Rules

Local Teamspeak IP 10.10.0.9

League Operations

• Tom "Gumpster" Gumbleton - League Ops Manager
• George "Geo" Peters - League Ops Team Leader

Please also read the General Rules that apply to every single EPIC.LAN tournament.

Signups & Restrictions

• Signups will close on Thursday 24th of October at 16:00 local time to allow for seeding and group scheduling. 
• You must be aged 16+ to take part in any EPIC.LAN tournaments
• Any players under the age of 18 require parental or legal guardian consent to partiticpate
• Any players under the age of 18 require an adult to accompany/be on site for the player (Either a parent or legal guardian, or an adult agreed upon by a parent or legal guardian, such as an adult team member)
• Games will start on October 25th
• Captains meeting will commence on Friday October 25th at 10:30 local time.

Tournament Format

The exact format will be confirmed once all teams have signed up and the final numbers are known.

Schedule

The tournament schedule will be released as soon as the matches have been seeded. Players must join the EPIC.LAN Discord server for schedule updates.

Lobby Rules

• Competitive Rules: On
• Kill Cam: Off
• Skins: Enabled

It is the responsibility of both teams to check the settings of the game are set correctly before starting. If a game is started with the wrong setting the game should be paused and an admin contacted.

Console players are allowed to compete in this tournament.

Match Format

• The highest seed creates the lobby for the match
• Lobby must be set to invite only mode
• Teams may only start the match once; this means the minimum number of players must be in the lobby, maps have been selected, and both teams have confirmed they are ready to begin. The host of the lobby must inform everyone when the match is due to begin.
• All heroes are playable
• Teams have 15 minutes from the scheduled time to be in the lobby and ready to play. If you are overrunning from your previous match, please inform the admin team immediately.

Map Pool

Map Selection (Group Stage)

• The team on the left-hand side of the match details page will select a mode and map from the map pool above.
• The losing team will pick the following mode and map whilst the winning team will pick attack or defense, if applicable.
• Fve maps will be played and teams will be scored on a points-based system.
• In the event of a map being drawn, the team which picked the map will pick the following map.

Map Selection (Elimination Stage)

• Higher seed will have the opening map ban and pick. In the event of no seeds, the team on the left-hand side of the match details page will have the opening map ban/pick. The lower seed will have the second map ban and pick - please see the map veto guide below for more detailed information.
• Bo5 will be played in the following order: Control, Hybrid, Push, Flashpoint, Escort. The tiebreaker, if necessary, will be a Control map not already played.
• Bo7 will be played in the following order: Control, Hybrid, Push, Flashpoint, Escort, Control, Escort.
• Maps may not be replayed in the same series.
• In the event of a map being drawn, the team that picked the map will pick the following map.

Map Veto (Elimination Stage)

Control:

• Team A (higher seed/team on left) bans 1 map
• Team B bans 1 map
• Team A picks the map

Hybrid:

• Loser (B) of the previous mode bans 1 map
• Winner (A) of the previous mode bans 1 map
• B picks the map
• A picks the side

Push:

• Winner of the previous mode bans 1 map
• Loser picks the map
• Winner picks the side

Flashpoint:

• Loser of previous mode picks the map
• Winner picks the side

Escort:

• Loser (B) of previous mode bans 1 map
• Winner (A) of previous mode bans 1 map
• B picks the map
• A picks the side

Tiebreaker map:

• The remaining control map is played.

Pausing & Substitutes

• Players can be swapped between fixtures or maps in a series.
• Players can not be swapped in a map once hero selection has begun.
• If a remake occurs where a player needs to be substituted in order to resolve the issue, the match must be fully remade. Please contact an admin before doing so.
• Teams may only use the /pause command for times when tech issues or medical issues occur.
• Teams have only got 10 minutes of pause time in total during a match series. This is a combined time, you can pause many times but it must not eclipse the total of 10 minutes.
• The team that initiated the pause must inform their opponents of why the pause has been called.
• Before unpausing, both teams should agree they are ready to go again.

Tie-Breaker Situations

Tie-break situations may arise in the group stages when 2 or more teams are on the same level of points. In this scenario, there will be a process we will follow to determine which teams will navigate out of the groups. This will be done in the following ways across all our esports titles at EPIC.LAN:

• Head-To-Head
• Round Difference
• Rounds For (if RD is exactly the same)

If the two or more teams are still tied, then the following formula will be applied.

Did the team beat the bottom team in the group? If yes, by what score? If the score is the same against the bottom side in the group, then the admins will strip away that result and go through the other results using points 2 and 3 above to compare the sides.

If the teams are still tied after that (in a very rare scenario would that happen), then we will determine the team to go through by playing either a full map of a certain game or a variety of overtime rules that each game can apply. So for example, if it's a CS tiebreaker needed, then the two teams would veto and play overtime on that particular map. Whoever wins proceeds to the elimination bracket in their place.

Screenshots & Match Recordings

Teams should always take screenshots of scores at the end of each map. This is to help whenever scores are conflicted and the admins need to see proof of who won and who lost. Any evidence that suggests tampering, will result in an instant disqualification from the tournament. 

If you are reporting exploitations or cheating, then a video may be necessary to help provide context so please record your games to help provide this evidence to the admin team.

The Final & Match Coverage

During the Final, teams will be assigned their respective referee to administrate team communication during tech pauses and coach communication outside of tactical pauses.

Teams must abide by any change in playing environment (moving to a stage setting) and any regulations associated with tournament Finals.

In-ears are a requirement for all players who reach the Grand Final of their respective tournament/when playing in an esports stage match. We recommend players bring their own choice of in-ears, which will be setup for game audio underneath their regular headphones. Headphones will be used for mic communication. Players will provide their own peripherals for stage use. Should a player not have their own choice of in-ears specifically, a basic pair will be provided for stage use. EPIC.LAN provided in-ears are new and provided to players to keep. 

The Twitch stream must not be open during matches.

Sportsmanship and Cheating

It is the captain's responsibility to ensure players are behaving appropriately. Any harassment must be immediately reported to an admin. This includes but is not limited to: verbal abuse (any offensive communication in lobbies/in game), any use of racist/sexist/homophobic/other discriminatory language, any implied or direct threats, and in-game trolling.

The following are to be considered unfair play and are not allowed in any form: hacking E.G "drophacking", Bot use, spot timing (e.g., not throwing the game, just timing a shot so bettors win), Distributed denial of service “DDOS” or Denial of service “DOS”, any modification to the game client, exploiting/intentional use of in-game bugs to gain an advantage, ringing, soft play on the ladder, ghosting or stream sniping ( Including using a spectator to gain an advantage, Movements to see a stream or information that would otherwise be unobtainable and illegally obtaining and utilising leaked scrim information from Opponents, use of any cheat program, illegal pauses, cooperation/conspiracy to cheat (e.g. an agreement among players to not play to a reasonable standard of competition, prearranging to split prizes, intentionally losing a game), Use of unauthorized or restricted items and wintrading.

Streaming

Players will need to submit this form to ask for specific permission to stream from the event. 

Streaming is a key part of our events and our participants' / teams' own content and is something that we wish to encourage, however it's also important that any streams of our esports tournament do not compromise the competitive integrity of the event and also, in the case of some titles, match the standards required by those publishers. 

Note that application for stream permission is intended only for those participating at the event streaming their own perspectives, we do not grant lobby access to spectators who are not at the event. 

In certain cases we may offer increased bandwidth for streams, but this is not guaranteed. 

We also ask that those granted permission to stream share some basic viewership figures with us after the event, these figures will be held confidentially and amalgamated as part of the overall event evaluation which will help existing and future partnership discussions, which in turn will help raise the quality and potential prize pools for the event. Your personal viewing statistics will never be shared. 

Subject to the title being streamed (e.g. BEACON VALORANT for EPIC38) you may be required to use specified graphics packages for the duration of the event. 

If you use the EPIC.LAN logo as part of your coverage, you should follow the guidelines set at https://www.epiclan.co.uk/brand. 

Note that permission to stream does not imply any sort of official affiliation or coverage partnership with the event. 

You may not stream your games if you are currently featured on the EPIC.LAN main streams. 

Support

Please feel free to contact the League Ops Team within the #support in the official EPIC.LAN Discord server.

These rules are subject to change due to any game-related updates that cause issues to occur in different ways. The game admins and tournament team leaders have the discretion to change & update rules within reason at any stage throughout a tournament. The Admins decisions are always final.