– DRAW
The draw consists of two “baskets”:
– The first basket includes National Teams with “Battle of the Nations” participation experience of 2 and more years;
– The second basket includes National Teams with “Battle of the Nations” participation experience of 0-1 year;
(The exception is the representatives of the UK National Team for triathlon category (2 persons who are in the 1st basket since they sent an application after the deadline))
Groups of the first basket are even;
Groups of the second basket are odd.
The women’s category has only one basket because all the participants are equal.
Fighters / teams will be divided into groups which number is equal to 2 raised to the power.
Such number of groups allows to optimize and simplify the issue of group leaving.
There is a rule at this stage: if a country has two teams, they cannot be in the same group together, one of them moves to other group automatically.

– GROUP STAGE
1 group for the ” 21 vs 21″ battles (6 members)
4 groups for the women’s category “1 vs 1″ (20 participants)
8 groups for the “5 vs 5″ battles (44 participants)
16 groups for the men’s category “1 vs 1″ (55 participants)

– Women’s category “1 vs 1″:
The first and second places of each of the 4 groups move to the first stage of the playoff (8 fighters in total); those having the third places will be given the right to fight for their further participation in the tournament at the additional stage of the playoff. Thus, the group stage will be overcome by 12 fighters. Playoff begins with ¼ stage.

– Men’s category “1 vs 1”:
The first and second places of the 16 groups move further, i.e. 32 fighters in total. Playoff begins with 1/16 stage.

– “5 vs 5″ category:
Teams of 8 groups having the first, second, third and fourth places move further, i.e. 32 teams in total. Playoff begins with 1/16 stage.

– “21 vs 21″ category:
All the battles will be held at the group stage.
Buhurt categories rules are applicable to the “21 vs 21″ category. A battle continues until two victories, but two opposing teams have only one bout a day. In case of the 1-1 score, an additional bout can take place the same day or any of the following days of the Championship.

– PLAYOFF
PAY ATTENTION TO THE INNOVATIONS!
A new format of the playoff stage.
“Battle of the Nations”-2014 will offer to hold the playoff stage of all the categories according to the Olympic system with dropping out after two defeats (double-elimination tournament system). The system is popular in many sports for several reasons.
The main features of the innovations are the following:
– there is twice as many fights, every participant of the playoff will participate at least in 2 fights; – fights take place simultaneously in two grids, the “upper” and “lower” ones;
– maximum objectivity;
You can read about all the details of the system following the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-elimination_tournament

Technical details of the playoff stage at “Battle of the Nations”-2014:
– Pairs for the first stage of the playoff are formed according to the principle of “participant from basket 1 vs participant from basket 2″, groupmates are in different parts of the grid (for example, in “5 vs 5″ the first pair will be «AI vs H-IV», and the last one – «A-IV vs HI»). All the pairs are written in the tournament grids in advance, you can make predictions immediately after the draw. Also, this principle allows groupmates meet only at the semifinals stage.
– The rule saying “if a country has two teams, they cannot be in the same group together, one of them moves to other group automatically” works in the double-elimination tournament system, but slightly in a different way. Such pairs cannot be formed at the first stage of the playoff, since pairs are formed of different baskets. As for the second stage of the playoff, there’s a chance that participants from one country (or just two strong opponents) can meet. Double-elimination tournament system allows to avoid unpleasant situation when the strongest drop out at the early stages due to a chance, and the defeated will have an opportunity to defeat all the opponents from the lower grid and get a return match in the grand final. There’s an extremely low probability that participants from one country will meet each other in the lower grid, but it is possible only at the later stages of the playoff (not before 1/4 of the lower grid for “1 vs 1″ and “5 vs 5″ (men) and not earlier than 1/2 final for “1 vs 1″ (women)).
– The women’s category will have an additional playoff round of the lower grid, where the third places will participate.

There are two more fundamental points in favor of the new playoff system. First, there’s no need to use inner-tournament ratings for pairs formation, fighters can predict the next pair on their own. The second point is about a big intrigue of the final part: semifinal stages for “1 vs 1″ (men) and “5 vs 5″ in both grids have 8 participants, and any of them can win the category.

In general, everything is simple and clear about the grids. Look through the grids, ask questions, join the work of the tournament committee in future!