The Tournament of Dreams

War and pestilence have swept across the galaxy of late, bringing the ruin of cities and the death of heroes. Old hatreds refuse to die, and new rivalries have been born from the ensuing inferno. In a desperate bid to restore some sense of peace to the core of the galaxy, a tournament spanning the stars has been announced, promising riches and prestige to those brave enough to answer the call. Though the benefactor behind the tournament remains a mystery, the prizes on offer have already attracted the attention of warriors and martial artists the world over.

Only one question remains: will you enter the ring?

The tournament will be divided into two brackets: the Imperial Open on Arcose, and the Trial of Peace on Namek. These tournaments will have different power requirements and limitations. If you wish to enter, please post below with your maximum transformed BP. The likely start date of the tournament is mid-February.

If you wish to join both tournaments by using two separate characters, please let us know which character you are prioritizing. In the event of a higher-than-expected tournament turn-out, the priority will be on having as many unique players involved as possible.

TOURNAMENT RULES

TOURNAMENT FORMAT

• Each tournament will be divided into brackets based on the number of competitors, with a maximum of sixteen per tournament. If too many sign up, then a supplementary battle royal will be held for those who did not make the cut, with its own rewards and rules.
• Each tournament will have a panel of judges who are not competing. They will deal with rule-breaking or malicious behaviour, as well as judge the fights on the scoring system.
• The scoring system has three criteria: damage dealt, initiative, and fairness. These will be explained below.
• Fights will last a maximum of two weeks, with the exception of the final fight which will end when one side scores a decisive victory.
• Battle Items, Support Items, and Super Items may be used. Consumable Items of any type will be an automatic disqualification.
• You may heal with traits or a Super Item to avoid a knock-out, but damage dealt scores will be judged as if no heal was applied, to prevent the tournament from being too imbalanced in favour of healing species.

THE JUDGING RUBRIC

1. Damage dealt comprises 50% of the total score. This is judged on an automatic basis: the more damage you deal to your opponent than was dealt to you, the higher your score will be -- and the lower their score will be. This will almost always decide the outcome of a fight.
2. Initiative comprises 25% of the total score. This is awarded for the technique and aggression shown in battle. You may play as offensively or defensively as you wish, but you will gain points for demonstrating control of the fight or executing well on your strategies, while you will lose points if you are too reactive. Strategies based around defense and counter-attack will not be penalized, but turtling the entire fight to run out the clock will be.
3. Fairness comprises the final 25% of the grade. Ideally, all participants will receive full fairness marks: however, these can be lost through certain types of unsportsmanlike conduct. This can include guilting an opponent over mechanics, excessive negativity in general chat areas, harassing opponents to take a certain course of action, or deliberately slow-posting after you gain an edge in the fight, in an attempt to win by default by gaming the 14-day timer. Unlike initiative, fairness is entirely based on OOC conduct.

If you win by knock-out or by ring-out, then the judges will not be called upon to vote, with the exception of such egregious fairness violations (in or out-of-character) as to require a disqualification.

POSTING RULES

• Posts are expected within about a day and a half of each-other, due to the pace of the tournament. Ideally, you should be posting no later than 24 to 40 hours after your turn starts. You may exceed this, but if you go over 48 hours, you will be skipped and your opponent may post an automatic ring-out.
• If you are consistently near or at the 48 hour maximum for posts, you may be assessed a penalty per the fairness rule.
• There is leeway for players to post slower if they have to, but please reach out via a ticket so that it may be relayed to your judges. The judges cannot know that something's forcing you to post slower if they aren't told. If you need to go over 48 hours, please make sure you have permission from both judges and your opponent.
• The standard advice applies: make sure you have time to post and participate before you sign up. If your time is limited, please consider making shorter posts so that the fight can continue. You will not be penalized for making a shorter post in the interest of keeping the fight flowing.
• If you abandon the tournament entirely without justification, you may be disqualified from entering the next site tournament.

TOURNAMENT LOCK
This tournament will assign a unique status called Tournament Lock. What this means is that once you enter the tournament, you should generally make sure you are on the planet and able to post in the next round of fights when they begin. The exception to this is that tournament competitors will be granted a Tournament Bypass. What this means is that if an Action Thread is launched while you are in the tournament, and you are eligible to join, you may enter the Action Thread and continue to post in the tournament, including new tournament threads--as if you were not Action Thread locked at all.

This rule has been added to ensure players do not have to quit the tournament due to their home regions being attacked. There are, however, a few restrictions to this:

• Tournament Bypass is fundamentally a defensive rule, intended to protect players from being unable to defend their home regions while in tournaments. As such, you will be unable to exercise the bypass to join an Action Thread as an aggressor or co-aggressor: if you create or join an Action Thread to attack, conquer, destroy, or otherwise, you will be unable to post in the next round and will thus be disqualified.
• If your character dies in an Action Thread, you will be forced to withdraw. However, you may continue your fight and even start the next fight, if you would prefer to arrive at a narrative defeat rather than being replaced suddenly.

TOURNAMENT PRIZES

In order to ensure maximum attendance, the benefactors of the tournament have moved significant sums of money around in order to acquire unique prizes for this tournament. The winner of each bracket will receive not just a hefty sum of money, but a rare artifact from a bygone era. These artifacts have little practical value, but are said to be nearly priceless in their rarity. We encourage all attending warriors to fight hard and not to let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity pass by!

GRAND PRIZES
15,000 Zeni
One Dojo Coupon
Ancient Orb

RUNNER-UP PRIZES
10,000 Zeni
One Dojo Coupon

CONSOLATION PRIZES
5,000 Zeni

All participants who actively participate in the tournament without receiving a disqualification or an automatic ring-out from abandoning their thread will receive a consolation prize, even if they lose in the first round.