Ruleset

Contents

Tournament rules

  1. The Exoracer World Cup (EWC) is a competitive tournament in which players compete for their countries.
  2. Players must compete for the country they currently reside in and may be asked for proof if this is different to the in-game location set for the player as of 29-03-2023.
  3. Teams must have at least 4 players and at most 6.
  4. Each country can only have a single team competing.
  5. The map pool and schedules for each round will be announced on the recap livestream at the end of the Sunday of the previous week. This information will also be posted on the official Exoracer Discord and on https://exostats.nl/ewc/.
  6. Use of all in-game advanced settings such as hiding ghosts and speed meter are permitted.
  7. All skins, glider skins, hook skins and trails may be used in matches.
  8. If a team has less than 3 players present at a scheduled match time, then the team with more players present is declared the winner. Should both teams have the same number of players (less than 3) the team with the higher qualifier seed will proceed.
  9. Exchanging players between individual maps from a country's squad is allowed without limitation.
  10. If a map ends in a draw the result is nullified and the map is replayed.
  11. Teams can ask for a rematch if a team member encounters technical difficulties within the first 20 seconds of a round. Note lag, or other internet related issues are not considered sufficient reasons to restart a round. Referees have the final say on whether a map is to be restarted.
  12. If a round is restarted, neither team may change their line up for that round unless a technical difficulty prevents a player from playing. In this case both teams are permitted to change their line up.
  13. In the case of a disconnect in the middle of a round, a player's top time before disconnect will be counted.
  14. Players are expected to keep the match running without delays and may be punished for excessive or extended interruptions.
  15. Referees may use timers at their own discretion if they believe a team is taking too long to make a map pick and, if a team refuses to pick a map on time, can surrender the pick to the opposing country.
  16. All players are expected to be friendly and cooperative in the custom lobby chat room and discord chat. Insulting or provoking other players or staff and other inappropriate behaviour will not be accepted and will be punished accordingly.
  17. All players must use English in the custom lobby chat room and discord chat.
  18. Referees and other staff should be treated with respect. Instructions from any staff member should be followed and any decision made by a referee or tournament manager is final.
  19. All of Exoracer's community rules are to be followed during the tournament. Breaking these rules anywhere during the tournament may result in additional punishment beyond that of the standard procedures.
  20. Not following the tournament rules may result in the following punishments depending on the severity of the offence.
    1. Exclusion of specific players from one map
    2. Exclusion of specific players from an entire round
    3. Exclusion of players from the tournament
    4. Disqualification from the current tournament
    5. Disqualification from current and future official tournaments
    6. Bans from the official discord server
    7. Bans from Exoracer itself
  21. The tournament managers may request proof of legitimacy at any point during a tournament without prior warning. If this is ignored or the proof is considered insufficient, the tournament managers have the right to remove players from the tournament.
  22. Any rule may be modified or adjusted by the tournament managers. Any changes will be announced to all players.
  23. When unclear or omitted, tournament managers have final say over disputes.


Tournament registration

  1. Every player interested in competing for their country should sign up using the official sign up form in the official Exoracer discord Announcements channel.
  2. The tournament managers will pick a captain out of players who have signed up, prior to 23-04-2023.
  3. Captains will be sent a list of potential players for their country as they sign up.
  4. Captains are expected to pick the team with good will and honesty, with the goal of picking the strongest team possible.
  5. Captains are expected to submit an initial 3 player team by the end of 23-04-2023 in order to register their country for the tournament.
  6. Captains are expected to communicate well in English with the tournament managers. Failure to do so may result in captaincy being exchanged to another player.
  7. If agreed upon by all parties involved, a country may change its captain permanently or temporarily at any time in the tournament.
  8. Captains are strongly encouraged to use try-outs to determine the aptitude of prospective players. Maps from the first unofficial EWC such as "EWC - Rockslide" , "EWC - Conveyor Belt" and "EWC - Roundabout" may be useful as they contain similar mapping styles to the tournament itself. (Note these maps do not include ice or float zone mechanics however the tournament will).
  9. To ensure valid registrations, players picked for the team will be manually checked by the tournament managers.
  10. After the initial registration, but before 30-06-2023, a captain may add additional players up to 6 to the team's roster and with a player's permission or inactivity, remove players from the team. However, during this phase a team must have at least 3 players on their roster at all times.
  11. By 30-06-2023, a country must have 4 players on the roster to be admitted to the qualifier. This is also the deadline for team changes so no new players may join a country after this point.
  12. Tournament staff (except mappers) are not permitted to play in the competition.
  13. Not every player signing up for the competition will be selected to play, however there will be additional sign ups for staff to help out in the competition.
  14. Players with bans from the discord or Exoracer may not be allowed to play at the discretion of the tournament managers.


Qualifier instructions

  1. In the qualifier stage, all countries will play a specific pool selected by the map pool selectors.
  2. The map pool will consist of 5 maps with no more than 1 map from any given country.
  3. Players from the competing countries will have 5 days to play these maps and the countries shall be ranked similarly to club league. This consists of taking the sum of the top 3 positions (not times) of your country on all 5 maps.
  4. Only the top 16 teams will proceed and these will be seeded based on their ranks in the qualifier.
  5. Ties on the sum of positions will be settled based on sums of times.
  6. Qualifier results will be published on the official Exoracer Discord and on https://exostats.nl/ewc/.
  7. Any team that fails to have 3 players compete on each of the 5 qualifier maps will be disqualified and lower ranking teams will move up a seed.


Elimination phase

  1. Following the qualifiers, a double-elimination bracket will be played. For teams in the winners bracket, the winning team continues in the same bracket, while the losing team gets moved to the losers bracket, where any further defeats will eliminate the team from the competition.
  2. Teams in the losers bracket must play up to 2 matches each weekend, starting from the third week of games (quarter finals in the winners bracket).
  3. Each weekend will consist of one map pool for all games in the winners and losers brackets.


Win conditions

  1. In the round of 16 (matchweek 1), teams need to win a best of 7.
  2. In the quarter finals (matchweek 2), teams need to win a best of 9.
  3. In the semi finals (matchweek 3), teams need to win a best of 11.
  4. In the finals and grand finals (matchweek 4), teams need to win a best of 13.
  5. For the grand finals match, the team coming from the losers bracket must win two matches to win overall and the team from the winners bracket only needs to win one. This is because every team must lose twice to be eliminated in a double-elimination style tournament.


Match procedures

  1. A referee will create a custom lobby 10 minutes before the scheduled match time. 3 players from each team including the captains must join during this time.
  2. To ensure that all players can connect, any player present at the start of the match may be asked to join the lobby temporarily.
  3. The room will be set to 3 minutes, max players 7 and on the race gamemode.
  4. The room will be titled “EWC2023: {Country A} vs {Country B}”. The invites to this lobby will be sent privately to the players involved.
  5. Before the match begins, captains from each team will be invited to a coin toss to determine which country gets to go first in the action order.
  6. At the start of the game, the team that is first on the action order will ban a map and then the opposing team will ban a map too. Note the tie-breaker map cannot be banned. The banned maps cannot be played throughout the match.
  7. Before each map a captain must declare 3 players who are playing. These players then compete on the selected map and the team with a lower sum of times at the end will win the point.
  8. After the bans teams will take turns picking maps until a team wins (see win conditions), or all maps except the tie-breaker have been played. Note the tie-breaker cannot be picked.
  9. Teams are expected to pick a map within 30 seconds of a previous map ending and should have their 3 players ready in the lobby after another 30 seconds.
  10. If these time limits are not being followed referees may use timers to enforce that the match proceeds smoothly (see tournament rules).


Map pool information

  1. Every match week will have its own map pool.
  2. The map pool for each week will have the following sizes:
    1. Qualifiers - 5 maps
    2. Round of 16 - 9 maps
    3. Quarter finals - 11 maps
    4. Semi finals - 13 maps
    5. Finals/Grand finals - 15 maps
  3. Each map pool will consist of maps created by a set team of mappers, contacted by the tournament managers directly.
  4. Each map pool will contain a tie-breaker map that will always be played if both teams are equally tied on map wins, one before the win condition.
  5. Each map will have a unique gameplay element or an “identity”. This will be a short section within the 8-12 second maps and will make the maps less repetitive.
  6. Mappers will be given further information about the mapping process after being contacted.
  7. The map pool for a given gameweek will be published shortly after the round up stream of the previous week for players to practise.


Scheduling information

  1. The qualifiers will be hosted across a week at the start of the tournament
  2. Each subsequent stage will be held on a single weekend, on every following weekend.
  3. Match schedules will be made by the tournament managers as soon as possible after the round up stream of the previous week. The schedules will be made to best accommodate the time zones of those competing.
  4. Captains may ask for a match to be rescheduled, however this is only possible when both teams agree to a time change.
  5. If a team expects to be unable to play during a specific time on a weekend then captains can inform community managers who will attempt to take this into consideration. Note the earlier a conflict is brought up the more likely tournament managers will be able to work around it. Additionally, conflicts that take up an extensive period of time are unlikely to be taken into consideration.
  6. If a captain is unable to make a match, a second player can be made pseudo-captain for the match, with only the match based responsibilities such as confirming picks or bans.
  7. Reschedule requests will not be accepted within 48 hours of the initially proposed time slot.
  8. Matches cannot be rescheduled to a time after the last match is initially scheduled.
  9. Captains are responsible for their team's availability.
  10. Reschedules should only be requested when needed and may be denied by tournament managers if they do not have suitable explanation.

Thanks, Kyra, for contributing the HTML version after we published a crappy PDF file :)