Sheearyn's Summer 2026 PvP Tournament

What: An open-world PvP tournament, where single contestants compete against one another to earn bragging rights and probably prizes

Who: Hopefully, anyone who wants to participate in PvP and contribute to a positive, encouraging, fun atmosphere while doing so. I’ve intentionally designed aspects of the tournament to provide opportunities for fun and success to lower level characters in addition to HLCs - and need y’all’s help experimenting to see if those attempts are actually successful so I can iterate for the future.

Where: Crossing Cemetery - meet at the Lich Gate

Lich room 1733

Genie map 7 room 403

From outside the Northeast Gate of Crossing: east, go path, north

When: Sundays starting at 3PM Eastern, beginning on August 2nd and running through August and maybe into September, depending on number of entrants.

I recognize that's a lot of regular commitment - if you're interested in participating but would need to miss one, please chat with me and see what we can work out!

Why: For fun! For practice! Because open world PvP is interesting and cool and different than the arena!

Rules

Items and Abilities

• No reapers, bees, cow totems, frostdrums, flamelutes, sparklutes, or automatons.
• No in-fight HEALME usage.
• No wands, gyres, parallel foci, Unleash, balance boots, mysandas, invisibility cloaks, HE gifts, grey stones, roar helms, fear cloaks, MT purchased acid and poison, elemental transform weapons.
  • Thieves may use MEF wands
  • (Intention: decrease the amount of MT items that swing fights, without banning MT items that are critical to peoples’ ability to participate.)
• Swiss matches will be either a single fight or best of 3, depending on logistics and number of entrants, elimination matches will be determined by the best 2 out of 3 fights.
• Each fight lasts up to 10 minutes or the opponent is eliminated, whichever occurs first.
  • Should the round go to time during swiss: The fight will be considered a draw, and no winner will be assigned. If we’re using best-of-three play and there’s no majority in number of fights won, the match will be considered a draw.
  • Should the round go to time during elimination: Sheearyn and two other judges (who are not part of the top 8), to be announced when the cut to top 8 happens, will determine a winner based on wounds, vitality, and overall contribution to a positive tournament environment.
• 10 minutes of pre-fight preparation will take place between fights. This time is to be utilized for buffing. Buffing will happen concurrently with other contestants fighting, if possible. (Note: I’m still trying to figure out actual buffing and timer-for-fight start logistics. This is the intention, but I need to figure out how to make it work in practice. If anyone has an answer, please DM me.)
• All buffs must be put up in the Cemetery (or designated pre-fight buffing area), by the contestant themselves, after the pre-fight preparation clock has begun.
  • i.e. No buffs/predictions from 3rd parties (and/or alts)

Contestants

In hopes of having a wider skill range, with more representation (and opportunities to fight) across various skill levels, each player is welcome and encouraged to enter as many characters as they like, within the following constraints:

• Each character you enter must have at most 80% of the total ranks of any more-skilled character you enter. (There should be a 20% difference between the characters you’re entering.)
• Let me know which characters are all associated with you as a player
• If you enter multiple characters, and one of them falls in a skill range without any characters within a reasonable range, I may discuss with you whether it makes sense for that character to withdraw. (Or, if some other situation comes up where that discussion would make sense, I’ll reach out.)

Each character will be treated as a distinct tournament entry (and will be paired independently for a fight each round), with the following exceptions:

• Characters associated with the same player will not be paired against each other.
• Each player is only eligible to win one prize. Winning any prize disqualifies that player’s remaining characters from any of the other prizes. Priority will be given to the prize that is listed first in the above list.
• Each player may only have one character represented after the cut to elimination. If a player has two characters who would otherwise qualify, they may choose which one to play in the elimination rounds.

Seeding and Matches

Each round, contestants will be paired with others with the same or similar win/loss records. Within that, Sheearyn will attempt to arrange matches between opponents who are close-ish in skill level (as measured by total ranks), without repeating opponents during the Swiss portion of the tournament. In some cases, that will be impossible, and a contestant will be matched against someone with substantially different ranks.

Unwinnnable Fights

Contestants are encouraged to experiment with the extent of how far they can effectively punch up during the tournament. If you think it’s on the edge of what’s possible, fight the match! See if you can pull it off, anyway - or get closer than you believed.

That said, if either party (but probably the less skilled fighter) believes that the match would be too one-sided and unfun to fight, they may forfeit the match. If you choose this option, we strongly prefer that you fight your opponent anyway, using different rules that make the fight more fun for you both. Negotiate whatever you want, that fits within the tournament’s timing constraints. Play with buffing, or stancing, or bringing in a friend to help, or alternate “win” conditions, or restricting use of certain abilities. Come up with other ideas that work for the specific situation you’re in.

In many cases, the higher-ranked contestant may have a better understanding of what might work well. In these match-ups, it’s the job of both parties to create an experience that offers opportunities for fun and learning, across the skill gap. Please do your best to do so.

The intention here is threefold:

1. Everyone is (hopefully) participating in the tournament because they want to fight, for fun and for learning. To the extent possible, we want to provide everyone participating with opportunities to have fun and learn, at the time everyone’s committed to being available, with the opponent they’re matched with
2. To showcase - for both contestants and spectators - the available options to navigate large differences in skill level, including both the limitations and available value in those tools
3. In my hopes and dreams, to see people coming up with creative ways to enjoy fights with wildly disparately skilled opponents, and displaying a variety of interpretations of what it means to have fun and get what everyone wants out of those matches

Penalties and Disqualification

• A character that vitality logs, disconnects, or is sent to the junk room loses the fight.
• A character that shows up more than 30 seconds late to a match loses the fight.
• A character that arrives at their match already buffed (rather than buffing during the prescribed pre-fight preparation window) loses the fight.
• A second instance of this infraction will result in disqualification from the Tournament.
• No interacting with the opponent (except for banter) once arriving on the arena floor prior to the match beginning.

Prizes

We’re fighting for fun and practice, right? Maybe bragging rights? Who needs prizes? 🙂

Actual prizes are TBD, but will not be plats. I’d like to showcase and highlight the skills and expertise of our community members by offering donated experiences or services, if I’m able. I’ll put out a call for prize donations…soon-ish. (Probably after Simucon.)

Up to 10 prizes will be awarded, depending on specific circumstances for the tournament (and available prizes). Each player is only eligible for one prize, regardless of how many of their characters participated in the tournament. Because the value of the prizes is likely to be subjective, prize winners will get to choose from the available prizes in the following order:

Overall Placement:

• 1st place
• 2nd place
• 3rd place

Outperforming Expected Placement based on Total Ranks:

• 1st place
• 2nd place
• 3rd place

Other Prizes:

• Most fun/creative match replacing an Unwinnable Fight
• Attitude and Sportsmanship
• Most Off-Meta
• Crowd Favorite

Registration

How to Register

1. Find Sheearyn in-game, send Sheearyn in game mail, or send Sheearyn a Discord message including:
   1. Name(s) of the character(s) you would like to enter
   2. Guild of each character
   3. Total ranks on each character, at the time of registration
2. At some point between 7/19 and 7/26, meet with Sheearyn in game and TELLEXP SHEEARYN ALL, in order to verify number of total ranks for pairing the first round. (I will ask for a tellexp all each week thereafter, to do my best to continue pairing similarly ranked characters, even though characters likely grow at different rates.)

What Will Be Posted?

• Before registration closes, I intend to post the number of registered characters in various (minorly overlapping) ranges of total ranks. I hope that some non-HLCs will enter early, and that seeing that someone else has will help to encourage others to enter characters in similar level ranges.
• When registration closes (or within about a day afterward), I plan to post an alphabetized list of registered characters and their guilds as the tournament roster.

Timing and Deadlines

• Prize listing (hopefully) announced: ~July 22nd
• Registration Closes: July 26th
• Roster Published & First Round Pairings Announced: Hopefully by July 28th
• First Round Fights: August 2nd