CSC:CS Invitational Ruleset

Scheduling

• The entire tournament will take place on Saturday, October 3rd 2020.
• Following the conclusion of one match, the following match will begin immediately. Players will be provided with estimated times for matches, but these are purely indicative.
• Match scheduling is decided by organisers. Match swapping will only occur under exceptional circumstances, and with the agreement of the tournament organisers.
• Players have 10 minutes to show up to their scheduled match. If the opponent fails to show up, the player who was supposed to play automatically advances onwards. If both players failed to show up, the player with the higher seed will advance.
• Due to the live-streamed and unprecedented nature of the event, it is extremely likely that timings will either overestimate or underestimate the length of matches. Players are encouraged to keep track of the tournament when they are not playing, so that they are aware of when they are likely to be playing.
• If a match begins more than 15 minutes before or after its originally scheduled time, players will receive 20 minutes’ notice to play instead of 10.

Gameplay

• This tournament is played on the latest version of the Clone Hero Public Test Builds (PTB) at the time of the tournament. This is to enable online features such as versus and spectating.
• Players will play on online mode, joining a game specifically made by one of the organizers, who will be acting as a referee and be in spectator mode. A streamer may also join the game in spectator mode. No other spectators are allowed.
• Players should set their profile name to be recognizable and non-offensive. A certain degree of liberty is allowed, but their display name should particularly comply to Twitch's Terms of Service (ToS).
• Players are encouraged to experiment with the "show remote players" toggle setting, which can be leveraged to gain computational performance if needed.
• Any highway scroll speed can be used.
• No modificators (all taps, all strums, etc...) are allowed.
• Every song will be played at 100% speed. Any exception will be explicitly stated by the organizers.
• If a player disconnects from the game, the opponent will get a point. The only exception is if the player disconnects during the first 30 seconds of the song, in which the round is restarted. To prevent abuse, each player will only be allowed one no-fault disconnection within the first 30s throughout the tournament.

Bracket

• This tournament features 16 players in a single-elimination bracket.
• As such, the tournament will be broken into 4 stages: Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals.
• All players start in the round of 16 with one 1v1 match. If they win this match, they can advance to the next stage. The loser of the match is eliminated and does not play any more matches. This applies to all stages until finals.
• The only exception is going from semifinals to finals: the losers will play a 3rd place match, if there is enough time to do so before or after the finals.

Charts

• During the round of 16 and quarterfinals, players can only pick charts from the "early" pool of charts curated by the organizers. These charts are meant to suit the overall skills of all 16 players.
• During the semifinals, finals and 3rd place match, players can only pick charts from the "late" pool of charts curated by the organizers. These charts are harder than the "early" pool and are meant to push the abilities of the top 4.
• Both pools of charts will be announced 2 weeks before the tournament, i.e. Saturday, September 19th 2020.
• All players must use the exact version of the charts featured in the pools, as any altered version will not work online anyway.
• The chart pools will balance categories that players should take advantage of when they pick charts during their matches:
  • Solo: This category is biased towards one-handed and optional tapping proficiency. They can be drawn in length (stamina) or shorter but burstier (technicality).
  • Strum: This may feature strumming stamina, speed (bursts) or technicality (unconventional rhythms and patterns).
  • Hybrid: A mix of soloing and strumming. The charts should be lighter in difficulty than the charts in the "specialist" categories.
  • Gimmicks: Means to victory on those charts may be unconventional due to the nature of those charts. This will allow players to investigate less explored skillsets in order to grab extra points.
  • Tiebreaker: This dedicated spot will feature a chart exploiting all skillsets. Likely to be longer than in other categories.
• Solo, strum and hybrid categories may implicitly feature the following subcategories for balancing:
  • Stamina: Not necessarily fast, but quite drawn out
  • Technical: A chart can be technical through speed and/or complexity. These picks strive to be less stamina demanding than actual stamina charts.
  • Consistency: Easier charts with a focus on full combos, pathing and nerve management.
• The chart pools will feature the following amounts of non-tiebreaker charts:
  • Early pool: 7 charts
    • 2 solos
    • 2 strums
    • 2 hybrids
    • 1 gimmick
  • Late pool: 11 charts
    • 3 solos
    • 3 strums
    • 3 hybrids
    • 2 gimmicks
• Tiebreakers are defined for each round:
  • Round of 16: 1 solo tiebreaker, 1 strum tiebreaker, 1 hybrid tiebreaker
  • Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals: 1 hybrid tiebreaker each

Matches

General

• A match features two players going against one another.
• Players earn points by getting a higher score than their opponent on a song.
• A match is won by earning the following amount of points depending on the stage of the tournament:
  • Round of 16: Best of 3 (BO3), first to 2 points
  • Quarterfinals: Best of 5 (BO5), first to 3 points
  • Semifinals: Best of 7 (BO7), first to 4 points
  • Finals and 3rd place match: Best of 9 (BO9), first to 5 points
• Should a score tie happen, the winner is determined by looking at the following elements in order:
  • Total amount of notes hit
  • Highest note streak
  • Amount of star power phrases earned
  • Lowest section accuracy percentage (higher wins)
  • If all fails (i.e. double FC with same path and execution), the next point counts double. If this is a tiebreaker deciding situation, the tiebreaker is played. If the tie happens on the tiebreaker, organizers will impose a second tiebreaker from another round.
• No warmup songs are allowed during the match. Players are responsible for warming up on their own before the match.

Banning and picking

• A player will be randomly assigned to choose whether to ban first or pick first. The player who bans first picks second, and vice versa. Players take turns both to pick and to ban.
• Both players are allowed to ban the following amount of charts for each stage:
  • Round of 16: 2 charts
  • Quarterfinals: 1 chart
  • Semifinals: 2 charts
  • Finals and 3rd place match: 1 chart
• The charts that are banned cannot be picked by any player during that match.
• Picks alternate until either a player reaches a victory condition or a tiebreaker situation happens.
• In R16 and semifinals, a player cannot ban two songs of the same category.

Tiebreaker

• The tiebreaker cannot be picked by any player outside of a tiebreaker situation.
• The tiebreaker cannot be banned.
• A tiebreaker situation is described by the following scores for each stage:
  • Round of 16: 1 - 1
  • Quarterfinals: 2 - 2
  • Semifinals: 3 - 3
  • Finals: 4 - 4
• When such a score is reached, the tiebreaker is forced upon the players instead of any player's pick.
• The winner of the tiebreaker wins the match, as the winning player will reach the win condition.
• The tiebreaker situation in Round of 16, due to the nature of BO3s, is special:
  • If none of the 2 previous song picks belong to the “solo” category, the solo tiebreaker is picked in a tiebreaker situation
  • If none of the 2 previous song picks belong to the “strum” category, the strum tiebreaker is picked in a tiebreaker situation
  • Otherwise, the hybrid tiebreaker is picked in a tiebreaker situation
• Otherwise, other rounds only feature one tiebreaker, implied to be hybrid oriented.

Behavior

• All players should be respectful of their opponent and show sportsmanship at all times.
• All players should be aware that this tournament is streamed on Twitch, and therefore should comply to their terms of service.
• Organization reserves the right to disqualify and eliminate any player they judge harmful from the tournament.
• Organization also reserves the right to forward any warranted community ban to the CSC and Clone Hero Discord servers in extreme cases.