For future information on qualification/becoming a part of Team America, Sean Nayden, the new Captain for 2018, will have more details in the coming months as he decides the best way to select the team on his path to glory
Qualification to the American 40k ETC Team
In order to qualify for a spot on the
40k America
ETC Team, you will need to know a bit about the Qualification Circuit. The Qualification Circuit I have designed is an attempt to be as unbiased and fair as possible to all participants - the true goal of the system is to ensure that the Captain, myself, has a tool to determine which competitive players across the country are currently the sharpest, and most qualified for the team. The other goal is to make sure anyone can qualify, regardless of their personal connections or affiliations, in order to grow the awareness of the
ETC within the US Tournament Community and as such, improve the strength of our team over time. This system is, as with anything in life, a work in progress. All feedback can be addressed to me here or via pm - for lengthier discussions I may ask you to take it offline in order to keep the thread clean.
Team Composition: At the
ETC a team is composed of eight players and up to one non-playing coach. Only U.S. Citizens are valid for qualification - we have plenty of people interested and can and should always field a national team. I fill those eight spots in the following way:
1) The Current
ETC Team Captain
2) #1 in Qualification Circuit
3) #2 in Qualification Circuit
4) #3 in Qualification Circuit
5) #4 in Qualification Circuit
6) #5 in Qualification Circuit
7) Team Vote Involving Members 1-6 above
8) Team Vote Involving Members 1-6 above
**Captains Choice** Unfortunately some years not everyone who qualified is able to attend, the captain ranks in the top 5 of the qualification circuit, or people have to drop out near the event due to events in real life. In the event this happens the spot is filled via a Captain's Choice, which involves the Captain picking the player they feel is best qualified to round out the team and give us the best shot at winning.
Qualification Circuit Information (Places 2-6)
Qualification Circuit Duration: The Qualification Circuit will run the length of the calendar year. Events will be used that occur from January 1st -> December 31st of a given year to qualify the team that will attend the
ETC in the following August. For example, the team that just qualified based on the results of all qualifying tournaments occurring in 2015 will attend the event in August of 2016. This is to allow the team time to work together, design a strategy, build lists, and practice prior to the list submission deadline which typically takes place in June.
Qualification Circuit - Event Criteria
-> The event must be open to all players to attend (no invite only events)
-> The event must have at least 50 players playing games at round 1
-> The event must have at least 5 rounds occur
-> The event must use a competitive rules set. This is a qualitative assessment done by myself. To date no event has ever been disqualified or not used, however I reserve the right to not allow in a 50 person '4000 points per person apocalypse event. Or a "everyone gets wraithknights in game 2" event. While these sort of events may be fun, they do not serve as an adequate proving ground for a player to show they would be able to succeed at the
ETC.
-> Both Singles and Team Events are allowed
-> The event must provide me with the *full* results via email (pm me for contact info) or via
PM on dakka, or right here in the thread. Only the competitive scoring track is used for rankings in this system, and it should be sorted based on the method used for pairings. IE, if the event pairs based on W/L, the Top 4 of the event for purposes of points in this system should be the final 4 players. If the event uses
BP to pair, then the top 4
BP players will be used.
Qualification Circuit - How Points are Earned: Points are earned via placing at any
GT in the U.S. that meets the above criteria - it's that simple. I'll have a google sheet at the end of this post which does all the computations, and I'll update it periodically and provide view-only access to everyone.
The following formula is used to determine the points a player will receive at an event: [1/(Event Placing^0.66)*Sqrt(Event Attendance/50)]
Additional Team Event Details:
-> In the case of Team Events, event "attendance" in my spreadsheet is always capped at 256, and divided by two for team events. This means that for the majority of team events their "size" in the formula will be 128. This is to prevent team events from dominating the scoring.
-> Team Event points are initially in a locked state, and do not count towards qualifying a player. In order to unlock these points, a player must have a qualifying singles finish. This is to prevent any accidental qualifiers due to the same team winning multiple team events in a year and carrying an inexperienced player on to the team.
How you can lose points: In general, points cannot be lost. However in unusual circumstances I will need to remove points from players. Through honest mistakes or illegal play, if it is brought to my attention and confirmed beyond my own reasonable doubt that the player in question cheated and it was not handled at the table/event, had an illegal list, colluded, or anything else of this nature, I will remove the points for an individuals finish. I want to emphasize that
mistakes do happen, and I understand that. Everyone has had something small from time to time such as an illegal list occur - and that's fine - but at the
ETC the entire team could experience a round loss due to one illegal list. This could invalidate the entire trip before it begins, and is not something we can risk. For an example, you can see circumstances of some of the top players, stand up guys, having illegal lists occasionally over the years due to miscounting, army building software, any number of reasons. While I am Captain, if this circumstance arises, I will remove qualifying points for these circumstances.
Think of it like a track meet - if you jump the starting gun, it doesn't matter if you won the race by three lengths - you were not a legal participant.
Team Vote Process (Places 7-8)
Currently the
ETC format requires each faction to be used only once per team. As such, all eight players must play eight distinctly different armies. This can create an issue when the bulk of the team is created by a qualification system based around winning events, as certain armies at any one time will be more powerful than others, and as such more widely played. In order to ensure there is some flexibility in team creation, we have the team vote process. After the qualification circuit ends, I will contact the top five individuals and award them their spot on the team. Whether they accept or not, these are the voting members, alongside the Captain, who choose the last two members of the team in the following way:
Captain: Nominates three individuals
Players 2-6: Nominate one individual each with a justification statement
These 3-8 names make up the ballot, with overlapping names discarded. From here, each player is requested to submit their top 3 picks from the name on the ballot ranked 1, 2, and 3. These votes are taken in, and for each time a player is ranked first they get 3 points, 2nd 2 points, and 3rd one point. After totaling these, the two players with the most points are awarded the last two spots on the team. If one refuses, their spot is offered to the third player. In the case of two players being unable to accept, it will revert to a Captain's Choice.
2017 Calendar Year Qualification Results and Team Announcement
Link to the finalized qualification spreadsheet for the 2017 Team:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O6Nk8Gg0S6xjZNNOkO3Zd3CkHgHAhRoKAJVF4DD0Xhk/edit?usp=sharing
***There will be a new captain for 2018, so the qualification circuit is in limbo while the new captain (yet unannounced) decides how they want to handle team selection***
Team America 2017
1) (Captain's Choice) -
Brad Chester - (Accepted)
2) #1 in Qualification Circuit -
Matt Root (Accepted)
3) #2 in Qualification Circuit -
Andrew Gonyo (Accepted, Captain, created captains choice)
4) #3 in Qualification Circuit -
Sean Nayden (Accepted)
5) #4 in Qualification Circuit -
Tyler Devries (Accepted)
6) #5 in Qualification Circuit -
Brett Perkins (Accepted)
7) Team Vote Involving Members 1-6 above -
Matt Schuchman - (Accepted)
8) Team Vote Involving Members 1-6 above -
Brad Townsend - (Accepted)
Coach:
Kurt Clauss - (Accepted)
ETC Team America 40k History
Expand the spoiler tag to see who was on the team each year since we started attending, and how the team placed.
[Ongoing]