Opening 2024 with an absolute banger!

After a year marked by unprecedented activity in both BAR development and e-sports, we're not hitting the brakes! The highly anticipated format is making a grand return, and it's poised to be even more epic this time.

With 48 teams vying for qualification, the PRO 2v2 BAR Tournament #3 is geared up to showcase the absolute pinnacle of duo performances. Get ready for an electrifying display of skill and top-tier gameplay as our leading players take center stage in this official annual event.

The best of the best

Crafted as an exclusive high-skill tournament, the main event brackets will feature only the top 6 teams. To determine these elite participants, a special qualifier stage will precede the main event.

Don't miss out on the action – tune in to the #tournament channel on our Discord to catch all the thrilling matches!

Sign up your team now!

Timing:

Qualifiers:
Round 1: Jan 18-25th 14:00 UTC
Round 2: Jan 25-27th 12:00 UTC

Main event: Jan 27th 14:00 UTC

Prize pool

Courtesy of OPMan's generosity, we've amassed an impressive prize pool of $2,040 for this competition – the most substantial reward we've witnessed to date, both in total and per participant! In alignment with the donor's intent, all six qualified teams will be duly rewarded, and the distribution of the prize money will proceed as follows (Paypal fees apply):

Moreover, the top-ranking team will be bestowed with a classic cosmetic feature, perfectly suited for the most formidable team players in our community – Viking helmets!

Tournament format

In keeping with tradition, we're employing the mixed elimination/round-robin format for the main event, ensuring optimal casting and viewer experience with equal coverage of each team's games.

If you're considering joining the tournament, be sure to carefully review the information provided below. The flow of the event is somewhat tricky, and requires good acquaintance with the format. Please make sure you understand it to lower our organizational overhead. If some things are not clear don't hesitate to ask in the #tournament channel on Discord.

Qualifier stage

The Qualifier will feature the top 48 teams selected based on their team OpenSkill value from the registered participants. The seeding of teams will align with the OpenSkill rating on the Team Leaderboard as of January 18th, which will be the reference point when the qualifier matchups are disclosed on January 18th. To view your rating, simply log in to your account on the server panel. The matchups will show up under the following link on January 18th 14:00 UTC:

See Qualifier Matchups!

Upon the announcement of the matchups, teams are required to reach out to their opponents to coordinate and schedule their matches at a mutually convenient time for all players. Discord handles will be provided for easy communication, and it is recommended to create Discord direct message (DM) groups for each matchup. Qualifier matches will adhere to a best-of-three format and will be contested on the following maps (default boxes):

• Round 1: Fallendell
• Round 2: Comet Catcher
• Round 3: Shallow Straits

Scheduling rules:

Both teams share their range of times they are available to play and look for where it intersects. By default, the match is scheduled for the first mutually agreeable time, but teams can opt for a different time if they reach an agreement.

Once a mutually convenient time is agreed upon, both teams are required to be present, allowing a 30-minute grace period in case of any delays. If a team fails to show up within the grace period, they automatically forfeit the match. It's then at the discretion of the team that did show up whether they want to give the absent team another chance or not.

In case teams can't find a mutually agreeable time, the team that specified a wider range wins.

Reporting results

A special channel on Discord will be made where you can post your results. Once players of both teams confirm it, it will get updated in the brackets page.

Qualifier brackets structure

The teams are seeded according to Openskill rating, Team 1 being the highest rated, and so on.

The first qualifier matches should be played between Jan 18-25th 14:00 UTC.

Qualifier round I

‍After round one of the qualifiers we will be left with 24 teams, results will be updated here:

Qualifier round II

The 24 teams that progressed from stage one will face each other according to their corresponding number in the groups A and B. Winner of A1 faces the winner of B1, and so on.

The second qualifier matches should be played before 27th 12:00 UTC. If you already progressed from Stage I as well as your matchup, you can schedule second qualifier bout right away.

Main event - January 27th 14 UTC

Qualifier finals

After getting down to 12 teams, the final qualifier bracket is going to run during the main event to warm up the teams and let the audience see some of the elimination rounds live. The final qualifier bracket looks like this:

Main bracket

And finally, we can get to the juice of this event. After the 6 elite emerge from qualifier finals, we commence the start of the main bracket. It's structure is built in a way that maximizes coverage of each team struggle towards the podium. You can see the explanation of each stage under the picture below. Following the tradition, matches in this stage are seeded randomly using an actual quantum random number generator live.

STAGE 1

6 teams, single elimination, best of 3

• Round 1: Fallendell
• Round 2: Shallow Straits
• Round 3: Cirolata

Then stages 2 & 3 will run in parallel:

STAGE 2

The winners of stage I: 3 teams, round-robin, best of 1

If the result is undecided after 3 games (we got 1:1:1 situation) we do another round of bo1's, until a winning team emerges.

• Round I: Comet Catcher Remake
• Round II: Theta Crystals
• if there is need for more rounds, we use Center Command as a tie-breaker map.

STAGE 3

The losers of stage I: 3 teams, round-robin, best of 1

• Round 1: Sertagatta
• Round 2: The Cold Place
• if there is need for more rounds, we use Paradise Lost as a tie-breaker map.

‍STAGE 4

Winner of stage III + 2 losers of stage II, round robin, best of 1

The winning team from this round gets promoted to the grand finale to fight for the 1st place. Runner-up gets the third place.

• Round 1: Lavender Bender
• Round 2: Sky Isle (!addbox 21 164 41 183 1 !addbox 127 9 153 29 2)
• if there is need for more rounds, we use Isidis Crack as a tie-breaker map.

Grand Finals

Winner of stage IV vs winner of stage II, best of 3 / best of 5

• Round I: Incadescence
• Round II: Azurite Shores (!addbox 0 65 28 135 1 !addbox 174 61 200 131 2)
• Round III: Failed Negotiations (!addbox 126 52 164 79 1 !addbox 33 119 72 146 2)

If the time allows finals will be held as bo5, with following two maps played:

• Round IV: Pawn Retreat
• Round V: Archsimkats Valley (!split c1 25)
  ‍

Tournament rules

To maintain fair competition and ensure the smooth progression of the event, we have established a set of rules that must be followed during matches. Violation of any of these rules will result in immediate disqualification and exclusion from eligibility for prizes.

• No custom widgets allowed (!bSet allowuserwidgets 0)
• No spectators allowed other than casters and organizers.
• Use passworded rooms and share your password with opponents and the crew.
• If any of the team members individually resigns, it counts as a loss for the team
• Every match has 15 minutes of grace period for being late.
• Banter is allowed unless breaking the Code of Coduct.
• Pauses are only allowed if both teams agree beforehand. Ask in chat and wait for agreement before pausing.
• The stream will have 3 minute delay. If we notice any stream sniping, the team will be disqualified and additionally excluded from all tourneys this year.
• Stream delay applies to self-streaming your matches.

Professional casting

A PRO tourney calls for PRO casters, therefore we are delighted to announce the event will be run by Spreeezy and BARCastTV as gameplay casters and our beloved Borg King as a host/announcer and representative of the development team.  

Spreeezy is a veteran streamer of RTS titles such as Starcraft II, AoE who has recently started learning BAR religiously and made incredible progress in a short amount of time.

BARCast is a well known BAR content creator focused on 1v1 and small team scene, himself recently reaching top10 of the 1v1 leaderboard. He has run countless game analysis series and took part in castling recent tournaments.

We believe the blend of years of casting experience of Spreeezy and deep game knowledge of BARCast will create a perfect mix for the viewers. During the Qualifiers, we will try to catch some of these games on our official Twitch channel to do a little warmup and test run. Tune in!

Sign up your team now!