Prize support for the 2024 World Championship has been generously provided by the following donors:
Individual donors:
- Harry Duff, Custom Craft Awards
- John Drinkwater
-
Dale Miller
Team Syracuse LotR Member
Decipher Black Rider 2005-2007
Registration
The Registration Form will be published and provided starting in August, and all players who wish to enter the World Championship will need to complete it. It will require the sharing of an e-mail address and a physical mailing address for the shipment of prizes. If a player chooses to waive prizes (or if they live in a location which cannot be easily shipped to), then their prizes will be forfeit and will be distributed to other players, with no cash replacement or other equivalency.
Fill out this form here to receive an email once World Championship Registration is open, as well as to subscribe to reminders for this year's event.
After registration, each player will need a Championship Ticket to enter the Walk-on Qualifiers or Group Stage, and will require a Championship Invitation to attend the Group Stage.
Tickets and Invitations are discussed below.
Championship Tickets
Each player who enters the Walk-on Qualifiers or who otherwise qualifies to enter the Group Stage must register and obtain a Championship Ticket as part of their registration. Tickets will cost $5 USD.
Members of the community can also opt to become Contender Sponsors. Such sponsors can purchase as many Championship Tickets as they like, which will enter a pool available for players to claim. Players who do not have access to PayPal or for whom the cost of tickets is a financial burden will be able to request a sponsored ticket from the pool. If you would like to become a Contender Sponsor, donate any amount (in $5 USD increments) to this PayPal account here: tickets@lotrtcgpc.net.
Ticket sales will be used to pay for shipping of physical prizes, and the excess will be used to pay for Gemp server costs. The community is thus encouraged to purchase as many sponsorship tickets as they like, as any extra will not go to waste.
Invitations
Players will be able to secure Championship Invitations in four ways:
- By coming in 1st or 2nd place at any monthly PC Weekend Qualifier League
- By coming in 1st place during the Format Championships to be ran in August 2024
- By coming in 1st place at qualifying physical events run by the community
- By entering and performing well within the Walk-on Qualifiers in September 2024
See the following sections for details on each.
Weekend Qualifier Leagues
PC Weekend Qualifier Leagues are ran monthly in the 4th weekend of the month and run for 72 hours, from midnight UTC Friday to midnight UTC Monday. Leagues rotate between PC-FOTR and PC-Movie. The players who come in first and second place are issued a Championship Invitation. In the event of a tie, then Strength of Schedule (opponent win rate, see below) is used to break the tie, and further tiebreakers as used by Decipher will be used as a fallback.
In the event that a previous invitee has already been invited to the World Championship, then their invitation will be passed to the next player in line.
The Opponent Win Rate is calculated by summing the total number of wins achieved by all opponents of a given player, divided by the total number of games played by all opponents of that player. This result is used as the Strength of Schedule for all league events in GEMP.
Weekend Qualifier League Invitation Slots:
The Walk-on Qualifiers
If you weren't able to secure an invitation via one of the above events, never fear! The remaining available invitation slots will be reserved for the Walk-on Qualifiers, which will run across weekends in September 2023. These automated Swiss tournaments will be scheduled to be accessible to multiple time zones, and will run three different formats, which will permit skilled masters of each format to earn their place, regardless of location or time zone.
The three formats used for the Walk-ons this year will be PC-FOTR, PC-Movie, and Movie Block Sealed.
The number of Swiss rounds will vary based on attendence, with a minimum of 3 rounds (~2 hours) and a likely maximum of 6 rounds (~4 hours). The Movie Block Sealed events will include an additional lead time of 60 minutes for opening packs and assembling decks.
The following Walk-on Qualifiers will be ran targeting availability in the following time zones:
Invitations to the Group Stage will be issued as follows:
- The 2023 World Champion, basmelis, and the 2023 World Challenger, thefaker, are both invited to return (2 slots)
- Invitations are awarded to players who place 1st or 2nd in the Weekend Qualifier League (8 slots)
- Invitations are awarded to players who place 1st in all Format Championships (6 slots)
- Invitations are awarded to winners of qualifying in-person events (2-4 slots)
- Invitations will then be awarded to the 1st place player for each individual Walk-on Qualifier (6 slots)
- The remaining results of all Qualifiers will be sorted according to a normalized formula (points will be divided by the number of rounds in the Qualifier), using the Modified Median method for calculating tiebreaker Strength of Schedule. All remaining invitations (including for no-shows at the Group Stage) will be awarded according to the resulting ranking until they run out.
If your time zone is not represented here, and you and at least 4 friends will attend, then please
contact the Player's Council for us to consider a new slot.
Remember, attendance at the Walk-on Qualifiers will require registration and a
Championship Ticket. Players who attend the Walk-on Qualifiers will automatically be entered into the drawings for the Group Stage door prizes (see below).
Group Stage
The Group Stage will be a modified Swiss tournament with 32 slots available. About 8-10 rounds of Swiss will be played, with 20 minute time banks per player, 10 minute breaks between matches, and a 1 hour break in the middle. This means that the event as a whole will take 6-9 hours depending on round length, starting at 13:00 UTC on Saturday, October 19th.
The final list of invitees can be found here.
The first 2 round will be Movie Block Sealed. Players will have 25 minutes to open packs and build a deck, and 5 minutes to register decks before playing 2 Swiss rounds. Players are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the custom starter decks that they will be selecting from.
After the limited rounds, the next 4 rounds of Swiss will use the PC-FOTR format, and the second 4 rounds will use PC-Movie. This means that players will need to prepare 2 different decks.
Once all rounds are complete, players will be sorted according to their track record and Strength of Schedule, and the top 8 will move on to the Championship Tournament. If any of the top 8 are disqualified or otherwise unable to attend, then their position will be awarded to the player next in line.
Some door prizes will be awarded to random Group Stage + Walk-on Qualifier attendees, including:
- Individual booster packs from various sets
- Various foil and promo singles
- At least one super special custom card
Drawings will occur throughout the Group Stage and Championship Tournament
live on stream.
Championship Tournament
The Championship Tournament will be a double-elimination tournament for the Top 8 players from the Group Stage, played one week later. These players are dubbed the World Competitors. Matches will once again use 20-minute per-player time banks, with a minimum 10 minute break between matches. The finals between the undefeated Upper Bracket winner and the survivor of the Lower Bracket will be a Best of 3.
This means that the event as a whole will take 5 - 8 hours, starting at 15:00 UTC on Saturday, October 26th. Since the Finals are Best of 3, it could take as little as 1 hour or as long as 2.5.
Double Elimination means that players will have to lose twice before they are knocked out of the tournament. Anyone who loses a match in the Lower Bracket is eliminated from the tournament, and anyone who loses a match in the Upper Bracket is moved to the Lower Bracket. Thus, a player who loses their first match could theoretically still make it to the Finals, so long as they drop no more games in the grueling 5 match gauntlet that is the Lower Bracket. (In fact, this happened to the 2023 World Champion; see the bracket from last year.)
Upper Bracket matches will be played using the PC-Movie format, and Lower Bracket matches will be played using the PC-Fellowship format, meaning that players will need to prepare 2 decks to use for the duration of the Championship Tournament. These decks are of course welcome to be different from the decks used during the Group Stage.
After both brackets have run their course, there will be a 60 minute break before the finals, which as a Best of 3 will operate normally with a 30 minute time limit and a 10 minute break between matches. The first game of the Best of 3 will be PC-Movie, but after that first game the loser of the previous game will choose whether to play PC-Movie or PC-Fellowship. The overall winner will be crowned the World Champion, and the loser will be the World Challenger.
Prizes will be awarded to each of the Top 8, as follows:
- Competitors (3rd - 8th Place):
- 6x Booster packs from various sets
- 1x Decipher Culture Pin
- 4x Top 8 Competitor Promo (Physical + Digital)
- 4x World Championship Promo (Physical + Digital)
- 1x Competitor Plaque
- World Challenger (2nd Place):
- 1x Custom World Challenger Deck Box
- 6x Booster packs from various sets
- 1x The Fellowship of the Ring sealed booster box
- 1x Decipher Culture Pin
- 4x World Challenger Promo (Physical + Digital)
- 4x World Championship Promo (Physical + Digital)
- 1x Challenger Plaque
- World Champion:
- 1x Custom World Champion Deck Box
- 6x Booster packs from various sets
- 1x Mount Doom sealed booster box
- 1x Decipher Culture Pin
- Choose and help design the 2024 WC Promo
- 4x World Champion Promo (Physical + Digital)
- 4x World Championship Promo (Physical + Digital)
- 1x Champion Plaque
Rulings
Matches will be played according to the rules laid out in the Comprehensive Rules 5.0 Rulebook, as implemented on GEMP. This means that if a bug is encountered where the implementation of a card on GEMP is inconsistent with the official rules, the bug will stand as the legal interpretation for the duration of that day's events.
Matches will use the Championship timer on Gemp, which grants each player 20 minutes of time bank and 10 minutes maximum between actions. This means that matches will have an absolute maximum duration of 40 minutes, but this unlikely scenario is only reachable if both players run their clock quite low. Most matches will run about 30 minutes.
Administrators will attempt to warn players when their time bank begins to run low, but it is ultimately the player's responsibility to track their own time.
Players may concede at any time for any reason. Any player who concedes is considered to have lost the match.
Matches will be configured to permit up to 10 minutes of total inactivity from a player, to account for outages or necessary computer restarts. If a player hits this 10 minute inactivity timer before the match has completed, then that player is considered to have conceded.
During a match, players are encouraged to keep their communication between each other to a minimum, and to be polite. Any player who engages in hateful or extreme language towards their opponent may be disqualified at the discretion of a PC judge, and may be banned from GEMP.
At any time a player may request a PC Judge explain the result of a card action, but players are advised that actions cannot be reversed and any explanation time will be "on the clock".
If a game crashes mid-match due to a server issue or a game-breaking bug, then the resume-from-replay feature will be used to restore players to the point just before the crash, and an alternate action must be selected to avoid the crash. If resume-from-replay cannot be utilized, or if the game is unsalvagable, then a judge will determine if a rematch is to be played, or if a winner will be declared, which will fall back on the time-limit guidelines if the game was too close to call.
If any unforeseen circumstances arise before or during an event (such a game crash mentioned above affecting multiple parties), then the PC may postpone the remainder of the event for a later date.
Players will need to create a pair of decks before any day's events, one for the PC-Movie format, and one for PC-FOTR. Decks cannot be changed for a given day's events once matches have started, but decks may be altered between events. Full decklists from all participants will be published after the conclusion of the event, but it is up to players to not share their own decklists before that time if secrecy is desired.
Decklists and replays portraying the Group Stage games will be released as soon as possible after the conclusion of the Group Stage matches. This means that the Top 8 will have 1 week to inspect their contents and make adjustments before the Format Championship begins.
Only individuals may enter the World Championship. If any entrant is found to have collaborated as a group during a match, or consulted with another player during a match ("coaching"), or otherwise received information that they should not have had access to, then that entrant will be disqualified. Group collaboration is of course allowed between matches or between events.
Invitations are not transferrable, and neither are Gemp accounts. The entity being invited is the player, not the account. Championship Tickets are also not transferrable once claimed, although if a player obtains a Ticket and then later discovers they cannot attend, the player can request the ticket be returned to the pool for use by another player.
Matches will be played privately between two players, with specators being restricted to PC Judges and approved Commentators who must delay any recorded broadcasts by at least 15 minutes. Replays and decklists will similarly be restricted until after the event has concluded, and any player who is found to have reviewed an event replay or to have received information on their opponent's decklist before or during a match will be disqualified.
Sockpuppet accounts are not allowed. If multiple actual individuals will be competing from the same IP Address, then this information MUST be disclosed during the registration process, or BEFORE a day's events have started if the circumstances were unforeseen. If multiple entrants are discovered to have originated from the same machine or IP address during an event without disclosure, then all affected accounts will be disqualified immediately.
Finalists may not agree to simply "split the prize". Either player may of course concede as is their right, but if both players refuse to play the Finals, then neither player will be crowned Champion and they will both be disqualified. In such an event, the two previously most-recently eliminated individuals will compete as Finalists.
PC members are permitted to enter the World Championship. In such a case, those individuals will be treated as normal players and will not be permitted to spectate or judge matches that involve themselves or potential opponents. This means that such PC members will not be permitted to judge any matches for any Walk-on Qualifier that they themselves entered, and if they make it to the Group Stage they will be recused from any further judging for the remainder of the event.
In addition, any PC administrator who participates in the World Championship will have their admin priviliges temporarily revoked beginning in August before the Format Championships, not to be restored until they either drop from the event or after the World Championship has concluded, whichever comes first.
