Group Draw
There are 6 groups with 4 teams each.
Group A
Montpellier Boucaniers
Oxford Mammoths
Turicum Thunderbirds
SkyWeavers Łódź
Group C
Augsburg Owls
Prague Pegasus
Burning Hippogriffs – Caen
Sagene IF 2
Group E
Sevilla Warriors QT
Horkruxe Halle
Österreich Land
Southsea Q
Group B
Liège Leviathans
Danube Direwolves
Olympians QC
Aemona Argonauts
Group D
Münchner Wolpertinger
Garda Lakers
Berner Boggarts QC
Birmingham Badgers
Group F
Madrid Wolves QT
Olympiens Paris
NTNUI Rumpeldunk
Deluminators Dresden
Gameplay Format
Group Stage
The first phase is a regular group round-robin, in which teams play against the other teams in their group. With groups of 4 teams each, every team plays a total of 3 games in this phase.
The goal of this phase is to allow games against opponents known in advance to obtain a Flight Stage groups seeding.
Rankings
Teams will be ranked within their own groups based on the following tiebreakers:
- Number of the matches won
- Head-to-Head
- Number of matches won without going to overtime
- Number of matches lost in overtime
- Point difference capped at 30
- Seeker floor point difference capped at 30
- Least amount of Total Game Time
- Coin Toss
Each team is going into flights based on their ranking within their group.
Rank 1 goes to Top Flight
Rank 2 goes to Upper Middle Flight
Rank 3 goes to Lower Middle Flight
Rank 4 goes to Bottom Flight
After being ranked into flights, the same tiebreakers are used to rank teams within their flight. (With the exception of Head-to-Head, which doesn’t apply as these teams did not meet yet.)
Flight Stage
Flight stage determines the placement of the teams in the brackets and give teams two games of equal opponent strength in the middle of the event through a Swiss Format ranking. Depending on the flight group, the flight stage has a varying significance, by example in the Upper Middle Flight, the first game round is part of the knockout phase already, while Top Flight and Bottom Flight get the chance to put their skills under test against a challenging opponent they might get to rematch later in the event.
Each team plays 2 rounds, based on ranking within their flight. The games play out as follows:
Games Round 1
Game 1: #1 vs #2
Game 2: #3 vs #4
Game 3: #5 vs #6
Ranking after Round 1
#1 Winner Game 1
#2 Winner Game 2
#3 Winner Game 3
#4 Loser Game 1
#5 Loser Game 2
#6 Loser Game 3
Games Round 2
Game 4: W1 vs W2
Game 5: W3 vs L1
Game 6: L2 vs L3
Ranking after Round 2
#1 Winner Game 4
#2 Loser Game 4 or Winner Game 5*
#3 Loser Game 4 or Winner Game 5*
#4 Loser Game 5 or Winner Game 6*
#5 Loser Game 5 or Winner Game 6*
#6 Loser Game 6
Rankings After Flight Phase
The following criteria will be used to determine a team’s ranking in the flight phase:
- Number of matches won
- Strength of schedule for second flight game
- Defined as: played Game 4 = 3 points, Game 5 = 2 points, Game 6 = 1 point
- Strength of schedule for first flight game
- Defined as: played Game 1 = 3 points, Game 2 = 2 points, Game 3 = 1 point
Brackets
There will be 3 separate brackets of 8 teams each:
- Upper Bracket
- All 6 teams of the Top Flight will automatically proceed into the Upper Bracket
- The top 2 teams of the Upper Middle Flight will proceed into the Upper Bracket
- Middle Bracket
- The bottom 4 teams of Upper Middle Flight will proceed into the Middle Bracket
- The top 4 teams of the Lower Middle Flight will proceed into the Middle Bracket
- Lower Bracket
- The bottom 2 teams of the Lower Middle Flight will proceed into the Lower Bracket
- All 6 teams from the Bottom Flight will proceed into the Lower Bracket
The seeding into the brackets is determined by the relative ranking of teams in the post-flight ranking (e.g. the third placed team of the upper middle flight is the first seed in the middle bracket, the fourth placed team of the lower middle flight is the eight seed in the middle bracket). Each bracket (Upper, Middle, Lower) will play a classic compass draw format. All teams will play three games (e.g. quarter final, semi final, final) for a full final event ranking.