HD Team League

[myndzi]

Tetris is a difficult game to make into a team sport, but I have an approach that I think will be fun and also allow for team play that isn't just tags in your name. The premise here is analogous to Starleague's team play - 1v1 matches between chosen team members on randomly selected settings. There will be three matchups per game, chosen from a pool of five different settings groups. Interested? Read on!

Format

There will be one pre-season round for which the scores won't count, followed by a round robin tournament among the participating teams, and finally a ladder elim of the top four teams for the finals. (4th place plays 3rd, winner plays 2nd, winner of that plays 1st.) Teams will be ranked by number of wins, followed by number of matches, and finally total win differential if necessary.

Date

The pre-season round will be held on the weekend of the 15th, or the first weekend after we have 6 teams to participate, whichever comes later. New teams can be entered up until the 17th; the round robin schedule will be posted at this time and no more teams can be added. The regular season will be 7 rounds, so the last round will be played on March 5th, 2011. The finals will take place on the following weekend, scheduling permitting.

Terms

For this competition, I will be using the term "game" to refer to an individual game of Tetris. "Set" will refer to the best of 7 games between two players. "Match" will refer to the three sets played between two teams. "Round" will refer to the entire group of matches for that week.

Matches

Each match will consist of three sets of 1v1 games. These will be first to 7, win by 2. The settings for each set will be randomly selected from a pool of five settings groups before that set is played, and the competing teams will then decide which team member will play that set. Settings will not be repeated, and no player can play twice. If a team does not have enough players to play three matches, they will forfeit the balance. The winning team is the one that wins the most sets in the match, though individual set win/loss may factor into breaking ties for placement in the finals. A team can gain a maximum of 2 set points by forfeit. Forfeited sets will have a +4 differential.

Teams

Each team should have an owner and a captain. They can be the same person. The owner may make roster changes and designate a captain. The captain can also designate someone else as captain. The captain is responsible for scheduling games and deciding who plays each set of a match. If the captain cannot make a match, they should designate someone else to act as captain for that match.

Roster changes are allowed throughout the regular season, but additions after the regular season begins cannot play for 7 days after joining a team. No roster changes will be allowed for the finals. Players can only be on one team, of course. Multiplaying and other such cheating will be dealt with strictly.

Scheduling

Teams will schedule their matches in advance, with a time and date being decided for them if they can't agree. All matches will be held on Saturday or Sunday and supervised by a referee (volunteers welcome!).

I will post match times on Fridays if I haven't gotten a response from the teams involved. Those match times can be amended if both teams agree.

Settings

This is a list of the settings groups to be played:

Type A: 100% change on attack, 7 previews, bag randomizer, T-spins only (4-point), EZ: on, B2B: on, garbage block: on, garbage cancel: on, combos: on, perfect clear: on
Type B: 100% change on attack, 7 previews, bag randomizer, All-spins (Immobile), EZ: on, B2B: on, garbage block: on, garbage cancel: on, combos: off, perfect clear: on
Type C: 100% change on attack, 7 previews, bag randomizer, No spins, B2B: off, garbage block: on, garbage cancel: on, combos: on, perfect clear: off
Type D: 100% change per-line garbage, 3 previews, 4-history randomizer, No spins, B2B: on, garbage block: on, garbage cancel: off, combos: off, perfect clear: off
Type E: 100% change per-line garbage, 1 preview, memoryless randomizer, No spins, B2B: off, garbage block: off, counter: off, combos: off, perfect clear: off

All game types will use SRS rotation with hold enabled and 20g soft drop.

These game types will be played with rule lock on. I have attached three rule files for the game types to be played; these are based on Standard Zero. Tuning settings are left open.

Preset codes:
[spoiler]
Type A: eNrTNbT2cAnx0Q6pLEjVdrQ2sjYAw7TEnOJU65Ki0lRra2OQgJkBVAbIMzS0NoTIYSMgWnUNrU2hTEwSrM7QAGQckhYsCqEOAQCUrzY6
Type B: eNrTNbT2cAnx0Q6pLEjVdrI2sjYAw7TEnOJU65Ki0lRra2OQgJkBVAbIMzQEqgPLISlDEBBBXUNrUygTkwSrMzQAGoWsBYtCqEsAxWw2iA==
Type C: eNrTNbT2cAnx0Q6pLEjVdrY2sjYAw7TEnOJU65Ki0lRra2OQgJkBVAbIMzREVYEgIIIQUtfQ2hRFAJkEqzY0QFgFIbGohCoAACpFNxw=
Type D: eNrTNbT2cAnx0Q6pLEjVdrE2sjYAw7TEnOJU65Ki0lRra2OQgJkBVAbIMzQE0mA5JGUQJjKpa2htikUYmTQ0QFgGIbEogioAAJHPN7M=
Type E: eNrTNbT2cAnx0Q6pLEjVdrU2sjYAw7TEnOJU65Ki0lRra2OQgJkBVAbIMzSEq8BP6hpamxJQYmhggGYYFkVQBQD0xzhK
[/spoiler]

Because this forum software (or html?) sucks, you will have to be sure and EDIT these strings after copying them to remove the newline that gets inserted if you copied them while they were wrapped. Paste them into notepad and you will see what I mean. If you paste them into Nullpomino, it will look like a space placed somewhere in the middle of the line of junk.

Match format

Here's how each match will go down:

The settings for set 1 will be announced at the agreed-upon time. For each round, both teams get 5 minutes to confer and decide who is going to play. By the end of that time, they will announce which player will play that set, and then the room will be created and the set played out. When the set is ended, the score will be recorded, the next settings announced, and the process repeated.

Each team will get 15 minutes of time-out time. This can be used however they like - waiting on people to show up, time-out during or between games, whatever. If a player gets disconnected or cannot play for some reason during a set, he/she will get a courtesy 1 minute to get back into the game, and any further time will be deducted from the time-out time. If the team is out of time-outs, the rest of the games in that set will be forfeited and the next set will begin its 5 minute deliberation time, with the following exception:

Teams may also perform one substitution throughout the match. This can be used however they like, but any player who has played a game cannot play in another set. (So if a player gets substituted in set 2, neither the original player nor the sub can play in set 3.)

If a player is seated in a game room, that player is considered to be playing. If a player needs to take a time-out, that player should spectate until ready to play.

The players for each round shall be announced to the ref running the games (probably me, since nobody's volunteered yet) in private. For now, I will create the room, have one captain join and announce their player, then have the other captain do the same.

One other concession to the vagaries of the internet: games that are interrupted for some reason, i.e. lagouts, disconnections, dogs, lightning storms, etc. will be replayed. Do not abuse this privilege, it will be allowed on the ref's judgement and abuse will be grounds for disqualification, forfeiture, or similar.

Playoffs

The playoffs will have a slightly different format. Each match will be a best of five sets, so that every game type is represented. Timeout rules will remain the same, but there is a change to who can play when. Captains may field a player as many times as they want until that player gets a win. What this means is that to win a playoff match, you will need three distinct players each to win a game, but it also means that players may be reused if they didn't win. You may still only perform one substitution, and you may not substitute a player who has played in a set that your team won. If you sub someone out and their replacement wins the set, neither player will be allowed to play in further sets.

Before the match, captains will be allowed to thumbs down a single game type. This type will not be included in the first three sets. The higher seeded team will have preference, so the lower seed's thumbs-downed type will be played fourth, and the upper seed's thumbs-downed type will be played fifth.

Miscellaneous

Because of the nature of this competition, it will need to be held on the latest stable version of Nullpomino. That version is currently 7.5. If you want to participate but have had trouble playing Nullpomino or getting it set up how you want, please let us know early so we can try to get you straightened out! (By "us", I mean myself and anyone else who wants to volunteer some tech support time...)

Also because of the nature of this competition, games will need to be played with rule lock. This means you won't be able to use whatever rotation system you want, for which I am sorry. Tuning settings will allow you to use your preferred DAS settings, however.

I would like to have a handful of referees to help out in case I can't make every game, which is probable. The refs will be responsible for creating the rooms, drawing the game types, and recording the results.

Signing up

Signups are closed for this season.

Referees

• killahbee
• coolmaninsano / Aaron

Participants

Team owners are bolded, captains are italicized.

• The Sadistic Sixteen: Ukrainian4Life, Beastin Shen, adamparkzer, TetrisProdigy, MoM, xkittykattx, Alexsweden, jkwon23, baseballboy, billstar, EnFuego, BentoBoxer, Shawty, qmk, dannie_marie15
• Element: killahbee, Blink, Jes, jujube, tagitagi, hebo_mai
• The Legion of Doom: Chopin, BlazenAzn, Crzy242, CubixCreature, HAHAHA1363, Jennr246, kennyboy2, Massi4h, MicroBlizz, ZeroT, Carolyn, rowaks
• The Eurofighters: Paul676, mippo, Ravendarksky, mcgif, bluesphere, KeroKai, Agamemnon, Rosti_LFC, Spirale
• Zodiak: Paradox, xxsoboredxx, freakwithfire55, goldenshadow, Phoenix, medyas
• Hopeless Romantics: larrytetris, kdbar, Pikiwedia, DrPete, virulent, colorhapsody, Question_Mark, Aaron, repetition314, Kathy
• Epilogue: briann, clincher, Maserati, meow, MzSlowMo, Shizi, Apocalypse, goofer
• STARS: arf, Poopmo, Profane, ohitsstef, Anonymous, Bao, SuperMeowMix, Zircean, TT_Edward

Standings

Scheduling thread
Predictions thread

[coolmaninsano]

I enter the Sadistic Sixteen, with Ukrainian4life as the leader.

Roster (TF names):
-S16_Ukrainian
-Aaron
-S16_XxEdwardxX
-Beastin_Shen
-TC_Corrosive
-RyanJCarlson
-adamparkzer
-HD_TetrisProdigy
-mom
-xkittykattx

[myndzi]

Edit: ignore me for now!

[Profane]

this sounds really cool.  I imagine Rev is gonna sign up SF.  we have a big squad so my question would be would we need to have 'two' owners or could Rev be the owner of both teams and assign captains for both squads.

[Rosti_LFC]

Paul et al, we're doing this sh** right?

We should have at least two teams.

[myndzi]

this sounds really cool.  I imagine Rev is gonna sign up SF.  we have a big squad so my question would be would we need to have 'two' owners or could Rev be the owner of both teams and assign captains for both squads.

Well the idea is to separate the duties of roster management from the duties of scheduling and playing. I suppose in cases like this, I have no problem with one owner controlling the rosters of two teams, but the owner may only play on one of them, and roster change rules still apply the same way.

I support entering multiple teams, because it will give us a better tournament

[Paul676]

Rosti - we are doing it, I am waiting for one final reply, and then I shall try to make 2 teams - I'm cautious given this may be made in term time about making a UK team and an international team, so I might have to do it by initial letter or something random like that. I might even do it based on 40 line time and alternate players.

@Myndzi: 20g ARS please

[Rosti_LFC]

Yeah, I was thinking two random teams or two mixed teams would probably  be more interesting than an A team and a B team (and easier to organise), given this is just a new thing for fun right now.


Also, myndzi, if you could clarify the match format a bit - I'm assuming that the team that wins two out of the three matches is the winner, and not the team with the most points overall. 10-8, 10-8 and 0-10 would presumably go to the team with two wins, even though the overall score is 20-26, right?

Also, speaking as a TGM folk, I wouldn't worry about catering for us too much. TGM does have multiplayer, but it's not something anyone in the TGM community takes particularly seriously. If you wanted to truly honour the TGM series and cater to us, you'd have to do some sort of side-by-side run of a single player mode and just give the points two whoever gets the highest grade (or who is faster in the case of a tie). Except that would either force ARS and therefore give TGM players an astronomical advantage, or it would include SRS and be almost entirely pointless =P

[Kitaru]

You don't think being all spread around has anything to do with it? :p I think TGM garbage is pretty cool.

[Rosti_LFC]

You don't think being all spread around has anything to do with it?  I think TGM garbage is pretty cool.

It's pretty cool, but I think there's a good reason why it doesn't get suggested as an ideal VS format very often. Even in Japan they tend to compete with speedruns on normal modes rather than VS, going on YouTube at least.

[myndzi]

Also, myndzi, if you could clarify the match format a bit - I'm assuming that the team that wins two out of the three matches is the winner, and not the team with the most points overall. 10-8, 10-8 and 0-10 would presumably go to the team with two wins, even though the overall score is 20-26, right?

I actually realized I wasn't clear on that point sometime after posting last, but I hadn't had a chance to update. Yes, the team with two wins gets it, though the individual game scores may be used to break ties for placement in the finals. I updated the OP.

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]
Also, speaking as a TGM folk, I wouldn't worry about catering for us too much. TGM does have multiplayer, but it's not something anyone in the TGM community takes particularly seriously. If you wanted to truly honour the TGM series and cater to us, you'd have to do some sort of side-by-side run of a single player mode and just give the points two whoever gets the highest grade (or who is faster in the case of a tie). Except that would either force ARS and therefore give TGM players an astronomical advantage, or it would include SRS and be almost entirely pointless =P
[/quote]

Well, TGM vs with items I believe is pretty terrible, but without it, it can be interesting and also strategic (though I think most players probably play too fast for the strategy that could be gained... at least I didn't see the kind of use of garbage that I expect could be effective in any of the instances I've seen TGM vs go down).

Besides that, I was inclined towards a 20g ARS mode, but I don't think there are enough people who could play it well to make it viable. Maybe down the road. The point here is to build a team that is diverse where each player can contribute something to the team. SRS vs players might get wasted at 20g ARS, but one TGM player could then play a key role for the team.

Paul: I suggest examining your players' various skills and compiling two teams that each have people who can perform well in the different game types, rather than random assignment. We've got modes for BB players, Tnet players, TOJ players, Nullpo players, and combo players Up In Dis.

I think that between Legion of Doom and Sadistic 16, we will have at least 4 teams, but I'm hoping for more - 6 at least. Who wants to step up?!

[Paul676]

oh you'll get 6 from us. I'm not sending teams out yet because I'm waiting for my final reply.

[myndzi]

Don't cut it too slim, of course; remember that you'll want to show at least three people every weekend for months...

[Paul676]

We've got 10 players currently, so 3/5 should be ok I think! On the other hand, I could make a huge 10 man team, but it would defeat the point of trying to give everyone a game.

[Rosti_LFC]

SRS vs players might get wasted at 20g ARS, but one TGM player could then play a key role for the team.

My only real issue with that is that I think it'll just give a 1 point disadvantage to any team without a TC TGM player. I would absolutely smoke 99% of the people here at Death VS, because the tetlag is far worse going from 0G SRS to 20G ARS than the other way around.

I can understand trying to give teams a bit of variation, but stuff like 20G ARS would just make team formation formulaic, and you'd need specialists for each mode type rather than properly balanced teams. There are (relatively) very few TGM players who have any real interest in SRS multiplayer, let alone any skill in it. Yet you'd still want a TGM player just for that round, even if they suck at everything else, because the teams with the likes of myself and Kitaru are going to slaughter you in it otherwise.