Just finished hosting my first tourney - Nomad Wars - a write up

Just concluded hosting my first AOE2 tournament. A 1v1 Nomad only open to all elos and spread out across over 6 brackets. I had no idea how many people would sign up, but I saw a gap in tournaments where there was a clear need for a Nomad style tournament that utilises interesting and diverse civ settings. The tournament was very well subscribed and we had over 200+ people sign up. I was very surprised. My initial plan was to limit brackets to 32, but I decided to let people sign up to extend the tournament.

There were 487 total games of Nomad played so there was a shit load of different matchups with the settings of the tournament. BO3 was hidden pick and no repeat so we seen lots of mirror matchups which is a great way of deciding who is the better player. BO5 had a mass banning system which was vastly different from the BO7 which had a global hidden ban (both players could ban the same civ) and picking 8 civs. It was great to have variety in the way players have to pick civs, and I think it's important to have some variety in the settings to push players and reward preparation.

In the sub 1K we had 18 people sign up. #15 Chinesehero came out victorious with a great upset.

1k-1250, Applejack was our victor out of the 60 players signed up.

64 people in this bracket. Snowman won the 1250-1500, recently coming over from HD where he just played Nomad.

32 entered here in the 1500-1750 we even had Dave_AOE enter, but crash out in the first round. Our champion Ray went the full tournament not dropping a single game. Absolute domination!

We had a $100 prizepool for the 1750-2k where we had another American win, this time from Eli who had an insane final against bipeng2008. Trushes, castle drops and even a persian douche in this one, it was an insane set!

In 2k+, no surprises there PROject_Belgium came home with the W and not losing a single game in the process. Takes home $200 not a bad pay day, meanwhile takes home $100.

My initial plan was not to have any prizes, but I was very lucky to get some donations from LB10, Snowman, greenleaf and an anonymous donor. I added $110 in myself. Also thanks to RockDove for sorting out some non-cash prizes for the lower elo brackets. I decided not to have any cash prizes for the lower elo to reduce motivation for smurfing. Having cash prizes for low to mid elo is just not worth the hassle and not why players at this level should be playing for anyway.

All in all, the tournament was a great success! Only 14 ALs out of all the 200 or so sets, a AL rate of 6.96% (really lmao).

Now for a break and on to the next one in January. A 2v2 tournament using the standard Nomad style maps in DE in aid of homelessness. The homeless are quite a misunderstood and marginalised population, it only seemed right to try and raise funds for a problem where in Nomad we are literally trying to make a home for ourselves. In our duos we also have a helping hand from our team mate. Sometimes in life, that's all people need is a helping hand.

If anyone has any questions about hosting a tournament and going about it, I would love to help with any questions! I admin'd the thing myself and it is doable!