So how does the event actually work?

In the first round, 3v3/4v4/5v5 games will be formed and played. The primary goal when choosing the teams in these games is that each individual game is fairly well balanced. There is also a minor weighting towards teams with similar skill variance.

In subsequent rounds, players are paired according to their score (wins-minus-losses), aiming for each pair to have the same score or as close as possible. New 3v3/4v4/5v5 games are then formed subject to the constraint that each player is directly opposed to their 'pair'. We again try to find teams which are fairly well balanced. Minor weightings are applied to promote similar skill variance between teams, and to discouraging players from being on the same or opposing teams more than once. However, in the service of producing balanced teams these minor weightings may be ignored.

The game sizes will follow the general rule of "add 3v3 or 5v5 games until the remaining players are congruent to 0 modulo 8, then fill in the rest of the games with 4v4s". So if we have 18 players for a round, this could mean three 3v3s or one 4v4 and one 5v5.

What rating is the balancing based on?

Nominally, your "true" casual rating on the day. Actually, it is just whatever number I choose to put in a config file. So don't get any clever ideas about tanking your rating before the event.

What happens if somebody has to drop out? Or wants to join mid-event?

My system should be set up so that players can leave, join, or even re-join mid-event without issue. The constraints are that we have enough players to run at least one decent-sized game, and that we have an even number of players. At worst, I can play or not play each round to ensure even teams.

I reserve the right to blacklist people from future events if they don't play the games seriously, or otherwise waste the time of myself and the other participants.

Isn't it easier to just play small teams games in the lobby?

The idea behind this event is that we are more likely to be able to produce well-balanced games by putting 16 players into two 4v4s than by putting 8 players into a single 4v4. The number of possible permutations to choose from goes up by a lot, even taking into account the restrictions based on player score. The last Quadrille seemed to work pretty well.

How is this going to work without a power-of-2 number of players, and with an undefined number of rounds?

We won't necessarily have a single undefeated player at the end. Oh well. The real point of matching people with similar records is that, hypothetically, people who are having a good day and are playing above their rating will be matched against each other.

1. Knightshade
2. Kadril
3. Perrold
4. mankarse
5. StiofanKingofAwoo
6. Boetvaardig
7. SparkezelPL
8. mrrp_meow
9. Rallehop
10. GoogleFrog
11. DarkBlueDiamond
12. DoubleThought
13. TheWarning
14. FFC

Kadril
Perrold
mankarse
StiofanKingofAwoo
Boetvaardig
SparkezelPL
@mrrp#meow
Rallehop
GoogleFrog
DarkBlueDiamond
DoubleThought
TheWarning
FFC
Aquanim
PLT_imperialfist
jh_dreemurr
SnuggleBass
SmokeDragon
Qrow