IQA

Qualifying for World Cup

Regional championships are held each season in order for teams to qualify for the World Cup, as well as to determine a champion for each region. Regionals are the pinnacle of competition at the regional level, and are the marquee events for the season within each region. The top teams from each regional advance to the World Cup, the highest level of competition in the league.

World Cup Field

As has been announced previously, there will be no Division 2 at the World Cup. Instead, the full tournament will consist of a single field of 80 Division 1 teams, increased from 60 teams at World Cup VI. This means that more teams than ever before will have a chance to qualify for the association’s premier championship.

Regional Spot Distribution

The following is the regional spot distribution for teams for World Cup VII. A detailed explanation of the process used to allocate the bids is avaialable here and is also described below.

Eastern Canada - 4 bids
Europe - 6 bids
Mid-Atlantic - 10 bids
Midwest - 15 bids
Northeast - 12 bids
Oceania - 4 bids
South - 7 bids
Southwest - 11 bids
West - 11 bids

Process for Allocating Bids

The IQA’s general gameplay team has made a few tweaks to the way that teams are selected for this year’s World Cup. Like last year, 16 spots are being reserved for regions based on the performance of their teams at the previous World Cup. Note that the spots are reserved for the region as a whole, not for specific teams. This means that the following numbers of spots are reserved for each region at WCVII (the names in parentheses denote the top 16 finishers from last year’s World Cup):

Southwest: 5 Spots (Texas, Baylor, Texas A&M, LSU, Arkansas)
West: 4 Spots (UCLA, Lost Boys, NAU, USC)
Midwest: 4 Spots (BGSU, Kansas, OSU, MSU)
Northeast: 2 Spots (BU, Emerson)
Mid-Atlantic: 1 Spot (Maryland)

In addition, the teams that made the bracket stage of World Cup VI in places 17-36 each earn their region ½ of a spot. Whenever this produces a non-integer number of spots for a region, the extra ½ goes towards that region’s fraction of bids based on sign-ups, which are discussed below. This means that the following number of spots are reserved for each region at WC VII in addition to the spots reserved above:

Southwest: 0.5 (Texas St.)
West: 1 (Silicon Valley, ASU)
Midwest: 2 (Marquette, Ball St, CMU, Michigan)
Northeast: 2.5 (Tufts, RIT, Rochester, Hofstra, NYU)
Mid-Atlantic: 2 (Villanova, VCU, PSU, Pitt)
South: 1.5 (USF, Tennessee Tech, Miami)
Canada: 0.5 (Ottawa)

The remaining 54 spots will be directly proportional to the number of official team registrations per region. A number of criteria determine how these spots are apportioned:

  1. Teams must register with the IQA by October 1st in order to count towards their region’s WC apportionment.
  2. For the U.S. and Canada, only teams that are registered as tournament members with at least seven players by October 1 will be counted. Teams may register any number of additional tournament member players after October 1st, who will also be eligible to participate in regional championships.
  3. For other countries that have their own regionals, all teams that are signed up with at least seven players by October 1st will be counted. Teams may register any number of additional tournament member players after October 1st, who will also be eligible to participate in regional championships.
  4. Teams that are not a part of a region that has its own regional championship will not be included in the distribution. This means that all teams must attend a regional championship in order to attempt to qualify for the World Cup. The only exception to this policy is stated below.
  5. A team that cannot attend its own regional, or has no available regional, can  to attend a different regional. If this waiver is accepted prior to October 1, the regional change will be reflected in the apportionment. Teams should expect at least one week between the submission of a regional waiver and its acceptance/denial.

The distribution of these 54 spots will be performed based on the number of eligible teams on October 1st. The announcement of the final apportionment is expected on October 7th, 2013.

Once the apportionment is complete, the top X finishers at each regional championship will receive invitations to the World Cup, where X is the number of spots each region receives based on the process described above. If a team that qualifies for the World Cup is unable to attend the tournament, that team’s spot will be offered to the next highest-finishing team at the regional championship, then the next-highest, and so on until a team accepts the invitation.

World Cup Pools

At the World Cup itself, there will be 16 pools of five teams each. The top three teams in each pool will receive a spot in a 48-team, single-elimination bracket. The top team in each pool will receive a bye in the first round of the bracket, thus playing its first game in the round of 32.

With all of this in mind, make sure your team registers as a tournament member with at least seven individual players by October 1st to ensure the best distribution for your region! With your help, World Cup VII will be the best quidditch tournament ever held.