Factions Friday begins at 5:00 PM Pacific time today, September 2nd, in the year 26 CLE.
What’s Factions Friday?
Factions Friday is a traditional event for welcoming new Factioners into their first matches, and generally facilitating pickup matches. It’s not particularly formal. You just show up in the Factions chat and start/join games.
Quickstart Guide
- Declare for a faction.
- If you can’t remember if you’re signed up yet, try the Summoner List. (The EUW version is here.)
- Note that this is a 2v2 arc. Bandle City and Icathia are teaming up against the Freljord and Bilgewater. Summoners can freely sub in for their allies.
- Example: You’re a Bandle City Summoner invited to an Icathia v. Freljord match. You can fight for Icathia without penalty. (But you can’t fight for the Freljord, because you’d be fighting against your own ally.)
- When subbing for an allied faction, you use their Champions. The factions, not the Summoners, determine which Champions are available.
- Join the Factions chat.
Next, either wait for a match, or start a match yourself.
Getting Invited to a Match
Join the Factions Chat, and wait for someone to invite you to a custom game. Remember, since this is a 2v2 arc, no matter what faction you are, you’re guaranteed to be able to fight for one side or the other in any given match.
Starting a Match
Starting a match yourself is actually pretty straightforward.
- Create a Custom Match.
- Set type to “Tournament Draft”
- Give it a title like “FACTIONS – Bilgewater v. Icathia”
- Set the password to “factions”.
- Announce it in the Factions chat. Then, right-click “invite to game” everyone in the chat.
- Check the rank balance for rough fairness before starting. (But note that we use a skill-balancing algorithm to automatically adjust points when scoring. So if you play against a much stronger team, while it might be a very difficult game, you’re not hurting your faction by playing it. If you somehow win, it’ll be worth tons of points, while if you predictably lose to those Diamond Summoners on the other side, the match will be worth fewer points.)
- Also, make sure that people are on the correct sides, and nobody is playing against either their own faction or their ally. You can verify this with the Summoner List.
- Remember that the winning team has the responsibility for submitting the match results for scoring.
- If you just can’t get enough people for a full 5v5, you can drop it down to a 4v4 or 3v3. They’re worth fewer points, but sound pretty interesting from a strategy standpoint.
Have Fun!
While staff will try to run some matches ourselves, we also encourage Summoners to organize their own. That’s really how Factions is supposed to work, after all.
Also, we have shoutcasted Featured Matches every Saturday/Sunday, starting at 12:30 PM Pacific. Here’s the link for this weekend’s set.
—CupcakeTrap
Caitlyn, you monster.
FACTIONS 
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