This weekend an entirely new MCSR event format will be making its debut. Squad Showdown is an event created and hosted by Feinberg where two teams of four will race on the same seed all trying to achieve the fastest time possible. Points will be awarded to individuals based on their times but will count towards a team point total.
“I just think teamwork is really cool,” Feinberg tells us. “I’ve played in the relay tournaments where you would just have one person play each major version, but there wasn’t really that much teamwork. You could watch your teammates play, and give them advice, but you couldn’t directly help their seed in any way.”
Feinberg wanted to find something that would emphasise teamwork over raw individual skill in a way that could really challenge competitors. “I’ve had this idea for a few months of how you could make a team event, because I don’t think there’s been any formats that are really teamwork-heavy,” Feinberg says. “Obviously if Ranked added duos, that would be very teamwork-heavy, but that’s a whole different technical scope that Ranked needs to handle eventually. It’s not an easy thing to do.”
One of the earlier plans for team-based events was to host an “HBG [House Builder Gang] versus the world” event in the team format, or to have the teams be based on geographical region. However, team balancing and size was a limiting factor for both ideas.
Feinberg spent time refining the idea more until he came up with the format of Squad Showdown. “The whole twist is that you can just talk to your team the whole time that you’re playing. You’re not allowed to watch your teammates – we’re not allowing screen-share peeking or whatever, so you do have to rely on communication.” This format opens the door to a lot of potential strategising, since knowing information about the seed even just seconds ahead may alter the runners’ decision-making.
While Feinberg says he doesn’t have a concrete plan for what his team will do yet, he has started thinking about potential strategies and how to make the most of team communication. One idea was to have a scout sacrifice their run to gather info for the rest of the team. “It’s definitely worth it to have one person scout for info pretty heavily; leaving the bastion with nothing, measuring on one rod, maybe entering the nether with no food. Just commit to one person having a 14-15 minute run even if they’re backtracking all the time.”
The way points are allotted also incentivises creative strategies. “Everyone gets points based on how fast they complete, and what placement they get in the lobby. You get more points if you’re first and it scales a little bit aggressively at the top, so it’s better to be first,” Feinberg says. Points are weighted so that pushing for the fastest time is rewarded even if it’s at the expense of another teammate. “If you get top two and bottom two, and the other team got third through sixth, you’d get the most points for getting first. I just don’t know at what point it’s worth making your other teammates slower.”
However, due to the random nature of Minecraft, these strategies may not always be consistent. “If you have a fort that’s buried in the wall and you can’t find the spawner, knowing exactly where the spawner is could save you a good twenty to thirty seconds,” Feinberg explains, “but if it’s a fort that’s just fully open in a soul sand valley, you might not even need a spawner at all if you just get strays.”
Feinberg wanted teams to be people who knew each other well, due to the importance of good communication in this event. “I picked me and three of my friends from House Builder Gang who are pretty good. I know Hax, Mongey and Rowl are obviously good friends, and they’re three people that I would consider top eight in the world in general, outside of HBG, and I think beefsalad would also be a good fit.”
While Feinberg is interested in hosting Squad Showdown again and has high hopes for the event, there is also still a lot of uncertainty in how well the format will work. “It depends a lot on if people like watching the format, because it’s something that’s pretty different. Maybe it falls flat, maybe most seeds just end up being pretty linear and no one’s really saving that much time from the info, but it could be pretty cool if we see a sub-seven on every seed. I think there’s a ton of strategy in this as an idea – there’s so much depth to the way it’s played. I hope it goes well and people really like it.”
Squad Showdown, commentated by Couriway and Rekrap, will be live on Feinberg’s Twitch and YouTube channels on Sunday 1st March at 6pm GMT / 1pm EST. Which team will you be supporting? Let us know in the comments below!
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