It’s that time of year! The major alliances of New Eden will converge on an undisclosed location to do battle against one another and determine who is the Alliance Tournament Champion! The deadline for getting yourself into an alliance to take part in the tournament is already past as of July 6, so anybody not already in an alliance is going to have to sit this one out. For the rest of us, it’s time we get signed up and have a look at the rules!
The signup form for the tournament is open as of July 7, and will remain open until the end of July 22, so you’ve still got some time to organize your alliance’s team and get yourselves signed up for the tourney.
If you haven’t read the rules already, now may be a good time to do so as some of them have changed since last year’s tournament. Probably the most significant change at this point is the decision to reduce pilot numbers on the battlefield from 12 for each team to 10. This leads to a point increase across the board for battleship hulls, battlecruiser hulls, T3 cruisers, hictors, and both T1 and T2 logistics, as well as a point decrease for T1 cruisers and Blood Raider ships. Additionally, with the introduction of T2 logistics ships, T2 repair drones will no longer be allowed, so FCs may have to tailor their strategies accordingly!
Pandemic Legion will be the defending champion this year, having been moved up in the rankings after the 13th alliance tournament ended with a little bit of controversy. With all of the hostilities between PL and the Imperium of late, it would be kind of cool to see them slugging it out in the finals, but they’ll have to work hard to get there!
With the new rules in place, as well as CCP looking even more closely for collusion between alliances, it’s anybody’s tournament at this point, and we can’t wait for it to get started!
