Brackets will be closed before Game 1 of the World Cup on June 11th, 10 a.m. EST, when host country South Africa squares off against Mexico.

If you’re not familiar with how the World Cup works, here’s a crash-course:

There are 8 groups (A – H) of 4 teams each and each team plays the teams in their group one time. The two teams with the best records in each group, 16 teams total, advance to the next round of the playoffs. This next round is known as the “knock-out” round which is a single elimination tournament. At the end of the tournament, the last two remaining teams fight it out to win the World Cup.

Group A
France
Mexico
South Africa
Uruguay

Group B
Argentina
Greece
Nigeria
South Korea

Group C
Algeria
England
Slovenia
United States

Group D
Australia
Germany
Ghana
Serbia

Group E
Cameroon
Denmark
Japan
Netherlands

Group F
Italy
New Zealand
Paraguay
Slovakia

Group G
Brazil
Ivory Coast
North Korea
Portugal

Group H
Chile
Honduras
Spain
Switzerland

**Because Microsoft points purchased in the US only work for people living in the US, the prize is only available to people residing within the U.S.

*** In the event of a tie in Total Points, the tie-breaker will be Correct Picks.

When? Friday, September 18th (That’s tonight, folks!)

Where? A sign-up thread will be opened in the tournament’s own forum at 6:30 PST/8:30 CST/9:30 EST. Sign-ups will close after 30 minutes or when we reach 32 teams, whichever comes first.

Who? Rosters may contain up to 6 players and can change at any time up until the first game. Players may be added afterwards if given permission by an available GrifballHub Staff member, preferably the one running the event (Dragon of Exile).

What?A single elimination tournament of Aerial Grifball (Gametype) on Grifball High (Map). MYTHIC MAP PACK REQUIRED!

Anyone found to be breaking the Number 1 Rule of Grifball (Don’t be a douche) will be banned from this event.

Teams situated on top of the pairing are preferred to be the ones to invite the other team. Any team not using the proper Gametype or Map will be disqualified.

Games are to be played no later than 15 minutes after the next opponent is decided. Any team delaying this will be disqualified. All results should be posted in the following format in the thread that will be opened after the bracket is up:

Team Stitchpunks over Team Machine 9-0 (Bungie.net link)

Teams should sign-up in the following format:

Team Name: Team Stitchpunks
Team Captain: 9
Player: 8
Player: 7
Player: 6
Alternate: 5
Alternate: 4

Any other questions, feel free to ask. Hope everyone has fun!

When? Monday, September 7th

Where? A sign-up thread will be opened within the tournaments forum page on Rooster Teeth at 4:00 PST/6:00 CST/7:00 EST. Sign-ups will close after 30 minutes or when we reach 32 teams, whichever comes first.

Who? Rosters may contain up to 6 players, and can change at any time up until the first game. Players may be added afterwards if given permission by an available Hub Staff member, preferably the one running the event.

What? A single elimination tournament of Grifball (Gametype) on SML09 Foundry (Map).

Anyone found to be breaking the Number 1 Rule of Grifball (Don’t be a douche) will be banned from this event.

Teams situated on top of the pairing are preferred to be the ones to invite the other team. Any team not using the proper Gametype or Map will be disqualified.

Games are to be played no later than 15 minutes after the next opponent is decided. Any team delaying this will be disqualified.

All results should be posted in the following format in the thread that will be opened after the bracket is up:

Team PAX over Team RvBTO 6-3 (B.net link)

Teams should sign-up in the following format:

Team Name: Team PAX
Team Captain: Moocow
Player: Highland
Player: Menz
Player: Goose
Alternate: Leo
Alternate: Some other bk

Any other questions, feel free to ask. Hope everyone has fun!

To explain it simply, it’s basically nades and spades with flags. Many grifballers have really taken to the game and enjoy playing it as an occasional break from grifball pick-up games.

This Saturday at 8pm Central Standard Time, Penguin plans to host his second Ocho tournament. If you’re interested in participating, you need to let Penguin know via comment on his Rooster Teeth journal.

Also Penguin has presented a challenge to those who feel the game of Ocho could use more than one map. The following is quoted from him.

While there certainly is no official Ocho organization, as the creator of the original map an co-creator of the gametype I consider myself to be pretty much the Ocho ‘guy’. Anyway, average Joe’s gym is a great map, in my opinion. It lends itself spectacularly to the Ocho gametype and I personally don’t find anything wrong with it. That being, variety is, as they say, the spice of life, so to all the forgers out there – I’m going to present an opportunity to come up with your own Ocho map – possibly to be used in Ocho tournaments. The recommended features of an Ocho map would read something like this :

• Foundry or Sandbox only.
• Relatively small – certainly no bigger than you can fit inside of the ‘main’ foundry area.
• Clear line of sight from Red base to Blue base – with shield door separating each base from the main playing field.
• ‘Safe spawn’ boxes with shield doors – containing starting points and respawn points.
• LOTS of respawn points in and around each base. All respawn points need to be very close to each base, none in the middle.
• At least one plasma and one spike grenade near each respawn point.
• Minimal equipment placed equidistant from Red and Blue base (bubble shield/deployable cover). No power-ups.
• Several ‘good’ routes to and from each base without making the map complicated. Probably want to keep the map mostly on one level.
• Intelligently placed cover.
• Map cleanly forged and unbreakable (or very close to).

There is no deadline for submission. Message me if you’d like me to look at your map or for any help and/or suggestions.

It hasn’t been decided yet whether or not neutral host will be attempted but it will be a best of three series and may very likely be streamed live. If and when I find out the details of the live stream, I’ll make an update to this post with the information. The rosters for the two teams are as follows:

Hammer Conference

• Doc Status (Qu09)
• Twizzted Status (Qu09)
• x Zeg x (Separate Intelligence)
• I CITI I (Separate Intelligence)

Sword Conference

• tHuMeEe (LINT)
• x0 pie x0 (Strictly Business)
• A Baby Tortoise (Bleep Bloop)
• Shadow S16 (Strictly Business)

tHuMeEe is currently red-ringed so he’ll most likely be replaced by the next highest vote getter. That person would be Cofrog from Bleep Bloop. I will most likely ask my teammates (Cofrog and Tortoise) to save the game films so that I may present at least one of the All-Star games here on the Hub.

Pro League All-Star Bum Rush
Before the All-Star games kick off tonight there will be a bum rush tournament, hosted by Mikinater. Sign-ups will begin at 6:00 EST and play will officially get under way at 6:15. The tournament will be open to the first 16 teams with a maximum of 6 players each – four starters and two alternates.

EDIT: The game will be streamed live here on Justin.tv.

There’s plenty in store for the off season. Most importantly tournaments and the always popular and anticipated double XP matchmaking which will lead us right into the Summer season.

American Grifball Cup
The rosters have been finalized (for the most part) and brackets released. Game play for round one officially starts tomorrow, June 1st. Each round is a best of three series. Some teams have already begun playing.

GrifballHub Tournaments
With the success of our recent 2v2 tournament, I’m considering the possibility of having a Hub hosted 4v4 tourney sometime soon. Perhaps within the next few weeks or so. I can’t guarantee prizes for the winning team, but when has the lack of prizes ever stopped grifballers from playing the game they love?

Matchmaking Grifball
The time of the month which we all love so much is nearly here again. That’s right, grifball double XP. It seems Bungie has decided to put grifball back on track as the first double XP playlist of the month, as it will be returning this coming week beginning on June 4th at 2pm EST. That of course will mean yet another episode of Pup and Friends.

Over on Bungie.net in their Optimatch Playlist forum, Nokyard has begun discussion on the possible (most likely eventual) inclusion of his many Sandbox map variants into the double XP playlist. The map which probably has the highest possibly of being including first is the Grif Cave, which as some may remember, I had the opportunity to play on recently with Shishka. He seemed quite impressed with the map and he’s the guy who pushes all the buttons at Bungie when it comes to playlists and ultimately decides which maps to include.

Grifball Committee Heads Chosen
Voting has concluded and the grifball committee heads for the upcoming Summer season have been announced. They are as follows:

• Head of Pro Rules – Shadow S16
• Head of Amateur Rules – Kalbelgarion
• Head of Team Stats< – GoldSteel87
• Head of Individual Stats – x Zeg x
• Head of Events – imShad

Each of these folks will be searching soon, if not already, for people to serve under them as part of their committee. If you have an interest in helping out and being a part of any of the listed committees, you should considering getting in touch with the proper committee head.

By the way if you’re curious as to when the Summer season will officially begin. so far the word I’ve heard is potentially mid July. That gives you plenty of time to scrimmage with your team, find a new team or put together a brand new one.

That’s all the news I have for now. If you have any grifball related news you’d like us to post here on the Hub, please don’t hesitate to drop a line and let us know about it.

SYaL featured Scet Shin and x0 pie x0 of the Pro league team Strictly Business. Their opponents in the championship game were Yougnastyman and Blade from +1 Beer (also of the Pro league), playing as Beers and Blunts. You can check out a full capture of the game below.

Thanks to everyone who participated last night and helped make the tournament a success. We hope to do this again soon!

The tournament is open to everyone, Amateur and Pro players alike and will be single elimination. Lose once and you’re out. There will be a limit of 32 teams. The winning duo will each receive 1600 Microsoft Points. Winners will be either e-mailed a points code or have it sent to them via private message on Rooster Teeth. Their choice. Yes, we’ve already purchased the codes, so there will no waiting forever to receive your prizes. A sign-up thread will be posted on the Rooster Teeth forums the day of the tournament, so if you’d like to play but aren’t currently a member of Rooster Teeth, you’ve got time to become so.

We expect everyone who participates to enjoy themselves and not cause problems for others. If we receive word of anyone being particularly douchebaggy, they will be disqualified from the tournament along with their teammate. We know grifball is serious business, but try to be respectful of your opponents. It’s not that difficult.

You’ll need the following map, created by Nokyard. It’s a half-sized grifball court, suitable for grifball play. If you don’t already have them, you should also grab the grifball and network test gametypes. A network test is really not necessary, considering you can’t sub someone in if you or your teammate aren’t connecting particularly well to the host, but it can be run if you feel like it. If the connection is a little laggy, you’ll just have to find a way to overcome it.

As stated previously, sign-ups will be this Friday. If you don’t already, watch the GrifballHUB topic on Rooster Teeth for announcements regarding sign-ups and brackets. The brackets will be hosted here on the Hub.

We like to think we’ve accomplished our goal and now are officially ready to kick off the site tonight (March 21st), in our Grand Re-Opening Bum Rush. The tourney will commence at 8pm EST with team sign-ups. Games will likely begin around 8:30pm.

Our goal is a 32 team tournament. It will be single elimination. Tournament brackets will be maintained by Mikinater, the new head of events for the upcoming Spring league. Once it’s closer to sign-up time, we’ll create a thread on the Rooster Teeth forums where teams can sign up and report their matches.

There’s a good chance we may also put together a highlight reel from tonight’s rush, so if you participate in the tournament and pull off a great play that you think is highlight worthy, please save a film clip and send it to puptastrophe on XBOX Live. When creating your film clips, please include about 15-20 seconds before the highlighted play to allow for easier editing. If the highlighted player in the clip is not yourself, please make note of who it is.

To make a long story short, we’d like to offer those in the community an alternative place to run your bum rush tournaments. Head over to our forums, register yourself and feel free to use them to host your next bum rush. We’ve created a place there for you to do so. All you need to do is create a new topic for your rush. If you’re a little confused, feel free to contact us and we’ll help you get started.

GrifballHUB Seeking Help
If you are currently active in any of the non U.S. grifball leagues and would like to help in creating/writing content to be featured here on GrifballHUB, please contact us and let us know you’d be interested in helping out.