RULE #1
The person who makes the tournament, makes the rules. The rest are more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules.
Let me be very clear up front, if you’re spending your gems to start a tournament and you’re sharing it with the rest of the clan then it is always appreciated! You can ignore everything in this guide and no one is going to hold it against you. With that said, here are some suggestions.
Passwords
If you do not password protect your tournament it will fill up in less than a second. This is extremely important if you want to share it with the clan.
- On the “Create Tournament” screen, tap the “Set Password” switch
- Enter the password you want to use in the text box
- Tap the green “Set” button.
Do these three things or you may accidentally start a tournament without a password and your clan mates probably will not be able to get in. Don’t post the password in clan chat. You can send the password to a clan leader and they will use clan mail to let the rest of the group know about your tournament. People have joined our clan, searched the chat feed for the password, then left our clan to go share the password with another clan. Protect the password if you want it stay in our clan.
Remember, we have more than one clan. Leaders will share your password by clan mail to the other clans unless you tell them not to. How do you get your tournament info to the clan leaders? Join our Slack Team or ask for an email address in clan chat.
Name your Tournament “NCroyale.com”
This helps us with recruiting. Everyone who sees your tournament will see the web address for this site and some of them will come here to check us out. Some of those may join our clan.
Tournament Length
Three-day tournaments seem to work pretty well. The clan gets 72 hours of competitive fun for your sacrifice of gems. It’s also three days of exposure for the web address, so there are more opportunities for potential new members to see it.
Timing the start of the tournament
Remember, most of the people in our clan are on the East coast of the United States. A lot of us have day jobs too. The beginning and end of a tournament are when it will be the most active. Time those to fall in the evening so that the maximum number of people can participate. Some time between 7 and 10 pm Eastern time should be pretty good.
Don’t forget to count in the tournament preparation time. A long two-hour prep gives more people a chance to get in and be ready to fight at the start time. If you want your tournament to start and end at 9pm with a two-hour prep, you actually need to start it at 7pm.
Open or Closed Tournament?
Hopefully, every tournament starts as a password protected, “closed” tournament. If not, clan members won’t get a chance to join it before it fills up.
If you want to recruit new clan members you will need to open the tournament at some point. This allows the tournament to show up when people are hitting the “search” button over and over hoping to find a random open one. The search lists tournaments with the geographically closest ones first. This is great for a clan like ours that is defined by its geographic location, North Carolina!
Tournaments that stay closed to our clans usually get 20-40 players. This is good because everyone gets a chest at the end. It’s also bad because it there can be some long waits for tournament matches.
If you want a chest, keep your tournament closed. For competition and recruiting open it up.
I think a three-day format is the best of both worlds.
Day 1) Clan Members only, we get a head start on tournament trophies
Day 2) The Password is posted on our website and social media channels
Day 3) Open it up, it’s an action packed free-for-all until the end
If a clan member wants to enter the tournament after you’ve opened it to the public, you can close it again and wait for someone to drop out. It usually doesn’t take long. Once there is an open spot the clan member can join the tournament and then you can open it up to the public again.
Tournament Description
Honestly, I don’t think anyone reads this. If you intend to follow the three-day format above, try putting something like “Find out how to join this tournament on our website” for the description.
Special Rules
Sometimes it is fun to put special rules on a tournament. For example, you may want to tell everyone that they can’t use Legendary cards in your tournament. For the most part, clan members will follow your rules and will post reminders about the rules in clan chat as the tournament progresses. Please keep in mind that leaders cannot enforce your rules. Tournament participation is completely voluntary and there is no way to remove someone from a tournament. If someone is just being a jerk, it will be noted and may eventually lead to their being removed from the clan. Don’t expect that leaders will immediately kick someone out of the clan for not following tournament rules.
That’s it! have fun and thank you for starting tournaments for our North Carolina clans!