Qualification rules for the Ark Nova world championship

[zlorfik]

Dear Ark Nova players,

in the upcoming Arena Season number 27, 2 players will qualify for a fully paid trip to Berlin, Germany, to take part in the first Ark Nova World Championship!
https://www.feuerland-spiele.de/en/ark- ... mpionship/
The event will take place during the Berlin Brettspiel Con 2027, the largest boardgame festival in Germany.
This post details the rules on how to qualify for this event.

What is the world championship: A 2-day event happening on July 9th and 10th in Berlin, Germany. 4 qualified players will play multiple games against each other to crown the champion.

What is there to win: Feuerland Spiele will pay for your flight to and from, and hotel stay (July 8th till July 11th) in Berlin to take part in the world championship. Players will play for prize money, more details on this will follow.

How to qualify via Boardgamearena: At the end of Arena Season 27, we will contact the top finishing players from both the eastern and western hemisphere according to your BGA setting via direct message on BGA.
We will ask you for 2 things: Your nationality and if you are willing to make the trip to Berlin in July 2027. We need you to answer that message within 3 days!
If needed, we will continue contacting the next highest finishing players in the same way until we have 1 player each from the eastern and western hemisphere (that is not qualified via the WSBG or the app) willing to make the trip.
Western Hemisphere: The Americas, Africa, Europe (EU plus Andorra, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Vatican City)
Eastern Hemisphere: Rest of the world
If you are willing to make the trip, you have 3 weeks from the moment we first contacted you to send us a scan of your passport or similar document that will confirm your nationality and enable us to book a flight for you and to state that you are committed to making the trip.
Again, we will contact the next highest finishing players as detailed above as replacements if we do not get the necessary response from you within 3 weeks!

We wish you all the best of luck.

[Monkeyunit]

I assume a players actual location has to match the correct hemisphere they represent here on BGA?

I know some players like to joke around with their country setting



ps. I love the inclusion of Vatican City in the list

[zlorfik]

I assume a players actual location has to match the correct hemisphere they represent here on BGA?

I know some players like to joke around with their country setting

Edit: As written above, the nationality is what matters. We will use the country setting as indication, but its not binding in any way.

[wailau]

It's very often one's location doesn't match their nationality. Why do you care about nationality if you said location matters only

[vinny_boy]

Well, I'm assuming the only way they can tell where players are from is the flag shown on the rankings. I agree the nationality/passport part made it confusing, but unless they're actually looking for someone with an Eastern citizenship even if they fly from the West (or the other way around), I think location is what matters here. If your flag doesn't match where you live, they'd have to contact each player to check, and that gets complicated fast.

For example, say you finish 1st in the Eastern Hemisphere with a Hong Kong flag, but you actually live in the US. If you tell them that when they contact you, and a Western Hemisphere player ranked above you, you'd lose your spot.

So I think your BGA flag should match the country you'd be traveling from. That would make things much simpler, right?

[yazavats]

Not that I'm a contender, but for the sake of clearing things up to those who are, since I can see some confusion in the comments, the criteria for determining which hemisphere someone represents is proof of nationality (not ethnicity), rather than place of residence? E.g. if someone is a Chinese national living in America, what matters is the former over the latter? To that end, people not misrepresenting their nationality on BGA would expedite verification by not misleading you.

EDIT: Going over the comments again, you've made it ambiguous whether you're checking for nationality or place of residence. You probably ought to clear that up.

[Silene]

For example, say you finish 1st in the Eastern Hemisphere with a Hong Kong flag, but you actually live in the US. If you tell them that when they contact you, and a Western Hemisphere player ranked above you, you'd lose your spot.

It might get even more interesting if you placed before the other player and they have already asked the other one too. Do you lose the spot although you placed ahead of them? Or do they cancel the other one although they already made the offer?

[zlorfik]

EDIT: Going over the comments again, you've made it ambiguous whether you're checking for nationality or place of residence. You probably ought to clear that up.

You are correct and I have cleared up my initial post and the 1 response I gave so far. Thank you.
We ask for an official document that will enable us to book a flight for you. Since the place of residence is not included into that everywhere, nationality is what we will go with. We accept that there might be fringe cases.

I have also added more details regarding the other ways of qualification. Not only will the WSBG winner (which we already have) be skipped on BGA, but also the person that wins the qualification tournament in the app (which should happen around the same time as the end of the Arena season, no matter if if happens before or after the end of the season).

[Silene]

Since the place of residence is not included into that everywhere, nationality is what we will go with. We accept that there might be fringe cases.

So the Chinese living in the US would qualify for the EASTERN hemisphere slot, although they show US in their profile (because bga settings state it to be where they live, and don't ask for nationality). Is that correct? so the flag in the settings doesn't matter and you would just ask them which hemisphere their nationality is?

[itsmarinou]

Aside from the flags/nationality issue, which can be a bit confusing, I want to express my appreciation for this post. We still don’t have that much detailed information from the organizers or through the app event details, so this provides some really useful and quality information about the nature of the championship.

Now we’re just waiting for Season 27 to start. Is there a specific date we should mark on our calendars, and do we know the total duration of the season?