In the spirit of making sure there is a steady stream of events and events and more accessible events, I'm happy to announce our first attempt at a Double Elimination style Tournament, LAW's Double or Nothing Event
Single Elimination vs Double Elimination
The tournament style most people think of when they visualize a bracket is a single-elimination tourney. It's called Single Elimination because you're eliminated when you lose once. As I outlined in the announcement post of the H1 Climax, one drawback that users have brought up to me over the years is that joining a tournament just to have one loss and be done can feel lackluster. Many users would like to be able to participate in more matches, no matter what the outcomes of those matches are. One tournament style that achieves this is Round Robin. But Round Robin adds many matches because each wrestler in the tournament must wrestle everyone else in the tournament at least once. In light of this, I'd like us to try our hand at a Double Elimination Tourney, as I feel it is a happy medium between the two.What is a double-elimination tourney? As the name suggests, it's a tournament where you have to lose twice in order to be eliminated rather than just once. It starts like a regular tourney, but after you lose once, you enter what's called a "loser's bracket" where you square off against other competitors who have also lost once. However, once you lose in a loser's bracket match, you are eliminated. I will try to maintain my own graphic to help everyone visualize how things are playing out as the Double or Nothing Tournament progresses. Please refer to the images below for the difference between single-elimination and double-elimination tournaments.
Examples (please compare the two images)
Single Elimination
Double Elimination
Double Elimination
Hopefully, the above graphics help with visualizing the concept. A Double Elimination Tourney starts off like a regular tourney, but after you lose once, you enter what's called a "loser's bracket" where you square off against other competitors who have also lost once. However, once you lose in a loser's bracket match, you are eliminated. I will try to maintain my own graphic to help everyone visualize how things are playing out as the Double or Nothing Tournament progresses.
FAST FACTS:
- The Double or Nothing Tourney will have a hard cap of up to 16 entrants and a minimum of 8. Matches are one-on-one and can be won via standard match rules OR via ring out (going over the top rope with both feet touching the floor like the royal rumble)
- In universe/in kayfabe, the overall winner will receive a cash prize of 1 million USD, 2nd will receive half a million USD, and third will receive 300k
- The rounds will all not be taking place simultaneously. We will finish (or mostly finish) one round at a time before starting each new one. Match lengths have a soft cap of 3 pages. Matches are meant to be on the shorter side to facilitate the event's progression.
- Each entrant only needs one completed match in order to participate
- Booking is decided by the organizer(me!) with user preferences and input considered
- The tentative start date for the event is February 21st. Please apply before the tentative end date for signups on February 7th
Kayfabe/Tourney Information
LAW Management is always looking for big opportunities to showcase their talent. There is no shortage of wrestlers who are here to win gold, glory, and bragging rights over others. But sometimes, very rarely, there will be the occasional wrestler who succeeds in giving back to LAW and the fans by chipping in to help LAW Management put something together. Enter: LAW's Greatest E-Girl Jem Holland!
Coming off of a grueling bout in her match at LAW Apex, Jem has taken it upon herself to use her talents as a lifelong streamer and online personality to help extend LAW's reach wherever possible. Brand Ambassador, Promoter, Hype Girl, Agent, you name it! If it'll help LAW expand its presence and success as the top wrestling company in the world today, Jem Holland is on the scene! Drawing on her experience with fighting game tourneys, Jem's latest brainchild aims to attract wrestling superstars, up-and-comers, and everyone in between with the promise of a feature event and a massive cash prize! Fans and analysts will place their bets and follow LAW's Double or Nothing Tourney with great interest as Jem covers the event round by round via social media and appearances backstage at LAW!
How do I sign up? And where do we go from there?
- Your character must have 1 completed match to enter
- Please send me a private message on the forums with the qualified character you would like to participate in. Please include "Double or Nothing"/"Double Elimination" or something in the subject line or in the message to let me know which of the two upcoming tournaments you are submitting your character for
- Once we are at capacity on entrants or when signups close, I’ll reach out to everyone individually and provide a full list of who is entering and which characters they'd like to use. Everyone participating will have a chance to swap their character to a different qualified character. I'll share the updated list with the participants, and once everyone is happy, I will publish it here so that the community knows who's participating in the tournament and who to root for (or against).
- Once we get to this step, I will reach out to all the participating users for their tournament preferences with a questionnaire asking for preferred opponents/users to work with, users they don't want to work with, how far they'd like to see their character go, etc. NOTE: This feedback will not be shared with anyone outside the event team.
- If you do not feel comfortable trusting me to do a good job of booking the tourney, it is okay to pass on this event. The "booking" will only consist of myself telling the users in each given match which of them is meant to advance via winning or be eliminated via defeat. The way this plays out (match finish, length, storytelling devices, moves, and other details) will be entirely up to the two users involved in each match so long as the designated victory wins and advances. I'll attempt to book the tourney to everyone's satisfaction using everyone's preferences
- Once all of the above is settled, we will begin the opening round. Please bear in mind that you and your partner have a soft rule of finishing the match before you hit page 4. The match can be won via pinfall, submission, knockout, count-out, disqualification, OR ring-out. The ring-out stipulation is there as a reference to the win condition in some fighting games such as Soul Calibur, but it's also there to provide a quick way to end the match if needed.
- When each round is finished or mostly finished, we will begin the next one. Barring extenuating circumstances, if a user is inactive for several weeks to a month plus, their character will be thrown over the top rope by the other player to facilitate the progress of the tourney and brackets will be adjusted accordingly.
This will be our process. I belabored this point in the H1 climax announcement but please know that LAW events are meant to be fun storytelling devices first and foremost. It is my hope that trying an idea like this will go over well and be a good time for everyone, regardless of how the tournament standings end up. LAW has a rich history of users enjoying our tourney events and I'd like to keep that going with both this and the Double or Nothing Tourney we have coming up
If you know anyone who doesn't know this event is coming up, please let them know or let me know so that I can let them know. I always feel for users who aren't on Discord or aren't active on Discord that sometimes miss the boat when it comes to these events, so I try to look out for them where I can.
One Last Note
I've had a few users reach out to me in recent months about the idea of introducing new championships to LAW. My hope is that I can begin traction on that this year in 2025. I don't have much in the way of concrete plans at the moment. But I do know that I'd like to introduce a smother championship and that I’d like to make more progress on the mixed/opengender division with titles/events/proper weight classes and more. I will work closely with the event team to iron out a game plan for this. But I want to give the community assurance that it is something that I'm keeping in mind and working on. Titles are fun storytelling devices and I look forward to expanding our pool of belts someday so that we can further expand story possibilities and give our community more to work with as it continues to grow! Additionally, for the near future, we will look to do our next Fight The LAW PPV event sometime after these events kick off, likely in early spring!That's all for now! Please reach out if you have any questions! Please follow the process of sending a site PM if you wish to participate! If you message me about it on Discord, I'm just gonna tell you to send me a site PM so that your request doesn't get lost in my many DM's.
Links to stuff I wish more people would read
Peace, Love, and Sexy Wrestling Roleplay Stories 
