Alliance Tournament Still Inspiring Pod Pilots
Although it has been almost a month since Alliance Tournament V ended, many enterprising promoters are still trying to sell the glamor and excitement of the matched combat experience. Mini-tournaments and group combat operation opportunities are popping up everywhere in New Eden.
Participation in the Alliance Tournament is often thought of as a dream by many pod pilots who lack the means to take part in it themselves. Malicious Blender felt that young pilots in less established corporations should also be able to experience the excitement of a combat tournament usually geared to well off alliances.
Held only a few days ago, the unnamed tournament run by Blender was loosely based on the rules used in the Alliance Tournament, with a stronger emphasis on the skill of pilots rather than the ability to purchase exotic ships and high end equipment. To that end, the rules included stronger restrictions on both the ships and modules allowed. Here are the rules in greater detail:
- High security arena
- An impartial judge who holds the isk, and gets 10% of the pot
- 5M Entry, full 16 bracket means 56M first prize, 16M second
- No faction, deadspace, or COSMOS modules
- No ECM or medium drones
- Only rookie frigates, with a maximum of one active drone at a time
- 50km radius arena with the Judge at the centre
- Varying warp in ranges, min 10km max 50km
The pilots competed in a series of one-on-one elimination rounds located in a designated arena in the Eiluvodi system. The combatants entered the arena at desired ranges and commenced the fight at the agreed upon signal.
Malicious Blender informed us that “We had a couple of minor problems, such as a no-show judge, but we improvised.” He went further to say: “I honestly didn't do as well as I expected to, but it was tons of fun, and the competition was very exciting.”
After completing some intense rounds of combat Jennifur Foxkitty, whose entry was backed by Zhecao Vai, took away the 17.5 million isk prize on only her 1st day in space. The success of this event has now left Blender thinking about running similar competitions in the future: “The next one I'll be running will be another one-on-one tournament, this time limited to Tech 1, Tier 1 frigates. I'm hoping for around sixteen participants.”
When discussing the possibility of future tournaments, one of the pilots who competed commented: ���I think it would be a great thing to happen more often. One of the pilots, Blarghus, had never done any combat of this sort before. He ended up getting second place against some more seasoned players.”
There are other events throughout New Eden that are offering new pilots the chance for some excitement. One such example is the upcoming “Chicken Run”, which its organizer Razmite X is hoping will draw a large numbers of rookie pilots. The event, scheduled for some time during May (depending on level of interest and committed pilots), intends to be host to more than 100 ships that will burst into low security space en masse and overpower more battle hardened pilots who they come across. Sign up now to get in on the fun! Follow the link below.