The logo of the inaugural Amarriner Cup of the AWBW Legends series
Tournaments are a type of competitive play hosted on AWBW where a large pool of players are pitted against one another in a predominantly single elimination format, with one player eventually emerging victorious. First introduced with the AWBW Open Cup series (AOC) running from November 2017 to July 2019, replaced with the Discord Cup from 2019 to 2022 and then receiving an overhaul in December 2022 with the AWBW Legends series, new tournaments are started on the website approximately every two months.
Tournaments require a minimum number of games played of 25 and players may not enter more than 5 tournaments simultaneously, but otherwise have no specific restrictions. Entry with multiple accounts is not allowed - infractions will result in a permanent ban from all tournaments across all accounts.
The current list of tournaments can be accessed here.
Signing Up[]
Signing up for a tournament can be done under Tournaments under the Competitions tab while logged in. Tournaments that are eligible for joining will be listed under 'Waiting Tournaments' and participation may be cancelled at any time until the tournament starts.
The AWBW Legends tournament series is comprised of four separate Cups, each using different metagame settings.
- Amarriner Cup - Standard (STD)
- Smacky Cup = Fog of War (FOG)
- Glenstorm Cup = High Funds (HF)
- Quack Cup = Unconventional or gimmick modes that do not fit in the above cups, such as Tags or High Funds Fog.
Each cup is named after a member of the original AWBW administration and with each tournament cycle, a new one is rotated in, meaning multiple different cups may be active at any given time depending on how long each tournament takes to complete. Completion time for a player who advances deep into their bracket can be expected to take upwards of 6 months, which is important to keep in mind for players who have inconsistent availability across the year.
Format[]
The exact settings used for each cup are given in the Rules & Info and Maps & Bans tab when viewing the tournament's page, but will generally operate with full competitive rulesets in place unless the theme of the tournament dictates otherwise. All games in a given round of the tournament are played on the same map, with each round featuring a different map. Maps are selected by the tournament organizer with input from the Map Committee, although it should be noted that tournaments may feature maps that are of a more experimental or unproven standard than is required for other competitive modes, especially in the Quack Cups. CO bans are likewise individually selected for each map, with input from the Map Committee.
Within each Cup, entrants are seeded according to their highest attained overall rating on the Global League. The pool is then divided into multiple Divisions of up to 256 players each, grouped by their Elo rating where players of higher rating are assigned to higher divisions. Within each division, players are grouped into brackets of up to 32 players each. The winners of each bracket then play in a separate Grand Finals bracket for the Division Championship title.
All brackets are played using a single elimination format, with the exception of Grand Finals which may use a single elimination or round robin format.
During tournaments, games will be automatically generated by the website matchmaker and will appear in the Your Games section on the website. Pre-match options are similar to that of the Global League - you may change your selection of CO and Countries before the match begins and press Ready to indicate you are free to start. With both players ready, the game will begin. If one or both players fail to ready in time, the game will start automatically after a certain duration, depending on the settings (2 days for standard tournies).
To help ensure reasonable overall tournament durations, timer settings (see AWBW Guide) are reduced compared to standard competitive settings, but will still allow for modest asynchronous play provided a player can be online at least a few times each week. Consistent activity is nevertheless required for tournaments; the Pause Timer function is disabled during games, and Vacation mode may still allow players to be booted for an expired game timer.
Previous Tournament Themes[]
| Year Month | Theme |
|---|---|
| 2017 November | High Funds |
| 2017 December | Innovative |
| 2018 January | High Funds |
| 2018 February | Fog |
| 2018 March | Base Light |
| 2018 April | High Funds |
| 2018 May | Mixed Base |
| 2018 June | Unconventional |
| 2018 July | Broken COs |
| 2018 August | High Funds |
| 2018 September | Fog |
| 2018 October | Tags |
| 2018 November | Unconventional |
| 2018 December | Fog |
| 2019 January | High Funds + Fog |
| 2019 February | Broken COs + Tags |
| 2019 March | Mixed Base |
| 2019 April | High Funds + Tags |
| 2019 May | Fog |
| 2019 June | Retro Maps |
| 2019 July | Small Maps |
| 2019 August | No CO Powers |