timp, Daaanty, & Hurfydurfy, co-hosts of

Go Mode: A Link to the Past Randomizer Podcast

are pleased to announce the return of the

GO MODE PODCAST: MENTOR TOURNAMENT 2022!

Summer 2022 (May – August)

Last Update: May 10, 2022. 

Already familiar with GMP Mentor Tournament rules from last year? Scan for the NEW FOR 2022 entries to see what’s new this year!

What is the Mentor Tournament?

During the summer of 2019, the co-hosts of the Go Mode Podcast (timp, Hurfydurfy, and Axeil at the time) wanted to put on a tournament in which all of their listeners could participate if they chose, whether they were brand new to ALTTPR or seasoned vets. Given that Go Mode is big on promoting improvement and participation within the Rando community, they liked the idea of focusing the tournament on the concept of improvement. Thanks to some brainstorming in our community and a particularly great suggestion from a listener, the Go Mode Podcast Mentor Tournament was born!

The Go Mode Podcast Mentor Tournament (GMPMT for short) has had three very successful seasons, hosting over 170 Racers, dozens of Mentors, and a dedicated crew of volunteers. Now, timp, Daaanty, and Hurfydurfy are ready to bring it back for Season 4 in 2022.

How Do I Get Involved? SIGN UP HERE!

We have an all-purpose Signup Sheet for you to fill out, but here are some general criteria of what we’re looking for in each role.

Racers: New to the game/racing, has room for improvement, open to accepting feedback in real time. For the MT2022, we will cap this number at 64.

Mentors: Has experience with the game & some form of accolade(s) to prove it; able to patiently explain ALTTPR concepts and work with new people over voice chat.

Commentating/Tracking/Restreaming: An interest and a willingness to learn by doing.

Sign-up Cutoff Date for Racers: Wed, May 25, 2022 (Mentors & volunteers may continue to sign up after this date)

First Group Stage Races: Mon, May 30

Tournament Guidelines

How are Racers and Mentors Chosen?

Racers Selection Process Considerations

• Did the Racer submit an application during the initial 2 week period?
• Is the Racer green/inexperienced?
• Will their inclusion help us reach 64 total Racers?

We will be asking for racers to provide self-assessments to determine if they are eligible to participate in the tournament, as well as asking all potential racers to run two seeds asynchronously and submit their times. The seeds and submission form can both be found in the #mt-async-seeds channel of our Discord. These times (kept private until the end of the tournament) will give us a better idea of how to initially seed entrants in the 1st week of the group stage of the tournament. Please submit the results of both seeds before Friday, May 27th.

These async seed results also help us determine a reasonable cutoff for entry. There are no lower limits, meaning a Racer could be brand new to the game and still eligible. However, admins may reserve the right to ask an applicant who is interested in Racing to instead consider mentoring if their skill level seems like it may be too high compared to the rest of the Racers. More on these async seeds below.

Mentor Selection Process Considerations

• Has the Mentor submitted an application at any point?
• Does the Mentor have some justification to demonstrate their ability to mentor a new Racer?
• Do they have some degree of availability?

There will be no cap to the number of Mentors allowed to participate. Additionally, we would encourage folks who may be on the fence about this to go ahead and apply if interested. Even Mentors with “intermediate” knowledge of the game can still make great Mentors, especially for newer Racers!

Async Aptitude Seeds

During the period of sign-ups, participants will be asked to complete two async seeds on their own and report their finish times to the admins (Async, short for asynchronous, means that you will play these seeds on your own time and offline.) These seeds, as well as the submission form, can be found in the #mt-async-seeds channel of the GMP Discord. Once completed, participants will report their In Game Time and collection rate, which can be found on the final ending screen.

Before Group stages begin, we will take both async seed times for each participant into account and use them to help inform preliminary seeding for Week 1. This will ensure that Week 1 races are evenly matched, and also help us to match up racers with appropriately skilled mentors.

Failure to complete one or both of these async seeds before the end of the day on May 27th may result in a Racer’s exclusion from the tournament. If you are concerned that you may not be able to complete these seeds in the time allotted, please reach out to a Mentor Tournament Admin in the GMP Discord.

NEW FOR 2022 Organized Pre-Tournament Training

NEW FOR 2022 Boots Camp Bonkback: Back in 2022 by popular demand! In 2021, we invited five high level ALTTPR players to livestream in-depth interactive clinics on various aspects of competitive Randomizer racing. This year, from May 23-27 starting at 7:00 PM EDT each night, we will be hosting live rebroadcasts of all five of those presentations on the Go Mode Podcast Twitch channel

• Monday, May 23: “Movement and Tricks” by P-Train
• Tuesday, May 24: “Basic Dungeon Routing” by Espeon
• Wednesday, May 25: “Boss Strategy” by Daaanty
• Thursday, May 26: “End Game Strategy: GT, Agahnim & Ganon” by Sailor Nep
• Friday, May 27: “Mock Mentor Seed” by Laoria & SEJay

Drop in and ask a question live, or check out the VODs afterwards!

NEW FOR 2022 Getting Into Go Mode: Also known as “Workbook seeds”, these are pre-rolled training seeds meant to be slow-played with an emphasis on routing. At certain points of progression, notes written by ALTTPR community members will be provided, giving insight into what they were thinking at that very moment in the seed. Use these notes to help inform your decisions and get some extra insight on how to route like a Rando pro!

Participation in Organized Pre-Tournament Activities is 100% optional.

Racer/Mentor Matching Process

Setting Up a Race: Racers will be given an opponent to race once per week for 6 weeks in a Swiss-system of group rounds. Once an opponent has been identified, Racers will be responsible for securing a Mentor for the race. Racers will then consult the 2022 Mentor Availability Schedule to find a mentor with availability that matches their own. Racers do not need to use the same mentor every race; in fact, it can be a good thing to switch up your mentor to get a better perspective week to week.

1. 1. If you have a specific Mentor from the community in mind, feel free to reach out to them directly to confirm them as your Mentor.
   2. If you don’t have a Mentor in mind, you’ll head to the #mt-racer channel of our Discord to find one. We will have a list of all registered Mentors and some info about each of them to peruse, including a Mentor Availability Schedule. We recommend considering both availability and areas of expertise when choosing a Mentor to reach out to.

• NEW FOR 2022 Next to each mentor’s name will be the total number of races they’ve mentored over the last 7 days. Please take this number into consideration when you decide to reach out, and consider mentors with a lower number in this column first. Only reach out to a mentor who has hit their number of preferred races if you have zero other options.

1. Once you know the Mentor you’d like to work with (along with 1-2 backups in mind), ping them in the channel or DM them to ask. PLEASE! Be respectful of Time Zones! Keep pings and DMs between 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM THEIR TIME as a courtesy.

Once both Racers have a Mentor lined up, it’s time for all four parties to coordinate a race time that works for everyone. In the event that 2 Racers and 1 Mentor can make a time work but the 2nd Mentor cannot, that Racer’s Mentor may then choose to reach out to a different Mentor who is available at that time if they wish.

Time Commitment, Racers: One race per week for 6 weeks starting June 6th, then (an average of) 2-3 races a week for up to 4 weeks in brackets.

Time Commitment, Mentors: If and when a Racer reaches out, Mentors will be expected to try to make an effort to attend the race and participate if possible. Racers and Mentors may also work out “practice time” on their own time if desired (though this is not a requirement by any means)

The Format

After Boots Camp and the two asyncs are finished, the tournament proper will be divided into two phases: Group Swiss Rounds and Finals Brackets.

Group Swiss Rounds: Once the final pool of Racers has been locked in, the admins will use the results of the two async seeds to determine initial seeding for Week 1 of the Swiss rounds. Due to the nature of the Swiss-system, matchups in subsequent weeks will be determined by each Racer’s win-loss record so that matchups stay relatively even throughout the 6 weeks.

NEW FOR 2022 After the final race is recorded for Week 1, reshuffling of like records will occur. In past mentor tournaments, your initial seeding would affect your matchups in future weeks. This year, once players with a similar record have been grouped, their opponent will be fully randomized within that group, with initial seeding having no effect on their matchup.

No stream delay will be required for the Swiss rounds.

NEW FOR 2022 Swiss rounds will feature a variety of modes and progress in difficulty.

Bracket Tiebreakers: Because there are only six weeks of Swiss, there will be many racers who have identical win-loss records. To place racers in their proper brackets, we will be using a set of tiebreakers at the end of the Swiss stage.

1. Swiss system points (1 pt per win)
2. Wins vs Tied Participants (of the same point value)
3. Buchholz (strength of schedule, sum of points of all opponents the racer faced)
4. Head to head scores
5. Time difference vs opponents

All races will have a time difference capped at 15 minutes. A forfeit match will have a time difference of 15 minutes.

Brackets: Standings at the end of the Swiss Group Round will seed Racers into brackets. All Racers will make it to a bracket since we plan to host tiered brackets; one for each group of 16 Racers. This means we could have 2, 3, or 4 brackets depending on the final Racer count. But no matter how many brackets are filled, the bracket consisting of the 16 Racers with the best record will be considered the “Main” bracket.

All Bracket races will be unmentored.

A ten minute stream delay will be required for the bracket stage.

All four rounds of playoffs will be a best of 3 series.

NEW FOR 2022 The mode will be chosen from any of the Swiss phases.  Higher seeded player picks the mode for game 1.  Loser of game 1 picks the mode for game 2.  If necessary, loser of game 2 picks the mode for game 3.  The same mode cannot be repeated in a series.

• Playoff R1 – July 18 – July 24
• Playoff R2 – July 25 – July 31
• Playoff R3 – August 1 – August 7
• Finals – August 8 – August 14

Racer & Mentor Pairing Details

Requesting a Mentor by Name: Racers will request specific Mentors by name, but please note that a Mentor’s time is not guaranteed; Mentors will presumably do their best to accommodate specific mentoring requests but if they are unavailable, the Racer will be responsible for reaching out to choose another Mentor.

Requesting a Mentor Generally: If a Racer does not feel comfortable requesting a Mentor by name, they may simply put out a general message in the #mt-racer channel stating that they’re looking for a Mentor to step up. However, at the end of the day, securing a Mentor will be the responsibility of the Racer. Racers will be encouraged to reach out to Admins with any problems or issues during the pairing process.

Voice Chat vs. Text Chat: We will officially recommend that each Racer and Mentor engage in a 2-way voice chat in order to most effectively communicate through a seed. However, Racers are allowed to request any of the following for any reason:

• 2-way voice chat (recommended)
• Mentor on voice, Racer w/ no mic
• Mentor in Discord or Twitch chat

The reason for this rule is to provide Racers with no mic or racers who are anxious about participating in a voice chat an opportunity to still participate in the tournament.

Partial Mentoring: If agreed upon by both the Racer and the Mentor, a Racer may “dismiss” their Mentor before a seed has finished with no penalty. Furthermore, if a Mentor is running late and joins a seed already in progress, that is also allowed, provided that the Mentor has not been “spoiled” on the seed in any way (See cheating definitions below). However, once a Mentor leaves a Racer’s voice or text chat, they may not join again for the rest of the race and are effectively finished in their mentoring duties for that race.

Beginning & Ending Each Race

The 2 racers of each race will ultimately be responsible for setting up & starting each race, as well as reporting the race’s outcome to admins.

DO NOT WORRY if you’re new to racing; not only are there lots of step-by-step guides to help you with these tasks, but Mentors will also be responsible for helping newer Racers work through all of these.

Pre-Race responsibilities include:

• Individual Racer streams (OBS Setup Guide Here)
• Acquisition of a voice chat channel for Racer/Mentor pairs
• Generating the seed (in racetime.gg)
• Setting up a race in racetime.gg (generates the seed, handles the pre-race countdown, and accepts !done’s)

Beginning a race: Open a race room at racetime.gg/alttpr by clicking on the “Start New Race” button. For Swiss (mentored) matches, choose the option “Beat the game (assisted).” For Bracket matches (unmentored), choose “Beat the game.” Generate a seed by typing the appropriate command in the racetime.gg room. Once you load your seed you should double check that your game hash/code matches what is listed in the racetime.gg room. Once racetime.gg recognizes that your Twitch stream is live and you are ready, you can click the Ready button. When both racers are ready, the race countdown will begin.

If the race is being restreamed, your restreamer will gate the racers and will drop from the race room once all racers and crew are ready to start playing/broadcasting.

Ending a race: Once a race is complete, the winning Racer will be responsible for reporting the victory to the admins. This will be done via a designated #mt-race-results channel in the Discord in which the winning and losing times & Mentors will be reported.

TIES: If the runners finish within 2 seconds of each other, a VOD review will be conducted to determine who finished first. A tie will only be declared if both racers finish on the same frame after the retime/review.

Restreaming/Watching Races

The Default: Given that this is a relatively small community tournament run solely by volunteers, restreaming every race is not feasible. However, racetime.gg makes watching a multistream easier than ever with the click of one button. Viewers of these multistreams should feel free to react to the race along with other community members in our #live-races Discord channel.

When Restreams are Possible: In the event that a restream is possible, admins will coordinate with all of the necessary volunteers ahead of time to ensure that an acceptable quality stream can be produced. The Racers will be notified and consent will be gained to broadcast the race. These races will take place on the Go Mode Podcast Twitch Channel.

Winners

The Winning Racer: will receive an opportunity to be interviewed by timp, Daaanty, and/or Hurfydurfy on an episode of Go Mode Podcast, and will receive much praise by all of us and the community at large.

Mentors: The admin team will choose 1 or 2 “VIP Mentors” to invite onto the show to share their experiences. Criteria for this is fluid, but factors considered may include number of races mentored, number of matches “won” as a Mentor, repeated willingness to help out in a time of need, etc.

Cheating

Cheating will result in immediate expulsion from the tournament. Do everything in your power to avoid accusations of cheating. We do not tolerate public accusations of cheating. If you have a concern, please DM one of the admins with your concern. The admins reserve the right to forward any cheating concerns to the Racing Council for evaluation. The following will be defined as Cheating:

Stream Sniping – Watching your opponent’s stream while you play. This includes mentor partners.

Co-op Play – Having someone else play the seed at the same time as you and relay information to you about item locations, routing, etc.

Listening in – Either the racer or mentor listening to/reading the communication between the other racer/mentor team

Intentional Use of Major Glitches – Exploration Glitch, Door Glitches, Wrong Warps, Out-of-Bounds, Fake Flute, YBA, etc. In the event of accidental activation of a major glitch, the racer is to immediately save and quit, or if not possible trigger a console/emulator reset, and the mentor needs to notify a tournament admin about the accidental glitch activation. A list of allowed glitches can be found at ALTTPR Racing Ruleset and referring to the “Competitive” ruleset.

Asymmetric Knowledge Exploitation (the “Insider Coaching Rule”) – Due to mentors being privy to information about ALL participating racers, using knowledge of another racer’s Rando knowledge (or lack thereof) to gain an unfair advantage for your own racer will not be allowed. If a mentor uses information in an opponent’s bio to guide their own racer in a way that provides them an advantage, that mentor will be disqualified.

Emulator-specific Features – Use of Save States, Fast Forward/Rewind, turbo buttons, layer transparency, etc.

Anything else that creates an unfair advantage or otherwise violates the spirit of the tournament as determined by the tournament admins. Remember, this is a Mentor/Learning Tournament. By cheating, you are not only cheating others out of a fun and competitive experience, but you are cheating yourself out of growing and becoming better at this game.

We Can’t Wait to Get Started!

Please feel free to email us at email@gomodepodcast.com, tweet at us @GoModePodcast, or ping us on the Go Mode Podcast Discord with any questions or concerns.

Thanks and we’ll see you in Go Mode!