Games - ClanBase

	Games - ClanBase

ClanBase often abbreviated to CB by gamers is the largest electronic sports league in the world and one of the oldest online gaming leagues in the world. It was founded in October 1998 as a Dutch Quake II Capture the flag ladder, and quickly grew to cover all of Europe and beyond.

Most competition in ClanBase is amateur and held in constantly running ladders. ClanBase is also host to many tournaments including the famous EuroCup, one of the most prestigious online gaming championships in Europe, the NationsCup which is the de facto European nations championship of online gaming and the OpenCup which is one of the largest tournaments in online gaming. ClanBase has more than 1.3 million players and 180000 clans participating in ladders and cups for more than 50 different games.

In 2004 ClanBase formed a strategic partnership with the US based Global Gaming League (GGL), who consequently started the AmeriCup - the American answer to the EuroCup.

In July 2005 the Global Gaming League bought ClanBase. In this transaction the old owners of ClanBase, Willem "Tal" Bison, Rob "Amsterdam Wob" van de Veer and Filip "Godsmurf" Camerman, joined the GGL advisory board and GGL assumed responsibility for the day to day operations of ClanBase. GGL appointed two long term crew members, Nicolay "Nico" Ramm and Willem "Killerman" Bierman, as the new managers of ClanBase.

ClanBase Competitions

The ladders

The clanbase ladders run constantly with teams playing any time they agree to and reporting the results through the ClanBase website. Points are then awarded or removed using an ELO based rating system to create a ranking of participating clans. All ladders are subject to popularity and participation and new ladders can be created by a player creating a request and other players voting on it with ClanBase having the final say. Most games have European ladders and national ladders for countries with the largest amount of participation, the European ladders are usually considered more prestigious than the national ones but neither are considered as important as the cups.

The OpenCup

The ClanBase OpenCup is one of the many tournaments organised by ClanBase. The OpenCup is operated in many ways as a lower level version of the EuroCup. The tournament is entered through open registration with cup administrators then picking the applicants and placing them in the divisions they see as being appropriate based on the past results of a clan and the experience of its members.

The OpenCup is organised twice a year in tandem with the EuroCup. The spring season usually starts in January or February, while the Fall season starts in August or September. There is a separate OpenCup for each game and mod, so the term OpenCup actually refers to several dozen concurrent cups.

The tournament structure for the OpenCup can vary slightly from season to season and game to game but always consists of a group stage followed by playoffs until the final. Normally the top two or three clans in each group advance to the playoffs, playoffs have traditionally been organised as single-elimination brackets, but double elimination is gaining popularity among the ClanBase cup supervisors.

Each OpenCup is governed by a set of common rules in addition to game, mod and cup specific rules. Cup supervisors and cup administrators make sure that these rule are applied.

The EuroCup

The ClanBase EuroCup is the most prestigious online gaming tournament in Europe. It is an invitational tournament ran alongside the OpenCup, apart from this it is mostly identical in organisation to the OpenCup. The EuroCup receives far more coverage than the OpenCup on the ClanBase website as well as from external sources.

The EuroCup finals were always held as a LAN events until recently when they moved online, the cup lost of some of its prestige as its perceived significance among gamers dropped during the time the finals moved to being held over the interent. Recently however the finals have started to change back to being held as LAN finals with cash prizes and are again becoming acknowledged as important events.

The NationsCup

The ClanBase NationsCup is the de facto European Championship of online video gaming. As the name suggests this is not a tournament for clans but for national teams selected by an appointed team captain. There are rules dictating how many players from each clan the captain is allowed to pick. This is for example to prevent a nation with the current best clan in a game simply fielding that clan and to force the nation to use a mixed team therefore placing every nation in a position where they must create strategies and work with players unique to the national team.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for ClanBase ]

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