While this fancy cup is not at stake here, the members of the winning team will receive bonus votes in the poll to determine which factions are playable in the next arc.
Reddit Thread: Factions Tournament: Ionia, the Freljord, and Bilgewater Face Off July 26–27
Boards Thread: Factions Tournament: Ionia, the Freljord, and Bilgewater
Stream: twitch.tv/LeagueFactions
General Information: What’s Factions?
Matches will be held on Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27.
The first match will begin at 12:30 Pacific — 1:30 Mountain — 2:30 Central — 3:30 Eastern on each day. Up to four matches will be played each day, each starting about an hour after the previous one began. (The schedule may be moved forward somewhat if games run long.) Matches will be streamed and shoutcasted.
Visit the Factions in-client chat to meet the community and ask questions:
The complete schedule is embedded below, under “Team Lists and Schedule of Matches”.
Ugh. Geopolitical conflict is such a drag. At least we got a nice tan in Shurima. INTERMISSION WOOOO!
Welcome to Intermission Tournaments, where it’s all made up and the points don’t matter.
The fifth Factions storyline, Hextech Revolution, ended on July 13. We’re now in an intermission period until the next arc starts sometime in early August. Just for fun, we’re going to be running Featured Matches every weekend during Intermission. Each weekend will have a theme.
This weekend’s theme: Draft a Faction. We’ve selected three captains, who have each in turn been allowed to select a faction to represent on the Fields.
Standard tournament rules will apply. Factions will use the Intermission Rosters for their Champion lists.
The Shuriman Dispute has concluded. Comes now before the Council Summoner Michelus Magnus, bearing a scroll with seal affixed, upon which are written the parties whose petitions shall next be tried upon the Fields of Justice. May peace endure.
By the endorsement of Summoner Michelus Magnus, the Council now recognizes the following Summoners:
Summoner Imalazor, called The Druid;
Summoner Wexio of Matic;
Summoner 利欲の怒気, which the Council’s scribe has translated as Wrath of Avarice.
Summoners, on whose behalf do you now appear?
For the sake of speed, I’m embedding 501st Big Mike’s GDoc below. This will allow him to update it in real time.
Team Lists and Schedule of Matches
The team captains have selected the following three factions: Ionia, the Freljord, and Bilgewater.
Champion lists follow. These are from the Intermission Rosters, and are much more generous than any actual starting rosters would be in a real arc.
Ionian Champions
Freljordian Champions
Bilgewater Champions
Katarina is apparently in charge of the Noxian privateer fleet per an old JoJ issue. The more you know!
Schedule
—CupcakeTrap
Caitlyn, you monster.
FACTIONS 
I’d prefer the team captains be able to talk with their team when choosing players/rosters. it would make the general faction a lot easier for everyone to play.
I love the Intermission tournaments, I really do. But I’d prefer if the signups went into more detail about champions. I mean, today for instance I was on Bilgewater. I own 2 Bilgewater champs, and both were apcs(Fizz and TF). I had to support as TF, and it was not pretty. I think the team captains should have an easier time picking rosters if they knew who had what champions. I mean, I own half the Freljord roster (not counting the free champions) and I think I would’ve been a better pick for them. That’s my only complaint though, other then that I think the weekend went fine.
as someone who has barely any champion i support this :)
Yes, this is one problem with drafting factions. Maybe we could start asking people on signups which factions they’d be willing to play.
Bilgewater has a really small champ roster. Could you level the playing field a bit by giving them a ban or something?
I’ve considered giving factions such as the Void (teensy roster), Bilgewater (almost as teensy of a roster), and the Shadow Isles (no ADC except via Tertiary Champions) special bonuses like bans to even the playing field a bit. It’s something we should discuss as a community, IMO. That said, I think that people tend to overestimate the significance of large rosters. For example, Discord won the third arc with a tiny, tiny roster that was basically the Void plus a couple others. (It got bigger as it won more, but it dominated from the start, when it had only 6 Champions.) It’s also worth pointing out that as scary as Ionia’s roster may seem, they still have exactly one ADC. A ban against Ionia would be very strong: perhaps too strong.
For this intermission tournament, though, we’re not going to be adding in any special rules. Part of the fun of it will be seeing how Bilgewater fares against (e.g.) Ionia.
It seems a lot easier for the other factions to plan ahead and counter with a small roster (for instance, Nautilus will almost certainly be bilge’s jungler) but I guess you’re right, small rosters still win a lot.
I would like to point out for Ionia that they have only 1 ranged ADC, but a couple of Melee ADCs, such as Yasuo and Yi, and hypercarries, such as Udyr and, again, Yi. They also have quite a few champs that can destroy a team if they are given just a small lead, along with champs that can be quite flexible in what role they can fill. I would suggest Bildge get a ban specifically against Ionia, but not against Freljord, since their roster isn’t as diverse and closer to Bildg in numbers.
Running a melee ADC is pretty spicy. It didn’t work out well for Shadow Isles last time they tried. (Then again, that was a long time ago.)
One possible compromise: when factions cross a certain number of Champions, their opponents start getting bans. This is something we’d have to discuss, though, as it would weirdly discourage having lots of Champions. (e.g. you pad your roster with a bunch of quirky Champions nobody actually plays, and suddenly the other faction gets to ban your star Champion.) Maybe it could be combined with ban protection rules (basically, no banning all ADCs or whatever) … though that’s starting to get pretty complicated.
I’ll flag this topic for community and staff discussion.