CyberGamer and SteelSeries are proud to present the Xbox 360 Black Ops Search & Destroy Leagues... Season 2! Teams and players alike will battle it out over another 11 week stint of Round Robin and Finals play. This season will be extremely similar to season 1, but with some minor changes which will be detailed below.

Again, this thread is a long read. It basically details the same things we made the public aware of before the commencement of the first season of Leagues (it's pretty much a copy+paste job!). Whilst we can't announce or even determine some details regarding the Invite Leagues, there's still a lot we were able to divulge to you guys/gals. Be sure to take in every minute detail. Below you will find all the information you need regarding the SteelSeries Black Ops Invite Leagues Season 2 with the exceptions of some obvious things.

The Leagues will contain CGi, CGm, CGa and CGd divisions, however this may be subject to change pending the amount and quality of teams we get wanting to participate in the Leagues. No, it won't go to 6/8/8/8.

Key Changes:
Round Weeks are now Tuesday - Tuesday. They are no longer Monday - Monday. We have done this to allow the more popular days of play (Sun, Mon & Tues) to be available to teams.

All questions, suggestions and comments are welcome.

Registration Thread / League / Schedule

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Since October 2010 SteelSeries has been partnered with CyberGamer in bringing you guys the best possible competitive experience on Call of Duty: Black Ops. SteelSeries contributions have made this CyberGamer's largest Invite League to date on CG Xbox. You guys own - definitely worth a thumbs up! Take a minute and say your thanks to SteelSeries by checking out their Facebook page and pressing the "like" button. Also, check out their upcoming Competitions for Australia too!

SteelSeries Facebook / SteelSeries Website / Buy SteelSeries Gear

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Entry Details
To nominate your team for selection in the upcoming SteelSeries Black Ops Invite Leagues, simply register your team and it's members in this thread: Registration Thread

Taking the below traits into consideration, the Admin team will pick all teams for the upcoming Leagues.

Admin Team selections are based on the following criteria (applicable to most teams):

Performance throughout the season (CGo or your relative League)
Performance throughout the finals (if applicable)
Stability
Reliability
Longetivity
Maturity
Ability to pay entry fee

Regarding the above, this does not mean it is impossible for a new team (perhaps comprised of players from many different Leagues S1 teams) to gain entrance into Leagues S2. Quite simply, if we can judge the character and skill of your team to be suitable for a League placing - and better than other teams who have applied - the team will be given a placing.

Again, you can register your team here! Registration Thread

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Participating Teams

CGi	CGm	CGa	CGd
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

*this format may be subject to change pending the amount and quality of teams we get wanting to participate in the Leagues. No, we won't be going 6/8/8/8 and Yes, we'll update this list on the 11th of July.

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Entry Fees

CGi	CGm	CGa
$35 per person	$25 per person	$10 per person

Payment Period:11th July - 1st August 11:59pm AEDST

It is highly encouraged that these payments be made as soon as possible as not to hold up the commencement of CGi, CGm and CGa.

Teams who do not have at least 6 members paid for by the end of the payment period will be removed from the competition and shall be replaced by a willing and eager team. Members of the removed team that had paid will be refunded. The entire removed team will face bans in most cases.

In this occurrence it is likely a team from a lower league will be moved up; they will need to pay the remaining cost difference for their entry into the league. This will inevitably cause the league the replacement team leaves to be 1 team short. A replacement for this removed team will then be sought from a lower league or the CGo ladder.

If a team has six members paid and other members are not paid by the end of the payment period, those who have not yet paid will have a short time frame in order to do so, after the period.

Refunds
Refunds will not be given in most circumstances. If you have played a match for your team then wish to quit and be refunded - you will not be refunded - you are more likely to get banned as you can only leave your team during Recruitment Week. Refunds will only be available up until the end of Round 1 provided you did not play your Round 1 match. Any requests for refunds after Round 1 has concluded will be denied unless there are impeding special circumstances.

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Format
The formatting of the SteelSeries Leagues, including matches, the teams competing and the leagues themselves include some of the following but please be aware, the team formatting per league is subject to change though not drastically.

Teams: CGi, CGm, CGa & CGd consist of 8 teams in each league
Team Sizes: Teams are now required to have a min. of 6 members and a max. of 10 members
Gametype: 5v5 Search and Destroy
Map Setup: 1-Map Round Robin Matches
Scoring: First-to-Eight Halves: Play until a team reaches 8 rounds wins in both halves. Do not stop the game once a winner is determined. Play 'First-to-Eight' for both halves.

Example Round Image


League Scoring
Places are earned from 'Match Wins' and 'Match Losses', then if tied they are further discerned by giving the higher place to the team with the highest 'Rounds Won:Rounds Lost' ratio. Mathematically, this is Rounds Won divided by Rounds Lost. The team with the highest number from that ratio will be given the highest position of the teams tied. This ratio number is revealed on the League ladders.

The actual League ladder will reflect that if teams are tied on matches won, the team with the most rounds will be higher on the League ladder. For our finals spots determination, this is not how it is actually done. We've decided to do it differently because not every match will contain the same amount of rounds. The Rounds Won:Rounds Lost ratio mentioned above, will be used to determine tied positions. This has been done mostly to ensure that the best team gets the higher spot. For instance, we'd rather see a team with 6 Games Won, 1 Game Lost, 80 Rounds Won and 10 Rounds Lost, be higher than a team who is 6 Games Won, 1 Game Lost, 81 Rounds Won and 60 Rounds Lost; hence the use of R+/R- ratio!

At the end of Round Robin play the CoD Admins will announce the teams who have made finals and provide the relative information regarding the ending ratios for teams that are tied.

Overtime Scoring
If a match proceeds into Overtime, these scores are now counted. Unlike the last Invite Leagues, rank will be determined by wins and losses first - but then refer to Round Win:Round Lost ratio - therefore we are able to include all overtime rounds. If you overtime ends up with a total score of 16-12, score it exactly as such, do not revert it back to 13-11 or use any other dumbing-down method.

Challenges
During the SteelSeries Leagues S2 the CoD Admin team will set up your matches each week. We simply arrange the two teams to verse each other, meanwhile one team chooses some times to offer and the opposing team chooses a time to select. It's exactly the same as the current CGo ladder, except you don't get to click 'Challenge' - the Admin team effectively does.

Challenges will be issued every Tuesday. This allows teams to get their matches done Tuesday to Tuesday. All challenges and matches must be complete by the start of the next round.

These challenges will be sent after all matches are complete in the round, usually on the Tuesday @ approx 10pm. All challenges and matches must be complete by the start of the next round. The Admin team will keep tabs and endeavour to balance out the amount of times teams get to send times or accept times.

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Ruleset Defined/Invites Sent: 18th July
Payment Period: 18th July - 8st August 11:59pm AEDST

Invite Leagues Commence

Round 1: 9th August - 16th August
Round 2: 16th August - 23rd August
Round 3: 23rd August - 30th August
Round 4: 30th August - 6th September

Recruitment Week
12:01am AEDST 30th August - 11:59pm AEDST 6th September

Round 5: 6th September - 13th September
Round 6: 13th September - 20th September
Round 7: 20th September - 27th September

Invite Leagues Finals Begin


Finals Round 1: 27th September - 4th October
Finals Round 2: 4th October - 11th October
Finals Round 3: 11th October - 18th October
Grand Finals: 18th October - 25th October

Invite Leagues Conclude


This schedule as well as the fixture and some other information can be found on the League Schedule Page. This area is where all the teams will be placed and where they can find all relative information; as well as their corresponding Leagues Private forum which will be setup once the teams have been chosen.

The above (forum, schedule etc) will not be entirely setup for Season 2 until Season 1 is finished.

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Recruitment Week
Recruitment Week will run exactly the same as it did in Season 1. Any player that signs up to CGi/m/a/d at the beginning of the season will be unable to change teams within the Leagues. They must play the entire season in their original team, or alternatively they can leave their team only during Recruitment Week. However be advised that if you leave during Recruitment Week you can still be liable for any mishaps after you've left. For instance, if you leave and it results in your team being unable to field enough players for matches, or a bunch of your team mates leave as well and the team is left without enough players - you can be banned along with the rest of your team, even if you have left during Recruitment Week.

For captains, you are only allowed to recruit players who are not participating in the current Invite Leagues. They could be a player who is just playing CGo, or a player who isn't even signed up to the S&D Ladder. Aside from the previously stated positives of this change, this will also open a huge window for up and coming players.

If a player leaves their team in any League (which is only allowed during Recruitment Week) they cannot join another League team. Further, they will not get a refund of any kind (see: Refunds above). To reiterate; all recruits must not be or have been in any of the League teams (CGi, CGm or CGa) - they must be from CGo or not competing on the S&D ladder at all.

Recruitment Week
12:01am AEDST 30th August - 11:59pm AEDST 6th September

Players recruited during this time are only eligible to play in Rounds 5, 6 and 7 as well as Finals. Players recruited will have to pay the full entry fee in order to be eligible (CGi: $35, CGm: $25, CGa: $10).

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Ruleset - CGi S2 Ruleset
This ruleset will be used for every league, including: CGi, CGm, CGa & CGd. It will not differ across the Leagues but it does differ when comparing the CGo ruleset to the Leagues ruleset.

This ruleset is subject to minor change. Once teams are selected, private debate will be had between the teams regarding any changes that wish to be made. We're personally quite happy with the current ruleset and the only adjustments we see as plausible include altering some classes and their weaponry/attachments.

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Maps
The map for each round will be announced at the beginning of every week/round of CGi/m/a on Tuesday after the Tuesday night matches are complete. This is to ensure all teams have equal preparation time for their matches. The map that is announced will be used for each league for the corresponding round.

The below maps are expected to be included in the map pool from where a non-competing Admin will randomly choose the map for each week. Some maps below may be discluded for the Invite Leagues and some maps may be added e.g. maps from the Map Pack or a previously removed map. We have no set number of maps for the map pool as of yet. If we deem the map to be competitive and well-made, it will be included in the map pool.

Cracked
Villa
Havana
Hanoi
Grid
Summit
WMD
Radiation

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Finals
After the Round Robin part of the Leagues, the top 4 teams of each league will go into their own finals series. This means ranks 1-4 in CGi, ranks 1-4 in CGm, ranks 1-4 in CGa and ranks 1-4 in CGd. Each finals system will work as depicted in the image below; a double elimination finals series between four teams.



Finals Rounds 1, 2 and 3 consist of 3-map matches.
The Grand Final is a 5-map match.

The map and map system for finals will be announced at a later date much closer to Finals time.

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Prizes
The following cash-prizes are made up of entry-fee contributions and SteelSeries contributions. These prize totals are subject to change and cannot be 100% concrete until Recruitment Week is complete. These are well-educated approximations, and can generally be expected to rise by a few/several hundred dollars.

CGi	CGm	CGa
1st: $2000 2nd: $1000 3rd: $500	1st: $800 2nd: $400 3rd: $300	1st: $300 2nd: $200 3rd: $100

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Match & League Coverage
Like usual, you will be kept up to date on what matches are being Shoutcasted and/or Videocasted. Unfortunately, not all of these games can be Shoutcasted or Videocasted but there will inevitably be some great audio and vision to come from Gamestah's live feeds. As expected, Bio Acid will be heading up this component of the competition.

CyberGamer's very own YouTube Team will have access to all Invite League matches to capture all the highs and lows of the competition and upload footage for all to view. Make sure Theatre is always enabled and the host is on a team!

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Official Referees & Hosts
We will compile a list that contains the Referees and Hosts who have permission to Ref/Host Invite League matches. This list will be made available in each League's private forums. Each Official will be given the title underneath their name in the forums to convey their responsibility and role.

Invite League Referees cannot Ref matches within their own League that they are competing in. Invite League Hosts cannot host matches within their own League that they are competing in. The reasons why are obvious.

Our Head Referee Neori will look after all the Official Refs and Hosts for the Invite Leagues. Don't worry about contacting him, he'll get onto you guys when the time comes.

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Team Captains
While punishments for team indiscretions won't be laid upon the Team Captain as harshly as previously done before, they will still be responsible for the organisation of your team throughout the Round Robin and the Finals (if applicable). They are also responsible (partly) for matters concerning prize-money (see dot points below: T&C's).

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Pro League Report
Each week what we call the 'SteelSeries Pro Leagues Report' will be created on the public forums. These will contain the results from the previous round just gone by, tid bits of information about each match, the teams and highlights - as well as the predictions for the upcoming round of matches. Who will handle all this is yet to be determined.

Statistics will not be done this season, the last season had too many teams not getting screenshots and/or not having theatre on. If we can't get all the stats there's no point!

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Terms & Conditions: Invited Teams

• Your team will abide by all forum, match, game and league rules.
  
• Your team will complete the entire competition and not drop-out
  
• Your team will play every match and every round of every match
  
• Your team will have 5 - no more and no less - eligible members playing in every match. This is not CGo, you cannot play with 4 players like usual.
  
• Your team understands that failure to adhere to the above two points will result in bans, their scores being set to 0-0.
  
• Your team name and team logo will not change throughout the season
  
• Your team understands that if they hinder a match or the competition in any way they can face harsh bans
  
• Your team understands that during the competition no team members can be kicked or removed from the team unless done so by their own free will and during Recruitment Week. Any player found kicking team maves will not be allowed to play in their team's next match. Strictly, do not kick people.
  
• Your team understand that none of them may leave their team, whether by their own free will or not, unless doing so during Recruitment Week where the team will be able to pick up replacements.
  
• Your team understands that for a player to be eligible to receive prize-money, they must compete in at least 4 matches, whether they be round-robin or finals matches. Prize-money can be given to players who do less than 4 matches, but only under the strict direction of the team captain. They are either given the full cash-prize, or none at all.
  
• Your team understands that they must nominate 1 captain. This captain is responsible for the functionality and organisation of your team. They will also be responsible for the point above.
  
• Your team understands that the CoD Admin team reserves the right to make decisions at their discretion. Your team understands that instances of cheating, drop-outs and so forth can be resolved on a case-by-case basis, with all investigation and ruling being made by the CoD Admin team.
  

Bannings
As many of you already know, there have been a number of selfish individuals that have signed up to our most recent P2P tournaments, who have:

• Forfeited matches
  
• Quit midway through matches and forced their team to play 4v5
  
• Completely disbanded their team mid-season.
  

This is completely unprofessional behaviour which cripples our competitive tournaments vastly. There have been quite a few people guilty of these actions – which makes it hard for us to police. To ensure this kind of disrespectful behaviour doesn't occur again, we are introducing a system which we believe will drastically decrease these problems.

New Banning System
When you register up in a team that participates in CGi/m/a, your team have to finish every one of your matches with 5 rostered, eligible players. If you play any matches 4v5 (considered a forfeit), forfeit any matches or drop-out from the competition – all members of your team will be banned from playing in future Invitational and P2P tournaments. All members will also be removed from the competition and will be match banned. Match bans will be issued so the fine suits the crime, expect 3-6 months match bans. Bans will be harsher for those who the Admin team deems to be responsible.

A certain level of maturity and commitment is expected from everyone who competes in our Invite Leagues. If you are unable to adhere to the leagues requirements, then either simply don't sign up or ensure that your team has an adequate number of substitutes. Despite our new system and our warnings, we still expect a team or two to break up midseason. If this eventuates, regardless of the circumstances, the entire team will be banned for at least one Invite season, so don't try and weasel your way out of it, prevent the problem before it occurs.

To further ensure that we don't have any upsets in our Invitational Leagues we have changed a couple of things:

• The new player cap will be 10, with a minimum of 6.
  
• Each league will be capped at 8 teams, which means 7 weeks of round robin play + 4 weeks of finals. Despite such a short season, we will still allow the option of recruiting players at the end of week 4
  

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Additional Information
More information is on the way, but basically everything above is as much as we can possibly show you guys. The rest of it is still yet to be determined, or simply cannot be determined at this date. We'll be sure to keep you guys updated with any changes or additions i.e. the map pool, the teams chosen and so forth.

As you may have noticed from above, we're using team's logos in the weekly imagery for the Round Robin and Finals. If you think you're gonna make it to one of these Leagues and don't yet have an awesome logo, hop to it! To get an idea on the ratio for your image (how wide it is compared to how high) look at the image above. The overall image has been fixed to allow for higher logos unlike last CGi/m's imagery where things seemed to get a little cramped. Your image can be gargantuan in size, or fit perfectly in the round or finals imagery - either way it'll get resized to fit in nicely.

If your logo is ready and good to go - and you think your team is gonna make one of these Leagues, feel free to PM it to Twilife. Make sure it is saved as a .PSD or .PNG file and that is has no background. It must have a transparent background. Also please take note, we aren't changing your team logo mid-season. So don't change your team name either!

More individual and specific threads to come! As you would've noticed, we've still got to announce the maps, ruleset and the teams who make the leagues. Expect these announcements a lot closer to when the Invite Leagues commence.This thread now is pretty much home-base for what you need to know about the SteelSeries Black Ops Invite Leagues Season 2. We'll edit it with the relative information we release in the future independent threads. Stay tuned and stay keen!

Again, feel free to comment, suggest, critique and correct us on anything above! Perhaps predict your own idea of what teams will be in what leagues! Oh and tell us of obvious mistakes we may've made above!


Thanks,

CoD Admin Team

Adohh / Bio Acid / Britt / GooseJuice / Kritikal / Neori / OzFalcon / Twilife

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I still thought 6/2/9 format was the best.

**** that was a long read aha

oo hope we get to play WMD this time

Should introduce different variations of the classes.....

MP5 RDS
M16 RS
FAL/M14
AK RDS/SILENCED


SHOULD ONLY BE 4 GUNS -.-

AK / MP5 / M16 / m14-FAL

Edited twice, last edited 28/6/11 - 8:21pm
Reason: BECAUSE THIS NEW TYPE THINGY LOOKS SICK.

Actually has happened a fair bit with these leagues.

wow that a big read

any way nice work admins

To be honest i think the rule set should take out the Camando suppressed and replace it with the AK47 silenced.

Question on the maps, will WMD be played this time? Apart from that even more excited than i was at the start of last season!

Cannot stress enough that people who leave their matches after a result is found or Rage quit their matches will be banned harshly. It effects the whole competition and could be the difference between teams making finals and not etc.

so only league hosts can host now?

YES

Nice job admins. Looking forward to participating.

Silenced AK!!

iron sights only