16-man invitational spar tournament
 

There will be a 16-man invitational spar tournament held on March 6th (Monday) at 9:00 PM eastern on the N-Pulse server, although it's not sponsored in any way by that server. It'll be held in a private spar room by myself and any of the other admins of that spar room who choose to attend. If for any reason things don't work out on that server, the tournament will be moved to another server of my choice (probably Unholy Nation) to be held. In any event, excluding the possibility of Graal being completely down, we'll hold the tournament and get the spars done that night. My estimation is that, from start to finish, the tournament should take about two hours to be completed.

The tournament will consist of sixteen of the best sparrers currently active, or at least somewhat active, on Graal. The participants and rankings of the participants were ultimately chosen by myself; however, all of the sparrers who'll be participating have the support of other top sparrers who gave me their opinions. The rankings are based primarily on skill, but also on tournament wins (current and recent mainly but also past), activity on Graal, and popularity among fellow sparrers.

Each match will be the best two out of three spars, excluding the match to determine the champion and the match to determine who takes third place, which will both be the best three out of five spars. In each round of the tournament, the highest ranked sparrers will spar the lowest ranked sparrers, just like in most professional sporting tournaments. For example, if all of the top sixteen sparrers show up, 01. Neo Jenova would be sparring 16. Stella in the first round, 02. Halo would be sparring 15. Pluto, and so on.

The results for every spar of every match will be posted on these forums once the tournament is completed, and there'll probably be a statue put up somewhere on Graal for the winner and possibly the second and third place finishers as well.

Below is a list of the sparrers invited and their rankings:

01. Neo Jenova
02. Halo
03. Brett
04. Highlander
05. Ares
06. Quick Strike
07. Deophite
08. Thallen
09. Squirt
10. Josh
11. Torrent
12. Zeldaguardian
13. Chance
14. Exodus
15. Pluto
16. Stella

edit - I bumped Chance up from 15 to 13 since he finished in third place in the 16-man WGFC tournament I held awhile back, which I think he should be rewarded for, and for being more active than both Exodus and Pluto.

Four alternates will also be chosen between now and the start of the tournament, in case any of the sparrers invited don't make it. They'll be listed here as soon as they've been chosen.

***Alternates to be decided***

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Hmm, since it appears that I can only post once in the same thread every hour or eight hours or something, I'll reply to everyone in this post.

Victoreheheh
My reason for choosing Stella is quite simple: She's the best female sparrer currently on Graal. Even another of the top female sparrers on Graal, Aarian, admits that. A lot of the top sparrers that I consulted when making this list agreed. Also, you won't be able to watch the tournament. The only people allowed in the room will be the two sparrers and the spar room admins, although I hope that even they will choose not to watch the tournament in order to cut down on the lag in the room.

syltburk
Some of them may be bad players, but they're hardly bad sparrers. I'm not going to argue that they're the sixteen best sparrers on Graal, but they're at least sixteen of the best. Everyone does better against certain people than others. The problem is: There are probably fifty or more people out there who think that they're among the sixteen best, but there's really only sixteen who are. These sparrers stand out in skill, style/technique, and reputation as sparrers more so than many others. I can easily defend all of the choices if you care to make a claim against anyone in particular.

Infernix
I've seen you on N-Pulse. You seem like a mediocre defensive delayer at best, but I don't recall ever sparring you personally. No one I talked to, with the exception of one person, even mentioned you as being worthy of a top 25 invitation, which was originally how many people I was going to invite. You yourself admit that you suck more than ever, and being able to beat half the people on the list one out of a million spars means nothing. You're not top 16 and you're not even not 25 among active sparrers. Accept the truth and get better.

Mhxtortoise
What's really funny is a washed up, known hacker, saying anything negative about any sparrer.

Sounds cool, I wanna watch it. :)
cough lolstella cough

Why have you invited so bad players :X? Some of them havn't got a single win vs me in graals sparring history

16 best lol XD I suck more than I ever have now and I can still beat over half of those people. No such thing as the best sparrer on graal, maybe your best competition may be those people but surely you can never call any of them the best.

that's pretty funny


Neojenova wins, Chance second, the rest of that list is a bunch of tools and inactive sparrers.

NeoJenova perhaps.

This is fine but the way I see it there are 2 options. 1 would be to have a member of staff observe the tournament. Second you could inform anyone that this tournament is spar at your own risk.

We could perhaps add a statue for the winner in the events house awards room though. Good idea. We planned on doing this with a list of players who won singles and tag team tournaments in a month and having a monthly winner, but it never got off the ground. Perhaps we will try it again soon.

You have N-Pulse's support for this tournament though.

Chance doesnt win. I can beat Chance and some people on that list can beat me. I think HL will take it. Also Squirt sucks O_O.

I have no problem with there being one high level staff there to observe the spars, but I won't have them interfering in a private tournament if no one is doing anything wrong, and I don't want the room taken over by a bunch of staff who will lag the room to hell and back. Judging by this post, I'll probably be holding the tournament on Unholy Nation now.

Oh, inform everyone that it's spar at your own risk? That's fine. I speficially stated that this tournament isn't sponsored by N-Pulse, and I actually don't want any staff interfering.

I think you misunderstood me? I'd like for the tournament to be held on N-Pulse. The only thing is, in some situations like this people complain if there's any "cheating" going on. Without someone to monitor it, people will complain to staff, and if no staff is watching there isn't much we can do. That's all I was saying.

If you don't want staff interfering that's fine, just so long as everyone knows we can't do anything if there is any cheating/rule breaking and all; thus, spar at your own risk. But having it on N-Pulse is completely fine. If you want, we can put up a statue for the winner in the events house as well.

1/5 doesn't really count too much. =]

Anyway, sounds like it'll be fun, hopefully the people who get into the top 2 position won't be too terribly affraid to spar eachother like last time. Hopefully I'll be able to attend, but with less than a weeks notice I dunno if I'll be able to get off work. I usually don't work on Mondays but there's always that rare occasion that I plan to do something on a Monday and end up getting scheduled.

Prediction:

1. Neo
2. Brett
3. Halo
4. HL
5. Ares
6. Chance
7. Thall
8. QS
9. Josh
10. Squirt
11. Stella
12. Deo
13. ZG
14. Torrent
15. Exodus
16. Pluto

i find exodus attractive

Everyone should be sparring on Classic now, we have a spar rank database. Aside, I really ought to make spar tournaments.

kill u... all

Great list. Time to do some bracketology since im bored.

01. NeoJenova
16. Stella

08. Thallen
09. Squirt

05. Ares
12. Zeldaguardian

04. Highlander
13. Chance

06. Quick Strike
11. Torrent

07. Deophite
10. Josh

03. Brett
14. Exodus

02. Halo
15. Pluto

FIRST ROUND
Top Half

1)NeoJenova vs 16)Stella
The 1 & 16 match up, is where we wont see any surprises, NJ is back and sparring he is one of the favorites to win this tourney.
Winner: Neojenova

8) Thallen vs 9)Squirt
This could go either way literally, toss up a coin and see what you get. Thallen is a very heady sparrer and Ill take him if it comes down to the last hit.
Winner: Thallen

5) Ares vs 12) Zeldaguardian
This is a very interesting match up. ZG will make you pay for a mistake, and Ive seen Ares wipe the floor with people pretty quick. Bracketology states to pick the 12 and if Ares gets lazy ZG will win.
Winner: Zeldaguardian

4) Highlander vs 13) Chance
If Chance gets hot, he could easily go to the semi's but I don't expect HL to have a letdown in the first round he will be fully prepared FTW.
Winner:Highlander

Bottom Half

6) Quick Strike vs 11) Torrent
Quick Strike lives up to his name, probably the 2nd fastest person on Graal but Torrent is hard to hit. Being hard to hit is essential in a tourney like this, saying all of that it should be a hard fought match and another toss up.
Winner: Torrent

7) Deophite vs 10) Josh
Hot off of a UTC win Deophite may be what some consider a hot pick. Josh is a nice sparrer who can score quick hits. In the end I expect Deo to continue his hotstreak.
Winner: Deophite

3) Brett vs 14) Exodus
If Brett was playing regularly he would be a favorite, but I doubt he will even be on. If he was he'd probably be rusty. Anyway Exodus is rated a little lower than I would like but either way I pick Exodus...(if Brett was more active I would probably pick him).
Winner: Exodus

2) Halo vs 15) Pluto
Halo....hmmm he went from being considered decent/good to great in about 4 months. I dunno if it was Wheaties or whatever but while the other great sparrers were gone or inactive he's made a name for himself. He's pretty much been probably the best sparrer in terms of big time wins over the last quarter year. I dunno how much Pluto plays still but I expect Halo to continue with what he is doing.
Winner: Halo