This is a proposed format for team-based pen spinning competition.

Glossary:

Battle: A team vs team competition, consisting of several matches. Battles consist of lineup periods, where managers form and tune their lineup, the actual videos, and the judging process.

Match: A single event within a battle. Can be a singles match or a doubles match.

Team: The competing entity, consisting of a manager, reserve and spinners. Although individual people may lose or win certain matches within a battle, it is always the team as a whole winning the battle.

Manager: The one in charge of coordinating his/her troops. Must first form the team (recruit spinners), assign captaincy, arrange the lineup for each battle, and other tactical managerial decisions during the lineup periods. The manager is also in charge of making sure that the correct videos get submitted in time.

Spinner: The playing unit of the tournament. The one actually filming a video to be judged.

Reserve: A back-up spinner in case something goes wrong with the other spinners. May replace a spinner under certain circumstances (see Reserve Rule section).

Lineup periods: Four periods (4 days) where managers can make change to their lineup via the use of cards to try and improve the matchups. Those decisions are hidden until the end of the current period. Therefore managers can only react to recent changes in the following period only (if we're not already in the final period). See Lineup periods section for more details.

Cards: Special abilities the manager can use to affect the team's lineup, even after the lineups are revealed. There are currently 2 cards: "Swap" and "Freeze". They can only be used during the lineup periods. See cards section for more information.

Swap: Use of the swap card allows the manager to exchange the spots of a spinner with another spinner.

Freeze: Use of the freeze card prevents any swap to occur involving players from the frozen match. The freeze is only active starting from the following period that it is played to the end of the lineup period.

Team size: 1 manager, 0 or 1 reserve and 4,5,6 or 7 spinners (including 1 captain) depending on the size of the competition. All teams have the same size for a specific tournament.

Match format:

Matches are given a number and a letter. D represents a doubles match, S represents a singles match.
Each spinner can only participate at most 1 match. If teams employ reserve, exactly 1 person will be left out and not part of any match.

4 spinners: D1 S2 S3
5 spinners: D1 S2 S3 S4
6 spinners: D1 D2 S3 S4
7 spinners: D1 D2 S3 S4 S5

Match details:

Doubles match: Each team sends a pair of spinners. Each spinner makes a video, and the two videos are then merged together, one after the other. Example: Spinners A and B form a pair. A starts the video, makes a transition, B finishes the video. The period between the two combos is called the "Transition", and this transition can go back and forth.

This is similar to the Vortex video filmed a while back. Judges will grade the individual performance of each spinner, as well as the originality and efficiency of the transition. (Vortex only shows air transitions, much more can be done). A transition is also defined only as a switch of spinner in the video. It does not mean they actually have to do something special to switch (although it is highly recommended).

Singles match: A standard 1vs1 match. Judged on the usual format.

Other specifications (time limit, etc...) are specified at the beginning of each tournament.

Scoring:

Matches that are even-numbered are worth 3 points and odd-numbered are worth 2 points. In any case, a tie is worth 1 point.

Example: in a 7 spinners team format, we have 5 matches: D1 D2 S3 S4 S5. Matches D2 and S4 are worth 3 points, matches D1 S3 S5 are worth 2 points.

In case of draw after all matches, a sudden death singles match is initiated between captains of each team where they have 1 week to submit their video.

Cards:

For teams of 4 players, managers only possess 1 card. For teams of 5, 6 players, managers possess 2 cards. For teams of 7 players, managers possess 3 cards.

Managers do not have to use all their cards if deemed unnecessary.

Cards are selected in the first lineup periods (see more below). Cards are one-use only. You can have several cards of the same type however.

Cards can be either "Freeze" or "Swap".

"Swap": Allow the manager to exchange two members in the lineup. This can be used to obtain a better matchup after the lineups are revealed. You can also swap between a starting member and the reserve, in which case the former starter becomes the reserve. Swapping between players involved in a doubles match only swap that player, not the whole pair. Swapping is applied at the end of the current period. Even if someone were to call a freeze this period on the same match, it will not affect your swap. But you can't swap players from already frozen matches.

"Freeze": Freezes a certain match, preventing any "swap" from affecting any player from this match for BOTH sides. Freeze only goes into effect the next period. Thus, any swap activated in previous or current periods on the target match will be applied. Needless to say, it is therefore useless to call a freeze on the final lineup period, because the lineups are final afterwards anyway. Reserve substitution circumvent freeze (See details in Reserve section). If both managers apply a freeze on the same match (unknowingly), both cards are consumed and the match is frozen. Freezing a match is permanent for the remaining duration of the battle.

More information in the Lineup periods section.

Lineup periods:

There are 4 lineup periods. This process is used by managers to try and finetune their lineup for the matches. After these 4 periods, the lineups are final, barring the use of reserve substitution.

Each period last one day and managers send their instructions privately to the organizing commitee during each period. At the end of each period, each manager's instructions are revealed and executed, and a new period begins. If it was the final period, the lineups become final and the teams can start filming their combos.

Period 1: Managers must select which cards they want to hold. The number of cards they hold depends on the size of the teams (1-3 cards). They can select any combination of swap or freeze cards, as long as the total of all cards does not exceed the set limit. Managers should select their captain.

End of period 1: Cards selection is revealed to the public. Captains are revealed.

Period 2: Managers must select their lineup, assigning players to specific matches by using the numbers. Managers may also apply freeze cards to any match. Swap are obviously not used because the lineups are not formed.

End of period 2: Lineups are revealed, with any freeze applied.

Period 3: Managers can now use all their cards available to swap and freeze as they see fit.

End of period 3: Swaps are applied, updated lineups are revealed. Any new freezes are applied.

Period 4 (Final): In the final period, managers have a second chance to change their lineup. They may use their swaps to get an edge. Obviously freeze cards are useless by now because this is the final period.

End of period 4: New swaps are applied, updated final lineups are revealed. Video filming begins.

It is possible that less than 4 periods are needed, if all cards have been used or if no more change is even possible. In that case, all remaining periods are just skipped.

Reserve:

The reserve spinner is a substitute spinner in case something goes wrong with a spinner. The reserve spinner is not always present; in short tournaments (1 or 2 battles), reserve are not used.

The reserve spinner is designated during the lineup periods, when the lineups are being made. The reserve spinner is naturally the person who is not involved in any match.

The manager may call a substitution and replace any spinner with the reserve (even frozen matches), even after the lineup periods are over. However, any substitution must be privately notified to the organizing commitee at least 1 week before the video deadline. Such subtitution will only be publicly revealed after the subtitution period ends (when there's only 1 week remaining before deadline).

Subtitution comes with heavy penalty. First, the substituted spinner is withdrawn from the roster and CANNOT participate in any latter battles, even as a reserve. If a team still has battles left to participate in, they will have to do so without a reserve.

Second, the battle which the reserve participates in will have a handicap scoring system: a win by the reserve's team on this match will always give 2 points (even if the match was worth 3 points before), but a loss by the reserve's team on this match will always give 3 points to the opposition (even if the match was worth 2 points before). Therefore, substitution should be used wisely to avoid the heavy penalties.

If both managers happen to substitute players into the same match, the handicap is void.

Handicap scoring does not carry over to the next battle, since the team technically the reserve has necessarily been promoted to starter and the team has no more reserve.

Substitution should normally only be used if a spinner is unabled to continue on and must be replaced. Substitution may also be used tactically, but the manager must be aware of the penalties incurred with the substitution. Still, reserve substitution offers a powerful tool for managers to replace a spinner on-the-fly in an effort to gain an advantage.

Schedule:

(Time is in days)

-Time 1: Lineup periods being. See Lineup periods section for more details.
-Time 5: Final lineups announced; no more change possible, except for the reserve (see below).
-Time 5: Teams start filming their combo.
-Time 14: Reserve period ends. Any reserve substitution is revealed now.
-Time 21 (3 weeks): Team managers submit their videos.
-Time 22-28 (4 weeks): Results are announced within the following weeks.

Captaincy

At the beginning of each battle, the manager select a captain and assistant captain. These are mostly honorific titles, except in the situation of sudden death, where it's a 1vs1 battle between the two captains. In the event that the captain is unable to take part of the tiebreaker (substituted), the assistant takes his/her place.

Judging

The judging system can be flexible and take many forms. An example judging system is shown in this topic.

In any case, results for all matches are revealed at the same time and the winning team is also announced. In the case of tie, we proceed to the tiebreaker.

Cheating

Videos cannot be pre-filmed. To prevent this, judges will assign a number after the lineup periods to each team. ALL videos submitted by the spinners must show this number written on a piece of paper, clearly visible in the backgperiod. Failure to do so will result in a forfeit of the affected videos.

Spinners must film their own video. If judges detect that a video is not filmed by the spinner scheduled for the match, the whole team is suspended.

Spinners must respect the specifications for the videos (time limit, etc...). Failure to do so result in a forfeit by the affected videos.

Failure to submit videos on deadline consist a forfeit for the affected match.

For doubles match, failure to submit a SINGLE video with the pair in it results in a forfeit. Two individual videos will NOT be accepted.

UPDATE

Managers CAN now participate as a spinner as well! They are not required to do so, but they can put themselves in the lineup. They can also serve as the reserve spinner.

Restrictions on the transition have now been relaxed. The transition is the middle section between the combo of the first spinner and the combo of the second spinner. This transition may go back in forth. There is no limit to how long or how many switches you want to make in the transition. However, notice that the transition is not counted towards the individual evaluation of each combo, so if you make a ridiculously long transition, it will hurt you more than anything.

updated the guide.

-Managers can now participate as spinner
-Transitions in doubles matches can feature back-and-forth action.

-Renamed "Matching Rounds" to "Matching Periods" due to the confusiong of the word "Round.

So for now, remember that:

Battle: A battle is a fight between two teams and is composed of individual or double matches.

Match: A 1vs1 or 2vs2 matchup inside the battle. Who is competing against who is decided by the managers. Some matches are worth 2 points for the win, some 3 points.

Matching Periods: Before we start the matches, the matching periods decide who exactly is playing against who.

In period 1, the managers submit their choices of cards and their captain/co-captiain.

In period 2, the managers submit their lineups, and can apply freeze cards.

In period 3, the managers can use their cards to modify their lineups.

In period 4, this is the final period for managers to use their cards.

End of period 4, all lineups are final.

I still think the two different usages of the word "match" is confusing....

maybe call the 1v1 or 2v2 a round?

No... because a round can be a round of the tournament, which would refer to all the battles between the teams at the round.

I think it's fine, or I can just use the word "Period"

hmm, i still think it should be called like Lineup Period, or Pairing Period...


cuz you use two different definition of match, one for period, and one for a versus thingy.... it gets confusing (i was somewhat confused as a manager, if you want prior experience) I understand now, but im not sure everyone will....

Lineup period is good, I'll use that then.