EVE Alliance Tournament Discussion

I talked a lot about the Banning Rule while I was a guest on Eve-Radio last weekend and I'd like to share my opinions with the masses about the impact of the Banning rule on this Tournament.

Why I hate it:

Well, I don't really hate it, I just moan about it. It really just adds in an entirely new meta, and for the prepared and wise Team Captains, a whole new level of effort, isk requirement and pre-planning.

I would imagine for the less enlightened teams the banning rule would have little effect, they would have their setups, and have replacement ships, for example, if Scimitar is banned then replace with Basilisk and run the same general setup. For the highly prepared teams however, the banning rule means you have to treat every match like a tournament finals day and have multiple, completely different setups all fully prepared and ready to go on a minutes notice.

Having a heap of different setups ready means that you are not tied down to a certain meta. For example; if your opponent bans first, and bans a Machariel, then unless he is bluffing, you can assume they are scared of fast long range ships. If you only have close range setups then you are already at the mercy of his meta. However, if you have a multitude of other long range setups ready to go, then you can use his own banning against him.

To summarize why I hate banning, it is just the amount of effort and isk required to deal with it, however I also love that part of it as well because it really sets the prepared teams apart from the unprepared teams.

Why I love it:

I love the banning rule simply because of what it has done to the excitement of the tournament for both the players and the viewers. We have seen some awesome matches, with great teams fighting it out at close range in massively high dps ships. It truly has been exciting. It adds a completely new meta, and another way to out think your opponents.

How the banning rule makes this possible is simply you can field exciting setups with a measure of confidence. A Team Captain can be moderately sure that his team aren't going to make fools of themselves and spend the entire match being kited or shut-down. For example in previous tournaments, without the banning rule, if you even had a small suspicion that your opponent was going to bring tengus, you would have to have had a setup able to deal with those. That just instantly rules out most of the best setups we have been watching this tournament. In this tournament, if you know that tengus are the most obvious and sure-fire counter to your setup, just ban them!

The banning rule is awesome, even the negative aspects of it are actually positives, and I really hope to see an iteration of this in all future tournaments.

I honestly hope we see the banning rule in AT XI, its a great idea and should be used more often.

Shouldent laugh, but i cant help it :P

woulda been fine if they'd been HAM fit