Spicewood Friendly Battle Tournaments

This past week, we started what we hope will become a tradition in the Spicewood Nexus clan… a friendly battle tournament. I thought that I should capture some of the loose knit rules that we played by so that future tournaments can go more smoothly.

How is the tournament run? Well, as clash of clans has no ability to run a tournament embedded within the game, I modeled the tournament after the format used by many youth sports tournaments. Essentially there are two rounds, the first involves what is called pool play, where each participant is pitted against two other randomly selected tournament entrants. The results of the pool play round are used to provide seeding for the second round, which is a single elimination bracket. Players are rated on (in priority order); the number of stars they achieve, the amount of damage they do to the opposing bases, and the time that it takes for their raid to be completed.

To note, for each pairing, both players are required to issue a challenge to the other player, so that both bases get a chance on offense and defense. We have found that best practice is to put the assigned opponent name into the challenge message to indicate who should attack the base.

The single elimination bracket is setup based on typical 8 or 16 player brackets, filling these up with the number of players. Depending on the number that have signed up, higher seeds may end up being granted a ‘bye’ into later rounds. For each pairing in the single elimination bracket, again, each player is required to issue a challenge to the opposing player. Winner is determined (in priority order) on;  the number of stars they achieve, the amount of damage they do to the opposing bases, and the time that it takes for their raid to be completed. As each round is completed, the winners continue on to the next round, losers, well… they are allowed to try again in the next tournament. Play is completed after a final champion is determined.

How do I enter a friendly battle tournament? Well, as a rule, we only allow participants who are online at the time the tournament is scheduled to start. To be clear, if a tournament is scheduled to begin at 6:30 pm, you should plan to be online by 6:10 pm give or take about 5 minutes so that your base can be entered into the tournament. This allows the tournament moderator to assign pool play battles effectively. Once the tournament has begun, no additional bases may enter the tournament. There was some confusion in our first tournament, as players had indicated interest in participating in the days prior to the tournament, but then did not show up until well after the tournament was scheduled to begin.

What about clan castle troops? Well, at this time, I allow for any donations to be made prior to the tournament, but generally do not allow any additional donations after tournament play has begun. Players should consider best troops for base defense as well as offensive capabilities.

If for some reason, a player is unable to compete in the tournament at any time after the tournament starts, any uncompleted raids against that player will be scored as 2 star victory, 75% damage, 2 min 30 sec attack. The player unable to compete will be given 0 stars, 0 damage, 3 min attack. Completed raids will be scored as they happened.

The ability to friendly battle others in our clan only helps us hone our warring abilities, on both offense and defense. It’s been great to see the interactions so far and have definitely witnessed improvements in bases and attack strategy.

Please post any questions or suggestions to the comments section below.

Goatman