Organizer Guide - Swiss Unity League Season 2024
In this guide, we explain everything you need to know, to register your events for the SUL. If you wish to understand how League Points are awarded to players, and to see more information about the end-of-year Championship tournament, please also read the Player Guide.
Abstract
The Swiss Unity League (SUL) is a collaborative tournament series between various Magic: the Gathering event organizers in Switzerland. Only the best players will qualify for the end-of-year 2-day Championship tournament with 2.5k prizes.
Any organizer can register their tournament for the league to make it award League Points. Players need to collect these points in order to qualify for the Championship.
Eligible Tournaments
The 2024 season runs from 01.11.2023 until 31.10.2024 and qualifies for the Invitational tournament in November 2024. During that time, you can register all of your Magic: the Gathering events for the league to make them award SUL Points to the participants.
Eligible are all Magic: the Gathering tournaments that are:
- Held in or around Switzerland
- Held in real life
- Held in a single-player format
Digital and multiplayer events can still be advertised on our website, but they cannot award SUL Points.
Tournament Types
There are 3 types of tournaments (SUL Regular, Regional, and Premier). To each of your tournaments, you can assign one of these types, which defines how many points your event will award.
To finance the prize pool of the invitational, organizers pay a fee to run SUL Premier and SUL Regional tournaments. The higher the fee that you pay, the more points your event will award to players. SUL Regular tournaments are free to organize.
SUL Regular
All your normal events (weekly, FNM, Prerelease) will be SUL Regular events. These events don't have a fee and allow you to award extra prizes in the form of SUL Points to your players for free. Therefore, if your budget is limited, it is still possible to participate in the league by running all of your events as SUL Regular and not paying any fees.
SUL Regional
If you wish to make your local events more attractive for people in your canton, you can turn them into SUL Regional events.
Each month, you can organize the following SUL Regional events:
- For each format, you can run 1 SUL Regional event. (e.g., 1 Modern, 1 Legacy, 1 Pioneer, etc.)
- For each weekly recurring event, 1 event of this series can be SUL Regional.
Example: If you have a weekly modern event on Wednesday and a weekly legacy event on Friday, you can have among these events 1 Legacy and 1 Modern event be SUL Regional per month. Additionally, you could organize a Modern event on a Saturday and a Legacy event on a Sunday, both with top 8.
Running an SUL Regional event comes with a fee of CHF 1 per participant. Playoffs (top 8 or top 4) are optional for regional events. If your Regional event has playoffs then a further fee of CHF 20 needs to be paid.
SUL Premier
SUL Premier events are the most competitive events of the year. Since there is a very limited amount of SUL Premier events, people travel all around Switzerland to attend them.
Every organizer gets the chance to organize 1 SUL Premier event per year. If you have already organized Premier events in the previous season, you can run 2 Premier events instead.
Running an SUL Premier event comes with a fee of CHF 100 plus and additional CHF 2 per participant. Premier events require at least 24 participants and a top 8 must be played.
You may use these logos to label your events on your flyers or website
Tournament Type Overview
| Tournament Type | Limitation per organizer | Fee per Participant (in CHF) | Playoff Fee (in CHF) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | Unlimited | free | - |
| Regional | For each format 1 per month (+1 for each weekly event) | 1.- | 20.- |
| Premier | 1-2 per year | 2.- | 100.- |
Organizational Overhead
We try to make participation in the league as easy as possible by automating many workflows on the website. Here are the remaining tasks required from the tournament organizer's side:
- Enter your event details into the calendar on the SUL website. This will also link back to your own website, providing you with advertising.
- At the end of each event, the results must be imported on the SUL website. This can be done via a direct link or PDF from the following tournament apps: Eventlink, Aetherhub, Challonge, Melee, MTGEvent. Alternatively, you can manually upload the results or use an Excel or CSV file.
- The fees will be calculated automatically, and you will receive an invoice every 3 months.
Example: Ajani wants to turn his Saturday Modern event with top 8 into an SUL Regional Event. He creates the event on the website, which is then advertised on the SUL calendar. Ajani's event runs well and attracts 22 players. During the event, he manages the pairings and results as usual with the Eventlink app. Once the event is over, Ajani downloads the results from Eventlink and uploads them on the SUL website, which immediately updates the ranking. Some time later, Ajani receives an invoice from the League for 22x1 + 20 = 42 CHF, which goes into the prize pool for the Invitational.
Benefits for Organizers
- Advertising for your events through the Swiss Unity League event calendar.
- Players are motivated to participate in your events more regularly.
- Players from other regions are motivated to travel to your events.
- Additional prizes at your weekly events in the form of SUL Points, at no cost to you.
- Players can redeem their prizes from the SUL Invitational at your store.
SUL Rules
Tournaments participating in the Swiss Unity League must be “Magic: the Gathering” events in a single-player format and held in real life. Digital SUL events on MTG Arena, MTG Online, or similar platforms are not allowed.
Magic Tournament Rules
SUL events must follow the official Magic Tournament Rules (MTR). The following exceptions and additional rules apply:
- For SUL Regular events, the number of Swiss rounds can be determined by the TO individually.
- For SUL Regional events without playoffs, the TO can decide the number of Swiss rounds, up to a maximum of 5.
- For events with playoffs (SUL Regional or Premier), the number of Swiss rounds and type of playoffs (top 4/8) must comply with “Appendix E—Recommended Number of Rounds in Swiss Tournaments” of the MTR.
Tournament Requirements
SUL Regional Events
- For each format you can run 1 SUL Regional event (all types of Limited count as the same format).
- For each weekly recurring event, 1 event of this series can be SUL Regional.
- If you wish to run more than 3 Regional events in a given month, please contact us for approval.
SUL Premier Events
- You can run only 1 SUL Premier event per year. If you have organized Premier events in the previous season, you can run 2 instead.
- A minimum of 24 players is required for Premier events. If fewer than 24 players show up, your event will be downgraded to an SUL Regional event.
- Online preregistration is required.
- SUL Premier events must be held on a Saturday or Sunday.
- Allowed formats include Limited, Modern, Legacy, and Pioneer.
- Competitive REL is mandatory.
- At least 1 judge is required for each Premier event.
Deadlines
- In the last month of the Season (October), SUL Regional events must be announced in the SUL calendar at least 2 weeks in advance.
- Premier events must be announced in the SUL calendar at least 1 month in advance.
- Approval is required for SUL Premier events. Please contact us at least 5 weeks before the date of the event.
- Results must be uploaded within 1 month after an event is finished.
- At the end of the season, you have only 7 days to upload any remaining results.
Deviation from League Rules
If you wish to deviate from the league rules for a particular tournament, please contact us in advance.
Examples of such deviations:
- Running more SUL Premier or Regional events than allowed.
- Increasing the number of Swiss rounds at your SUL Regional event.
Labeling Your Events
To ensure that SUL events are easily recognizable to players, it's important to label them consistently. Therefore, include the following details for each event in the calendar on your own website:
- Mention that the event is part of the Swiss Unity League and awards SUL Points.
- Specify the type of the event (SUL Regular/Regional/Premier).
- Provide a link to unityleague.ch for more information.
Additionally, you may use these logos to label your events on your flyers or website
Redeem Invitational Prizes
The prizes of the SUL Invitational 2024 will be paid out in store credits of eligible organizers of SUL. Among all the TOs that offer their store credit (or other prizes), the players can choose freely where they want to redeem them.
To be eligible, a TO needs to pay at least CHF 400 in SUL fees for the Season 2024 (01.11.23-31.10.24).
Finances, Liability, and Sponsoring
The Swiss Unity League is financed through sponsorships and fees from organizers of SUL Regional and Premier events. The main organizer, the Leonin League association, assumes all financial liability for SUL. If you wish to sponsor the SUL, please contact us.
Swiss Unity League API
The Swiss Unity League offers an Application Programming Interface (API) which allows you to write plugins for the SUL website.
Some possible plugin ideas:
- Automatically create events on SUL when you add them to your shop's website.
- Or the other way around: display events on your shop based on what you created on the SUL.
- Import results from your custom tournament software.
- Use SUL data to calculate the standings of your in-store pauper league.
We provide some example code for the API as well as a playground to test your code without showing it on the SUL website. If you are interested in using it and need help, please let us know!