June 6–7 Featured Matches Sign Ups – Noxus Weekend

Strength above all!

The first month of the arc has begun! After working out some kinks with a trial round last weekend, we are now ready for the first weekend of “proper” Featured Matches. Noxus will be the first featured faction. On June 6, Noxus will battle Piltover; on June 7, it will fight Shurima. There will be three matches on each day, beginning at 12:30 Pacific. These matches will be held on the NA server.

Featured Matches

For those new to Factions, Featured Matches are special shoutcasted and streamed highlight matches, held on the weekends. They are worth extra points, and (though we’re still hammering out some details) are likely to contribute to the structure of the arc’s major tournaments.

All skill levels are encouraged to sign up. Really! People are often quite shy about taking the stage, but especially this early in the arc, before we luck out and get another frontpage Reddit thread our recruiting has begun in earnest, your faction really does need everyone it can get. As always, the teams will be tier-balanced for fairness.

Schedule

Matches will be held on Saturday (Noxus versus Piltover) and Sunday (Noxus versus Shurima). On each day, the schedule will be as follows. Matches will begin no earlier than the listed times, but may be pushed forward if previous matches run long.

Match I

12:30 Pacific — 1:30 Mountain — 2:30 Central — 3:30 Eastern

Match II

1:30 Pacific — 2:30 Mountain — 3:30 Central — 4:30 Eastern

Match III

2:30 Pacific — 3:30 Mountain — 4:30 Central — 5:30 Eastern

Sign Up Forms

Use these forms to sign up.

• Saturday June 6 (Noxus vs Piltover)
• Sunday June7 (Noxus vs Shurima)
• Casting and Streaming

We’ll send out the schedules this Friday.

You must be signed up for a faction for this arc to participate in Featured Matches. If you haven’t declared for a faction yet, do so here.

Signups So Far

Sand Hotter than Blood

The risen Sun Disc scorches the sands of Shurima with the savage force of the sun above. Ribbons of distortion scintillate over this wasteland—the old dry bones of dead Shurima, ground to jagged grains, bleached in the sun, burning hotter than blood. Zaunite merchants do a brisk trade in pyrikhos cooling collars and refreshing techmaturgically chilled beverages, with the latest ThaumaKola product, ThaumaKooler, selling quite well among the common soldiery. Cassiopeia, appointed by the High Command as its legate here, basks in the sun as she whispers with her advisors. As her Summoners argue over old tomes, she casts the occasional glance at the soldiers drilling nearby. This truce will not last forever, and they must be ready when it evaporates away.

The upstart “Emperor” Azir has repelled the assault of a veteran Noxian legion with his Shuriman sorcery and the fanatic devotion of his nomadic followers. Darius had arrived within the hour, intent on leading a fiercer attack in person. Cassiopeia overruled him, instructing her League delegates to refrain from delaying the issuance of a League truce. While Darius believes Shurima will only grow stronger, Cassiopeia senses a deep weakness in Azir’s temporary alliance of bickering tribes. It is an alliance forged in the fanaticism that boiled over as the Sun Disc rose above the sands for the first time in two thousand years, and as it cools, it will begin to crack. The presumptuous fool believes they yearn to worship him; Cassiopeia knows that in truth they hunger more for gold than for gods. Let him wait with no enemies to fight, with nothing to give his gold-hungry followers, while she sends her agents to speak with those tribes who are most indebted to House DuCouteau, while her Summoners dissect his spellcraft and draw their counter-curses. Let him wait. For the serpent asks two things of its prey: exposed flesh to bite, and time for the venom to do its work.

And for all his pretensions of divinity, Cassiopeia intends to search Azir until she finds a soft place to strike. She will not waste the High Command’s hard-earned strength, and she has no desire to see another Ionian debacle. The time will come to unleash the ferocity of the Noxian legions, but for now, she will probe for a weakness. Her scouts assess his fortifications, her agents treat with the rough tribesmen of Shurima, and her Champions and Summoners array themselves on the Fields of Justice—in the League of Legends, whose foundations were only laid at the sufferance of mighty Noxus, and in whose courts Azir’s “empire” still begs for the dignity of a name. Where the enemies of Noxus expected aggressive motions aimed at the laws of war, and specifically at those “environmental” regulations that might prevent the deployment of Zaunite bioweapons here, Cassiopeia has instead put forth subtler petitions that twist the fundamental doctrines governing the Shuriman protectorate under League law. House DuCouteau has not held its grand stature for so long without learning to outmaneuver a naive fanatic, or to carve a great writhing mob into quivering little morsels.

Swain sent her a terse dispatch with his own seal, demanding to know how many more soldiers she wanted, how many battle-mages, how many Zaunite gas-bombs and how many mind-rending mutants from that wretched smoggy place. She answered in flowing emerald ink traced over thick parchment—not soldiers, but Summoners. Soldiers who cannot fight differ from common ruffians primarily in their greater level of armament; she has no desire to fill her camps even fuller. Give her Summoners of smooth manner and delicate learning, tacticians bred for a battlefield alien to Azir and his kind. Let his “empire” crumble in that arena, before a jeering crowd, surrounded by little yordles selling cupcakes and commemorative baubles. The soldiers’ part will come later.

Stakes

These matches will have a base value of 15 points, half-again as much as an ordinary pick-up match. The match outcomes may also be used to arrange the first tournament’s structure.

Stream

Matches will be streamed to twitch.tv/LeagueFactions. You’re encouraged to come watch and cheer your faction on. There’s always a chance that we’ll have a last-minute gap open up, and will need to go to the audience for fill-ins.

Discussion Thread

You can discuss these matches here. You may also want to check out your faction’s subforum for more detailed strategy discussions.

Rules

Except as otherwise provided below, we will be using the standard tournament rules. (These rules are being revised.)

Rank

Rank is defined as the higher of Season 4 and Season 5 rank, as determined by our rank checker application. If you were unranked in both of these seasons, then we use your Season 3 rank. (As always, we use solo queue Summoner’s Rift rank.) If you were unranked in all three seasons, our interim rule is that we will take the average and assume you are Gold-ranked.

For Featured Matches, we combine Platinum and Diamond-tier Summoners into one “High-tier” category.

Underfilling and Overfilling

Factions are always free to “underfill” a slot, e.g. by putting a Silver Summoner in a Gold slot.

Factions may overfill by one rank in up to one match per set (i.e. per day). (A Gold slot may only be overfilled with a Platinum, not a Diamond, though we usually collapse those ranks together for Featured Match purposes.) If they do so, the other side has the option of upgrading one of its slots, or else fighting the match as-is and receiving one ban against the overfilling faction.

If the overfilling faction wins, the match will have a base value of 10 points, rather than 15. If the overfilling faction loses, the match will have a base value of 15 points.

Overfilling is discouraged, and should only be used as a last resort to avoid a forfeit.

Signup Priority

Summoners are randomly selected to create the teams, within the confines of the tier structure (which is itself determined by considering the overall distribution of signups for the matches). The “first-string” Summoners must be in the lobby by 10 minutes before the appointed start time to claim their spot. If they are not present at that time, we will begin pulling subs from the signup list. If we still cannot fill the spot by 5 minutes before the designated start time, we will begin pulling from the audience, taking anyone who is of the specified tier or below.

Forfeits

If a team is missing Summoners by 10 minutes after the designated start time, it forfeits the match. (If both teams are missing Summoners, the team with more missing Summoners forfeits. If both teams are missing the same number of Summoners, the match is played as-is.)

Restarts and Pauses

If a Summoner disconnects within the first 5 minutes of a match, and cannot reconnect, their team may call a restart. The team will have 5 minutes to find a replacement. Picks (and bans, if applicable) will be from scratch. This rule may only be invoked once per match.

Each team is entitled to 5 minutes of pause time per match to deal with disconnections and similar issues. (If the match is restarted, the 5-minute clock is refreshed for each side.)

Noncompliant Teams

If a team is discovered to be noncompliant, e.g. with regard to the ranks of its Summoners or its Champion selections, action will be taken to prevent that team from gaining an unfair advantage.

If a team is discovered to be non-compliant before the 5-minute mark, the organizer shall halt the match and force a restart. The non-compliant team will have 5 minutes to fix the problem. The team forfeits a number of points equal to 25% of the base match value to the other team.

If a team is discovered to be non-compliant during or after the match, the match result will be retroactively changed to a loss, and the non-compliant team will forfeit an additional 25% of the base match value to the other team.

These noncompliance situations are always unpleasant. Both teams are urged to take the time to make sure their teammates are compliant, to avoid the need to invoke this rule.

Good Luck

Best of luck to all those who will be playing. May you bring your faction honor and glory on the Fields of Justice.