Today marks the official start of Forge Hub's 1v1 Smackdown tournament. As many of you may have already noticed, the winner of the Smackdown Forge contest has been announced so before we proceed, we would like to congratulate Dax on his map, Updraft. While today is the official start of the tournament, the actual matches do not begin until next week so in the interim please check out Updraft, get some practice games in, and read all of the following to prepare yourself for next week's first round of matches.
Smackdown Round 1
For the first round of the 1v1 Smackdown you will require the map Updraft, along with the 1v1 Smackdown gametype. You will have one week to practice before the beginning of round 1. Round 1 will officially commence Monday, September 3rd. You must have completed your matches with your opponent, as well as submitted the match results by 11:59 pm EST on Sunday, September 9th. The bracket threads for Round 1 will open by 12:00 am on Monday, September 3rd.
Download Updraft
Download Smackdown Gametype
Tournament Format
The 1v1 Smackdown will follow a standard, single elimination format for the initial five rounds of the tournament. The bracket will consist of 192 players who will be randomly assigned their initial opponents. Players will play down the bracket until there are 6 remaining players. From here, players will be seeded based on their tournament performance. Seeds 1 and 2 will receive a bye for round 6, while the remaining seeds must play off to see who advances. The tournament will resume as a single elimination bracket for the remaining two rounds. All rounds will be the best of 2 out of 3 games.
To determine the seeds of the players the staff will take their tournament record for the five previous rounds and find who has the overall best win/loss ratio. The win/loss ratio will consist of game records that are either 2-0 or 2-1. Players should not play an additional game in the event that they have already won their two games as only records of 2-0 or 2-1 will be included in the win/loss ratio. In the event of a tie between two players' win/loss ratios, their total number of kills followed by their total number of deaths will be used to determine who will be placed higher on the seeding chart.
Once the remaining six players have been seeded into six respective positions, the number 1 and number 2 seeds will receive a bye for round six. The remaining players will be sorted into two games consisting of seed 3 vs seed 6, and seed 4 vs seed 5. The bracket will then be reconstructed so that the winner of the game between 4 and 5 will play the first overall seed and the winner between 3 and 6 will play the second overall seed. From here the winner of seed 1 vs 4/5 and seed 2 vs 3/6 will play off in Round 8 for the championship, although in this round the match will be the best of 3 out of 5 games.
Match Process
Once match threads are posted for each round (every Monday), you must organise and play your match before the end of the following Sunday. Matches should be organised primarily in the match thread itself, though attempting to contact your opponents via their Forge Hub profile, or over Xbox LIVE using the gamertags provided in the match thread, is also heavily advised. If you are unable to organise a suitable time for the match to be played, or one player simply doesn't turn up/makes no attempt to organise the match, then a Staff ruling will be made on who will forfeit the match. This is why it is important to make every effort to contact your opponent using the methods detailed above, as who is assigned the win will be judged, where appropriate, on who made more effort to organise a match and ensure availability throughout the week.
Rules
If you have any further questions about the 1v1 Smackdown tournament, feel free to check out our full rules and FAQ thread. We are also more than happy to answer any of your questions here, in the round announcement thread. If you need to be more specific you are also welcome to make a thread in the Smackdown boards. You can also contact chrstphrbrnnn or Shad0w Viper with any private inquiries.
Good Luck!
So with the beginning of yet another of Forge Hub's epic showdowns, I'd just like to wish all of your the best of luck in your matches. We're hoping to have a pretty epic montage of your crazy moments by the end of this tournament, so don't disappoint us! Go get 'em and win yourself that copy of Halo 4!