For the reasons Chunk mentioned earlier, I don't think collaborating with Beyond for a tournament would be possible without providing them with some form of compensation. They have a partnership with Astro and I don't think they would be inclined to deviate from it just to support a neighboring community. ForgeHub attempted to form partnerships with large tournament organizations in the past like ESL, however due to unknown conflicts on their end our collaboration never went further than the loose contract agreements. This was a relationship I worked very hard to achieve and I was thrilled to share the news with everyone however the efforts never manufactured any results. I don't hold any personal resentment towards ESL, its quite the opposite really. I was in disbelief at how open and responsive they were to collaborate on a tournament with our forge community. I'm still very fond of Timo, Joey and the others I was in contact with, they have great people there, very supportive and kind. I'm a pragmatic person and I like to think objectively on most things to asses how to yield the best possible outcomes for any given situation. After meditating on this for a while, I decided that hosting our own tournaments in the future would be in our best interests. We would control the maps and not subject ourselves to any unknown variables that may throw our plans off course again. This will ensure that when we say a tournament will tanspire after a contest it will. Over time we will build our own credibility and history to support tournaments. For now all I can say is that we have something special planned.

Sooo.. What's the good word? Do we have a timeframe on when we'll hear about the contest winners? There are some really amazing maps out there. I wouldn't want to judge this contest. Can't wait to see which maps you guys pick.

Over 100 maps brah, gonna be a minute.

Indeed well over 100. By no means am I trying to be a bother. I just didn't know if you guys schedule an announcement date, say a month or two out. This is all new to me. I've been playing a lot of the submissions as well. A lot of great stuff out there. I don't envy the position you're in.

True dat. That's a lot of doubles mane.

We'll have the winners of the contest announced towards the end of March. There are 145 submissions to go through and its a lot of work to assess each map properly. We're making progress but need the time to make sure our selections are thoughtful and deserving.

If optic prison doesn't win I'm rioting.

So Goat is out on the judging?... I'm assuming that may affect the eta of the winners announcement? Any news on how far out we are from the announcement?

I'm excited to see what happens with this thing. I do have a stake in it with the maps I submitted, but even if I don't win anything I want see what kind of maps do get the nod. Also, some feedback would be nice, as unlikely as it may be considering all the submissions.

Yeah feedback for each map won't be likely, due to volume, and will most likely lead to arguments/comparisons to other maps

May I humbly request a status update for this?

^^^ plz

We're down to about a handful of maps. At this point, it's becoming extremely difficult to differentiate them, because they're all top notch. We're just taking as much time as we need to get things 'right'.

Many thanks, bro. Can't wait to see the results. I'd love to play a playlist of the top 10 or so.

Top 10 2v2 playlist in MM would be legit! community wins!

That's actually supposed to happen. Warholic said it a few weeks ago that the top 10-12 would make a playlist. That's why I'm anxious for the results. I know I didn't get top 3 but I want to know if I made the playlist or not.

Making the playlist is definitely cooler than winning $500. Of course, I cant pay bills with a playlist haha.

Can't wait to see there results now!

I know this has to be a very hard judging process. Ranking creative works objectively when they are such high quality can be near impossible.

I don't envy the judges...

I wish I had known/realized that the maps were being used for matchmaking. I thought this was a community thing, not an official thing. It certainly would have altered my approach to map design. I guess I can pretty much consider myself out of the running since I was leaning towards creativity and originality with my creation(s), not a Halo-style arena built for competition.

Oh well, still interested to see what happens

Well the maps should've been designed for competitive play as the winners will be used in the Forgehub 2v2 tournament.

So regardless of if you knew about the matchmaking part, your map still should've been designed to play well in a competitive environment.