No-Sanji Draft Tournament Rules

1. General 

a) Ignorance of the rules does not pardon any violation. 

b) The Code of Conduct applies to this tournament and can be viewed here. Player communication and conduct are to be kept as civil as possible. While playful banter is acceptable, any abusive act or communication is unacceptable. c) Players must use their name and Steam Account registered with the NSL. 

d) Any issues or disputes are subject to Referee discretion and Admin review. Referees or Admin will be available on the NSL discord if they are not present in the match. 

2. Server Rules 

a) Servers will be assigned for all matches to accommodate fairest game play for all players. 

b) Common sense will be applied to determine matches but general guidelines are as follows: 

i) EU vs NA - NYC or <BAD> Chapel Hill Server 

ii) EU vs AUS/Pacific Region -  Paris, <BAD> Alemania, <BAD> Chapel Hill or NYC Servers 

iii) NA vs AUS/Pacific Region - Paris Servers or <BAD> Alemania 

3. Team & Merc Rules 

a) Teams are drafted at the announced time before the tournament (as described under 4. a)) and must start at least 4 members each match. 

i) Players cannot play for more than one team in the tournament. 

ii) Rosters are capped at 8 (may be changed due to player pool) members for each team. 

b) Teams may use a maximum of 2 mercs per match. 

c) Mercs cannot be from teams that are currently or previously participating in the contest. 

d) Mercs should be approved by opposing captains, but may be contested within reason. 

i) Reasons to contest: 

1) Perceived excessive competitive advantage gained by a Merc. 

2) Use of Merc is inappropriate (e.g. team has available players). 

ii) Disagreements will ultimately be settled by Refs or Admins.

4. Signup Rules

a) Only players who fall under all of the following criteria are allowed to sign up:

i) Players who have been below 4000 Hiveskill for a month before the start of the tournament.

ii) Players who have not been over 4000 Hiveskill for over a few weeks. 

1) Admins reserve the right to refuse signups in order to keep the tournament balanced.

2) Exceptions can be made in edge cases, please contact an admin in the ENSL discord.

5. Tournament Rules 

a) Stage 0 - Team Drafting 

i) Each captain will be assigned a seeding rank. 

ii) The captain with the lowest rank gets first pick. 

iii) Subsequent picks are in descending order of rank from lowest seeded captain. 

iv) After the captain with the highest rank picked, the captain with lowest rank picks again. 

v) This pattern continues until the player pool is empty. 

vi) Admins reserve the right to reorganize teams if one or more teams has a significant advantage. 

b) Stage 1 - Round Robin 

i) Team captains must report on Discord voice 15 minutes before start time. 

ii) Teams are matched up with opponents to play each side (alien/marine) of one map. 

iii) Scoring: 

1) If a team wins 2-0, they are awarded 1 point. 

2) If teams tie 1-1, both teams are awarded 0.5 points. 

3) Teams that lose both sides receive 0 points. 

iv) A round ends when the victory screen is displayed. 

v) Criteria for advancement to Stage 2 (in descending order of priority) are as follows: 

1) Most Points (Example: 2 points > 1 point) 

2) Most matches won (Example: Record of 2-1-1 > Record of 1-1-2) 

3) Head to Head matchup comparison. 

4) Coin Flip 

vi) The highest ranking teams progress to the final stage: 

1) If the number of participating teams is 5 or lower, the top 3 Teams progress. 

2) If the number of participating teams is 6 or higher, the top 4 Teams progress. 

c) Stage 2 - Semi-Finals & Finals 

i) Stage 2 is single elimination, which means that a team is eliminated after losing a matchup. 

ii) Each matchup will be either a Bo5 or Bo7 format. 

1) Bo5 - Teams play and alternate sides on up to 3 maps until one team has 3 wins. 

2) Bo7 - Teams play and alternate sides on up to 4 maps until one team has 4 wins. 

iii) Side and map picks are determined by a coin toss in all Stage 2 matchups. 

iv) Maps cannot be played twice in a series. 

v) A round ends when the victory screen is displayed. 

d) Coin Flip 

i) Coin flips should be used to determine the following: 

1) Side choice - Whether to start Marine or Alien.

2) Map choice - Which map to play. 

(a) Only applicable to Bo5/Bo7 matchups 

3) Decision to ban maps first or second 

(a) Only applicable to Bo5/Bo7 matchups. 

ii) A coin flip is done on the match server and in the presence of each team’s captain. 

iii) By default, the higher seeded team is “heads” and the lower seeded team is “tails.” 

1) Note: Seedings are re-established for Stage 2 using the standings from Round Robin. 

iv) Procedural format: 

1) Coin flip is made → Coin flip winner picks map/side → coin flip loser selects remaining choice v) Picking order is automatically reversed after each map during the Bo5/Bo7 stage, without a new coin flip. 1) Example: Team A wins coin flip and selects ns2_tram. Team B responds by choosing to start Marine. After playing both sides of the map, Team B is now granted the choice of map and Team A chooses the side. 

e) Maps Bans 

i) Teams will ban 2 maps each for the Semi-Finals and 1 map each for the Finals. 

ii) The winner of the coinflip gets the additional choice of banning a map first or second. 

iii) Maps should be banned before the choices of map/side are determined. 

iv) Bans are alternated until each team’s bans are used. 

f) Map Pool 

i) Biodome, Descent, Jambi, Mineral, Summit_v334, Tram, Unearthed_Butbetter, Veil, Nexus, Tanith