The Icarus Sky Tournament 6/8 4PM EST [BRACKET]

[Urz]

Bracket link (this will be updated during the tournament):
http://cesports.challonge.com/skytournament

Stream link:
http://www.twitch.tv/qwerty2jam/

Broadcast schedule: A/B, C, D. The two quarterfinals matches will be run simultaneously, so only one will be broadcasted live. I intend to have the referee of the non-broadcasted match record a video that will be released after the fact.

The quarter/semifinals matches will all be best of three. Each team will provide a loadout at the start of the series. The winner of each game will be locked to that game's loadout for the next game in the series. Map order is provided below.

To explain how the bracket was setup, the three teams who advanced undefeated were placed in a priority seeding pool. Two of those teams were selected at random and seeded into the semifinals. The remaining four teams were seeded in a way that each arm of the bracket contains one team from each group.

The maps will be as follows:

Match A
Canyon Ambush
Battle on the Dunes
Duel at Dawn

Match B
Canyon Ambush
Duel at Dawn
Northern Fjords

Match C
Battle on the Dunes
Duel at Dawn
Northern Fjords

Match D
Duel at Dawn
Canyon Ambush
Battle on the Dunes

Good luck to all competitors. Show us what you're made of!

[Ofiach]

Hey what's match E's map cycle? XD

[Skrimskraw]

Hey what's match E's map cycle? XD

will be played next saturday

[dragonmere]

Are the games open to spectators, or is streaming the only option? This is the first Saturday I've had off since I started playing, looking forward to finally getting to watch some matches as they go down.

[Urz]

Are the games open to spectators, or is streaming the only option? This is the first Saturday I've had off since I started playing, looking forward to finally getting to watch some matches as they go down.

No outside spectators in the lobby.

There is however a slight change, we will probably be streaming the Corvus v Polaris match on a secondary channel (TBD).

[N-Sunderland]

Great matches today (except the sniper ones, those were awful). Brawling with PaFa was an absolute blast.

Also, I'd just like to mention this to Qwerty:

The mortar does not do piercing damage. None whatsoever. It only does explosive. If it did piercing, everybody would run double mortars on their Pyras.

[Morblitz]

I'm actually getting a bit tired of casters losing their professionalism over games they perceive as slow. Stuff is still happening, doesn't mean you start making fun of the teams or debating about the merit of pumping dubstep into the feed, or turning stream feeds upside down, or changing the subject to something completely unrelated just because YOU can't think of anything else to talk about. There is always something you can talk about regarding the game (players, tactics, loadouts, advantages/disadvantages of maps depending on what teams are in them) without coming off as disrespectful to the people that are responsible for making your stream happen. It might just mean you'd have to do your homework, is all.

If you guys want to be seen as professional, that's not the way to do it. All it does is make the whole thing a lot more negative than it really needs to be. It's kind of becoming an acceptable norm for commentators to behave like this, and it's actually the fault of the casters why I do not enjoy watching long matches.

I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but with such a big push to get community e-sports and occasionally effective out there, well. I don't think the mentality of bashing the games that players are  putting an effort into, is all that classy - and it's not a great trait for casters to have.

Just be respectful, guys.

To give credit, I think last weeks gentlemen vs valiant match was casted relatively well.

[Imagine]

I'm actually getting a bit tired of casters losing their professionalism over games they perceive as slow. Stuff is still happening, doesn't mean you start making fun of the teams or debating about the merit of pumping dubstep into the feed, or turning stream feeds upside down, or changing the subject to something completely unrelated just because YOU can't think of anything else to talk about. There is always something you can talk about regarding the game (players, tactics, loadouts, advantages/disadvantages of maps depending on what teams are in them) without coming off as disrespectful to the people that are responsible for making your stream happen. It might just mean you'd have to do your homework, is all.

If you guys want to be seen as professional, that's not the way to do it. All it does is make the whole thing a lot more negative than it really needs to be. It's kind of becoming an acceptable norm for commentators to behave like this, and it's actually the fault of the casters why I do not enjoy watching long matches.

I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but with such a big push to get community e-sports and occasionally effective out there, well. I don't think the mentality of bashing the games that players are  putting an effort into, is all that classy - and it's not a great trait for casters to have.

Just be respectful, guys.

To give credit, I think last weeks gentlemen vs valiant match was casted relatively well.

Out of curiosity, for the purposes to today, which stream are you referring to (as there were two running during the first set of games)?

[Morblitz]

Corvus and was it, Pafa? I actually closed it half way through because I was so tired of the commentary.

I know the commentators there were just volunteers and I applaud them for giving it a go - and when they actually talked about the game it was good. But they are representing the Community e-sports group and occasionally effective, and it seems now easier to fall into that negative casting mentality regarding long matches because there's already a precedence set for this as acceptable behaviour.

I'm honestly quite disappointed that I even had to bring this up at all.

[Qwerty Kun]

Was it me and PapaParapdox your refering to? or Honeybadger and Fade?

[Morblitz]

The latter, but in the past I have noticed similiar behaviour from Occasionally Effective, which I think had set the example, and is why it's becoming seen as an acceptable way to to commentate on matches.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

It is a factor in sharing vids to others. Some of it gets to the point you don't really want others to watch it. Yeah they are griping and moaning about sniping on stuff like Duel but honestly, did any of them analyze the options left open? No. They spent more time complaining about it. No one pointed out why we'd be doing it. What tactical reason we'd have for not barreling into a Galleon's broadside. Let alone for the fact that everyone forgets we were loadout locked for next match so we not only had to prep for one match, but two. We were going to run Galleon on Duel but then I remembered we'd be on Fjords after. Had to switch back to Pyra and prep or long range battle with that.

It would be nice to get some more tactical assessments going. They do call out some stuff at times but it tends to be from their vantage point where they can see all the ships. Most of the time we can't.

[Qwerty Kun]

Hey everyone thanks for the feedback, just want to address a few things.

Morblitz: Fair enough I understand your point. Honeybadger and Fade very kindly came in at the last second and we weren't really able to manage it. I'm going to watch the vid and likely just write down a few guidelines on how CeSport casters should behave. However I would like to raise a point.

The BFS v Polaris matches went on for almost 1.5 HOURS. Even famous casting pairs like tasteless are artosis do 'Off Topic Banter' when a match is proceeding slowly or there are technical difficulties. At the point where we started banter today we felt we had exhausted ALL OPTIONS OF GOIO DISCUSSION. We had discussed builds, map/cover/moving, maybe not enough on player skill and had discussion on the merits of individual weapons. We were OUT of things to talk about.

Gilder: This is not an attack when I say this, it's said in a tone asking for further discussion; I think a lot of your post is wrong/false. Did we analyse the options left open / why you would be making your choices? Yes. We commented on Polaris's preference for recent sniping and that you would likely attempt to counter snipe using your same armour shred build. We ALSO commented on how suicidal it would be to charge a hwacha galleons broadside. PAPA specifically said you were loadout locked (that was my mistake, forgive me).

As to tactical assesments: 'Some stuff'? we frequently call out what we can see and how it can be used to each teams advantage/disadvantage. I believe that is one of the key points of our commentary. I will admit that yes it is all information we have that you likely don't, I can try to commentate more on what you might see/know of course but I feel I allready do it a bit (talking about flanking, teams of being aware of enemy positions etc).



As to the whole 'bagging out snipers' yeah that could be toned down a bit, i'll work on it.

At the end of the day while I am to be a proffesional caster I am still an amature so I love feedback like this

Cheers,

Qwerty

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Well apologies if I missed it. I know stuff is getting mentioned but it just feels greatly overshadowed by rest. I dunno maybe we need commercial breaks or...hmmmm...ya know I've never been a huge Dodger fan but their long time commentator Vin Scully always would seem to be able to make boring games interesting by finding relative topics to say to fill the monotony, which would usually be just about every Dodger game. Usually stats on the player or team but could we do something similar for guns...that is a question since we don't have public stats viewable. But it would be a step between...ZOMG HULL IS DOWN!! to Papa, PULL MY FINGER!! If you casters would like some info provided I guess it would be something to consider asking for the tournaments. Screenshot stats tabs or something. Run the risk of ego making for some but if it would help give you guys more content to discuss then I'm game to give it a shot.

[Imagine]

Well apologies if I missed it. I know stuff is getting mentioned but it just feels greatly overshadowed by rest. I dunno maybe we need commercial breaks or...hmmmm...ya know I've never been a huge Dodger fan but their long time commentator Vin Scully always would seem to be able to make boring games interesting by finding relative topics to say to fill the monotony, which would usually be just about every Dodger game. Usually stats on the player or team but could we do something similar for guns...that is a question since we don't have public stats viewable. But it would be a step between...ZOMG HULL IS DOWN!! to Papa, PULL MY FINGER!! If you casters would like some info provided I guess it would be something to consider asking for the tournaments. Screenshot stats tabs or something. Run the risk of ego making for some but if it would help give you guys more content to discuss then I'm game to give it a shot.

I've actually been thinking of expanding the tournaments wikia page to include some stats for teams which would include their records in tournaments and on specific maps, but it would be quite a lot of work to go back through the videos from recent tournaments (especially since some where lost).

Past that it would be really difficult to even determine what kind of stats would be valid... maybe what ships have what kind of winning percentage of a given map? It gets pretty difficult to determine what would be a relevant stat.

Anyways, my point is even stats would only take you so far in covering dead air in games of GoI, and you really can't compare it to baseball which has stats out the goddamn wazoo.