Alright so here it is, I apologize for the lateness.
I have literally been working at this all day trying to figure everything out, needless to say this has been really stressful for me trying to make as many people happy as I possibly can while still maintaining fairness.
I will admit I made some good decisions and some bad ones along the way, but I hope that this final list is the summation of the good ones.
This year's World Cup will have
16 teams. 14 of those teams are returning from last year, leaving two spots. After all was said and done, I came away with 4 new team applications vying for those final two spots. Those teams will be randomly assigned a team to "play-in" against. Much like last year, the teams that win their "play-in" games will qualify for the World Cup. There is nothing subjective here, I am merely making the four new teams play their way in. The play-in matches will be 3 vs 3.
Here is the final team list, along with the captain(s) and IRC channel:
Returning Teams:
Asia - MoP - #gotrice
Brazil - Quantum Mechanics
Canada - Jackal - #canada
France - Go10
Europe - Mekkah - #euro
Germany - TV-Rocka
Latin America - hanke - #la
Oceania - Blue Kirby - #ocn
Spain - Malekith
UK - twash - #uk
US Central - LonelyNess/bad ass - #uscentral
US East - Stone_Cold22 - #eastus
US Metro - JabbaTheGriffin - #metro
US West - Scofield - #uswest
New Teams:
Africa - aziki - #teamafrica
Benelux - Delko - #benelux [Belgium + Netherlands + Luxembourg]
Italy - Haunter
Mexico - CarloO - #mex
The play in matches will go as such:
Africa vs Mexico
Benelux vs Italy
Again, each winner will qualify for the tournament.
To the four play-in teams: I need your team of
three battlers to represent you in the play-in in
48 hours from the time of this post. Failure to PM me this three man roster will result in disqualification. I will then post the pairings, and you will have about 5 days to get those matches done.
As for everyone else, with the teams list official, please contact a team captain if you wish to play for their team. It is the only way to potentially get picked, they will not come to you.
Captains, I know most of you have already been hard at work preparing your roster, so continue testing people and have those rosters PMed to me before
Saturday June 25th at 11:59 EST
Reyscarface and SsAaVv have put in a ton of work developing a spreadsheet that lists every person who signed up and what teams they signed up for in a nice, easy to read format found
here. You should be able to search via drop down menus tomorrow. Thanks guys!
Also captains, I have contacted Pirika, so if you want a new flag PM either myself or him about a new flag idea and he can get it done. If you are getting your own artist to do the flag, please at least try to keep it stylistically similar for consistency.
If there are any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me on the forums or IRC.
Good luck everyone, I am expecting the most competitive tournament yet.
As for the USA team eligibility, I decided to completely simplify it this year. I simply drew some vertical lines to make everything as cut and dry as possible.
So as you can see, it should be clear which US team you qualify for. USA Metro is for people living in New York or New Jersey
only. Michigan was the touchy state, so instead of being arbitrary and assigning it to central or east, I will just say that if you are from Michigan (or any other state that I split in half) you can play for either side. Simple.
Have fun.