Please see the full ruleset for the Circuit 3 Qualifiers

Disclaimer

The CCA reserves the right to disqualify team(s) and/or player(s) for any reason. We will inform team(s) and/or player(s) with a reason should the need arise.
The Tournament Organizers (TOs) will have final say over any decision.
All decisions finalized by Tournament Organizers will be confidential to team(s) and/or player(s) unless explicitly said otherwise.

Registration

Teams must have signed up via the Circuit Registration Google Form AND sign-up for each qualifier on sendou.ink to participate. No exceptions will be made.

Registration two days before each circuit qualifier at 8:59PM PT / 11:59PM ET. For Qualifier 1, this results in a registration deadline of 10/1 8:59PM PT / 11:59PM ET.

Team Requirements

A team must consist of at least four (4) players, and may have up to eight (8) players. A full team must have one (1) designated captain monitoring sendou.ink during circuit qualifiers..

The designated captain must be a member of the CCA Discord server.
A player must not play for multiple teams at the same time. Each player can only be registered to a single team.
The captain must be one of the players that is registered to the team, and is considered a player for eligibility and roster purposes.

Team and Player Names

Each player participating in Circuit 3 must have included their Splashtag (User#0000) during the registration on both the Google Form and on the Sendou.ink page or when being added to an existing team.

Each player is expected to register with the splashtag that they are known as in the broader Splatoon community.
Players must keep their Splashtag matching for the entirety of the qualifier they are participating in.
Aliases through the in-game feature are not permitted at any time.
Splashtag name changes cannot be processed between a circuit qualifier’s registration deadline and the start of said circuit qualifier. Players must play with the splashtag they are registered with when the respective registration deadline has passed.
Team and Player names may not contain any vulgarities, obscenities, or otherwise inappropriate references as determined by the standards of the CCA. Team and Player names may not cause confusion between other team and player names. Team names may not contain names with more than 64 characters or contain emoji/non-Unicode characters.
- CCA staff and Tournament Organizers have the right to request changes to team and/or player names if they do not fit to the above standards under this category.

Format

Each Qualifier will start with a 4-round Play-All-Three (PA3) Swiss group stage into a single elimination bracket playoff. Bracket playoffs will be Best-of-Three (Bo3) until Grand Finals/Third place decider which will be Best-of-Five (Bo5).

Tie-Breakers

For the swiss group stage in a Circuit Qualifier, the sendou.ink default tiebreaker format will rank teams with the same match record to break ties for teams that could progress into single elimination playoffs:

Match Wins
Losses Against Tied Opponents
Opponent Set Win% Avg
Map Win/Loss Record
Opponent Map Win% Avg
Seed

Match Settings

All matches shall be a four versus four (4 vs. 4).
All PBs must have these settings:
- Primary Gear Abilities Only: OFF
All matches will be played on the latest version of Splatoon 3. Players are expected to ensure that their Splatoon 3 game version is updated to the most recent version at all times.

Hosting

Both teams must agree on which player from either team to host the match.

If there is a dispute, the team that is displayed as the host on the sendou.ink match page will be the host. The host is responsible for selecting the correct map-modes for the current round as well as inviting all participating members to the lobby.

Punctuality and Subbing

Each team must be "ready to play" (all four players in the lobby) within the first 7 minutes of the start of the round. If a team is not ready by 12 minutes after the start of the round, that team will forfeit that match. Following the conclusion of a game, a team may opt to substitute players for the next game. Teams are allowed 2 minutes to make their substitution.

Disconnects

A disconnect is any situation that leads to any player being removed from a match lobby after the correct map and mode are selected and weapon selection has started. This can be indicated by a "grey-ed" out player icon on the HUD for those in the game. Each team is allowed to replay one game per match due to unintentional disconnects under the following conditions for replay:

The disconnected team has not already used their one game replay for the match.
The player disconnected within the first 2:30 of the game.
Neither team may have a remaining score lower than 50 (i.e. scored more than 50 points).
All still-connected players on the disconnected team must immediately stop playing and force end the match using the combination ZL + ZR + L + R + both sticks for 3 seconds on the controller. Once a team with a disconnected player forcibly ends a game, that will count as a use of their match replay. Teams may elect to use a substitute player to replace the disconnected player. If a substitute player is used, then all players are allowed to change their weapon composition and gear. If a substitute player is not used, then all players must use the same weapon composition and gear as the disconnected game. A host disconnect also counts as a disconnect for their respective team. Any intentional disconnection will not be permitted for a game replay for the current match.

Streaming and Spectator Mode

Spectator mode is strictly reserved for CCA Staff members that are not actively participating as a player and Authorized Streamers. Teams are permitted only one authorized streamer from their university during a live match at any given time to broadcast matches.

Streamers must be affiliated with the same university as the team and must possess a valid university email address.
The streamer must not be part of any team's active roster.
Multiple streamers from the same university may be in the approved pool of streamers, but only one streamer is permitted per team during a live match at any given time.
The opposing team must consent to the match being streamed.
Streamers must follow the same punctuality rules as the participating teams; matches must start by the 7 minute mark from the start of the current round.
Streamers are not allowed to be the host of the match.

Splattercolor Screen

Teams will declare their Splattercolor Screen status during the registration of each Qualifier and must stay consistent throughout the entirety of the Qualifier event. If either team has disallowed the use of Splattercolor Screen for the event, neither team is permitted to use a weapon kit that contains the Splattercolor Screen special weapon.

If a team ends up using a Splattercolor Screen weapon in a disallowed match, the game must be immediately canceled and the game must be reported to CCA Staff / Tournament Organizer with screenshot evidence of the game; the faulting team will forfeit that game.
- If the game is not canceled immediately in a disallowed Screen game, the game result will count as a valid game.