First off, how to access the tournament page - it's pretty obvious but since this is a detailed guide, I won't miss mentioning it. The tournament page can be accessed from the drop-down menu of the Play button in the top left corner of your screen, as pictured below.
As soon as you get the page to load, you are welcomed by the following:
As you can see quite a bit of money have been awarded to people who have participated in tournaments throughout the years. Of course, the rewards are different, depending on the type of tournament. More about that a bit later.
Now, let's go over the different drop-down menus of the tournament filter as presented on the screenshot above.
I. The first filter allows you to quickly access different tournament details depending on the time criteria - if they are Upcoming/In Progress/Completed/Cancelled/My Events (in case you are a tournament creator). I think this category is pretty self-explanatory.
II. The second filter is used when you are trying to quickly find the tournaments by even type - Public/Private/Participating/Hosting. Public events will allow you to also see Participating and Hosting, however, if you want to view private tournaments (marked as such by their creators) you need to choose Private Events.
III. The third drop-down menu contains the different types of tournaments that currently exist:
- Single Elimination - these are real-time tourneys you need to be present for, and check in from 15 to less than a minute before the event begins. If you fail to check in, the entry fee for the tournament will be refunded and you will lose your spot in it. Battles are played against your opponent live and can be 1 out of 1, 2 out of 3, 3 out of 5 and even 5 out of 7, in order to continue to the next round you need to win the required amount of battles e.g. 2 battles out of 3. There are different rounds until the final two players reach the final round.
- Anytime - these are tourneys in which players are grouped in different groups depending on the participant and they have a time limit to fill in their battles and submit them. The time limit is from 1h to 24h, and you don't have to check in for this type of tourney. You play usually 1 battle against each of the opponents in your group. If there is a 2nd round of the tourney, there is an indication how many players from the first round will proceed to the 2nd and final round.
- Sit N Go - these are usually custom tournaments where the creator has set a small amount of players as a required amount of participants (usually 8) and the tourney starts as soon as the required amount of players join the event.
IV. The fourth filter has all the different types of Tournament "rules" listed in it:
- Qualified - this shows you all the tournaments you meet requirements for (more about the requirements later).
- Gold Card Only - tournaments where you can use only Gold Foil cards.
- Regular and Gold cards - both types of Cards can be played in these.
- No Legendary Cards - no Legendary cards are allowed in these.
- No Legendary Summoners - no Legendary Summoners (just them) can be used in these tournaments.
- Novice League - Only tournaments which limit cards to Novice League are displayed.
- Bronze League - Only tournaments which limit cards to Bronze League are displayed.
- Silver League - Only tournaments which limit cards to Silver League are displayed.
- Gold League - Only tournaments which limit cards to Gold League are displayed.
- Diamond League - Only tournament which allow the play of Max level cards are displayed.
V. The fifth filter shows different types of prizes which can be automatically awarded upon completion of the tournament. Note that there are many creators who reward players with prizes outside of what's automatically available and the way to receive the prizes is normally list in the description of the custom tourney. The tournaments hosted by the Splinterlands DAO currently reward only SPS
VI. The final filter sorts the tournaments by the type of card sets allowed. Currently we have 2 types of cards sets - Modern (the two most recently released card sets and their adjacent reward and promo cards (and cards from the mini-set (if there is one)) and Wild (all sets, mini-sets, promos and reward cards which were released before the two most recent major sets).
Now for the tournament details and what you need to know about that. Depending on the different types of tournaments and their creators, there could be varying requirements for the player to enter - from none to quite hefty Card Power and Staked SPS requirements. We'll have a look at the Modern Diamond Tournament, hosted by the SPS DAO below:
As you can see the details are divided in two columns. The Rewards column is pretty self-explanatory - you can see the rewards and how they are distributed. In this case all participants who place in the top 128 of the tourney will receive some sort of a reward.
Let's focus on the other column - the data under Modern Event.
- the date of the tournament and the time it starts
- number of participants in the tourney
- required staked SPS in order for the player to enter the tourney - in this particular case it is 24,000 staked SPS (note that delegated and rented SPS also counts)
- amount of CP (card power) required to enter the tourney - in this particular case it is 202,162 (or more) card power (note that delegated and rented cards also count)
- The cards sets allowed in the tourney - in this case since it's a Modern tourney the allowed sets are Rebellion and Chaos Legion. Note that CP only of the allowed sets counts towards the tournament CP requirements.
- Entry fee - in this case the entry fee is 800 DEC
- What League Cap the tournament has - in this case Diamond - maxed cards.
- Tourney type - in this case Anytime - 24h rounds, top 30% advance
- The time you have to select and submit your team for each battle - in this case 4 minutes and 20 seconds.
Tournaments are a fun way to get better at the game while also earn nice rewards. If you are a new player I would advise you to join the custom tournaments created by SPL creators, which usually have low entry fees and as of just a few weeks, also allow for the use of the so-called Ghost Card tournament format - participants are allowed to use all cards available in the game which meet the requirements set by the creator instead of just their own personal collection. I don't think there's anything more fun than having the opportunity to play cards you don't have at levels you might not be currently used to play at.
Over and Out,
Referral