I'd like to see eSports branch out a little bit. I'd like to see us as a community take some risks, From all accounts, the recent Redbull LAN event was a super exciting event to be a part of. I'm not saying that the professional Dota players atop the scene aren't the best of the best, but how do we know that there aren't hundreds more who could compete if given the chance? Forming a team and keeping them together is HARD – I know from experience. So fuck it, why not embrace the essence of Dota?
Yeah, teamwork is a huge part of the game but out day to day experience is much more about adaptability, communication and compromise with a group of people we have literally never spoken to before. If you do this in MMR games, you generally win. Why not do a tournament that embraces these qualities of Dota and does away with the hours upon hours of regimented practice and alienates 99.9% of the player base?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you an experiment called the Gladiator Tournament.
Tournament Format:
Players enter a pool of players by buying in to the tournament (much like an online poker tournament). Once the player pool is full, players are randomly shuffled onto teams of 5 and play a match. The players of the losing team are eliminated from the tournament and winning players are returned to the diminished player pool.
The next match is played once all matches from the previous round are complete. Each round diminishes the player pool by exactly half until 5 players are crowned a champions.
Game Format:
Each round is done in All-Pick mode to keep one player from controlling the entire direction of the game. Talk to your team mates or you'll end up with 5 cores and probably get crushed by a team actually working together.
The benefits:
* Solo queuing allows for players to showcase their adaptability to constantly changing teams.
* Also forces players to discard toxic attitudes in favor of teamwork and compromise.
* Each player is individually invested and has a chance to prove to themselves and everyone else their overall skill.
* Allows for new blood to rise up in the tournament scene and possibly be noticed by companies looking to increase their roster of players/teams.
* Allows for players to find other players that they gel with to form their own teams.
* Gambling can be fun and getting stuck on a bad team but winning anyway can be very rewarding.
* More diverse strategies will be employed as teams with possibly bizarre hero compositions will undoubtedly come into play.
The cons:
* Toxic players can ruin the experience.
* Gambling and “running badly” can cost you the tournament.
Signups are open now. Send me a PM with your SteamID or add me on Dota 2 using this ID "31646409" or on Steam using this link: steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197991912137 and why you want to participate. I hope to do this tournament some time in the next couple weeks. Because this is an experiment there will be no buy in or prize pool for the first tournament but I anticipate putting up a seed prize pool and including a small buy in for future ones if the experience for everybody is a good one.
I'd like to see eSports branch out a little bit. I'd like to see us as a community take some risks, From all accounts, the recent Redbull LAN event was a super exciting event to be a part of. I'm not saying that the professional Dota players atop the scene aren't the best of the best, but how do we know that there aren't hundreds more who could compete if given the chance? Forming a team and keeping them together is HARD – I know from experience. So fuck it, why not embrace the essence of Dota?
Yeah, teamwork is a huge part of the game but out day to day experience is much more about adaptability, communication and compromise with a group of people we have literally never spoken to before. If you do this in MMR games, you generally win. Why not do a tournament that embraces these qualities of Dota and does away with the hours upon hours of regimented practice and alienates 99.9% of the player base?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you an experiment called the Gladiator Tournament.
Tournament Format:
Players enter a pool of players by buying in to the tournament (much like an online poker tournament). Once the player pool is full, players are randomly shuffled onto teams of 5 and play a match. The players of the losing team are eliminated from the tournament and winning players are returned to the diminished player pool.
The next match is played once all matches from the previous round are complete. Each round diminishes the player pool by exactly half until 5 players are crowned a champions.
Game Format:
Each round is done in All-Pick mode to keep one player from controlling the entire direction of the game. Talk to your team mates or you'll end up with 5 cores and probably get crushed by a team actually working together.
The benefits:
* Solo queuing allows for players to showcase their adaptability to constantly changing teams.
* Also forces players to discard toxic attitudes in favor of teamwork and compromise.
* Each player is individually invested and has a chance to prove to themselves and everyone else their overall skill.
* Allows for new blood to rise up in the tournament scene and possibly be noticed by companies looking to increase their roster of players/teams.
* Allows for players to find other players that they gel with to form their own teams.
* Gambling can be fun and getting stuck on a bad team but winning anyway can be very rewarding.
* More diverse strategies will be employed as teams with possibly bizarre hero compositions will undoubtedly come into play.
The cons:
* Toxic players can ruin the experience.
* Gambling and “running badly” can cost you the tournament.
Signups are open now. Send me a PM with your SteamID or add me on Dota 2 using this ID "31646409" or on Steam using this link: steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197991912137 and why you want to participate. I hope to do this tournament some time in the next couple weeks. Because this is an experiment there will be no buy in or prize pool for the first tournament but I anticipate putting up a seed prize pool and including a small buy in for future ones if the experience for everybody is a good one.