The wait is over! International Yomi League, Season 5 is starting tomorrow, June 4!
Your hosts: @vengefulpickle and @Zqxx
We’ve got an excellent turn out, a total of 51 people, spread across 4 divisions. That means we’ll play for 13 weeks for the regular season, from June 4 to Sept 9, with play-ins starting Sept 3, and the Yomi Bowl itself will be the week of Oct 1.
@Leontes and @MadKing have volunteered to stream, so let’s try and schedule matches on Saturday evenings to give them a nice solid set of matches to commentate!
You’ll also be able to keep on top of all of the scheduled matches by following @IntlYomiLeague on Twitter, or adding the IYL5 calendar to your calendar.
Please remember, IYL is a league for everybody; we want as many players to enjoy the thrill of competitive Yomi in a safe environment without fear of repercussions or not being able to fulfill the moderate time commitment it requires.
We do, however, reserve the right as Tournament Organizers to step in and resolve conflicts in any way we see fit after consulting advice from the rest of the team. We aim to stop collusion and toxicity whenever possible, and there is really no good ruleset to mitigate those things. If anything, creating a specified ruleset only invites degenerate behavior as a toxic player now has guidelines for how not to get banned but still push the envelope as far as possible. It’s not an easy thing and it’s not set in stone; but we promise to be as public and fair about our decisions and rulings as possible. Hype Yomi is what we’re after; not power-tripping on the internet.
IYL5 is for all skill-levels of players, ESPECIALLY those who are new to the game. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the event or of the caliber of player you see signing up! The weekly format gives you plenty of time to ask us local pros at the country club for matchup specific tactics and giving you a punching bag to train against. The point of IYL is to create a casual-competitive environment for improvement.
Thanks for being such an awesome community! I’ve only been part of it for a short time, and you all have been awesome!
League Rules*:
- Players will be split into roughly equal divisions, based mostly on time zones
- The season will then be a round robin in each division
- After the round robin finishes, play in matches for playoffs will begin the week after
- Once the play in matches are complete, playoffs will begin
- The two winners of the playoff conferences will fight in the Yomi Bowl!
Players will qualify for playoffs as follows:
- Playoffs will be seeded based upon season win percentage and tiebreakers
- Tiebreakers will be in the following order: head to head, individual game win percentage
- A one game playoff will break the tie, if necessary
The exact qualification rules will depend on the number of signups, but they will roughly be:
- The first player in each division will automatically qualify, and have a first round bye
- The second player will also qualify, but will not have a bye
- Each division will also have one more player qualify for playoffs, as decided by play in matches
- To determine this, fourth and fifth place will play, then the winner of that match will play third place
- Whoever wins out of these three players qualifies for playoffs
*- These rules were based on what were used for last season and seemed to work for ~90 signups. The actual divisional breakdown and playoff picture will depend ENTIRELY on the amount of signups/player retention in order to provide the best league experience.
Match Rules:
- Mid timer
- Spectators can see hands is recommended off, can be on if both players agree
- Rules enforced
- Double Blind Character selection for the first game
- Standard Counterpick rules (Loser of last game may pick a different character, winner is locked to the same character)
- No random character select*
- Players are allowed one five minute break and three pause of thirty seconds or less, unless both players agree to allow it. Violations will result in a forfeit
- A double K.O. results in a replay, with no win or loss to either player
- In the event of a server crash, that individual match or round will not count and must be replayed
* We can’t prevent you from randomly selecting a character via other means. However, “random select” does not allow you to change characters to another random character after a match win, where you would normally be locked into the character you just played. This is the real reason for this rule.
Season play:
- Round robin in each division
- Matches are to be played weekly
- Best of five
Playoffs:
- Playoff matches will be played weekly
- Playoffs are single elimination
- Playoff matches will be best of 7
Other rules:
- Results of your matches will be reported in this thread
- Match results must be posted in the thread by Sun @ 11:59 pm GMT of the following week (you have two weeks to play each match)
- On the last week of the season, as well as the playoffs, the match results must be posted by Sun @ 11:59 pm GMT of the same week the match was scheduled
- Players that no-show twice in same week automatically forfeit
- Habitual no-shows will result in forfeits. This will be determined by a TO
- Ties are calculated as half a win and half a loss and will have a 0-0 individual match record
- Players that forfeit more than one match or tie more than two matches during the season will forfeit the remainder of the season
Scheduling Tip 1: WorldTimeBuddy.com is an excellent resource for scheduling matches across timezones.
Scheduling Tip 2: If you are posting to the scheduling conversation first, provide a list of dates and times when you are available to play. If you are posting to the scheduling conversation second, pick a specific start time and date for your match from those provided by your opponent. If none work for you, propose specific alternatives.
(Hat tip to @mysticjuicer for the scheduling tips)