Date & Time
The draft will be on March 12th/13th; picking will start at 4PM EDT on the 12th.
Group stages will start at ~5PM EDT.
For the teams that make it to Day 2 (13th) the games will begin at 5PM EDT.

Sign-ups[www.tribesschedule.com]
Make sure you confirm your registration by Saturday, March 12th, 12PM-4PM EDT otherwise you will not be picked.

• 1 Phase per team
  
• No hand disks for heavy
  
• 5 minute(300 second) shrike cooldown

Subject to change until the 4th
All matches will be best of 3
The group stages(day 1) will have predetermined maps, with the playoff maps being chosen by the teams with the following process:

• Higher seeded team decides who gets to ban the first map
  
• Each team bans one map
  
• The last unbanned map is the first played, with the team who got one less ban getting to chose the side played
  
• Loser of a map get picks the next map, with the winner chosing sides

Arx
Kata
DX
Raindance
Terminus

Teaching new players how to play PUGs (7v7 with coms), run routes, as well as how to fight enemies and so on.There will be Mentors for each specific role. If you are just curious about the event and arent ready to try out the workshop you are more than welcome to just watch. The workshop will be streamed on the official Tribes Ascend[www.twitch.tv] twitch channel
There is no level requirement, just install mumble and join us on the newblood channel at 8:30CET Having a microphone is strongly recommended.
shazbot.eu mumble
mumble.shazbot.eu
30033

• Streams will go on in the afternoon with a Mentor that will go over routes, time calling and loadouts. The Workshop will start at 3PM and go on till 7PM. We will be doing giveaways in chat during this time.
  
• At 8:30PM CET: Mentors will meet the newbloods in the mumble channel of the role they taught (capper, Hof, O/D...): If you are new, just connect to the mumble and look for a channel called newblood workshop, we'll help you from there.
  
• At 10PM We will do a 7v7 with the newbloods that participated in the workshop. Casted if possible!

If you are new or afraid to participate because of your accent, bad english, or your level: Fear not this is a class to learn and become a better player we want the experiance to be enjoyable and fun.
If you have any questions,concerns or comment, please do so here

There will be a draft tournament happening on the 27th and 28th of February 2016 [www.ocedraft.com]
For more information please go to http://www.ocedraft.com/

Head over to tribesschedule.com and sign up for the January 2016 Draft Event.
Introduction to the website and how to sign up here: https://imgur.com/a/8SBTA done by Flagician the IT magician

Check-ins will open Saturday 23 January at 8 am and close at 4pm Central European Time (CET). After check-ins are closed, the captains will begin picking the teams. Games will hopefully start at 5 pm.

What are check-ins? A check-in is a confirmation that you will be present for the tournament. By signing up you just state that you might/will be there unless something happens. When you check-in you commit to being in the EU mumble in time for games to start.

Captains
Check that captain box when you signup. While it is true that not many people enjoy captaining, without you the draft does not happen. So be a good sandraker/butcher and lead your team to victory.

Tournament Format
Sadly we cannot provide you with a proper schedule. Why? Because this can only be done once we know how many teams can be formed with the players attending. And this is impossible to know until draft day.
That said, here are the scenarios:

• If 6 or 8 teams we will have a Round Robin group stage with teams evenly split in two groups. Games will be bo2 with predetermined maps. With a single elimination knockout stage (bo3 with map bans)
  
  
• If we have 5 or 7 teams we will have a Round Robin group stage but with only one group. Games will be bo1 and have predetermined maps. Then a single elimination knockout stage (again, bo3 with map bans)

In all of the above cases, the top 4 (or top2 of each group) will advance to the knockout stage, which will consist of semifinals and a final.
It is a bit different with 4 teams. In that case we will do the following:

• A double elimination knockout tournament, with all games being bo3 except the Grand Final, which will be a bo5. In the grand final, the team that comes into it undefeated will start with a 1 - 0 lead. (Meaning they only need to win 2 maps while the opponents need to win 3)

Schedules for all of this scenarios will be premade and the proper one will be put in a reddit post on draft day while picking happens.
In all of these scenarios, even the last placed team will play 4 - 6 maps while it not being too exhausting as a format. We'll try to space the schedule properly so players can catch a breather in between games.
One thing I would like to hear from you lot: Currently the Final is set to be a bo3 if we have 5 teams or more. Would you prefer it to be a bo5?

Mappool
Arx Novena, Katabatic, Dangerous Crossing, Drydock, Raindance, Terminus and Ice Coaster
There was much deliberation for choosing a mappool. As pretty much every Tribes player seems to despise all maps bar 3 or 4. So pleasing everybody here is a gargantuan task.
The reasoning behind our picks is rather straightforward: Arx, Kata & DX are the golden trio (even if DX can be pretty polarizing). They are the most played maps in pugs for a reason. Drydock and Raindance are tested maps that favour a different playstyle. Drydock makes cluster play more viable while Raindance rewards offense & capper synergy. Terminus and Ice Coaster are included because they are new and fresh. Plus it wouldn't be an Out of the Blue tournament without Out of the Blue maps.

Do you already hate the entire mappool bar 3 - 4 maps? Do not fret! You will be able to ban them in the knockout stage of the draft. Here is how:

Map ban process:
For this tournament we would like to ditch the old map ban process and try something new. You are probably familiar with it if you follow CS:GO.
Previously, the captains would ban one map each and then remove maps until one was left. Then, the loser of the map would pick the next one (couldn't picked the 2 maps that were banned at the start)
The new system is the following: Captains ban 1 map each, then pick one map each. Then, captains ban 1 map each again and the remaining one will be the last map of the bo3.
For the semifinals, the seeded (as in, the team that placed higher in the group stage) team will be the one banning first. For the final, an admin will flip a coin to determine who bans first.
This system is only for the knockout stage. In the group stage, maps will be pre-determined.

Tournament Rules[pastebin.com]
Gameplay rules

• Shrike Health set to 50%
  
• Maximum of two heavies allowed per team
  
• Chaff Grenade banned
  
• Throwing Disk banned
  
• Saber Launcher banned

This is basically the current EU Pugs ruleset. If the upcoming patch happens to drop before the tournament and changes any of these items to the point that they aren't a problem anymore, we will consider unbanning them. On the same note, if this upcoming patch breaks something horribly, we can make a last second adjustment to ban it. Let's hope that is not needed.

With the new "Out of the Blue" patch, we wanted to bring back classic elements from older Tribes games, while not alienating Tribes: Ascend fans. This patch is a return to form that will better spiritually align Tribes:Ascend with the series in addition to fixing many longstanding quality of life issues in the game.

An all new map named Terminus has been added to the game. This map is based on well received Tribes:Ascend maps Katabatic and Arx Novena. Two new legacy inspired maps Perdition, based on the T2 classic Damnation, and Ice coaster, based on the T1 classic Rollercoaster are also now available.

We have removed Classes in favor of the classic 3 armor types. Light, Medium, and Heavy. That, by popular request, may carry additional weapons for the classic Spinfusor, Chaingun, Grenade launcher gameplay. With the removal of classes and the addition of extra weapon slots Tribes:Ascend now allows more flexibility than ever in both outfitting your character and playing a role that you enjoy.

Character outfitting has been redesigned. Players now pick 1 weapon from weapon classes to eliminate annoying or broken weapon combinations. In addition to those weapons that offered little to no unique gameplay have been removed from the game to streamline and simplify choices while equipping. New weapons have been added such as the Flak Cannon, and some classic weapons return such as the ELF Projector. Finally, all weapons have been rebalanced and refined based on community feedback.

We have increased weapon impulse, rebalanced weapons, vehicles, and base assets. Tribes:Ascend is faster, more refined, and more balanced than ever before. All of this has been made possible by excellent feedback from you, the Tribes community, across multiple PTS server cycles. A huge thank you to everyone that helped us out with our public testing.

These large changes may have you worried about your past purchases. Due to the dramatic changes to the underlying game, all in-game purchases have been reverted. What a well placed sound effect. That’s right, all Tribes Gold and XP has been refunded to your account, so if you have previously purchased the Ultimate Weapon Pack or Game of the Year it will be re-added to your account. If there is any Tribes Gold on your account you will be automatically gifted the Ultimate Weapon Pack.

And on top of all these changes, if you’re looking to dive into the history of Tribes, you can head over to [www.tribesuniverse.com] and download every single game in the Tribes franchise for free.

There are so many changes it's impossible to cover them all here. Head on over to [www.hirezstudios.com] to check out the full patch notes, and until next time Tribes fans, we'll see you in the wilderzone.

We are actively working on an update to Tribes: Ascend. We currently expect this version to go onto Public Test Server on or before Sept 14, 2015. The "live" date for the release is not yet scheduled, and will depend on the results of the PTS testing. Substantial changes may occur prior to the live release.

View Preliminary Notes on Reddit

Today we released a very small patch to correct an issue many users were having with the Tribes:Ascend launcher.