- News

BREAKING NEWS: Double-Elimination Scheduled Postponed for Upgrades! (minhtam2448)

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:24:09 +0700

Folks, I have some good news and bad news.

The staff and I have talked over about our current situation and reevaluated our program, and we decided that for the sake of this tournament, we have to make a lot of radical changes.

Therefore, I'll start with the bad news. Due to implications, the Double-Elimination schedule will be postponed dramatically. The Double-Elimination tournament will now begin in the beginning of October and end in November. Not that I want to suck up attention from Japan's Saimoe tournament, but we feel that this is necessary for a few reasons, most notably my need to get my life back on track.

The new double-elimination schedule is 2 days per week, Tuesday and Friday, as follows:

9/30 - Preliminary First Round of Judgement
10/3 - First Round - Winner's Bracket (Revelation of Sun and Moon)
10/7 - First Round - Loser's Bracket (Cleansing of Shifting Deserts)
10/10 - Second Round - Loser's Bracket (Cleansing of Avalanching Mountains)
10/14 - Second Round - Winner's Bracket (Revelation of Fire and Water)
10/17 - Third Round - Loser's Bracket (Cleansing of Erupting Volcanoes)
10/21 - Fourth Round - Loser's Bracket (Cleansing of Raging Oceans)
10/24 - Third Round - Winner's Bracket (Revelation of Wood, Metal, & Earth)
10/28 - Fifth Round - Loser's Bracket (Cleansing of Swaying Forests)
10/31 - Sixth Round - Loser's Bracket (Cleansing of Rusted Cities)
11/4 - Championship Match (Cleansing of Arid Foundation)
*if necessary: 11/7 - Championship Match (Revelation of the Heavenly Tiara)

Now the good news - in the incredibly long five week break that we prepared for ourselves, we are going to be upgrading big for ISML 2009, and we will also be using the ISML 2008 championships to be able to preview for ISML 2009. since all 16 double-elimination competitors will be returning anyway. In fact, we're ditching this website. In a unanimous vote, we have decided to get ourselves our own server. Heck, I didn't know that a 500 GB server with MySQL would only be ten bucks a month! Ain't that amazing? Anyway, we will be using that time to transfer most of our accumulated 2008 data into a new domain name, and we will be able to hold a great deal of info and then some. We hope to easily complete some features and make adjustments for all I've wanted to do that we didn't get the chance to do. And the best part of it all is that we have five weeks to get it up and running, which looks like we'll have a better league come around October!

So it's going to be a long wait after Diamond 9 for the championships, but rest assured, we will keep you posted, and I promise you that the wait will be worth it.

Update #1: Diamond 4 (minhtam2448)

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:06:27 +0700

Remember when I said that my life was taking a turn for the worse and I sacrificed ISML time to work on turning it back around? Well, I have found yet another way to scale back my time, while at the same time give some of you some participation in this event that isn't just limited to voting.

I am now allowing ANYONE to write match descriptions for all matches from Arena's 1 to 4. This means you get to write a paragraph about a matchup that means a lot to you personally. The directions to do it are thus. All you have to do is e-mail me at hendrickfan66@yahoo.com (or use the contact form) a paragraph stating why this match is important, and of course, sign it off with your name so you can receive credit. However, remember that I did say that I was cutting down time, so a more effective way is to join us on IRC at channel #ISML, and a staff member who happens to be there will make revisions if necessary, then they will put it up on the main page for you.

I hope this way, you may be able to get at least some more participation in this league. Thank you very much.

- minhtam2448

Update #2: Diamond 3 (minhtam2448)

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:32:43 +0700

Okay, so my life has been taking a turn for the worse lately, and I thought that this may be the sudden end of ISML, more or less to try to get my real life back on track. But then I realized that people wondered why there's only one person running the whole website. Well, last night, I wondered the exact same thing. And now that my education has become top most priority to the extent that I can't keep thinking about this all the time, I decided to do something about it.

No way will I shut down ISML. Cut ties to it, someday, but not shut it down and let the people who want to finish it start it up again from scratch.

So I decided to hand the reigns over to some of my trusted voters who have been on the staff for quite a while, and as of today, we will be having not 1, but 7 to 8 members making updates to this website. This benefits both parties in the sense that I will not have to focus on ISML about ninety percent of the time, and put full focus on education (with some breaks here or there), while at the same time, ISML will finish what looks to be a successful year.

Therefore, my work will be scaled down big time, and as of now, we have a full group working on this site. Maybe not full time, but this site will be maintained.

Also, since the new ones will have access to all the site and edit it, they will also have access to the news page and others. All articles will now be signed by the respective user who wrote them.

--minhtam2448

Update: Diamond 3

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:38:43 +0700

You know how I love to have music on the front page? As it turns out, I'm no longer with the majority on this one. I have been getting feedback that people would just either turn off their speakers or whatnot. Not that they hate the music, but they rather listen to their own.

So as much as I'd hate to do it, we will no longer have music playing on the front page.

Update: Diamond #2

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:13:23 +0700

Okay, folks. We all know how big Fate vs. Shana is. However, a critical matchup like this does not mean you can break the rules. A series of IP addresses have been banned for being suspect of violations, the majority of them blatantly obvious ones.

This is a reminder that if you are banned from the voting page and you feel that you did not break any rules, please e-mail me at hendrickfan66@yahoo.com, and we will talk things through. If we're convinced that your point is valid, we may lift your ban.

Update #2: Diamond 1

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:51:13 +0700

I'm actually a little ill tonight, so results may not be up as quick tonight, but I'll try to get them in before I go back to sleep. However, should I pass out, the results will be posted in full tomorrow morning.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Diamond 1

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:20:47 +0700

Okay, folks, just to let you know, I will NOT be available on Friday, August 22, which is the originally scheduled date for Diamond 9. I will be going on a three day camping trip with my youth group, and as I have already made the commitment to be there, I won't be able to make any updates as I will be without internet access for two whole nights.

Therefore, the Diamond schedule has changed to a point where matches will be one or two days earlier. For this period only, there will be matches for every two days. The schedule will look like this:

08/04: Diamond 1
08/06: Diamond 2
08/08: Diamond 3
08/10: Diamond 4
08/12: Diamond 5
08/14: Diamond 6
08/16: Diamond 7
08/18: Diamond 8
08/20: Diamond 9

This schedule will benefit ISML because of the following. Firstly, I will be able to go to the camping trip without worrying about ISML for the moment. Secondly, the rest of the staff will have some extra time to come up with advertisements to promote our Double-Elimination tournament, which will begin on September 1st.

This post will be translated by some of our current staff (the ones that are around, per sé) so that groups of other languages will be notified.

Update 1: Ruby 9 Overtime

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:56:48 +0700

There's a lot of hectic things going around, and there's just about a weekend's work that the ISML staff have to do... in about the next two or three hours, so please be patient as we continue to make hasty updates.

Update: Ruby 8 Overtime

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:26:13 +0700

Okay, I have something to tell you all.

A doctor died this past week, and while he isn't very close to me, he was my physician when I was at the age of seven, so I have to pay my respects and ask that you keep him in your prayers. In addition, the Ruby 9 match set will be dedicated to his memory.

How does that concern ISML? The Ruby 8 overtime match is scheduled for Saturday, and I will be attending the wake on that day, so there will be no guarantee that I will be announcing results that night. However, I will try my best.

More importantly, this is the first time that a match labeled "eight" has gone to overtime. If you recall, we had a tie during Amethyst 9, and the overtime match was started immediately without warning, in order to ensure that the period is indeed closed out. As a precaution for this matter, the overtime match is scheduled at 0200 GMT instead of 0000 GMT in the case that we have an overtime match for Ruby 9. Should there be one, it will take place at the same time as the Ruby 8 Overtime.

Important Update: Double-elimination schedule

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:43:53 +0700

I know there have been a lot of updates since my last news entry, but I am afraid that I am rather a bit scaled for time at the moment, so you're going to have to take a look around. I'll provide a short summary for you.

First off, beneath the banlists are links to Saimoe Japan and Korea Best Moe. Both of their tournaments are now currently running, and we strongly encourage your participation. As there is no official English page for Saimoe Japan, the logo for that contest will direct you to an FAQ, where a collection of answers and links should be able to help you out if you need it. The Korea logo takes you to their English page, and since their rules is self-explanatory, I feel that we do not need to provide an English page.

Secondly, if you notice under the Forum & Contact section, we now have an IRC channel. For those of you who know how to use IRC, please come along - the 17 of us that are regularly on there really do need some company.

All of the other updates - kind of slipped my mind for the moment, so you will have a ton of exploring to do.

Now here's the most important update. I have been receiving a flood of e-mails in a handful of languages asking me when is the double-elimination tournament and when will ISML '08 come to a conclusion. We are working on a special double-elimination image that should answer all of your questions, and the start and end times have been picked out as well. We will not reveal this special image until it is picture perfect, but I will provide the dates so you should be prepared.

Monday, September 1st - First round. Winner and Loser brackets determined.

Wednesday, September 3rd - Winner's Bracket, Round 1.

Friday, September 5th - Loser's Bracket, Round 1. 13th - 16th place determined.

Monday, September 8th - Winner's Bracket, Round 2.

Wednesday, September 10th - Loser's Bracket Round 2. 9th - 12th place determined.

Friday, September 12th - Loser's Bracket Round 3. 7th - 8th place determined.

Monday, September 15th - Winner's Bracket Round 3

Wednesday, September 17th - Loser's Bracket Round 4 - 5th-6th place determined.

Friday, September 19th - Loser's Bracket Round 5. 4th Place determined.

Monday, September 22nd - Loser's Bracket Round 6. 3rd Place determined

Wednesday, September 24th - Championship round.

*If winner of Winner's Bracket Round 3 loses
Friday, September 26th - Final Championship round.