Today is the official start of our second competitive season. With it, comes a new feature to make Game 2 dynamic in a best-of-3 series, Sanctioned Events program, and tiered Competitor Points awarding. Let’s break down each addition below.

Game 1 Loser Map Select

The match structure and regulation rulebook have been updated to allow the loser of Game 1 in a best-of-3 series to declare any legal map in the Tactics League map pool for Game 2, either medium or small-sized, as long as it is a map that does not already exist in the map selection for that match. The 3rd game’s map would then become the opposite map size chosen to still have 2 medium and 1 small map in the match. This is a break away from the traditional Medium > Small > Medium map structure that was presently used in Season 1’s competitions and allows for Game 2 to be dynamically played shaking things up from our previous static rotation.

Sanctioned Events Program

As detailed more in its separate article, the Sanctioned Events program is a means of supporting grassroots events as Tactics League-supported, giving the tournament organizer access to a plethora of resources to ensure the event’s success. Competitions that are approved for sanctioning are eligible for Competitor Points awarding allowing for a hopeful increase in annual competitions, hosted directly by Tactics League and the community as well!

Tiered Competitor Points Awarding

Alongside the Sanctioned Events program, also includes an update to Competitor Points (CP) scaling and there are different point awards based on the bracket size of sanctioned events, allowing for more flexibility:

• Tournament-Style (large pool)
  For Double Elimination & Round Robin Allocations for 7+ Competitors
  • 1st = 2000 pts.
  • 2nd = 1600 pts.
  • 3rd = 1400 pts.
  • 4th = 1200 pts.
  • 5th – 8th = 800 pts.
  • 9th and lower = 600 pts.
    
• Tournament-Style (small pool)
  For Double Elimination & Round Robin Allocations for 4-6 Competitors
  • 1st = 1400 pts.
  • 2nd = 1200 pts.
  • 3rd = 1000 pts.
  • 4th = 800 pts.
  • 5th = 600 pts.
  • 6th = 400 pts.
    
• Cup-Style (large pool)
  For Single Elimination Allocations for 7+ Competitors
  • 1st = 800 pts.
  • 2nd = 600 pts.
  • 3rd – 4th = 500 pts.
  • 5th – 8th = 300 pts.
  • 9th and lower = 200 pts.
    
• Cup-Style (small pool)
  For Single Elimination Allocations for 4-6 Competitors
  • 1st = 500 pts.
  • 2nd = 400 pts.
  • 3rd = 300 pts.
  • 4th = 200 pts.
  • 5th and 6th = 100 pts.

With all of these changes starting today, we are excited to take Tactics League and competitive play to new heights!

A new competitive season, Academy, Sanctioned Events, and a new game update to coincide with today’s Season 2 launch, and this update focuses on some improvements and fixes after feedback and requests from players.

To download this update, head over to Downloads.

Bug Fixes

• Protect/Defense Boost – Set the damage reduction percentage from 34 to 33% resulting in less physical damage loss once these mitigation values are applied as intended
  When doing calculator math side-by-side some damage values appear lower than in-game but usually it’s a marginal 1-3 point difference due to rounding. However, for most physical attacks/abilities this resulted in abnormal damage loss (like 20-40+) causing select physical damage to deal even less damage than intended (such as Holy Sword, Darkness, and weapon attacks).Shell/Arcane Defense was unaffected. Thank you for bringing this to my attention @WngMan.

Text Updates

• Removed the “%” from calcs on Steal Equipment abilities as it is purely SP + PWR chance and not a percentage of your SP
• Updated Bad Breath’s chance from 19 to 25% per each status rolled
• Updated Crushing Blow’s Stop infliction chance from 19 to 25% (erroneously reported before but uses the Holy Sword 100% into 25% separate status infliction)
• Updated Purification’s Help removal that it includes Oil (this was missing from a past changelog)
• Updated Nether Mantra’s calcs
• Updated Take Aim’s Help and calls

Jobs

• Cleric/Alma
  • Added Rods as available equipment
    Along with the White Mage change, as a “White Mage” style job, Alma too now has access to Rods on her main job.
    
• White Mage
  • Added Rods as available equipment
    At request, White Mages have access to Rods which notably means they can build towards Faith away from Luminous Robe and can reliably cast at Atheist via Crown Scepter.
    
• Monk
  • Increased Move from 3 to 4
  • Decreased Shockwave’s Range from 6 to 5 to compensate for the trade-off
    It was hard to justify increasing Monk’s Move when they have access to a 6-range ability. So after testing a means to give them more mobility, the goal was to take 1 Range for 1 Move which ultimately makes playing Melee-Monk more playable and still allows for ranging with Shockwave albeit having to be a tad closer than before.

Action Abilities

• Nether Mantra (Marach)
  • Increased the PWR of all abilities from 0 to 2
  • Abilities can no longer target Marach
    Though Marach’s abilities have a 2 – 5 hit window, with the average Faith being 60, his abilities still struggle to deal good mitigated damage in various cases. I am returning some PWR to them to help damage output.
    
• Sky Mantra (Rapha)
  • Abilities can no longer target Rapha
  • Heaven’s Wrath – Decreased maxHP damage from 50 to 40%
    Since this ability strips a target of vital defensive buffs and does a hefty amount of damage, it will deal slightly less, especially for the window of opportunity it creates with follow-up damage.
    
• Black Magicks
  • Death – Decreased Tick from 5 to 4
    With this ability having a base low accuracy, the Speed can be slightly faster and this also aids undead teams that may rely on it as an on-demand revive.
    
  • Flare – No longer evadable (but still reflectable)
    Flare is being treated in a similar fashion as Holy/Unholy Darkness where it can no longer be evaded but is equally deflectable.
    
• Iaido
  • Chirijiraden – Decreased PWR from 18 to 17 (approx. 20 less damage)
    PWR decreased to bring it slightly closer to Muramasa at 15 PWR while still retaining the “most-powerful” Iaido cast.

Equipment – Weapons

• Knight’s Swords
  • Caladbolg – This item grants +1 MA and +1 SP instead of +1 PA/MA
    The Speed addition at the cost of PA is to better serve as a new option for Knights to build into Speed and push towards elemental damage.

Academy is a new, guided approach to helping newcomers to Final Fantasy Tactics or story-experienced players learn the important steps to fast-track their success in Tactics League PvP.

Headed, in part, by Tactics League member, Mistral, who now goes by The Countess, This program is split into five courses, ranging from basic teambuilding and getting familiar with unique characters and generic jobs, to testing your new team into Practice Mode, refining the team some more to improve it, and eventually working your way into setting up ZeroTier and having your first Melee, which is the PvP mode.

Academy is a Tactics League Discord-exclusive program as it is also entwined with various channels and links to help you throughout your curriculum.

If you have ever been interested in trying out our PvP offerings, join the Tactics League Discord, experience Academy, and be the next competitive challenger!

With the start of Competitive Season 2 on October 15, 2024, Tactics League is opening up a new way to drive community-inspired gatherings and events so we can empower the competitive scene further with community Discord members.

The Sanctioned Events program is a means to fully back community-made events by providing the tools and support needed for growth, participation, and success as well as more ways to award Competitor Points throughout the current season and future. To do so, Members propose their idea as a Roll Call, filling in all the details first and publicizing it so that everyone is aware of what goals they want to achieve with their event. Once the Roll Call gains momentum and more and more people become interested, the organizer can reach out to the Tactics League administration to request to be sanctioned and receive further support, including Competitor Points awarded post-event.

But what does sanctioning offer in terms of incentivizing your grassroots-based event? Tactics League will offer support and resources with the following:

• Basic banner/logo creation for your event (if needed)
• Tailored Competitions Registration form for your event to provide sign-ups
• Access to the Roster Registration form (if you are enabling Roster Lock)
• Access to the Post Game Report (PGR) needed to report match data for official records (this can be additionally provided to multiple assigned Officials as needed)
• Official Announcement updates via Discord, added to Discord Events for notifications, and the Tactics League website’s Events page
• Official/Staff Discord role so you have partial moderator powers as well as Staging channel operability (this is granted on the day of or the day before the event)
• Priority support from Tactics League administration during your event’s runtime (as much as possible)

The end goal for the Sanctioned Events program is to give the tools for more competitive events annually and sow the seeds to further Tactics League PvP into the future and beyond. If you are interested in hosting an event and potential sanctioning, please join the Tactics League Discord today.

Tactics League-sanctioned events award competitors with Competitor Points (CP) based on their finished ranking after the conclusion of the event. As of yesterday, Season 1 has officially closed and we are finalizing plans for the upcoming Competitive Season 2. Let’s take a look at all of the events we have hosted over the year:

• 2023 Opener
  • Date: October 8, 2023
  • Number of Competitors: 5
  • Event Runtime: 9 hours and 15 minutes
  • Rebroadcast: https://youtu.be/D-Fb3TdCN4Y
  • Tournament Data: https://tacticsleague.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Tactics-League-2023-Opener-Tournament-Data.pdf
    
• 2024 – Starter Winter Cup #1
  • Date: February 11, 2024
  • Number of Competitors: 8
  • Event Runtime: 4 hours and 58 minutes
  • Rebroadcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFHN_ooy-VA
  • Tournament Data: https://tacticsleague.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Tactics-League-2024-Starter-Winter-Cup-1-Competition-Data.pdf

Competitor Points – Final Ranking (Standard)

Ranking is determined by accumulative CP awarding from past events based on your event’s placement.

• 1st – @WngMan – 1500 pts.
• 2nd – @jokerfisch – 1100 pts.
• 3rd – @dr.jay. – 800 pts.
• 4th – @therumer – 600 pts.
• 5th – @pista – 400 pts.
• 6th – @sandcatankh – 400 pts.
• 7th – @mikey_tacticslive – 200 pts.
• 8th – @hewhostandsalone, @space_monkey00 – 200 pts.

Based on the Regulation Rulebook, certain tiebreaker rules are in place to resolve where members sit when it comes to tied rankings. This is also why some members above have the same points, but different placements:

• 1st – Round Finished
• 2nd – Total Games Played in the finished series (up to 4)
• 3rd – Your Opponent’s Seeding/rank
• 4th – Units Alive Per Game cumulatively

With Season 1 at its end, I want to thank everyone who has participated in the past events and even those who were anticipating the now canceled 2024 Fall Cup, for being a part of the competitive scene I look forward to new heights, new players, and new competitions to come with Season 2, starting on October 15, 2024!

Copied directly from the Tactics League’s Discord
It is with a tough decision to announce that the upcoming Standard – 2024 Fall Cup for October 6, 2024 is now canceled. This event is canceled due to not reaching the minimum number of fully eligible competitors for it to proceed.

The reason the minimum number of 6 is there is to avoid a short event or potentially starting out in Semi-Finals; the goal is to put on a show and showcase Tactics League in a LIVE manner, though it is not an ideal look when the event falls short of players and has a short ending to its beginning.

What Comes Next?

Since the event did not meet its required expectations, we will move forward. This event was the last of ⁠Season 1 – Competitor Points and thus the future is now set for Season 2. This means that CP will be reset and all past competitors will restart at zero CP. As mentioned earlier in the beginning process of Competition 3, the next event to plan for is the Generics Premade format. As a Tactics League official format, this format needs an opportunity to be showcased in a LIVE competition and that will be the goal going forward.

Season 2 Initial Changes

I do apologize to anyone that took time off or had to plan around to participate in this event. One issue that stemmed that did become a problem was relying on “interests” to fully gauge participation levels. This is still feasible, but will not be the core decider for future events; Sign-Ups will start earlier and will close earlier to give at least 1 – 2 weeks ahead of time before the event date to give plenty of time to determine if we are good to go or not. This also gives people more time to respond in the event of a cancelation instead of it being last minute.

Thank you to all who were interested in competing or were planning to help with Sunday’s event and I apologize once more for the cancelation in the matter.