Hello all! The first year of the Eternal Tournament Series has been a hell of ride, with plenty of ups and downs. We’ve gone from rules intended for 8 to 16 person swiss tournaments to running tournaments with over 128 participants and huge $3000 prize pools. Some of the rules haven’t aged well along the way, and we’re taking advantage of the break to update them for our second year of operation. There is the long list of changes that we will be making to the Eternal Tournament Series, but let’s start with what is NOT changing.

No Changes:

All ETS tournaments remain free to enter! There is no entry fee for participating in ETS events, nor is there a “quota” of matches you must play. Want to play one just to try it? Go for it! Want to play literally every tournament? That’s fine too.

Weekly tournaments remain on Saturdays at 12pm EST. It remained the best option to allow all timezones to play (Team League consumed most Sundays)

The format of Weekly events remains the same. Swiss rounds based on attendance, cut to Top 8 via Opponent Match Win Percentage.

Registration deadlines for weekly events remain the same as you’re used to, and decklists will remain public.

The majority of our rules remain the same, with a few tweaks that will be noted below.

Seasons

The Eternal Tournament Series will feature four Seasons of play. Each season will consist of 8 weekly tournaments, one break week, one Last Chance Qualifier (on a Sunday) and a two day Invitational Tournament. The general schedule for the Season is below.

Day Event Week 1 – Saturday Weekly #1 Week 2 – Saturday Weekly #2 Week 3 – Saturday Weekly #3 Week 4 – Saturday Weekly #4 Week 5 Break Week Week 6 – Saturday Weekly #5 Week 7 – Saturday Weekly #6 Week 8 – Saturday Weekly #7 Week 9 – Saturday Weekly #8 Week 9 – Sunday Last Chance Qualifier Week 10 – Saturday and Sunday Seasonal Invitational

Rookies

The “Rookie” designation has been newly added to the ETS lexicon. A “Rookie” is a player who has played in three or fewer ETS events prior to the current season. Rookies will be indicated by an “(R)” next to their names on the Rankings pages.

What is the designation used for?

Rookies also have special invites – four of the 32 Invitational Invites will be awarded to the four Seasonal Rookies with the highest Invitational Point total that did not directly qualify by winning a weekly event.

What is the purpose of these special invites?

It’s hard to get started as a competitive player! It’s very daunting to stroll up to your first tournament only to get run over by hardcore veteran vs hardcore veteran. It’s also tough to come in late to the year and compete with the day 1 grinders for points. There’s no shame in being a rookie, we were all rookies once. These invites are meant to encourage new players to try out the tournament circuit by smoothing out the rocky early stages of their tournament career.

Invitational Points

Invitational Points were generally a hit – most players liked them and they did a fairly good job of representing who’d been successful at weekly tournaments during the season. Invitational Points will mostly remain the same – you’re awarded a single Invitational Point for every win you get at a weekly tournament. They’re also listed the same – your four best results in a season make up your Invitational point total. However, the following changes have been made:

Bonus points have been abolished. Only results from this season count towards your total.

Seeding for tournaments is now randomized and no longer based on IP.

The players with first through sixth highest Invitational Point totals at the end of the season are awarded Series Points. See the Series Points section for more details.

Seasonal Invitationals

Invitationals remain the premiere tournaments of the ETS, but the way you qualify for them has been changed and the tournament format has been changed completely. The distribution of Series Points has also changed, see the Series Point section for more details.

Qualifying for the Invitational

The following players qualify for the Seasonal Invitational:

Eight (8) Weekly Winners Four (4) Rookies with the highest IP totals among rookies Sixteen (16) players with the highest IP totals who have not already qualified Four (4) Last Chance Qualifiers

Note that Weekly Finalists no longer directly qualify for the Invitational. Twenty players are invited via points, the four highest Seasonal Rookies and then the sixteen highest remaining Invitational Point totals. Last Chance Qualifier invites remain the same. As usual, if people qualify via multiple methods, more Invitational Points qualification slots open up.

Invitational Format

The Invitational has broken up into two halves. The first half, Day One, is a 4 win “CSGO Swiss” tournament. Players will play a otherwise normal Swiss tournament, but once they reach 4 wins they qualify for Day 2 and are removed from the tournament, whereas if they receive 4 losses they are also removed from the tournament and are eliminated. This will split the field in half over 7 rounds, leaving us with 16 players going into day 2. Day 2 will be a 16 player single elimination tournament, which will award Series Points to every player based on their final standing. See the Series Point section for more details.

Midseason Major

The Midseason Major will not be run this year. The only premiere tournaments in the year are four Invitationals and the World Championships.

Qualifying for Worlds

While the exact format, date, and prizing of Worlds has yet to be determined, we do know how you’re able to qualify. Sixteen (16)Worlds Invites will be presented to:

The four (4) Invitational Champions The ten (10) players with the highest SP totals (who have not already qualified) Two (2) players from the Worlds Wildcard (Wildcard details TBD)

Series Points

The Series Point system worked very well in theory – players with higher Series Point values had been more successful than players with lower Series Point values. Unfortunately, there were not many opportunities to earn Series Points, and those opportunities that did exist were extremely top heavy. A single big result would allow players to sit on the sidelines for months, secure in their position. Our aim with the Series Point changes is to make Series Points more accessible, easier to get, and better scaled, which should overall make them a better indication of a player’s success during the year. Series Points are not and should never be an indication of how good a player is.

Series Points are tracked both on an annual and a career basis, although career series points don’t mean anything and are just tracked for fun. Series Points have been completely reset for the 2018 year.

New Ways to get Series Points

Weekly Tournaments now award series points to everyone in the top 8. First place earns 4 points, second place earns 3 points, 3rd and 4th earn 2 points, and 5th through 8th earn1 point.

Invitationals now award Series Points to everyone in Top 16. First place earns 12 points, second place earns 10 points, 3rd and 4th earn 8 points, and 5th through 8th earn 6 points, and 9th through 16th earn 4 points. These have been increased due to the increased rigor in reaching Day 2 / the top 16.

Worlds points payout will be adjusted but has not yet been finalized.

Going undefeated in the Swiss portion of a weekly tournament or in the “CSGO Swiss” portion of an Invitational awards 1 Series Point.

At the end of a season, players will be awarded based on how many Invitational points they have, relative to the field. On average, this system would have historically been worth about 27 series points across 14 players.

Players with the highest, second highest, or third highest point totals (or tied for these totals) will earn 3 Series Points.

Players with the fourth highest or fifth highest point totals (or tied for these totals) will earn 2 Series Points.

Players with the sixth highest point total (or tied for it) will earn 1 Series Point.

Conclusion

There’s plenty of changes to the way the ETS functions exactly, but at its core it remains the same – a fun tournament series open to all. We believe that these changes will improve the ETS and make it a better tournament series for everyone, but reserve the right to make additional changes during the year if something isn’t working. We hope to see you all back at the ETS in January 2018!

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