The SSFIV tournament will be held in a Round Robin Format for the pools followed by a 64 players Double Elimination (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Double-elimination_tournament) Tournament.

The MvC3 tournament will be held in a 32 players (or 64 – depending on the number of entrants) Double Elimination Format.

Round Robin

All players will be put into 16 groups of ~8 players, depending on the number of participants.

Group seedings will be done randomly.

All players will play games in the format of best of 3 rounds, best of 3 matches against each other.

From each group, the top 4 players will be promoted to the Double Elimination. (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Double-elimination_tournament)

If, after a pool is finished, players have the same games won/lost ratio, we will use the matches score to determine who gets ranked higher.

Examples:

In this example, Player 8, Player 1, Player 4 and Player 7 will be promoted.
Since Player 4 and Player 7 have won the same amount of games, the matches comparison will decide who places 3rd and 4th.

In this case, the Players 8 and 1 would be promoted anyway since they have the best games won/lost ratio.
Player 6 would come in 3rd.
Player 4 and Player 7 have won the same amount of games. Since Player 7 has won the head-to-head comparison, he will come in at 4th place.

Now for the tricky parts:

Player 1 is on the 1st place, Player 3 is ranked 2nd and Player 2 is 3rd. Easy!
But now there are three players with a record of 3-4 and also the same amount of matches won. But since Player 4 won against both, Player 5 and Player 6, he will get promoted.

And this is where the fun begins:

We now have a three way tie for the4th place.
- Player 4 beats Player 5 but loses to Player 6
- Player 5 beats Player 6 but loses to Player 4
- Player 6 beats Player 4 but loses to Player 5

Now this is where it gets a little messy. Having these three players battle it out again might result in a neverending story. That is why we also note the “Bubbles” (Points within a round) that each player earns during the matches as the “final” tiebreaker.
At first, we will only compare the “Bubbles” that every player earned in the matches between these three players.
If there still is a tie then, we will also count the “Bubbles” earned in the other matches by each player.
In the unlikely event that it is still a tie then, we will either have:

a final “Best of 1″ match if two players are remaining
final “Best of 1″ matches between these three players including counting of “Bubbles” until we have a final decision

We think that this is a fair and (hopefully) fast way to get through the pool games.
If you have any comments on this, feel free to send us a message and we will think about ways to improve things.

Double Elimination

During the DE Tournament, all players are allowed to lose once before being eliminated from the tournament.

This will also be played as best of 3 rounds, best of 3 matches.

The platform will be XBox360 ONLY, so make sure to bring a converter in case you want to use non-XBox360 hardware. There might be converters available at the location but we cannot guarantee that you will get one.

Side Selection

As a general rule, players are allowed to sort out for themselves what side they want to play on before each match. If no agreement can be found, a game of rock/paper/scissors (best of 3 rounds / 1 match) will define where players will start.
This is supposed to be a fun event nontheless

Character Selection

All players are allowed to select their characters however they want. If both players agree on “double blind” picking, a judge will get the information (Character, Ultra Selection) from Player A, then Player B will pick his character and the judge will make sure Player A picks what he had chosen before.

General Rules

Pausing the game will result in a match loss for the player who paused the game.
This however does not apply when the “final blow” to eliminate the opponent has already been done and the animation is still running (commonly known as the “I always hit start when I play online”-reaction ).

Turbo functions and Macro Controllers are not allowed.

Hardware issues are your problem. If during a match, your controller / stick stops working or is found to interfere with the gaming station so that finishing the match is not possible, your opponent may opt for a default win or request a restart of the match (if he’s that kind ).

Not being at the station at the stated time will result in a default loss.
Make sure to check the timetables / listen to all announcements and be there in time. No complaining afterwards!