New Game Trial: Broken Arrow

We are pleased to announce our the first of our trial events for Broken Arrow, in a 2v2 format!

Depending on the performance of this event and future ones, we will evaluate whether to support the game on a consistent basis.

Sign-Ups

On August 30th and 31st, you have the opportunity to compete for glory and win your portion of the 100 USD starting prize pool.
To participate, state your intention to sign up via the Meta Plays Discord by August 29th, midnight UTC.
Check-in begins on both days at 2:30 PM UTC, start time is at 3:00 PM UTC.

Format & Rules

• Single elimination tournament
• Maps:
  • Ruda 1
  • Riga 1
  • Dead Center 1
  • Chkalovsk 1
  • Baltics 1
  • Chernyakhovsky 1
  • Black coast 1
  • Highway to death 1
  • Jelgavas pils 1
  • Klaipeda rift 1
  • Snow castle 1

1. Lobby Settings:
   • Map size: small
   • Starting resources: 1000
   • Income: 300
   • Upkeep: 2
   • Time limit: 30
   • Bonus requisition: 50
2. Seed determination
   Higher seed is determined by a coin toss at the start of the series preparation

3. Preparation phase
Use the following tool to determine maps and ban specializations.
https://aoe2cm.net/preset/PQkzn
The higher seed player is responsible for hosting the banning phase. Banning phase results must be posted on the tournament’s Discord channel.

Each team can ban 1 RU and 1 US specialization combination which can not be used by the opponent during the series.
eg.: Team alpha bans GUARD+MOTORIZED and USMC+ARMORED, therefore team brave can’t use GUARD+MOTORIZED and/or USMC+ARMORED throughout any of the games. Team bravo bans VDV+GUARD and USMC+ARMORED, therefore team alpha can’t use VDV+GUARD and/or USMC+ARMORED throughout any of the games.

The higher seed team has to lock in the selected decks in the lobby first.

4. Specialization uniqueness rule
Each team can only have one per each specialization in a single match. Eg.: Alpha team player 1 picks VDV+GUARD, therefore Alpha team player 2 can’t pick VDV+GUARD, VDV+MOTORIZED, or GUARD+MOTORIZED etc…

5. Game format
No mirror matches and no mixed faction teams. Each team has to play 1 RU and 1 US game.

Each team can only pick a map from their own map pool. Sniped maps can’t be picked. A map can only be played once per set.

6. Game 1
The first game is played on the higher seed team’s map. The higher seed team can decide if they want to pick a faction or starting position. The lower seed team picks the other option.

7. Game 2
In the 2nd game factions are switched between the teams and the team which did not pick the starting position in the first game will pick the starting position in the 2nd game.

8. Game 3
In the case of deciding games, the team which won their game with more victory points gets to play their selected map and can decide to pick a faction or starting position first.
eg: game1 scores: team alpha 10 - team bravo 9, game 2 scores team alpha 0 - team bravo 8. Team alpha has more victory points therefore the 3rd game is played on their selected map and they can choose between picking a faction or starting location first.

9. Post game
The winning team has to post a screenshot of the victory point scores at the end of the game.

10. Other rules
In the case of an uncapturable zone bug, the team noticing this problem has to announce the fact in the chat and both teams HAVE to take a screenshot of the capture point and the chat message being visible from their perspective. Referees can decide to adjust points of a team if it's clearly determined that the point could have been captured despite the bug but only for phase 3 victory point calculation.

—----------------

Possible specialization combinations for banning phase:
RU:
VDV+GUARD 1
VDV+MOTORIZED 1
VDV+COASTAL 1 
VDV+MECHANIZED 1
GUARD+MOTORIZED 1
GUARD+COASTAL 1
GUARD+MECHANIZED 1
MOTORIZED+COASTAL 1
MOTORIZED+MECHANIZED 1
COASTAL+MECHANIZED 1
US:
USMC+ARMORED 1
USMC+AIRBORNE 1
USMC+STRYKER 1
USMC+SPECIAL 1
ARMORED+AIRBORNE 1
ARMORED+STRYKER 1
ARMORED+SPECIAL 1
AIRBORNE+STRYKER 1
AIRBORNE+SPECIAL 1
STRYKER+SPECIAL 1

Seed determination
Higher seed is determined by a coin toss at the start of the series preparation.

Preparation phase
Use the following tool to determine maps and ban specializations: https://aoe2cm.net/preset/PQkzn
The higher seed player is responsible for hosting the banning phase. Banning phase results must be posted on the tournament’s Discord channel.

Each team can ban 1 RU and 1 US specialization combination which can not be used by the opponent during the series.
example: team alpha bans GUARD+MOTORIZED and USMC+ARMORED, therefore team bravo can’t use GUARD+MOTORIZED and/or USMC+ARMORED throughout the rest of the set. Team bravo bans VDV+GUARD and USMC+ARMORED, therefore team alpha can’t use VDV+GUARD and/or USMC+ARMORED throughout the set.

Specialization uniqueness rule
Each team can only have one unique specialization in a single match. Eg.: Alpha team player 1 picks VDV+GUARD, precluding Alpha team player 2 from picking VDV+GUARD, VDV+MOTORIZED, or GUARD+MOTORIZED etc…

Game format
No mirror matches and no mixed faction teams. Each team has to play 1 RU and 1 US game.
Each team can only pick a map from their own map pool. Sniped maps can’t be picked. A map can only be played once per set.

Game 1
The first game is played on the higher seed team’s choice of map. The higher seed team can then choose if they want to pick their faction or starting position on their selected map. The lower seed team picks the other option.

Game 2
In the 2nd game factions are switched between the teams and the team which did not pick the starting position AND map in the first game will pick both the starting position AND map in the 2nd game.

Game 3
In decider games, scores from both games will be added up to a total to determine who has pick dominance for map selection and EITHER faction OR starting position, with the lower pick priority team picking the other option.
example: game 1 scores: team alpha 10 - team bravo 9, game 2 scores: team alpha 0 - team bravo 8. Team bravo has more victory points therefore the 3rd game is played on their selected map and they can choose between picking a faction or starting location first.

Sudden Death Clause
If a sudden death occurs, the team who is sudden deathing will be awarded maximum points for a game, whilst the team getting sudden deathed will still have their points count
towards their total if a potential decider game is needed. 

Surrender Clause:
If a team surrenders (leaves before the game is officially over) MAXIMUM poins will be awarded to victorious team, while the surrendering team lose any points accumulated in that game and will not have them count towards
a total for a potential decider game. 

Post game
EACH team has to post a screenshot of the victory point scores at the end of the game. If no screenshots are taken of the point scores, screenshots of post game screen with destruction scores will have to be taken. The higher destruction score will be used
in this scenario to determine pick dominance. If destruction score is needed to determine a deciding game 3 for a set, destruction scores from game 1 and 2 will be added together to determine total destruction score and thus determine pick dominance.

IF NO SCREENSHOTS ARE TAKEN, THE REFEREE'S CAN DECIDED TO FORCE RE-DO THE SET OR DQ BOTH TEAMS, TAKE YOUR SCREENSHOTS. 

In the case of an uncapturable zone bug, the team noticing this problem has to announce the fact in the chat and both teams HAVE to take a screenshot of the capture point and the chat message being visible from their perspective. Referees can decide to adjust points of a team if it's clearly determined that the point could have been captured despite the bug but only for phase 3 victory point calculation.

Conduct yourself professionally: be on time, and treat fellow players, casters and our staff with respect
 

How to Watch

Day 1: Olvadi will cover the initial rounds on his personal Twitch channel.

Day 2: Olvadi and N7shark will cover the top matches on the Meta Plays Twitch channel.

Giveaways

During day 2, we will be giving away one key each of Company of Heroes 3, Age of Mythology Retold and SpellForce: Conquest of Eo! Simply be in our Twitch chat during the August 31st stream when we call for each giveaway to take part.

Looking to contribute?

With the help of the incredibly helpful community members Greyshot and Mule, we are putting down $100 towards the starting prize pool of the event. You can help further increase via our donation page, earning you guaranteed crediting, as well as shiny profile medals, in addition to our eternal gratitude.

About Meta Plays and Broken Arrow

To those of you hearing of us for the first time, we are an esports organization with a community focus for multiple RTS games - chiefly Age of Mythology and Halo Wars 2 and Company of Heroes 3. We have distributed nearly $30,000 in event prizes across all our supported games, present and past since our launch in 2021. This has been possible in huge part thanks to the community's generous contributions to event prize pools, as well as our own out-of-pocket investment.

With Broken Arrow, tournaments are still uncharted territory. Given this, our trial tournaments, as well as any possible full seasons will be community-funded only.

We will be closely monitoring the performance of the event in order to decide about whether to commit to Broken Arrow in the long term. To be crystal clear, we are certainly interested, but it needs to make economical sense for us to take on extra costs.

The metrics we will look at to judge the event's performance will include:

• Average viewership and follower growth on Twitch
• Average viewership, subscriber growth and watch time on YouTube
• Number of tournament participants (excluding no-shows)
• Prize pool donations
• Community support revenue (website patrons, staff tips, Twitch revenue, etc)
• Discord server growth

Depending on the results we will scale our support for the game between the below. We humbly request that you let your friends know that they can help bring more esports events to Broken Arrow by simply tuning in!

• No support: if our event completely misses the mark, we can't commit to anything
• Small scale support: a singular open league tier, mostly aimed at pro players
• Medium scale support: 3 tiered leagues for amateur, rising star and pro players
• Full scale support: Regular showmatches, plus 3 tiered leagues for amateur, rising star and pro players

Note: the above implies that we would implement Broken Arrow to make use of our first party tournament hosting and seasonal ladder system, as well as showmatch system. This will take significant development effort, which is why we need to be certain that committing is the right call for us to make.

Thank you very much for reading. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments, or reach us on Discord! We'll see you on the battlefield.