2017 NA CS Summer Qualifiers

Riot·3/22/2017, 8:00:42 PM·1 votes·21,039 views

It’s time to commence the clash to join the 2017 NA Challenger Series Summer Split. Registration for the NA CS Summer Qualifier tournament begins March 27 at 12:01 AM PT, and runs through 11:59 PM PT on April 10.

Format

Like previous qualifiers, the 2017 NA CS Summer Open Qualifier will continue to be a single elimination, Best of 3 (Bo3) tournament. The top two teams will advance to the Qualifier Finals on April 29. UPDATED: Once there, Delta Fox as the higher CS seed will have their choice of opponents, while the remaining OQ team will face-off against Team Gates. Both series’ will be a Bo5 to claim a spot in the 2017 NA CS Summer Split.

As a reminder, the Qualifier Finals will be played on an online Tournament Realm. This is the same system we use for the NA Challenger Series, and will allow us to provide more backend support to help make sure the games run smoothly. However, because the servers are hosted in a different place from our Live servers, there may be some changes in ping.

Sign-ups are open now, and will remain open until Monday, April 10 at 11:59 PM PT. Gather your Diamond 3-or-above teammates and visit Battlegrounds to create your team. Once you’ve made your team, click on the NA CS logo and register your team for the qualifier tournament. The final bracket will be published on Wednesday, April 12 at 5:00 PM PT.

Seeding

The seeding of the tournament remains the same as Spring. Here’s a quick rundown of how it works:

When a team signs up, we log each player’s current Solo/Duo Ranked tier. Playing games after you join the tournament won’t affect your seeding.
A score is assigned to the teams based on its five highest-rated players on the roster. Each Challenger player is worth 5 points, Masters players are worth 4 points, and so on down to each Diamond 3 player being worth 1 point.
The top 8 teams become seeded, while the remaining teams remain unseeded.
The 8 seeded teams are randomly positioned on opposite ends of the bracket. This is the equivalent of where the 1st-8th ranked teams would be positioned in a standard seeded bracket.
The remaining teams are randomly distributed across the rest of the bracket.

A few additional notes on how the bracket works:

This strictly weights tiers, so Diamond 1 99 LP will be rated the same as Diamond I 0 LP.
If less than 16 teams sign up, we’ll seed 4 teams instead of 8.
If there’s a tie for the last spot, the team with the highest individual players takes the spot, so a team with 2 Challenger players would be rated above a tied team with 1 Challenger player.

Roster Rule Change

Just like last year, teams in the NA CS Open Qualifier Tournament are required to maintain a minimum roster of 5 players, and are allowed a maximum of 9 players (5 players + 4 subs). Players signed to an LCS Roster who played in 4 or less Spring Split LCS Best of Three matches (i.e. played in at least 1 game in 4 separate Best of Three Matches) may participate in the NA CS Open Qualifier Tournament.

If a player on an OQ roster remains under contract with an LCS team during the NA CS Open Qualifier Tournament, the contracting LCS team remains responsible for making all payments to the player under any applicable Player Service Agreement (i.e. if the contract says the player is to be paid monthly, the LCS team must continue to pay the player on those terms). In addition, the player will continue to count towards the LCS team roster and will NOT count toward the NA CS Open Qualifier Tournament roster. In other words, if a player signed to an LCS Roster participates with a team in the NA CS Open Qualifier Tournament, that team is required to maintain a roster of 5 starters and 1 sub for a total of 6 players.

Fan Experience

Like last year, you can follow the Open Qualifier Bracket and view detailed Match History on Battlegrounds. While we won’t be streaming the games, all non-Finals matches are held on the live server and are free to be spectated or streamed by anyone. We’ll be posting VODs of the Qualifier Finals on the Lolesports YouTube channel, as well as announcing the winners on Lolesports.com following the conclusion of the tournament. Keep your eye on Lolesports.com for more information about the 2017 Challenger Series.

FAQ - NEW

As we get closer to the start of the OQ tournament, we’ve gotten a couple of questions from teams. We wanted to clarify how the tournament will be working and share our response here:

Will NA Summer Open Qualifier be with 6 or 10 bans system?

After receiving participating team feedback and to ensure the most competitive tournament possible, we’ve decided to use 10 bans for Open Qualifiers. We wanted to make sure Open Qualifier teams were able to adapt to the 10-ban system and better prepare against Challenger teams who previously competed with and can actively practice with the 10 ban system on Tournament Realm.

How will the 10 ban system work during NA OQ?

As seen in the NA LCS and CS, the 10 ban system will be the same process.

Since the 10 ban system is not available on live, teams will be required to use the public 10-ban tool on prodraft.leagueoflegends.com for the duration of the tournament. The default should be for the blue side team to create the draft on the site, and share the link with the red side team.

All teams should document (screen captures and video) their ban phases to avoid any potential disputes or delays during champion select. If any disputes arise between teams, OQ officials will be on standby during the tournament to assist. If a dispute arises, OQ officials will review all supporting evidence to resolve the dispute, but if there is not significant evidence, the previous pick/ban phase will be voided and redone while being spectated by an OQ official.

Is 10 bans mandatory? Can we use the 6 ban system if the other team opts into it?

Yes, the 10 bans system is mandatory for all matches. Teams cannot play with a different ban system even if the other team agrees. Any matches that do not use the 10 ban system will be invalid and both teams will be disqualified from the tournament.

Why isn’t the tournament moving to Tournament Realm? Doesn’t that system have 10 bans?

The Open Qualifiers is run on Battlegrounds. Currently, we do not have Battlegrounds support on Tournament Realm so we’re unable to move the entire tournament and all participating teams to Tournament Realm.

All rounds starting with the Quarterfinals will be on Tournament Realm. We’ll be working closely to give teams access to Tournament Realm prior to the Quarterfinals to ensure they have time to properly adapt to any potential ping changes based on their location.

We're moving Quarterfinals and Semis to Live, and keep only Finals on Tournament Realm. However, we are still going to give teams access to Tournament Realm starting with Quarterfinals so they have a chance to get used to the ping.

If you have any more questions, comment below or reach out on Twitter to @RiotIceChest.