Through diplomacy and negotiation, the League of Legends has managed to forestall any further major conflicts since the Nyroth dispute. However, few believe that this pleasant state of affairs will long continue, and the factions of Runeterra are readying themselves for the next battle. The prevailing opinion is that Azir will soon come forward to demand League recognition of a sovereign Shuriman state, which would surely trigger a major dispute in itself. Others observe that the largest conflicts tend to come seemingly out of nowhere, their causes and origins apparent only in hindsight.
We’re going to wrap the Nyroth storyline this weekend, save for a final post-arc poll. Each faction has now had exactly two “stakes” matches. As we don’t have time for another full cycle, we’re going to use what we hope will be the last two weeks of Intermission to test-drive the new tournament format that Mike, Porkchop, and I have developed for future arcs.
“Wait, what’s Factions?”
It occurs to me that some people might come across this link without being familiar with Factions. The front page has a longer explanation, but here’s a tl;dr summary: Factions is a community game mode and lore initiative built around faction versus faction matches, such as Noxus versus Ionia or Piltover versus Zaun, fought with faction-specific Champion lists. We use the outcomes of matches to decide how the story moves forward. We organize these matches into “storylines”, also known as “arcs” or “chapters”, which last for about three months and usually focus on four playable factions. Summoners can declare for a faction, and then both participate in matches and cast votes in interactive lore events.
This tournament is not part of any arc: it’s a one-shot test run of a new tournament system. However, in many ways, it works like a mini-arc.
Format Overview
The new “split” tournament format is intended to span two weekend-long rounds of matches.
Opening Round
The first weekend’s matches will feature three matches per day, with each faction fighting each other faction once. (Any final ties will be broken with Balance of Power.) The first-place winner of this round gets a “bye” into the finals; the second-place winner will get a tiebreaker credit that will allow it to move into the finals if there’s a three-way tie on the first day of the final round.
The opening round uses lottery-assigned “pick-up” teams. These matches will be slanted toward Silver and Bronze Summoners, with few or no Golds and no Plats or Diamonds. (Golds will be free to sign up, with the caveat that we might not use them.) Tiers will be determined based on signups: the tier compositions will resemble the signup composition.
Semi-Finals
The second weekend opens with a day of semi-finals. The winner of the opening round takes a “bye” into the second day. The other three factions fight it out over the course of three matches on the first day of the semi-finals, to decide which of them will move into the finals. (In the event of a three-way tie, the faction that took second place in the opening round will advance.)
We will use pre-made teams for the semi-finals and finals (the second weekend). We’ll use a high-tier composition, probably HHHGG. Anyone can submit a team. We’ll randomly select from all teams for each faction submitted before the deadline. (We’re expecting most factions to coalesce around one “all-star” team, but if there are multiple teams, we’ll mix it up.)
Finals
The tournament’s ultimate victor will be determined in a best-of-three match on the second day of the second weekend.
Stakes
We’re still working out the stakes for this tournament. We might give the victorious faction a cool NPC or something. It’ll depend in part on what we decide the focus of the dispute is (what they’re fighting over).
Faction Selection
We will select four factions for this tournament. We will use Intermission Rosters.
The two factions at the top of the Intermission Balance of Power will be automatically granted entrance into the tournament. (Yes, the Intermission BoP is a bit out of date; don’t assume you know which factions are going to be at the top when it’s updated!)
The other two will be selected by public poll. We’ll be testing out a new rank-ordered voting system; if it works well here, we’ll also be using it for the vote to decide next arc’s factions. (I would encourage you to vote “honestly”, rather than trying to game the system by guessing which factions are going to automatically win due to BoP; BoP can be pretty volatile when a big block of matches is tossed in.)
You can cast your vote here:
Results
Noxus and Zaun were selected based upon their Balance of Power standings. Voting then added in the Freljord and Icathia (the Void).
—CupcakeTrap
Caitlyn, you monster.
FACTIONS 
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