SCL3 tournament Announced!

After another successful showing of the SCL on Apr 6, and 7th, whose match replays can be found at the SCL site here(Will be updated with SCL2 footage shortly), the Pandemic Legion team, led by tourney champion Admiral Goberius had a thriller best of five Final(Full stream footage linked there) against the Reputation Cartel team, a mix epic posters from the Failheap-Challenge forums. Well worth the watch, and a blast down to the last match.

Good news, the team behind the Syndicate Competitive League is up to their old tricks and preparing for SCL #3!

Currently scheduled for May 11th and 12th, numerous rule changes have been made from SCL #1 to SCL #2. The biggest change was going from a longer double elimination bracket with best of three matches down to a single elimination bracket with best of three matches except the final which is a best of five. In SCL 1, the double elimination, best of three matches format left some teams up well into the night and early hours of their mornings, not that it slowed down the SCL 1 Hydra team at all, who still were victorious against the Exodunks team in SCL 1.

Back to SCL #3 aka SCL3, the rules are once again being modified by the SCL team to allow for better setups, changing meta and hopefully a bit of a shake-up to the turtle and ECM tank teams we saw in SCL2. Details post from one of the Tourney front men, Bacchanalian, is located on the eve-o forums here.

In short they are making a few ship-point changes.... but one of the bigger changes listed isn't something obviously important to the casual fan. That is "Only one Remote Energy Transfer module may be fitted per ship. They may be fitted on any and all ships, but only ONE per ship is allowed." Unless you are familiar with the SCL or even previous alliance tournaments, this change may seem a little pointless.

However, this change was needed because as the popularity of turtle cross tanking setups rose, due to their effectiveness, there was a chance where two "turtle" teams would face each other in a stand off that would exceed the match time with no kills. Making it very difficult to score the round or to provide needed resolution. This simple change should result in more explosions and less 'invincible' Golem, Sin, Vargur and other shield spider turtle tanks.

There will be a new third place determining match, best of three that will happen just before the championship match on Sunday.

Additionally the SCL is looking for another commentator for their booth.. In their words

Ever considered being a commentator? Think you have what it takes? The SCL staff is looking for one more voice to bring on board. Applicants need to demonstrate ample PvP experience, and a high level of past tournament participation is recommended. The ability to commit to both days of the weekend and multiple SCL dates is requested, and it is also asked that you not participate in the SCL in any way should you opt to become a commentator-we don't want active competitors "in the booth". Contact Seldarine for details.

Well beyond that, the winners of SCL1 and SCL2 have been invited to compete in SCL3, that would be the mostly Hydra team of "Warlords of the Deep" and the Pandemic Legion Team. Creates quite the match-up

 Now as for improvements I think still need to be made,

• If this really is meant to be a season vice just fights once a month, then some kind of points system and season needs to be considered. I think the SCL team is looking into this already, but it would be good to know it was in the works. Perhaps they just can't decide on a way to do the standings and are working that out and will apply whatever system they figure out to the past winners and participants when they do get a system in place.
• A season would need to be defined, IE monthly fights that start to count using the above system from this month to this month next year.

Common questions or rather, common thoughts about the SCL and why "it's not worth watching."

1. It takes place on SiSi, making ship costs immaterial reducing the immersion of the SCL into the Eve universe!  A: my response to this is simple. The teams that are fighting in the SCL would raise the money anyways, additionally it levels the playing field for the people who would not be able to raise the money, allowing the SCL to reach out to a wider participant base at a lower cost than NEO or AT's past.
2. Since not as much is at risk, it seems like security measures aren't as extreme as for the NEO or AT, why is that? A: This question seemed often asked, to me at least. In past AT's, most specifically AT6 through 10, there was no banning, so setups that could be thought up and tested out and worked well could be used, and thus finding out about a teams preferred setups gave insight into what your team might be facing if facing them. With the advent of banning, all setups must be more fluid and much more adaptable. Because of this, spying becomes less important as banning makes it difficult to predict exactly what fleet you might see. Teams have to train against and with far more comps than just coming up with one solid comp and sticking to it.

In any case, I look forward to SCL3! May seems a long way off at this point, but not over the horizon, just on the other side of Fanfest.