Alliance Tournament XVII is fast approaching, with both teams and staff racing to finish all of their preparation. Many hundreds of hours have gone into setup and practice from everyone involved, and we shall soon see who will be crowned champion!
We’ve seen some updates from CCP in the last couple of weeks too, so in case you missed it, here’s the rundown…
Flagships
On October 15th, the deadline for all participating teams to submit their flagship choices to CCP elapsed. Just a few short days later, CCP Aurora announced the full list of Flagship submissions on the EVE-O forums.
For anyone unaware of how Flagships work in the Alliance Tournament, it goes like this: each participating team selects a battleship. This has historically been *any* battleship, though for AT 17, the rules have prevented teams from choosing the Bhaalgorn, Widow, Rattlesnake, and Leshak. These chosen battleships are freed up from some of the module fitting restrictions that apply to every other ship in the tournament: weapons systems, prop mods, damage controls and buffer tank, active reps, and more. Flagships are also immune to bans, and may be fielded over and over until they die.
Flagship choices this year were split across six ships. Twenty-four teams chose the Barghest, five picked the Scorpion Navy Issue, four went with the Nightmare, three teams apiece chose the Golem and the Vindicator, and finally, one brave team decided on the Vargur. In another tournament first, a team not participating in the main bracket also picked a flagship, with Test Alliance Please Ignore choosing the Golem for fun!
Prizes
On October 29, CCP dropped a prize update for this year’s event. In traditional Alliance Tournament style, there are unique frigates and cruisers on the line, and they look incredible – the art team has worked magic when creating these ships. The hulls are called the Raiju and Laelaps respectively, and while we don’t have absolute numbers, we do have some information we can share.
The Raiju is an Electronic Attack Frigate, and based upon what we’ve been told, it’s a cross between the Keres and the Garmur. It will see both speed and agility, plus the Garmur’s signature missile output. There will be some (likely silly) bonuses to warp scrambler range, and further bonuses to sensor dampener modules. The Raiju will be a kiting king.
The Laelaps, meanwhile, is the unholy marriage of an Orthrus and a Broadsword. A Heavy Interdictor platform, this ship has the mobility and damage potential of the Orthrus, combined with a range buff to the ‘infini-point’ Warp Disruption Field Generator modules. It also has a promised bonus to ship speed when using the WDFG, which is promised to make the Laelaps “the fastest heavy interdictor in New Eden”.
The prize breakdown this year is also new. Previously, only the top-four teams would split the prize hulls, and there would only be 50 total created. This Alliance Tournament, everyone who makes it to the top-sixteen will see some amount of prize hulls, and there will be more created overall – a total of 140 Raiju and 140 Laelaps. The breakdown goes like this:
- 1st (winner of finals): 40 Raiju, 40 Laelaps
- 2nd (loser of winner’s bracket): 20 Raiju, 20 Laelaps
- 3rd (loser of match 77): 16 Raiju, 16 Laelaps
- 4th (loser of match 75): 12 Raiju, 12 Laelaps
- Top 6 (2 teams, knocked out in losers round 7): 8 Raiju, 8 Laelaps
- Top 8 (2 teams, knocked out in losers round 6): 6 Raiju, 6 Laelaps
- Top 12 (4 teams, knocked out in losers round 5): 4 Raiju, 4 Laelaps
- Top 16 (4 teams, knocked out in losers round 4): 2 Raiju, 2 Laelaps
There is also a 141st Raiju, which has already been awarded to Platinum Sensitivity. This was a prize provided by CCP to the winner of the EVE_NT ATVII Open Practice Invitational; you can check out the invitational matches on Youtube here. Finally, CCP Aurora has confirmed in the official AT XVII Discord Server that we will be seeing prize SKINs this year for teams skilled enough to win matches!
Alliance Tournament XVII will take place on November 6, 7, 13, and 14, and will be broadcast live on CCP’s Twitch channel. The first match starts at 1500 EVE, and you can check out the full schedule here. Finally, the overall brackets are available on Challonge, and you can check out all the details on flagships and other rules here.
ATXVII promises to be an exceptional set of weekends, and INN will be back soon to give you all the highlights from Weekend One!
