Something quite fun to watch for new and old Eve Online players has been taking place, and that is the Alliance Tournament. Where up to ten players per team battle it out. The Alliance tournament is such a standing tradition; this year marks twenty-one years of it.
The Alliance Tournament is such a big deal in the game that some alliances have dedicated teams, sometimes planning for an entire year for it. While other alliances might spend a couple of months.
This year's cost just to get into the tournament was not cheap one. With an entry fee of 4k PLEX per team. Which, at the time of writing this, is valued around 24 billion ISK. While not a big deal for any decently sized alliance or bigger. It seems to ensure that anyone who won’t take it seriously will not join at all.
I would never dream of entering. It has, however, been the one thing I keep an eye on from the game, even when I'm taking a long break from it. There have been so many amazing years of upsets, a little drama, and lots of ships getting blown up.
Screenshot from the Live CCP broadcast on Twitch
There is nothing like an Alliance Tournament where those who were expected to place far into it end up losing to unknown newcomers. There have also been some amazing comebacks over the years from teams losing their first match, winning their second, and then barely scraping by to make it to the end. Just to win the entire thing.
With such an event running for so many years, there have also been quite a lot of shenanigans going on. For quite a few years now, teams would practice in secret on the test server in wormholes. With some alliances trying to discover where and when such practice sessions would take place, to spy on them.
There was also this one team years ago. They kept bringing out counters to the teams they were facing. Just face-stomping some heavy hitters. Not only where they do full workups from kill board data and anything they could get their hands on. To work out what skills each team member had and the ships they might fly. They even managed to sneak spies not only into those alliances but gain access to internal messaging boards of alliances to find out what setups they were going to use.
Corporate espionage tends to be a huge thing that alliances keep an eye out for. Some rather skilled players in the game have carried out stuff you would think only would be in movies.
Screenshot from the Live CCP broadcast on Twitch
The deadline to register had long since passed back in July. With the first weekend of two of the feeder tournaments recently taking place at the end of August. The feeder tournaments are for placing 28 of the alliance slots. With the top four teams from last year also having a reserved slot if they choose to take it, and you would be silly not to.
Over the years, the Alliance Tournament has taken on quite an insane list of rules. These rules dictate everything about the possible meta of the matches.
Breaking any rules is the last thing you ever want to do. They could be as simple as your ship moving before the match even starts. Some of the minor stuff could result in some ship damage being applied to your ship before the match officially starts. This causes a lot of opportunities for the other team to take advantage of.
There have been matches I've watched in prior years where a ship ends up outside of the designated battlefield. That ship instantly gets destroyed by one of the referees for the match. That single mistake has cost a lot of teams the match over the years.
Screenshot from the official Google Docs for the tournament.
A huge thing is just working out exactly what kind of setup and ships you are taking into the tournaments. This year, each team can have up to 10 players, and they get 200 ship points total. Each kind of ship has a different point value. The number of points and the value of each ship tend to change a lot from one tournament to another. As old favorites fall out of favor for better options or new meta.
There are also a lot of rules governing the type of modules a certain type of ship is allowed to fit. Over the years, such rules have grown to quite a long list. They are usually intended to keep the match interesting and somewhat fair.
Needless to say, no one wants to watch a never-ending match where both teams are unable to kill each other. From things like having so much remote repair to the point it’s not possible to out damage it. Entire teams are just being ECM out, unable to do anything. Along with someone just cloaking up and hiding during the entire match. While some of these types of modules are still allowed, they are heavily restricted, while others are flat-out banned.
A big thing that can throw a wrench into anyone's plan is the ship-banning phase. Right before a match starts, the team captains of each team start to select what ship can’t be brought by the other side. With this year there being 6 banned ships, total.
This also tends to be where some of the pre-match meta takes place. Where each team is trying to work out what the other team will bring. What ships do they need to have for a victory, and thus what ships they want to ban.
Screenshot from the Live CCP broadcast on Twitch
While I've seen in past years some teams end up bringing the same setup to each match. There is always the risk of the other team working out a counter and bringing that in. There is also the meta game of if you are going to bring the counter to my counter, I'll bring a counter to that. There is nothing like watching one team just get obliterated over bringing the wrong setup, as the other team was prepared for it.
If that was not enough. During the main tournament, each team is allowed to have one flagship that has a bit of a different ruleset for the type of modules they can have. Making them quite powerful over other ships on the battlefield. There is just one major catch. Once that ship gets destroyed, even if that team makes it to the next round. It's out and can't be brought back.
Making when to use such a ship is quite a dilemma. Do you choose to field it early or hold off and hope you make it through into later rounds? Sometimes, you will even see that when a team knows they are out, they will just focus on the flagship since that information becomes available to the other side right before the match starts.
While just the feeder tournaments are going on now. CCP Games tends to go all out during the main event with a custom stage, lots of round table talks, and banter.
From the early years when I used to watch them to now. They have made some rather huge improvements in terms of the overlay UI, giving you information. While the announcements they have are quite knowledgeable and give quite a tale of what is going on. Being able to see in real time the current damage levels of different ships, the kind of electronic warfare effects on them, and so on. Is quite fun and something they've been doing for a few years now.
Final Thoughts
Screenshot from the Live CCP broadcast on Twitch
In some years, the drama, spying, and backstabbing leading up to the Alliance Tournaments have overshadowed the show. More times than not, it comes down to just lots of ships getting blown up on the battlefield. Exciting action to be watched. The ultimate price for the winners is a limited run of ships that go for insane prices in-game and bragging rights that come with winning. This is always something I try and tune in to every year when I can catch it. I look forward to the matches in October from the 24th to the 26th. The last of the Feeder matches will be on September 6th and 7th.
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Content was written by @Enjar about Eve Online. Cover image taken from the Live CCP broadcast on Twitch.
