Herald Report #6: Shroud War II
Introduction
Lots of news this time around, from staff to releases. The biggest news item, however, is the long anticipated sequel to the Shroud War Herald tournament, Shroud War II: Electric Boogaloo.
Table of Contents
Shroud War II
That's right ladies and germs, it's time for Shroud War II: Electric Boogaloo! Just over two years ago, Vyr held the first graphics tournament the Brotherhood had seen, and there was always the promise of another. In the intervening years we've seen Vendettas and other events, but the wait is over for another graphics tournament. This time around, however, the format is going to be a little different from any tournament that has run in the Brotherhood before, graphics or otherwise.
I've never been a fan of straight single elimination tournaments, as half of the entrants are eliminated in the first round of an event that may last for months. I also do not favor events that use ladder or open challenge formats as there are a lot of variables that impact the results (availability for matches is a big one). As such, Shroud War II will be adopting a new format. Some people may know that one of my other-other jobs is helping to run debate tournaments for high school and college speech and debate, so I'm going to be shamelessly lifting their tournament format.
The tournament is going to be divided into two seperate 3 week parts, the first being 3 preliminary rounds and the latter being 3 elimination rounds. Each entrant will participate in all 3 preliminary rounds, ensuring that everyone will be able to participate more than once. The initial round will have matches assigned by random number generator, but the follow on rounds of the preliminaries will have matchups determined by the results of the previous rounds in a format known as "power matching". What this means is that entrants will face opponents with similar records in the preliminary rounds. So, after round 1 half the field will be 1-0 and the other half will be 0-1. Round 2 will pair the 1-0's against one another and the 0-1's against each other. The goal is to try to get the best results upon which to seed the elimination rounds, with entrants that finish with the best records (in this case, 3-0) having "earned" that ranking by beating those that were also performing well instead of just getting a lucky draw and winning easier matchups.
Following the three preliminary rounds, the 8 top competitors based on record (with ties broken on their total scoring on the Herald Grading Rubric across all three rounds) will advance to the quarterfinals for three single elimination rounds. This elimination bracket will flip the seeding on its head from the preliminaries, instead using power protection (which is the seeding format that I think most are familiar with) with the 1 seed matched with the 8 seed, the 2 with 7, etc.
The overall goal of this format is to make sure that all the entrants get as many opportunities as possible to participate while at the same time making it so that some of the more skilled competitors don't get eliminated early simply because they randomly drew one of the strongest competitors in the tournament in round 1. The flipside of this format is that it will put a strain on judging, as all the rounds will need to be judged in time for the following preliminary round to be matched. As a result, the Herald Staff will all be joining in to judge matches and will not be participating as competitors. All the preliminary matches will have a single judge, while the elimination rounds will all be judged by 3 judge panels.
More details will be forthcoming once the parent competition is posted, which should be sometime in the coming week. Each week will feature 5 day competitions, with the 2 remaining days in the week used for judging and paneling the next week's round. Signups will start once the competition is posted (via subscribing to the competition) and run through Thursday April 18th. Round 1 will then begin on Sunday April 21st and run through Thursday April 25th, with the following five rounds following the same format (Sunday-Thursday). The final round will end on May 30th.
And remember, may the odds be ever in your favor!
Staff Additions
While these appointments happened a while ago, I did want to highlight the two new Magistrate additions to the Herald staff. Our first is a member that has held pretty much ever position around the Herald corners of the Brotherhood, to non-positioned hired gun all the way up to Herald itself. Eminent Bale Andros, aka Cyris, has graciously agreed to join the staff and lend his considerable talents to the work of our office to my great appreciation.
Our other new addition is a member who in many ways is the exact opposite, having only joined the Brotherhood in January. Hunter Alaisy Tir’eivra is already making quite a name for herself in the Brotherhood (and our Art Chat on Telegram especially), and I'm honored to have her on the staff!
They've both already made some significant contributions to the Herald's office, especially to our Spring dossier skin release. Speaking of...
Spring 2019 Release
Our spring release is here, and with it comes a new theme. Our last theme was a bit of a "staffer's choice" of retro Sci-Fi items, allowing everyone some freedom to select something that they specifically wanted to do. Similarly, for our current release, I decided to allow the staff that same creative freedom while this time operating within the realm of Star Wars canon. I allowed each staffer to submit items of their choice from anywhere within Star Wars canon, and the following were the results for this quarter's theme entitle "Canon Cavalcade":
Note: All of these items are available at this time in the robe, weapon, and accessory selectors
Weapons
Item 1: DT-12 heavy blaster pistol - Available for JM4+
Made by: Selika
Our first item is one of the earliest examples of a canon Star Wars weapon, the DT-12 heavy blaster pistol that was wielded by the bounty hunter Greedo in A New Hope in 1977. It's a fun little pistol, but I maintain that it did not shoot first.
Robes
Item 2: Sister - Available for JM4+
Made by: Alaisy Tir’eivra
This robe was created by one of the newcomers to the staff who is also a newcomer to the Brotherhood as a whole, Alaisy. Based on the outfit worn by the Inquisitor Seventh Sister on the Star Wars Rebels show, these come in both male and female variants.
Item 3: Brother - Available for JM4+
Made by: Alaisy Tir’eivra
This is another robe from Alaisy, a bit of a companion of the Sister robes above. These are based on the armor worn by the Inquisitor Sixth Brother who first appeared in the novel Ahsoka and then was first visually depicted in the Darth Vader comics. Like the Sister robes, these are also available in both male and female variants.
Item 4: Sharpshooter - Available for JM4+
Made by: Bale Andros
Now for something from someone new to the staff but most certainly not new to the Brotherhood, Bale Andros aka Cyris. Here, he's created robes inspired by those worn by the bounty hunter Aurra Sing.
Item 5: Gunslinger - Available for EQ1+
Made by: Bale Andros
With Aurra Sing's outfit being added, Bale decided that it only made sense to add another bounty hunter to the mix. This time it Sing's sometime partner Cad Bane, owner of one of the better hats to ever appear in Star Wars.
Item 6: Vespinax - Available for EQ1+
Made by: Kasula Daegella
Every so often Star Wars says "And now for something completely different!", from the comic stylings of Tag and Bink to the zombies of Death Troopers. The comic crossover The Screaming Citadel published in 2017 is Star Wars doing gothic horror. From that Kasula brings us the robes worn by Vespinax, one of the servants of the Queen of Ktath'atn.
Accessories
Item 7: Sabacc Deck Holder - Available for JM2+/JM3+/JM4+
Made by: Idris Tyvaros Adenn
An item that the staff was looking at doing as part of my first release for Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Sabacc Deck Holder was a fun little item that showed up in the film. Xen has created three different versions of this item, ranging from a simple one that just holds the cards to another that has all the bells and whistles (like anti cheating devices, a must have for any serious card player). Each fancier version is available at the ranks of JM2, JM3, and JM4 respectively.
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Those Sabacc decks look amazing
nice job
I think the Gunslinger robes have been uploaded wrong.
Grey coat option is the same as the Sith coat option.
And I think the loyalist coat might be the grey coat option?
It all looks lovely though!
The Sith and Gray options were initially reversed, but they were all updated. You might have caught a cached version perhaps? Also, the Loyalist options are all as they should be.
Always love seeing the goodies released from the Herald's office. Most excellent.
Great work, I LOVE the sabacc decks!
Yes thT Sabbac deck at the very bottom looks so swag. Mine!