Hear ye and be warned! On the twenty-second and twenty-third days of November, 24 CLE, a tournament shall be held upon that Field of Justice known as Summoner’s Rift, whereby Valoran’s emissary pro tempore to the people of Nyroth shall be appointed. This emissary shall thereupon be duly invested with sufficient powers to hold negotiations and other relations with the Nyrothians, until such time as the present dispute concerning Nyroth is resolved.
And there shall be represented at this tournament the following nations of Valoran, all member-states of the League of Legends in good standing:
the Maritime Republic of BILGEWATER, representing itself and the interests of the Marai
the Serene Isle of IONIA
the SHADOW ISLES
the peoples of the FRELJORD, by a confederation of the AVAROSAN, the WINTER’S CLAW, and the TROLL TRIBES
by those Champions and Summoners whose petitions for entry into this dispute have been approved by the Council.
Let the word of the League be as law, lest all the powers of Runeterra arrange themselves against ye. There may be no appeal.
Tournament
As most everyone knows by now, Nyroth’s first full-scale tournament is set for this weekend (November 22–23). Up until now, the prizes for the tournament had yet to be revealed, as staff was still discussing them. I am pleased to report that we have finally come to a decision on them, and the list of prizes is now on the tournament sign up post.
A review of Featured Match outcomes so far
As we head into the first tournament, I think it is a good time to give a quick summary of how the Featured Matches have played out so far.
- Bilgewater: Completely undefeated in the Featured Matches, with a total of 12 victorious weekends.
- Freljord: Lost all of its match ups against Bilgewater, and exactly one loss against the Shadow Isles. Other than those, they have won all of their Featured Matches, with 7 weekends of victory.
- Shadow Isles: Has 3 victories and 1 loss against Ionia, 1 victory and 3 losses against the Freljord, and has yet to defeat Bilgewater in a set of featured matches. This gives them a total of 4 victories.
- Ionia: Only 1 victory, gained while playing against the Shadow Isles. Has yet to win an island exploration mission. This means that if it wants an island to call its own (and not share with another faction), it will have to make it to the tournament’s finals.
Teams
I will list the teams that are locked in for the tournament here as they are submitted. Cut-off for team submissions will be Friday, November 21 at 11:00 am Pacific Time. If a faction does not have a team submitted by then, I will treat their faction’s schedule like a featured match – e.g. take players off of the player sign up list to randomly fill the skill tiers. This puts the faction that didn’t organize a team at a disadvantage, as randoms playing against a team of players who are organized and coordinated beforehand will have a much harder time in their games. (Freljord can likely attest to this, as they recently suffered their first featured match loss against the Shadow Isles this weekend when they were a group of randoms thrown together facing a pre-organized Shadow Isles team).
- Death Incarnate – Captain:drmigit2, Co-captain: Last Punisher & Ponchogrande
- High Tier: Last Punisher
- Gold 1: Drmigit2 (subs: 501st Big Mike)
- Gold 2: Ponchogrande
- Silver:Ares the Proud (subs: Kramillion)
- Bronze:CriggerTheUndead (subs: Damaster)
Ionia:
- True Will – Captain: Kawaii Asuna, Co-captain: LightPhyXer
- High Tier: Kawaii Asuna (subs: Revoluxionist, EliteBaM)
- Gold 1: LightPhyXer
- Gold 2: Junpei Tenmyouji
- Silver: sophiechan (subs: Purple Bavarois)
- Bronze: The Mechromaner (subs: Mr. Sapling)
Freljord:
- Failure to Submit – Captain: Matsokune, Co-captain: The Mimeoplasm
- High Tier: The Mimeoplasm (subs: Frost Archon)
- Gold 1: Call Me 7even (subs: Wrath of Avarice)
- Gold 2: XxShingamixX
- Silver: athenianCavalier (subs: Tanadon, CrazyMLC)
- Bronze: Whitakker (subs: Matsokune)
Bilgewater:
- Void Train – Captain: Naggarok, Co-captain: rahh231
- High Tier: Naggarok
- Gold 1: rahh231
- Gold 2: sodaman64
- Silver: Darkomega
- Bronze: ggpallys
Note that these rosters are subject to change on game day by captain discretion.
All factions now have a team submitted. However, this a a preliminary team announcement. The starter players will be verified to be compliant for both skill tier and faction allegiance before the schedule is Posted Friday. If any of the starter players are found to be non-compliant, the team will be invalidated. I will try to verify all teams’ compliance by Thursday and email all the captains if their team is compliant or not (if they listed their email on sign up).
Leadership
If you remember way back to the beginning of the arc, some of the factions selected champions to lead them for the time being. It also mentioned that there would be a chance later on to change their leadership, if they wished to. That time is coming very soon; after the tournament, a poll will be posted, giving the Freljord and Bilgewater the option to either stay with their current leaders (Ashe and Nami) or to choose a new leader.
Get ready to listen to lots of political ads.
FACTIONS 
Name so nice we used it twice!
I lol’d.
(Bilgewater) “How…could you have beaten us? We were unstoppable…”
(Freljord) “Something you should know about Freljordians. We’re known for our FAILURE TO SUBMIT.”
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
[…] off, remember to mark your calendars for this weekend. The first major tournament of the Nyroth arc will be held this Saturday and Sunday. More details […]
Any chance Shadow Isles and maybe Ionia can have a bit of leadership deciding, too? I mean, Ionia is admittedly ruled by a monarchy, but Shadow Isles has a few different champions pulling a few different ways.
I think a similar “direction poll” would be appropriate for SI and Ionia as well.
I think leaders could still work for SI and Ionia, SI each of the opinions are represented by specific people, in Ionia, it’s a lot more controlled, but there could still definitely be a summoners lore for “Ionia’s ambassador to Nyroth” which makes all nyrothian decisions. This could even be incorporated into the lore for people such as zed and syndra (if they aren’t taken by factions by then) as if summoners choose them, there could be a coup (The library spirits of the library were angered at the Ionians, who knows why, and rose to smite them! Zed agreed to use his forbidden knowledge to destroy the spirits, in exchange for a place of power, karma abandoned the islands in rage at the decisions of the council.)
In response to Quiloren:
Ionia’s relations with Zed are at an all time low. Not only did he assassinate Ionian officials in Shon-Xan (and fought for Noxus against them afterwards), but now Ionia has started to rebuild the Kinku order (which Zed doesn’t like).
Although Ionia’s relationship with Syndra isn’t as bad as it is with Zed, her allying with Ionia is not something that would be doable overnight. There would be some MAJOR work that Ionia would have to do to get her to like them, and even then it might not be possible.
uh those prizes are way op :)
And Ionia loses Akali during the tournament.
RIP in Pepperonis
Actually, Akali will be back just in time for tournament. She was only MIA for one week.
Really? Great!