be skipped. Let's say one person in the top 6 holds positions #1, #2 and #3 on the ladder during cycle 1 with the alts he signed-up with. Of these three accounts, #2 has the highest GXE. In this scenario, #2 will be the only account of theirs to qualify and #1 and #3 will be skipped over because they are the same person as #2. In this same scenario, position #4 on the ladder will be the second qualifier of the cycle and so on.
In short, if you have multiple accounts in the top 8 for one cycle then the account with the highest GXE will be selected.
8. Since there is a possibility we will need substitutes for the playoffs, we'll take the 9th and 10th people in each period (so 16 total) and randomize them as subs for the 32 man tournament. The substitutes will be able to qualify for playoffs in future cycles.
9. Given this is a competitive tournament, any instances of cheating will will be met with strict punishments. Cheating includes taking any action to artificially boost your rating, whether you are successful at it or not. To help prevent cheating on the ladder a bot will be joining all rated battles that involve players with a Ladder Tour tag. The bot will take down basic information about the battle and report suspicious activity to the room staff.
Even with the bot patrolling the battles, if you find evidence of someone cheating, please report it.
We can not emphasize this enough: DO NOT CHEAT!
10. Prizes!!! The winner of the Ladder Tour, in addition to the personal satisfaction of winning a very large tournament, will get a nomination for voice in the Monotype Room. This does not guarantee you will be granted voice. Our standards for this promotion: " You will have leeway in the promotion process, in that we won't expect a whole lot from you other than not being actively bad".
You will also get a really cool banner to put in your Smogon signature, should you want to.
This is a Monotype Room sponsored event, which means the tour will not have a corresponding thread on Smogon.