Keystone Masters Presents Battle of the Bans - Pick and Choose PvP Arena Series
Taking its first foray into PvP, Keystone Masters presents the Battle of the Bans, a pick-and-choose arena map ban series in which NA and EU arena teams will compete for $6,000 in prizes! The unique format of this best of five double elimination tournament promises a new layer of competitive decision making, as each team alternates in picking and banning to decide which maps will be played.
Registration, Events, and Prizes
Signups are open now through April 2nd on Raider.IO to teams of 3-4 players. The Open Bracket will then begin on April 10th at 2 PM PST for NA and 18:00 CEST for EU, followed by the finalist brackets on April 13th (EU) and 15th (NA), broadcast live at Twitch.tv/KeystoneMasters.
NA and EU teams will compete in separate best of five double elimination series with individual prize pools for each, requiring three wins to advance to the next stage. The Grand Final will then be a best of seven, with the prize pool split among the first, second, and third place finishers in each region.
Participants are encouraged to join the event Discord and read further rules on Raider.io.
Picks and Bans — How the Series Works
With this new format, each series begins with a map ban phase. The higher seeded team begins by banning one of the game's fifteen maps, alternating between each team until eight have been banned and seven maps remain. This is followed by the map pick phase in which teams alternate picking maps until one remains, which will then be played first.
The losing team of that map may then choose one of their three picks to play next, followd by the winning team's draft, and then the losing team's draft. This phase repeats until a team has one three maps and is declared the winner of the series — advancing to the next bracket.
Learn more about the unique format in this helpful video.
