Saturday 15 August 2015

The 13th Alliance tournament has kicked off!

The 13th Alliance tournament banner, depicting the two ship prizes
The Sansha interceptor Imp on the left & the Sansha Heavy Interdictor Fiend on the right

Introduction

The Alliance tournament has started it's 13th edition this weekend, pitching the best teams against each other! The winners will gain cluster-wide fame & acccess to ships normally excluded from capsuleer ownership.

This year sees 64 teams competing against each other to show off who's the best & earn the prizes! The prizes itself are controversial, as they're based on Sansha ship designs, but better. Yes, that Sansha, who threatened to lay waste to the New Eden cluster!
The tournament itself will run over 3 weekends. The first weekend, from 15 to 16 August is an elimination round, to sort out the best teams, who will then combat each other the following weekend from 22 to 23 August.
And once the best of the best are known, the big showdown happens on 29 & 30 August, to determine who's the top team of this year's tournament!

The Tournament schedule can be found here: 13th Alliance Tournament match schedule
For an overveiw of the brackets every team competes in go here: 13th Alliance Tournament brackets

13th Alliance Tournament prizes

In the competition, there's a ton of prizes to win, from general awards to very rare & coveted ships. Below you'll find a list of this year's prizes & a link to the official source!

The Alliance Tournament Cup

For the winning alliance only. The cup is relocated to the winning member each year & is unique. Engraved on the cup is a list of all the previous winners of the Alliance tournament.


Alliance tournament medals

There's two different sets of alliance tournament medals.
One is reserved for the teams that ended 1st, 2nd & 3rd, allowing them to show off the rank they achieved during the competition.
The other set is granted to the team & their alliance they represented. These medals are granted to the top 32, top 16, top 8, 4th spot, 3rd spot, 2nd spot and 1st spot. You can only get one award, the highest your alliance scored.


PLEX

These are the PLEX the teams had to pay as entry fee for the tournament. They are redistributed among the winners based on the rank they achieved.
Teams placed 32nd to 17th get 5 PLEX per team
The top 16 teams get 15 PLEX each.


Spaceship prizes

Now we get to the interesting prizes, the stuff everyone fights for! As mentioned above, this year's ships are based on enhanced versions of the Sansha frigates & cruisers. On top of this, a Sansha battleship skin will also be awarded to the teams.

The distribution of the prized ships is this:
-1st place: 25 Cruisers & 25 Frigates
-2nd place: 15 Cruisers & 15 Frigates
-3rd place: 7 Cruisers & 7 Frigates
-4th place: 3 Cruisers & 3 Frigates

The Sansha Frigate is called the Imp and classified as an interceptor & is normally not available to players. Same with the Sansha Cruiser named Fiend which is classified as Heavy Interdictor and normally not available to capsuleers.

The Alliance Tournament Sansha Battleship Skin prize will be handed in packets of 10 per team per match won. In short, there will be plenty of them available! So if you would like one, keep an eye on the market once they're released as there are bound to be a few sold there. Just keep in mind prizes will likely be steep due to the small number that will find their way to the market!

For a link to the prizes: The Blood Soaked Riches

This years competitors & their flagships

Flagship: Armageddon
A Band Apart
Brave Collective
Circle-Of-Two
Confederation of xXPizzaXx
Gone Critical
M.I.F
The Explicit Alliance
Vox Populi.
WAFFLES.

Flagship: Barghest
That Escalated Quickly.
The Afterlife.
Verge of Collapse

Flagship: Bhaalgorn
Affirmative.
-affliction-
Agony Empire
Alternate Allegiance
Clockwork Pineapple
Dead Terrorists
Drop the Hammer
Easily Excited
Exodus.
Hard Knocks Citizens
It Must Be Jelly Cause Jam Don't Shake
Nulli Secunda
Pandemic Legion
Phoebe Freeport Republic
Project.Mayhem.
RAZOR Alliance
Rote Kapelle
Shadow Cartel
SpaceMonkey's Alliance
Suddenly Spaceships.
Test Alliance Please Ignore
The Gorgon Empire and Spawn
THE R0NIN
The Tuskers Co.
The WeHurt Initiative
Together We Solo
Triumvirate.

Flagship: Dominix
Pandemic Horde

Flagship: Machariel
Chaos Collective

Flagship: Rattlesnake
Brothers in Arms Alliance
The Kadeshi

Flagship: Scorpion Navy Issue
The Camel Empire
Warlords of the Deep

Flagship: Vindicator
Black Legion.
CAStabouts
End of Life

Flagship: Typhoon
Quebec United Legions

Flagship: Typhoon Fleet Issue
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
The Bastards.


No Flagship selected
Scary Wormhole People
Out of Sight.
Curatores Veritatis Alliance
The Methodical Alliance
Nerfed Alliance Go Away
Dream Fleet
404 Alliance Not Found
Tactical Narcotics Team
Nihilists Social Club
The G0dfathers
Forsaken Federation
R.E.V.O.LU.T.I.O.N
Northern Coalition.

Quite the long list, but you can already see a trend in Flagship selection. The Bhaalgorn is a very popular choice, with only the Armageddon peeping out from the rest of the selections. The reason is fairly simple. In small group engagements, the Bhaalgorn is a formidable opponent, able to shut down multiple targets at the same time if well directed & supported. Not to mention that it is capable of fielding a strong tank, at the cost of mobility.
Keep in mind, teams can always field their Flagships, even if the other team banned this ship hull from their match. But once a flagship is destroyed, it may no longer be fielded in any future match of the tournament.
The rules of the alliance tournament & Flagship selection can be found here: Alliance Tournament Rules

Tournament stream broadcasts

Where can you follow these tournament fights? On the various streams offered by registrated officials:

First weekend ( 15 to 16 August) from 14H to 19H30 by ISD officals
Stream 1 follows the matches in the PE1-R1 system
Stream 2 follows the matches in the JB-007 system

Second Weekend (22 to 23 August) from 13H50 till 21H30 by CCP
CCP Stream
Third Weekend (29 to 30 August) from 14H50 till 21H10 also by CCP
CCP Stream

More info on the broadcast data & times can be found here: Alliance Tournament Broadcasts

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