VTES North American Cup Series

Introduction:
We're proud to announce the opening season of the VTES American Cup Series (ACS).

The ACS is a sister program to the highly successful European Grand Prix. Europe modeled their program after the Formula One circuit. We're more rough and tumble here in the US, and are more inspired by NASCAR's Cup Series.

Like the Grand Prix, Cup Series events offer additional incentives to players:
• prize support from BCP with additional sponsorship planned for the 2020 season;
• global ranking coefficients equivalent to championship qualifiers (now obsolete); and
• ACS points applied toward reaching the Cup Finals.

The winners of each Cup Series tournament will receive:
• the admiration of their peers;
• an automatic entry in Day 2 of the North American Championship (NAC); and
• an invitation to any Legendary Vampire tournaments for that season (US or EU);

The five highest-ranked Cup participants attending the NAC are eligible for the Cup Series Final. The winner of that game will be immortalized with their image on a new crypt card.
Unlike the European Grand Prix, we cannot award additional incentives to players attending all five Cup Series events.

Scheduling and Locations:
The Cup Series season runs from July to June, culminating with a final during the North American Championships. Five (5) Cup Series events will occur each season.
Any North American tournament organizer may apply to host an ACS event. Organizers may email to apply.

The Steering Committee will select events to ensure broad regional coverage. Cup Series tournaments are not intended to be standing events for any city or playgroup, so event locations will change annually. This year will focus on established tournament environments, but we hope use more revitalized playgroups as the foundation for 2020's ACS.

If there are not five acceptable applications from different regions, the Steering Committee may award a second event to one or more regions that already has an ACS tournament. No region is eligible for more than two ACS events per season.

Cup Series events should be scheduled for different calendar months when possible. Concessions may be needed in the abbreviated 2019/2020 season.

Normally, we would publish a schedule after the North American Championships. We're introducing the ACS in the middle of this season, so the application process and schedule have been compressed.

The current schedule is:
• Denver, CO (November 9, 2019)
• Columbus, OH (December 14, 2019)
• Billerica, MA (April 4, 2020)
• Applications for the 4th and 5th locations being accepted through November 30, 2019.
• CUP SERIES FINAL in Columbus, OH (June 2020)

Note: Seattle and Lafayette are already being considered as 2019 events.

Tournament Format:
All tournaments in the Cup Series shall be standard constructed format with proxies (correct format) allowed. Tournaments may be either 2 or 3 rounds plus a 2-hour final, though 3R+F is encouraged to reflect the higher Cup Series' ratings coefficient.

Tournament Organizers and Steering Committee Members are allowed to play under the VKEN tournament rules' multi-judge clause.

Cup Series tournament reports should be forwarded to (in addition to normal VEKN submission). ACS standings will be published on a BCP web page which will be developed later.

2019-2020 ACS Points System (based on 5 Cup Series events).
• Winner: 100 points (de facto finals entry) and NAC Day 1 bye.
• Other Finalists: 15 points
• 6th: 10 points
• 7th: 9 points
• 8th: 8 points
• 9th: 7 points
• 10th: 6 points
• All other participants: 3 points

Cup Series tournaments winners may play in the NAC Day 1 tournament, but are not required to meet any threshold for advancing.

The ACS Final will consist of the 5 highest-ranking players the North American Championship on Thursday evening. There will be no seeding for this final and player positions will be randomly determined.

If that game ends in a tie, all players involved will be roundly heckled and the winner's prize support will be awarded to the next year's ACS winner.

Steering Committee:
The US ACS is currently managed by three long-time US tournament players:
• Darby Keeney (Denver)
• Mark Loughman (Columbus)
• Matt Hirsch (Boston)

Steering Committee Membership may be changed with approval from a 2/3rds majority of Committee members.

All correspondence with the Steering Committee should be addressed to .

The second stop on the tour has been scheduled, December 14 Newark/Heath Ohio. Please see calendar.

The third stop has been set: Billerica, MA on April 4th.

This will be part of a full Fri-Sun weekend of VTES.

Date: Saturday, April 4th, 2020 @ 1pm.
Location: 357 Boston Rd,. Billerica, MA.

Hello all,

Since North America also includes Canada last time we checked, the city of Hamilton, Ontario would like to be considered for a spot in the North American Cup for early next year.

I am thinking late February or early March.

Hamilton is very close to Toronto, and is relatively close to the US border via upstate New York. It would also be a few hours from OH, PA and MI.

Can you please let us know what the next step in the process is?

Cheers,
Wes

Hey Wes.

Awesome. You've been added to the list of possible sites - and yes, Canada and Mexico are viable, welcome legs on the tour.

The '19/'20 season logistics make Hamilton a bit less likely (and the New Holland PA group is suffering from the same constraints). We've already got tournaments in Ohio and Boston, so spacing the remaining tournaments widely across North America has real appeal.

I believe I'm close to locking in a western site and then maybe something in the south would put dots pretty widely across the map.

Drop me an email at so I know how to get in touch.

Regards,

- Darby.

Fourth event location unveiled.....Charlotte NC.

University Hunting Ground,
Jan 11 2020 at 12 PM
UNC Charlotte Campus

The event is not yet in the Calendar, but we'll get that addressed soon.