PLAYER ELIGIBILITY
– All participants must be over 13 years of age.
– Players must be using a legally purchased, original version of the game.
– Players must be on the latest version of the game, unless directed otherwise by league staff.
– Players must have their in-game name registered in their user profile on the VREL website if it differs from their Discord username, one account per person.
– Failure to meet basic eligibility rules but still participating in bad faith will result in severe penalties, up to and including a permanent ban from the league.
– Developers/Game studio employees are not permitted to compete within a game created by the game studio they work for.

TEAM RULES
– Teams are not allowed to spam invite, be considerate as it will ping the invited user in Discord.
– Casting/Spectating of any official VREL match is only allowed through the VREL authorized casters.
– A team may include the name of 1 sponsor, but the sponsor must be an addition to the name and not the full team name.
– Any given sponsor is only allowed to be in 1 team name per game.
– Sponsor names are only allowed to the extent that they are not synonymous with a product.
– Team names are not allowed to be a deliberate attempt at copying someone else, be it another team, company, sponsor etc.
– Player and Team Name, Logo, and Avatars – We reserve the right to require a player or team name change. They should be appropriate and within the spirit of the league.
– Players will be subject to a two week cool-down upon leaving a team prior to being able to join another team within that same game.
– Scheduling:
– Teams are now required to have matches scheduled by Midnight UTC on Friday of the round to be played.
– Teams must show availability on 2 days of the week (reasonable to the time zone of another team) to be considered as discussing in “good faith” to schedule a match. This is a minimum standard and DOES NOT eliminate the possibility of your team being forfeited upon staff determination if a compromise still can not be reached.
– Matches can be played below the player limit if necessary (4v4, 3v3 or 5v4 etc) and both teams agree to it!
League staff is here to assist with any concerns or questions but it is not the leagues responsibility to schedule match ups for teams. Once again, No team is expected to have to play midnight or later in their time zone unless they choose to. Teams found to consistently create unreasonable scheduling issues among others will be warned and further penalties possibly enforced if issues persist.
– Prizes are limited to 1 prize per competitor per household from the team that earned the prizes.

Challenge Matches
– Teams can issue up to 3 challenges.
– Teams can play up to 2 challenge matches and they can be issued to teams within +/- 200 mmr.
– Teams can issue up to 3 challenges but can only accept 2 challenges per week, challenges can only be issued to teams within +/- 200 mmr
– Teams can receive any amount of challenges but can only accept 2, as well as teams can issue 3 challenges themselves but only 2 of them can be accepted, this applies to incoming and outgoing challenges as well, all challenges, after a total of 2 challenges have been accepted, are automatically declined.

UNSPORTSMANLIKE BEHAVIOR
League staff may issue timeouts, warnings, and eventually bans for infractions including, but not limited to:
– Excessive use of foul or degrading language,
– Bullying,
– Discussion of controversial religious/political topics,
– Threats/implied violence,
– T-Bagging and other physically demeaning actions,
– Lack of punctuality,
– Failure to follow tournament staff instructions.
– Verbal and/or written abuse of a League staff will not be tolerated through any medium. This includes, but is not limited to, voice communications.
– Failing to comply with any reasonable directions and/or requests from league staff may result in the forfeit of round(s), a map, or the entire match.
– Depending on the severity of the action or conduct by a player, multiple warnings may be handed out for a single infraction.

Staff Review of Possible Exploitation
Any report of an exploit use which does not have clear and convincing proof as determined by staff, but is sufficient enough to suspect possible foul play, will be treated as unsportsmanlike conduct. To be as fair to both parties as possible, an initial warning carrying no penalty (in itself) will be issued to the offender detailing what they should actively refrain from doing, even if incidental. Repeat incidents sufficient enough to invoke this again, even if incidental, will be treated as exploiting and punished accordingly. We believe this will help cases where there are large gray areas in interpretation of actions and intent, such as stacking play space movement and controller locomotion when prohibited. When possible, we will attempt to make known any exploits that fall in such gray areas. Clear cases of cheating or exploiting will always result in immediate and severe penalties.

Rules Governing Adjustable Settings
Unless otherwise specified, any in-game setting which is provided by the game developer in the base game, is freely adjustable by all players, and for which adjustment does not intentionally cause unintended behavior of game mechanics (is not exploitable) may be set at player discretion. This includes such things as selectable player height, brightness settings, player skins/models, and other options. All game settings are subject to specific restrictions per event rules and any setting which may confer a fundamentally unfair advantage that cannot be replicated by others shall be restricted. A lack of a specific rule barring an obvious exploit involving settings does not exempt it from general consideration of exploits, for example, changing height during a game to gain a competitive advantage.

Inheritance of Bans and Sanctions from Other Entities
In cases where a player has an existing ban or suspension from any other entity for a game in which they wish to compete with VREL, they may be subject to in-kind restrictions at staff discretion. Generally, if evidence is available to staff of cheating or exploiting by a player in another competitive environment for the same title, it will be treated as if it had occurred in VREL for the purpose of incoming restrictions. Penalties assessed where evidence is not publicly available will not generally result in bans or suspensions but will make the player subject to elevated levels of scrutiny, such as recording mandates or elevated punishments. Players with bans or suspensions from other entities in titles for which a player is not competing in with VREL may be subject to similar increased scrutiny if staff deems the penalties relevant. All incoming players with prior conduct issue will be treated on a case-by-case basis. Failure to disclose same-game penalties from other platforms will result in, at minimum, unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. Teams will not be subject to penalties from rostering externally sanctioned players unless they are complicit in aforementioned non-disclosure of relevant information.

Violations reporting

• Teams have 72hrs from match time to lodge a complaint. When asked by staff to provide match video, teams will have 72hrs from time of request to comply.
• Violations must be reported via the report form on the website or a ticket on the discord server.
• The following information must be included:
• Who was violating a rule
• Which rules were violated
• When the incident occurred
• Evidence of the incident via recordings or screenshots (or links thereto)
• Witnesses who can attest to the incident, if applicable

  Violations of rules will typically be subject to the following penalties:
  1st offense: week suspension
  2nd offense: 3 months suspension
  3rd offense: League ban