Hello!

We are happy to announce the long awaited Rise and Grind VNL KZ tournament brought to you by nykaN and persona!
It is going to happen on Saturday the 5th of February 2022 - 18:00 (6PM) CET and is expected to last around five to six hours.
There will be 16 slots and the tournament is open for anyone.
Once 16 players are qualified - the tournament is going to be played in a normal single elimination bracket format.
Aliases are allowed for this tournament as it is standard for VNL KZ.

It will be streamed on twitch.tv/nykan.

It goes without saying that cheating is not allowed and globally banned players may not join.

Server

There will be an EU (London) and NA (Dallas) server available. If both players favour different servers it will be decided by chance.

Maps

kz_machinery
kz_comp_global
kz_beginnerblock_go
kz_cratespeed
kz_twiivo
kz_fabrik
kz_baxter
kz_hb_3kliksphilip
vnl_cat
“Jump Jam” (only available as a decider)

What does “Jump Jam” mean?

The goal of this is to jump all three jumpstats and combine the total block distance, highest wins. Only your biggest block counts. You each get three attempts on every stat. Three fails = 0 points on that stat. The jumpstats will be played in this order: Bhop, Weirdjump, LJ. Autobhop will be available for consistency purposes in Bhop and Weirdjump challenges.
How to play:
Highest seeded player picks a block distance and attempts their first jump.
Player two picks a block distance after player one has attempted their jump.
Now player one picks their block distance. If they failed their last attempt they may attempt the same distance if they choose, or pick a bigger block. You can’t go lower than your previous pick.

For example: nykaN vs persona. They start with bhopstat.
Round 1 (Bhop):
nykaN picks a 230 block and lands it. He now has 230 total points.
Persona picks a 240 block and fails it. He now has 0 total points.
Round 2 (Bhop):
nykaN picks a 235 block and fails it. He now has 230 total points.
Persona can now only pick 240 or more, so he picks 240 again and lands it. He now has 240 total points.
Round 3 (Bhop):
nykaN ups his block to 242 despite his fail at 235 and lands it. He now has 242 total points.
Persona picks 242 block and fails it. He now has 240 total points.

After the bhop round nykaN has 242 points and persona has 240 points.

This same format will happen for Weirdjump and LJ after this. The totals for each separate stat will be added together for a final score.

Result:
nykaN: 242 (Bhop) + 0 (WJ) + 250 (LJ) = 492 points!
Persona: 240 (Bhop) + 235 (WJ) + 244 (LJ) = 719 points!

Persona wins!

Format

Before every matchup there will be a seeding round consisting of a wallstrafing battle, which means each player will have three attempts to land a wallstrafe.

The furthest wallstrafe after three attempts gets the seed advantage.
The player with the seed advantage gets to pick a map out of the nine actual maps - then player two picks their map.
After that the plugin will eliminate five maps, leaving two maps remaining as well as the “Jump Jam”.
In a BO3: Player one picks one out of the three as the decider.
In a BO5: They pick one actual map each, leaving “Jump Jam” as the decider.

Prize Pool

Winner of the tournament gets a top tier Trophy NFT, if you’re above 18 otherwise you get a jpg of it.
There’s also a cash prize.
1st - $150
2nd - $75
3rd - $25

Qualifying

First off, to play you have to join nykaN’s discord server. This is because further contact and information will happen through there.
Second, make sure you are available Saturday February 5th 2022!

The qualifying will be done based on the amount of VNL PRO points you have on 29th of January 23:59 CET. You gain points by finishing PRO runs on the mode VNL. The better the time, the higher the points. So if you really want to qualify - Play the game.

You can sign up until 29th of January 23:59 CET and that is also the deadline for the point grinding.
To apply and to see who has applied, go to riseandgrind.nykan.tv

How to see points

If you have signed up you can see your and everyone else’s points here.
Alternatively, search with either your name or steam ID on sites like KZ Profile, KZStats, KZGO, GOKZStats.
Make sure you have chosen the mode VNL and that you're watching for PRO runs.