NB: All dates/times are in UTC+0.

Code of Conduct

• Participants are expected to treat fellow competitors and staff with respect, and to refrain from bigotry, including sexism, racism, LGBTQIA+phobia. This includes derogatory language, even when used in a 'non-hateful' manner, and includes its use in profile names, pictures, bios and similar.
• All players should be aware that this tournament will be streamed on Twitch, and therefore they should comply with their terms of service for all streamed matches.
• During matches streamed on the Custom Songs Central Twitch account, players' names must be as they appear in the official tournament standings.
• Custom Songs Central reserves the right to disqualify and eliminate any player from the tournament, should they be deemed sufficiently harmful. CSC also reserves the right to forward any warranted community ban to the CSC and Clone Hero Discord servers in extreme cases.
• Individuals banned from the CSC, Clone Hero, Clone Hero Score Challenges ("CHSC") or Scorespy Discord servers are not eligible to participate.
• To take part in the tournament, players must be a part of the CSC: Championship Series Discord server.

General Gameplay

• The qualifying round will use Clone Hero version 23.2.2. This enables the use of ingame screenshots, for ease of score saving.
• Beyond the qualifying round, the tournament will use Clone Hero Public Test Build (PTB). Version is to be decided, depending on the CH dev cycle and bugs that would be competitively blocking. This enables necessary online features, such as versus and spectating.
• Players may use any guitar controller, keyboard or other input device (e.g. Xbox controllers, etc.) as long as the inputs are mechanically triggered by the players themselves. The underlying specs therein (e.g. mechanical frets, raking strumbar, etc.) are not restricted.
• Players may use any means of employing auxiliary features, such as whammy and star power, as long as they are mechanically triggered by the players themselves. Macros for multiple inputs or pre-timed inputs are not permitted.
• Modifiers, such as all taps, all strums etc. are disallowed. Any exceptions will be explicitly stated by the organizers.
• Unless otherwise indicated, every song will be played at 100% speed.
• Any highway scroll speed can be used, unless a non-standard highway scroll speed causes bugs when playing online or causes problems for the streaming setup. In such cases, highway scroll speeds will be normalized to 100% speed.
• Any instance of match fixing, including cheating, sandbagging, or intentionally missing a match, is not permitted under any circumstance. Staff will be the sole arbitrators of such occurrences, which should be exceptional.
• During the group stage and playoffs, players will use online versus mode. Spectators will not be permitted, other than the referee, and a potential streamer and casters.
• Where available, players should join a server created by one of the organizers. The connection details of the server will be communicated prior to the match by the organizer.
• For online matches, players are encouraged to experiment with the "show remote players" toggle setting, which can be leveraged to gain computational performance if needed.
• Players are allowed and encouraged to stream their matches, if they wish.

Qualifying Round

• To join the tournament, participants will take part in the open qualifying round. The qualifying round will span from Sunday 14th February at 12:00 UTC+0 to Sunday 21st February at 18:00 UTC+0.
• Participants will submit their best score on the CSC: Championship Series Qualifying Chart. The chart is made up of three songs put together, which can also be found separately on chorus for training purposes.
• Only scores on the Qualifying Chart will be considered - scores of each song separately are not relevant and will not be considered.
• No-fail should be turned on for the qualifying round.
• Participants should spend the week learning the three songs and aiming for the best score possible on the single qualifying chart. Participants should take screenshots of their scores using the in-game screenshot function on the results screen. Screenshots of the song select screen or any other means of sharing scores are not permitted.
• Participants' Clone Hero profile names should exactly match the nickname they wish to participate with.
• Submissions are via Google form. Participants will be required to submit their email address. They may submit only once, but will be able to update their submission, in case of improving their score.

Group Stage

• After the qualifying round, the tournament will proceed to the group stage. The group phase will span from Sunday 28th February to Sunday 21st March.

• Players will be seeded into round robin groups of approximately 5-8 people based on their performance in the qualifying round. Within these groups, players will play against each other either once or twice (to be decided based on groups size). Matches will be played per the match process detailed below.

• For each match, players are awarded 1 point per song victory, and 2 points for overall match victory. Within each group, players will be ranked based on points earned. Once all matches have concluded, the top 2 players from each group will proceed to playoffs.

• If, at the end of the group stage, two or more players have the same amount of points, the tie will be broken in the following order:

  1. Total matches won
  2. Least songs lost
  3. Head-to-head record
  4. Sonneborn-Berger Score
  5. Tiebreaker match (details TBD)

Playoffs

• After the group stage, the tournament will proceed to the playoffs. The playoff schedule is to be announced.
• Players will be seeded into the final bracket based on their performance in the group stage. Initial seeding will be based on standard round robin pool progression, but may be altered slightly depending on circumstance.
• The final bracket will be played in a double elimination format. All players will start in the winners bracket. As with the group stage, matches will be played per the match process detailed below.

Chart pools

• The tournament will feature three chart pools. Two will be used during the group stage, and one will be used during the playoffs. Each will be revealed one week before it is put to use.
• Chart pools will feature ten non-tiebreaker charts, which will be composed of three solo, three strum and four hybrid leaning charts.
• The playoffs chart pool will also feature one solo boss and one strum boss. Boss songs are harder than the other songs, and can only be picked during Top 8 matches. They are otherwise treated as standard non-tiebreaker songs.
• Each chart pool will also have three tiebreakers, composed of 1 solo-oriented hybrid, 1 strum-oriented hybrid and 1 mixed hybrid. The tiebreakers will be the same for both group stage chart pools.

Charts and chart terminology

• All players must use the correct version of the charts featured in the chart pools. Any alteration will make charts incompatible in Clone Hero's online mode, in any case.

• The chart pools will be sorted into categories that players should take into consideration when they pick and ban charts during their matches:

  • Solo: Tests one-handed and/or tapping proficiency.
  • Strum: Tests strumming proficiency.
  • Hybrid: Features a mix of soloing and strumming.

• Solo, strum and hybrid categories will feature one of the following subcategories:

  • Consistency: Not necessarily too fast or complex, but always long and/or dense. Places an emphasis on focus, pathing and nerve management.
  • Stamina: Somewhat fast or technical in long stretches - likely to test a player’s stamina.
  • Technical: Features the hardest sections, but speed and/or complexity are kept to short bursts. These picks should require less stamina.
  • Gimmick: Has particularly unconventional or niche elements that are crucial to victory.
  • Tiebreaker: Longer and harder than standard charts, and always features at least some element of hybridity.

Matches

General

• A match is a head-to-head between two players.

• A match is won by winning a certain amount of rounds, depending on the current stage:

  1. Group stage/Playoffs start: Best of 7 (Bo7), first to 4
  2. Playoffs end (approx. top 8): Best of 9 (Bo9), first to 5

• The primary condition to win a song is to achieve a higher score than one’s opponent.

• Should a score tie occur, the win is determined by considering the following elements in order:

  1. Total amount of notes hit
  2. Highest note streak
  3. Amount of star power phrases earned
  4. Lowest section accuracy percentage (higher of the two wins)

• If all else fails (i.e. a double FC with the same path and execution), the next song counts double. If this is the case, song pick is granted to the player who did not pick the tied song. If the score tie occurs in a situation which would have decided whether or not to use a tiebreaker, the tiebreaker is played. If the score tie occurs on a tiebreaker, organizers will decide on another song to play, usually a second tiebreaker.

Match Process

First Song

1. The higher seeded player bans one song.
2. The lower seeded player bans one song.
3. The higher seeded player picks the first song.

Middle Songs

• The player who lost the previous song picks the next song. Any song cannot be picked twice in the same match.
• If a player wins enough rounds before the final round (eg. 4 song wins before round 7 in the group stage), the match ends. Otherwise, the match progresses to the tiebreaker.

Tiebreaker

• If more strum songs have been played than solo songs, the solo tiebreaker is played.
• If more solo songs have been played than strum songs, the strum tiebreaker is played.
• If the number of solo songs and strum songs played are equal, the hybrid tiebreaker is played.

Additional Notes

• Players can ban songs in the solo, strum, hybrid, solo boss or strum boss category. A banned song cannot be picked during the whole match. Tiebreakers may not be banned.
• Players are responsible for warming up on their own before the match. No warm-up songs are allowed during a match.
• If a player disconnects during a song, their opponent will win that song, unless the player disconnects during the first 30 seconds of the song, in which case the round is restarted. To prevent abuse, each player will only be allowed one no-fault disconnection throughout the tournament.

In-match communication

• Players are encouraged to communicate through a Discord voice channel (VC). As such, players should have a microphone ready to use. A text-based fallback may be permitted under exceptional circumstances (e.g. hardware failure). Voice channels will be available in the CSC:CS Discord server.
• Players should not under any circumstance join a voice channel of a tournament match in progress. The streamer and casters in spectator mode joining in for brief player interviews and insight are the only exception.
• Players are encouraged to mute and deafen themselves whilst they are playing songs. If a referee is present, they will control server mutes and deafens for the match. During non-gameplay portions, both players should, of course, be undeafened.

Scheduling and Reporting

• During group stages and playoffs, CSC will schedule designated times that players should aim to be available for. CSC will also designate streaming time slots, which players may be able to take part in if they can schedule to this time. However, matches may be played at any time, and players are ultimately responsible for finishing their matches - doing so will be beneficial for their chances at progressing.

• If a player places well in the playoffs, they will be expected to be available and willing to play on stream.

• If a referee is present, they will report the match. If no referee is present, then players may self-report their matches. Matches should record the following:

  • The final score
  • The song picks in order, and who won them
  • The banned songs
  • Screenshots of each song results screen OR a link to a video recording

  A template is provided at the bottom of this document. Note that screenshots must be taken using an external screen capture software as the Public Test Build does not support in-game screenshots.

• Any self-reported game that has rule-breaking anomalies (e.g. a song that was banned was picked, wrong order of picks/bans) can be nullified by an organizer. A nullified game has to be redone in its entirety. However, once a match has finished it will usually stand. Participants should make themselves aware of the banning order and if there are disagreements, please contact an organizer or referee.

Reporting Template

Jrh_62 5-4 - aWiseMoose
aWiseMoose bans Chiasm 2018
Jrh_62 bans Groundhog (Beat Juggle)

G1: God Jammit (110%) - aWiseMoose win
G2: Deluge - Jrh_62 win
G3: War - Jrh_62 win
G4: Laces Out, Dan! (125%) - Jrh_62 win
G5: Freedom Dive - aWiseMoose win
G6: Tall Fiddler (Live) - Jrh_62 win
G7: Track On Fire - aWiseMoose win
G8: Cosmic Conqueror - aWiseMoose win
G9: Universal Mind (Live) - Jrh_62 win

[screenshots, video link, Twitch VOD or anything else]

Tags

• Esports