Welcome to the Winter Tournament!
How many years and winters have passed since the last tournament? Frankly, no one can even remember. So, for New Year's, we decided to throw a party for all sledding enthusiasts and organized HNSRU Winter Cup.
This time, we decided to give you the full right to choose what and how you want to play. Let's get down to business and let you know the results.
Voting results
Truth be told, voting results are quite surprising, and not in the good way. Given the active player base on servers, people didn't bother to spend 5 minutes of their time to cast a vote. 38 votes — that's all. Based on the statistics of active servers, there should have been at least 70 votes. So what happened? What is the problem? After talking with different players, I realized that they were "lazy", "indifferent" or they didn't even know about voting. Well, we tried. The current situation forces us to once again make a decision on the tournament ourselves.
3×3 Boost
3x3 boost — this is the format that will be presented at the current winter tournament. But that's not all. We have been playing the same old maps for many years. Watching and playing the same thing for a dozen years is quite boring. Every single boost is studied, every corner is learned, every bush is just like the one at home. For this tournament, we are adding a list of maps that may have been played on servers, but are far from meta ones.
Here they are:
hnsru_train
boost_italy02
shantaj_dock_alpha
boost_city
boost_shizen_beta01
crackhouse_beta02
shantaj_town0019
hns_piranesi_classic
hns_inferno_boost
hnsru_militia01
boost_qube02
hns_boost_mirage
hnsru_assault01
You've already seen most of them, and you can't quite say that they are "non-default" ones. However, the current map pool has maps that are not played as actively on the servers as the others. Besides, there's another important thing that has to be addressed.
Tournament Format
Adding new maps to the pool does not mean that they will be played. We are well aware that teams will always have the opportunity to ban certain options. But there's nothing you can do about it. So we decided to approach this issue differently. Regardless of the number of teams, the tournament will have" stages " based on maps. How does it work?
Let's say we have 8 teams. We divide them into two groups, where they play among themselves. All these matches will be played only with a fixed number of specific maps:
hnsru_train
boost_italy02
shantaj_dock_alpha
boost_city
boost_shizen_beta01
crackhouse_beta02
shantaj_town0019
After the group stage is completed, two more maps will be added to the overall pool:
hns_piranesi_classic
hns_inferno_boost
Then two more on the list, and so on until the final. I hope you understand the point. And if you don't, we created a separate topic on the forum, where everything is described in great detail. This topic is an absolute MUST read for every player/team — LINK
Active Bans
As the guy in the picture above says, paid unbanning is "practically" available. We often unbanned all players at these events and gave them the opportunity to play the tournament. But unfortunately for cheaters, this practice has ended. If you have an active ban, your only option to play the tournament is to purchase a paid unban. But where is it? It's already in the final stages and should be ready by the start of the tournament. But even if we don't have time to organize an automatic paid unban, you will have the opportunity to contact the main administration and resolve the issue personally. So, if you have an active ban and you understand that you will pay it before the tournament starts — you are welcome to sign-up. As a reminder, here's the price list: 2000 rubles or 20 euros.
50% of all paid unban payments will go towards the tournament's prize pool. We'll discuss the prize pool further below.
Anti-cheat
We once again express our gratitude to the head administration of Fastcup for providing the GameGuard anti-cheat. We all know it very well and played with this amazing anti-cheat during previous tournaments. But just in case you forgot — all players are required to download and test it in advance in order to avoid potential problems during the tournament. We need to remind you - DO NOT use Scroll Pattern Trainer while playing with GameGuard. It may result in a ban.
And if you already have an active ban on GameGuard, then sorry, Fastcup doesn't like cheaters even more than our humble HNS scene.
Prize money and conclusion
The prize pool for the tournament so far looks like this:
First Place — $250
Second Place — $150
Third Place — $100
But that's not all. 70% of all donations from stream will go to the total prize pool. 30% will go to the first team, and 20% each will go to the second and third places.
As usual, all streams will take place on my channel (YouTube) — LINK. Don't hesitate and subscribe so that you don't miss the broadcast. You can also visit us at Discord to keep up to date with tournament news and progress — LINK
Finally, I'd like to say that this tournament is designed for all players, both underdogs and strong ones. Given the current map pool and 3v3 format, any team has the opportunity to outplay their opponent on equal terms. Creativity and an unconventional approach are always welcome. Stop racing around the slides with SGS and bhopping the entire map in hopes of catching the coveted FOG1. Play smart, use your brain to outsmart the opposite team. We look forward seeing you and your team in the participants section. GLHF!
