Overview
The 2021 Duels are the 8th edition of the '21-something', a long-running series of weird and spectacular Tooth and Tail tournaments.
The 2021 Duels will be segmented into four sub-seasons: (a) Spring Open Breakfast - (b) Summer Open Lunch - (c) Fall Open Dinner - (d) Winter Final Supper
Each season is a 'play-at-your-own-pace', on-going Tooth and Tail event meant to last approximatively one month.
All games are casted on twitch, either live or through replays. Players must save and send all their replays to the organizers through Discord.
Open seasons
The first three seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall) are open to anyone who owns a copy of Tooth and Tail regardless of platforms (Steam, GOG, PS4) or skill levels.
Those three open seasons are 'Boss rushes', much like the old format of first three editions of the 21 duels.
'Boss rush' is not like a classical tourney where participants would directly play against each other.
Instead, the participants (here known as 'the challengers') all face the same set of opponents ('the bosses') in the same pre-determined order.
Matches are scheduled between players through Discord.
People sign up for the three open seasons as challengers, not bosses. Bosses are directly invited by the tournament organizers.
Winter Finals
The fourth and final season (Winter) acts as a final phase for the overall 2021 duels. It can only be joined by the Top21 scorers from the open seasons.
The Winter Finals is a single elimination bracket played between 21 finalists.
The winner of the Winter Finals will be crowned grand champion of the 2021 Duels!
Open seasons - Boss Rush
There are seven bosses per open season (Spring, Summer, Fall). Bosses each have a number from 1 to 7. The 6th boss is also called the 'Final Boss', while the 7th boss is refered as the 'Extra Boss'.
Challengers begin a season with 4 lives. Each time the challenger loses a game, they lose a life. When they run out of lives, their run ends.
Challengers are responsible for scheduling their games with the bosses, and sending the replays to the organizers (unless the game was casted live).
Bosses MUST be played in ascending order: Boss 1 Boss 2 ... Boss 6 (Final Boss) Boss 7 (Extra Boss).
To beat a boss, the challenger must win once (Boss 1-5), twice (Final Boss) or three times (Extra Boss).
For the first five bosses (aka the "regular bosses), if the challenger lose twice and is still alive (one or two lives left), they automatically advance to the next boss. The Final and Extra Bosses cannot be skipped in this fashion.
Upon beating the Final Boss, the lives count of the challenger is set to two, so that every final stage winner will face the Extra Boss with two lives, regardless of the number of spare lives they had managed to keep.
Challengers Scores
When beating a regular boss (Stages 1 to 5) without losing a single life, challengers score 10 points multiplied by that stage number.
When beating a regular boss, by losing a single life, challengers score 5 points multiplied by the stage number.
Skipping a boss doesn't count as beating a boss and doesn't give any point.
Example: a challenger goes 1-0, 1-0, 0-2 (skip to the next boss), 1-1 and finally 0-1 (losing their last life to the fifth boss). Their score would be 10 + 20 + 0 + 20 = 50pts
Beating the Final Boss is worth 80/60/40/20 points depending on whether the challenger lost 0/1/2/3 lives in the process.
Dying against the Final Boss while having won one game is worth 10 points.
Beating the Extar Boss is worth 70/50 points depending on whether the challenger lost 0/1 life in the process.
Dying against the Extra Boss while having won one or two games is worth 5 or 20 points.
Bosses Scores
Bosses also have their own scores. A boss' score is based on two factors: their winrates and the percentage of challengers who managed to survive past that boss.
The boss score formula is: 2 * winrate + (100 - %_of_challengers_left).
Example: Boss n°4 has won 28 games and lost 12 times (winrate: 70%), and there were only 12 challengers who managed to reach Boss 5 out of a total of 36 challengers who had entered this season (33.33% of challengers left). That makes a nice score of 140 + 66.67 = 206 points for Boss n°4.
The first boss shares the same percentage of challengers left as the second boss - it's an exception made because it's impossible for any challenger to be eliminated before the second boss.
The bosses scores are rounded down.
If a boss hasn't played a match (and has no winrate to calculate his score from), they are given a temporary default score of 99, until they play their first match.
At the end of the season, bosses who didn't get to play a single match (because no challenger could even reach their stage), they end up with a default score of 199 points
The perfect maximum possible score for anyone, boss or challenger, from any open season, is 300 points.
Special rules
Each boss has its own set of special rules, that stays the same for every game and challenger, unless otherwise specified.
The special rules can affect deck size, deck restrictions and map settings.
Those rules are known in advance. They can be consulted under the stage section, by clicking on the bosses' portraits.
The special rules equally affect the bosses and the challengers, who play under the same deck/map restrictions.
Winter Finals - Single Elimination
To qualify for the Winter Finals, a player's combined score must be in the Top21.
Combined Score
The combined score is derivated from a player's scores in the open seasons.
Depending on whichever is the highest, a player's combined score is either:
(a) the sum of their two best open seasons' scores
OR
(b) their single best open season's score multiplied by 1.5
That way, one does not necessarily need to participate in all 3 open seasons to reach the highest scores.
The theorical maximum combined score is 600 points.
Seedings & Bracket
Seedings in the final bracket are based on the combined score standings
It's a single elimination bracket with 6 rounds. The higher seeds will skip the first rounds as follow:
- Seeds 1 to 4 start in round 4 (quarter-finals)
- Seeds 5 to 8 start in round 3
- Seeds 9 to 24 start in round 1
Prize pool
100€ to be distributed as follow:
- 50€ for the Winter Finals winner
- 25€ for the Winter Finals runner-up
- 10€ for the 3rd place in the Winter Finals
- 5€ for the top-scorer of each open season (15€ total)
Predictions Rules
Each season has a "prediction contest" going on the sidelines.
Anyone can enter the prediction contest, regardless of whether they're also competing in the season or not.
The deadline to submit the predictions is usually shortly after the start of the season.
Predictions are submitted here
One needs an account to make predictions. Predictions can be changed at will before the deadline.
Score System
For each challenger whose run ends exactly where you guessed, you gain 1 point.
If your "favorite" player ended the season with a score above 200pts, you'll also earn bonus points.
The bonus points formula is: "(Favorite_player_score - 199) / 5" rounded up:
0-199pts => no bonus.
200-204pts => 1 bonus point
205-209pts => 2 bp
...
295-299pts => 20 bp
300pts(max) => 21 bp
Before being added to your total prediction score, the bonus points (if any) may be multiplied by a "dark horse multiplier".
The multiplier is an approximative representation of how likely your favorite player is to have a high score, according to the other predictors.
The less picked that player was, the higher the mulitplier:
1 pick => x5
2 picks => x4
3 picks => x3
4-5 picks => x2
6 picks or more => x1
Frequently Asked Questions
Ask your #questions on Discord!
General
Q: How can I get an account?
A: If you have not played, casted or predicted for the 21 duels since 2021, you will need to go to the discord during a signup period and leave a reaction in either the #sign-up-here or the #predictions channels. You should receive your login and initial password through DM in the next days.
Open seasons - Boss rushes
Q: Do the bosses change between seasons?
A: Yes. You can only be a boss once per year.
Q: How are the bosses chosen?
A: They are invited in advance, according to these 3 criteria:
1- Availability (compared to challengers, bosses are expected to play more games and to be more comitted to the tournament)
2- Skill continuity (the first stages bosses are players of average skill level, and the difficulty increases progressively)
3- Thematic continuity (optionally, priority may be given to players from previous seasons)
Q: How strict is the scheduling? What if I'm out of town in the middle of the event?
A: For challengers, the scheduling and deadlines are very flexible. There is no problem with playing most or all of your games in the first few days or during the last week. Some challengers will certainly have had all of their games played and streamed before others have even started. Everything is fine as long as you can schedule your games with the bosses before the end date of the season. However, be aware that bosses may be on different timezones than yours and may have restricted availabilities (especially during weekdays). So be sure to contact them in advance to find out when is a good time for both you and them.
Q: Where can we look at the bosses' gimmicky rules?
A: Go to the stage section and click on the boss' icon.
Q: Where do we send the replays?
A: Send the replays directly and privately to the organizer (Gent), trough Discord. Proper naming and anti-spoil dummies are appreciated.
Q: What's the spoiler policy?
Do not spoil the result of your games to other participants (except maybe the next boss) until they have been streamed. Only spoil me, the organizer, if there is a problem somewhere. Unless it cannot be avoided, I'd rather enjoy discovering the result like everyone else on stream. Never spoil a streamer, under any circumstances.
Spring 2021
Q: How are the random decks from Stage 5 decided exactly?
A: For the deck size, Big Pimpintosh rolls a virtual 9-sided die in the discord server. Then, the players go to the deck selection screen and Tosh presses the random selection button once. Tosh informs the challenger of the result through discord (possibly with screen share): that's the mirror deck for the game. Decks with no unit other than pigeon, wolf and defensive structures in it are considered harmless and must be redone from the first step (deck size roll).
Q: When do the prediction submissions close exactly?
A: Submissions will close a few hours before the start of the first episode. The exact cutoff point will NOT be announced. Predictions can be changed at will until that point.