NSL season 19 rules

Season 19 Rules 

1. General 

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

b) The Code of Conduct applies to this contest 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. 

e) All streamers must use a 3 minute/180 second delay. 

2. Server Rules 

a) Servers should be selected to accommodate the fairest game play for all players. 

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

i) EU vs NA - NYC/Chapel Hill/Paris 

1) NYC/Chapel Hill will occasionally be the best when there are several West Coast NA players. 

ii) EU vs AUS/Pacific Region - Chapel Hill/RUS 

iii) NA vs AUS/Pacific Region - Chapel Hill/NYC 

 

3. Team & Merc Rules 

a) Rosters are capped at 8 members for each team. 

b) Rosters will be locked upon ½ of season games being played with them only changing with rules stated below.

c) Teams are required to have 6 players on their roster to sign up and must start at least 4 members each match. 

i) Teams may use a maximum of 2 Mercs per match. 

d) Players must be registered on the roster of a team to be counted as a member. If a team has more than 8 players, players participating must be marked as “Season 19”-players in user comments. Additionally team captains will have to confirm their teams roster with a member of the event team and/or admin.

e) Players added to a team during the regular season are not considered members until 2 weeks after the date that they joined the team on ENSL.org. 

i) Players are considered Mercs during this 2 week period. 

ii) Team Captain must inform the Executive and Events Admins immediately when there are roster changes. 

f) Players can only become a member of one team for the entire season. 

i) Once a player joins a team’s roster, they can no longer join another roster for the entire season for any reason. 

g) Mercs cannot be from teams that are currently or formerly participating in the contest unless approved by the opposing team’s captain. 

h) 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). 

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

 

4. Tournament Rules 

a) Regular Season 

 

i) Map picking

1). A coinflip will be used to decide the map, with the winner of the coinflip choosing the first map and loser choosing the second map.    

 

ii) Scheduling 

1) Each week teams will be matched up against another team and play each side 

(alien/marine) of two maps for a total of 4 rounds. 

2) Team captains must negotiate a time/date to play their matches. 

(a) Scheduling between captains should be done on Discord DM’s (for logs) and the Match Scheduling on Discord

(b) Once a date/time is agreed on, captains must confirm it on the Match Scheduling on Discord.

3) Matches must be played within 2 weeks of the “Schedule of Games” for that week. (a) Ex: Week 1 matches need to be played by the start of Week 3. 

iiii) Scoring 

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

2) Teams can earn 4 points per matchup. 

3) Each round is worth 1 point. 

iv) Forfeits and Draws 

1) Forfeits and draws may be made if a match is not played within 2 weeks of the scheduled date. 

2) If both teams fail to communicate a 0-0 draw will be given. 

3) If a team captain attempts to schedule a match and the other captain is unresponsive a 4-0 forfeit win will be awarded to the proactive captain’s team. 

4) If both captains cannot agree on a time/date, the Executive or Event Admins may intervene and set a date. 

v) Season End 

Teams will be divided into Upper and Lower bracket at the end of the season as follows:

1) Three teams will advance to the Upper Bracket semi-finals and Finals. Team with the most points will go to the Finals, 2nd and 3rd will compete in Semi-Finals. 

The Lower Bracket will be formed of the remaining teams.

2) Criteria for advancement to the Upper Bracket Playoffs (in descending order of priority) are as follows: 

( a) If 1st and 2nd team are tied, they will be seeded as info shows below for the higher placement within the upper bracket. In the event 3 teams tie Admin team will seed the brackets.

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

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

(d) Bo3 match. 

 

b) Playoffs 

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

ii) The Semi-Finals will be a Bo3 format. 

1) Bo3 - Teams play and alternate sides on up to 2 maps until one team has 2 wins. iii) The Finals will be a Bo5 format. 

1) Bo5 - Teams play and alternate sides on up to 3 maps until one team has 3 wins. iv) A third place match will be played in a Bo3 format. 

v) Side and map picks are determined by a coin toss in all Playoff matchups. 

vi) Maps cannot be played twice in a series.

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

c) Coin Flips 

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

1) Decision to ban maps first or second 

(a) Only applicable to Bo3/Bo5 matchups. 

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

3) Server choice - Which server to play the first map on. 

(a) Selection must be made with reasonable consideration to Server Rules. 

4) Map choice - Which map to play. 

ii) Coin flips are done on the match server and in the presence of each team’s captain. 

iii) By default, within play offs the higher team on the regular season will become Heads on the coinflip and the other team will become tails, if within regular season alphabetically first team is heads with other team becoming tails.

iv) Procedures: 

1) Coin Flip #1 

(a) Winner decides which server to start on and whether to ban maps first or second. (i) Server choice will alternate after the first map. 

(ii) Map bans are for Playoffs only. 

2) Coin Flip #2 

(a) Winner decides the side to start or the map choice. 

(i) Choices will alternate after Each map. 

3) Examples:

(a) Regular Season: 

(i) Match #1 

(1) Coin flip #1 - Team A wins. 

a. Team A picks NYC #1. 

(2) Coin flip #2 - Team B wins. 

a. Team B picks map.

 b. Team A picks side. 

(ii) Match #2 

(1) Team B picks London #1 

(2) Team AMUSTchoose a map: summit. 

(3) Team B has the choice of side: aliens.

(b) Playoffs: 

(i) Match #1 

(1) Coin flip #1 - Team A wins 

a. Team A pick London #1 and choses to ban maps 2nd. 

b. Team B bans 1st map → Team A bans 1st map → Team B 

bans 2nd map → Team A bans 2nd map. 

(2) Coin flip #2 - Team A wins again. 

a. Team A picks map Jambi to play. 

b. Team B choses to start Alien 

(ii) Match #2 

(1) Team B picks NYC #1 

(2) Team B MUST choose a map: Tram. 

(3) Team A has the choice of side: Marines. 

(iii) Matches #3-5 

(1) Alternate and repeat choices. 

d) Maps Bans 

i) During Playoffs each team will ban 2 maps.

ii) The winner of the Coin Flip #1 decides to ban maps first or second. 

iii) Maps should be banned before Coin Flip #2. 

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

e) Map Pool 

i) Regular Season: 

1) ns2_biodome 

2) ns2_jambi 

3) ns2_mineral_nsl

4) ns2_nexus_fixes

5) ns2_summit 

6) ns2_tram 

7) ns2_unearthed_butbetter 

8) ns2_veil 

 

ii) Playoffs: 

1) ns2_biodome 

2) ns2_jambi 

3) ns2_mineral_nsl 

4) ns2_nexus_fixes 

5) ns2_summit 

6) ns2_tram 

7) ns2_unearthed_butbetter 

8) ns2_veil