While we anxiously await the Around The World Cup Grand Finals, Club Penguin Armies asked community members to share their thoughts on the tournament. What does the community think about the format of the event?
Designed by Dino
Club Penguin Armies announced the Around The World Cup on May 12. Unlike traditional army tournaments, the Around The World Cup featured a Round-Robin group stage. During the first stage of the event, the eight competing armies split into two groups. Each group had three battles. The catch was that the time zone between each battle changed. For example, the first battle was AUSIA, but the second was EU. Because of the Round Robin format, one loss does not mean elimination. On top of this, each group had both a Major and Small/Medium champion. For more information on the Around The World Cup’s first stage, you can read this post by Administrator Mchappy.
After the three battles, Group A’s champions were the Army of Club Penguin and Winged Hussars. Group B’s champions were the Elite Guardians and the People’s Imperial Confederation. On June 1, the two major winners and two small/medium winners will go head-to-head on Battleground to crown a major winner, as well as a small/medium winner of the tournament.
Around The World Cup AUSIA Battle 3: PIC vs EGCP, one of the closest battles in the cup
Due to the tournament’s unique format, Club Penguin Armies approached community members with varying backgrounds to gather their thoughts on the event.
What are your overall thoughts on the Around The World Cup?
Flypin1, Around The World Cup Judge: It’s an interesting tournament so far! i’ve enjoyed judging, the community is pretty engaged since it spans multiple timezones. i got a chance to stream the battles yesterday and got a great turnout. i’m glad to see people engaged!
BScharbach2, Water Vikings Staff: I liked that a different style was used. Nice to change things up.
Breadpan, Army of Club Penguin Staff: I think the around the world cup was honestly a great way to make a pretty fun tournament instead of the occasional one (although a little disappointed because it was supposed to be my first ausia arena
Elsa, Templars Knight of the Wyrd: My overall thoughts on the Around The World is that it seemed interesting and new to try!
Shpec, Around the World Cup Judge: I think its an interesting format. I like it.
Zooy, SWAT Leader in Training: It’s a very fun and intuitive idea, and it gives each timezone a fair chance!
What did you like & dislike about the format of the tournament?
Flypin1: The only inconvenient thing about the format is that i can’t watch all of them tbh i love watching tournament battles.
BScharbach2: I liked having an s/m and major army leader, good to give some diversity in the regular tournament winners while not exlcuding either minors or majors for specific events. I wish there were more battles though.
Breadpan: To be honest i have no problems with the format of the tournament, as long as the tourney is cool (and fun) i dont find anything to be annoying
Elsa: I liked a lot of it being based on the AUSIA, EU and US divisions. I disliked not having allies help. The format was cool!
Shpec: I liked that this tournament gives s/m armies a stage to shine. Its also good that battles are held at all timezones so that each army is comfortable and has a chance to effectively rally troops.
I don’t really think there’s anything to actively dislike in the tournament, maybe some things like the s/m armies battle 2 major armies and only 1 s/m army. It might be preferred to switch it around, since it doesn’t seem to match strengths very well and puts more pressure on the s/m armies. Theoretically it might motivate s/m promotions to major, but idk how effective the results are.
Zooy: I think it has unique upsides and downsides, it takes away from the timezone-specialized armies and rewards the well-rounded armies which is something often unseen in recent tournaments!
Should all tournaments stick to the traditional format, or should some tournaments experiment with different ideas?
Flypin1: I think traditional format is alright sometimes but at the end of the day we have to switch it up to keep things more interesting. the community will eventually tire of doing the same thing over and over. ATW is great because it gives armies who are stronger in a specific timezone to shine through whereas they might not be able to in traditional tournaments where the time is set.
BScharbach2: Keep all the historic tourneys like LC, MM, CC, etc. with their standard format. If you want to try a different style make a different tournament for it. Some things are more valuable.
Breadpan: To be honest, i have mixed feelings about that – just because i feel like traditional tournaments hold more nostalgia and hype, but at the same time it isnt totally terrible to experiment with different ideas.
Elsa: Some tournaments should experiement with new ideas and not the traditional format!
Shpec: I think keeping traditional tournaments is important but so is experimenting. It increases “fun” in the community and we might get some great ideas out of the experimentation.
Zooy: Hey, you can never a discovery of bettering without searching!
Do you have any ideas you’d like to see implemented in a tournament?
Flypin1: I would like to see a double elim tournament. i think march madness was set to be that way and it didn’t end up happening. i think it could be cool to give armies multiple chances to pull through! i think there’s a lot of potential there
BScharbach2: A Stanley Cup style for playoffs would be interesting to see and really extend the length of the tourneys, which i think could be cool Maybe 3 games instead of 7 though. (I.e. the first armies battle 3 times, then move on, first to 2)
Breadpan: My brain is very dry and i am not a creative person at all very sorry.
Elsa: I’d like to see some more tournaments with May the 4th of next year based off of Star Wars if necessary.
Shpec:
Dojo only battlesI haven’t given it much thought before, so I don’t really have any ideas, but I do like these tournaments that have come up the past few years.Zooy: One where SWAT wins LOL, but in all seriousness, I’d love to see one that isn’t based off of the traditional judging values but something with dumb judging criterias.
What could be improved to keep tournaments from becoming stale?
Flypin1: I don’t have any ideas at the moment but i think that variable timezone tournaments like atw are a good start!
BScharbach2: Providing more of an incentive to the winning army, as well as not being afraid to try new things.
Breadpan: Make different and tense match ups, don’t put the most dead army with RPF.
Elsa: I think more armies should be involved to keep the tournaments from being stale.
Shpec: Apart from newer and more creative tournaments like this, one of the things to keep tournaments interesting is more armies and stronger armies I guess. Ive never really thought too much about this either.
Zooy: Just more creativity and unique-ness to the tourneys!
For starters, nobody above disliked the tournament. This is likely due to the inclusivity of all three time zones, meaning everyone could have attended at least one battle. A criticism of traditional tournaments is that they are heavily EU-based. Additionally, some people mentioned that having a major and small/medium winner was a plus for them. With the dwindling small/medium community, tournaments in that size group are hard to pull off. Even this tournament saw two no-shows from small/medium armies. Another common theme is every interviewee wants to see other tournaments experiment with the format.
As for formats our interviewees would like to see, Flypin mentioned doubled elimination. Double elimination is the idea of having two brackets. If you lose your battle, instead of immediately losing you would be placed in the losing bracket. Essentially, you’d be given a second chance to win. Mchappy wanted March Madness to have this format, but the Army Board voted against it. BScharbach also mentioned the idea of a Stanley Cup tournament. Unfamiliar with this concept, I asked him to expand upon it.
BScharbach: It’s simple really. Take a standard tournament bracket, but instead of one battle do a best of 3. It could take place over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This would add a lot of tensity to tournaments and, similar to Around The World Cup, would mean that one less does not mean elimination.
Essentially, every round of a tournament would become a best of three. In our conversation, we both agreed that an exciting way to differentiate the three battles would be to borrow the World element of Around The World Cup. Every battle has a different timezone. Both ideas certainly up the tensity and meaning of a tournament. What do you think of a Stanley Cup format?
Sweater
Associate Editor