NGA - National Grifball Association

[Sundown]

Happy birthday shadow! I'll join after Frenetic Fridays tonight if you still have room

[shadowxtc]

Come join us at the National Grifball Association at Grifball.net for another BOMB - this Sunday, January 27th at 5pm ET. This time we'll be having players sign up individually, and players will be assigned to teams based off their geographic location (regionals)! We'll be playing on one of the maps which will be coming to Halo 4 Matchmaking with the playlist update that should be coming out Monday, and with a variant of the Grifball Pro gametype also being debuted in that playlist but modified to have five untimed rounds. Hope to see you all there!

Team Registration
Discuss in the NGA Forums

[shadowxtc]

Join us at the National Grifball Association at Grifball.net this Thursday, February 7th at 8PM Eastern for our next BOMB, the WE WANT YOU! Draft. The event will feature single player registration, and teams will be chosen in a live draft in the NGA chatbox commencing at 8PM. We expect the draft to take about thirty minutes. If you are interested in being a captain, you must indicate this in your registration, and be ready in the NGA chatbox by 7:45.

After the draft, players will be invited by their captain, and gameplay will begin immediately. Each team will have a roster of 5 players, and captains will be expected to rotate their players if all of them are ready to play. If a team is eliminated from the tournament before all players on a team get play, the players with no games will be returned to the pool of available players in the case of teams dropping to less than three players. To prevent team stacking, we may assign a replacement player before you may choose your own.

With eight or more teams participating, the bracket will be single elimination, with a three game series for the final match with neutral host encouraged. Depending on the availability of streaming admins, we may ask that the final series be streamed.

The winning team in each matchup must submit their game link through the regular Game Submission form. We'd love to have a large turnout, so gather your friends, teammates, and make sure to spread the word in matchmaking as well. This is a great chance to get rookies involved, meet new people, and most importantly, play some great games.

As always, player page awards will be given out to all participants at Grifball.net and Halo Unity, and in the event enough players register to make nine or more teams, there will be a chance to win Microsoft Points:

• Each person who plays in at least one game will get one entry.
• For each match that a team wins, all active players on that team will receive one additional entry.
• Every active player on the final two teams will receive one additional entry.
• Every active player on the championship team will receive two additional entries.
• At the end of the event, players who were unable to play because their team lost in the first round and were not assigned to a different team will also receive an entry, but only if we have proof that they were ready to play. (The best proof would be in the form of a private message on XBox Live or a post to the event's forum thread - this should be done as soon as your team begins to play its first match.)

After all the games have been played - and if the requirement of nine teams is met - at least one winner will be chosen through a random drawing and will receive a code for 800 Microsoft Points, but we will likely be giving away two codes to two lucky people. More entries means a higher chance you'll be a winner!

Hope to see you all there!

Sign up for the Draft!
Discuss in the NGA Forums

[shadowxtc]

Tonight, the first Halo 4 Grifball Championship will be decided! The final two teams in the National Grifball Association's playoff bracket are Greatest Hits (#3 Seed) captained by Crusader0102, and Turquoise Jeep (#13 Seed) captained by Ezy08. It will be a best of three game series, and will begin at 10pm Eastern.

Greatest Hits completed the season with a flawless 10-0 record (6 games played), showing clear dominance and only allowing 5 regular season goals. In the playoffs, they easily defeated division rivals Goldfish and Nail Polish in two games, allowing only one goal. Next came a tight series with The Black List, where Greatest Hits faced its greatest challenge so far, narrowly winning 5-4 in two games. Finally in the semi-finals, they faced Vendetta, winning 6-3 and 7-2 in decisive fashion. With a squad consisting of halfbreed105, Major Silva, Priest XYZ, Rage More Nerd, Shadow S16 and Tad Neptune, this team is certainly not short on experience, tanking power, and colorful personalities.

Our second contender for the championship, Turquoise Jeep, finished the season 9-1, falling once to GentINC. They proved their toughness in their two games against The Black List, winning both matchups 5-4. In the playoffs, they first faced off against The Fatal Four, winning 8-1 and 5-4. Next they faced The New York Pineapples, completely dominating and winning both games 8-1. Finally, they went through a nailbiter in the semifinals, narrowly taking the spot in the Championship from A Righteous Kill, winning game one 8-1, losing game two 5-4, and coming back to win on the last plant in game three's 5-4. Turquoise Jeep comes ready to battle Greatest Hits, with their roster of DennymacpotV2, Fanciest Pants, Griff50, ixGingy, Killerz Legit, NOPLEX, and OVERweightGOAT, another mix of veteran players, strong hammers, and once again, colorful personalities.

One thing is for sure about tonight's matchup - it will be epic! At the end of the night, one of these two teams will walk away with the distinction of holding the first title in Halo 4 Grifball. Make sure to watch the stream at Grifball.net and at http://twitch.tv/ngagrifball. We'll be live by 10 streaming an intense matchup and we'll be having a lot of fun as well! Hope to see you there!

[HC DarKStorm]

Good luck to both teams, may the best baller prevail

[shadowxtc]

On Saturday, February 23rd at 5pm ET, TheRealForums partnered with the NGA presents...

Halo 4 Grifball Tournament
Free Admission
$120 in prizes!

Register early to ensure your spot in the brackets - this tournament has FREE admission with $120 in prizes!

This is TRF Pro's very first Grifball Tournament. Prizes are sponsored by our friends over at TheRealForums. The rules and event are being officiated by the NGA. The first matches will be kicking off at 5pm Eastern.

LIVE commentary will be on TRF Radio, found under the Media tab at TheRealForums, and also during select matches which will be streamed LIVE on the NGA Twitch channel and here at Grifball.net. If you want any of your game footage to be highlighted on the YouTube channel, send your clips to CoachSCIL.

Support from our staff will be available live on the TRF Shoutbox and NGA Chatbox by clicking on Forum on either website. If you have questions, concerns, or feedback please visit the Forums on either site.

Captains must register their team for the event at Grifball.net and also at TRF Pro. All players must also register at TRF Pro to accept their invitation to the team. Both team registrations must be completed and invitations accepted before the entry is official.

This tournament will be a single-elimination bracket of 16 teams, played on NGA Realism and/or NGA Realism NH using a variant of the official Grifball matchmaking gametype modified to have five untimed rounds. Rosters are for 4-6 players, no substitutions, and rosters will be locked 2 hours before the event starts when teams are required to check in.

Be sure to check the full rules posted here and at TRF Pro before signing up.

Team Registration
Discuss in the NGA Forums

[shadowxtc]

From NGA Admin BossTycoon X:

This season at the NGA we decided to switch it up from the same ol' "All-Stars" and acknowledge 16 "NGA All-Pro" players who played their hearts out all season! These 16 players are some of the top players this season (WL13) who not only played well during the regular season but helped get their teams into the playoffs. More than half of the players selected have won or been in an NGA Championship game so there is no doubt all these players are All-Pro. With all that being said, here are your 1st & 2nd team NGA All-Pro players!!

1st TEAM ALL-PRO RUNNERS
SlimJimX50 - The New York Pineapples
PilVlpindacrib - The Fatal Four

1st TEAM ALL-PRO HYBRIDS
xSHMOLExNEMOx - GCW
Ezy08 - Turquoise Jeep

1st TEAM ALL-PRO TANKS
SilentShadow459 - Vendetta
ActiveHate - The Black List
Killjoy D22 - The Fatal Four
A man canon - Goldfish and Nail Polish

2nd TEAM ALL-PRO RUNNERS
Yo DrGreenthumb- Clutch Betrayal
REDBARON225 - Vendetta

2nd TEAM ALL-PRO HYBRIDS
DlGITAL PAIN - Vendetta
Crusader0102 - Greatest Hits

2nd TEAM ALL-PRO TANKS
ACE B S1lentND1 - A Righteous Kill
Kemp Can Thrust - GentINC
R U RAZ ENOUGH - The Fatal Four
Halfbreed105 - Greatest Hits

The NGA All-Pro Game will be streamed live (Grifball.net and also www.twitch.tv/NGAgrifball) TONIGHT (Tuesday) at 8PM Eastern, so make sure to tune in!!

All participating players will be entered into a raffle for an 800 MSP code, with the winner drawn live on stream. Hope to see you there!
Thanks to BossTycoon X for putting the Season 3 All-Pro game together and donating the prize for the night.

[BlazingCharizard]

Ah ma I missed it

[shadowxtc]

National Grifball Association’s first Forge Contest!
Contest Submission Deadline: March 17th, 2013

The NGA is looking for brand new grifball courts for the next season of the grifball league! This contest will focus primarily on aesthetics, as forging a grifball map doesn't require much knowledge or utilization of level design theory, though some basic principles will be required to be demonstrated.



We will be holding a community night TONIGHT at 8PM Eastern where members of the NGA will be available to share maps, tips, and the wish list of the community at large. Leave a reply with your gamertag for an invite; if you're not too familiar with grifball, it could be a great way to meet the community and get a leg up on the competition! Hope to see you there.



What we’re looking for:
We’re looking for new and innovative designs that support a fair game of grifball. Submissions must be functional (including spawns, flat surfaces, etc.) and look

professional. Maps can be forged on any of the forge locations in Halo 4 (Ravine, Impact, or Erosion). We’ll be looking for creativity, as well as great designs!

Disqualification Criteria:
- Map is turned in after the deadline
- Map is not functional (Spawns not setup, Grifball gametype not setup)
- Offensive map title or description
- Stolen Map (Submissions must be from the author only)
- Manipulated Map (Modded maps are not welcome for this contest)
- Non-Unique Map (Maps must be new, and created for this contest. Finished designs submitted for other purposes are not acceptable)

Map Sizes:
Courts can be measured by placing a scalable object in the middle of the court (such as a safe zone or respawn zone) and changing the length and width of the

object to meet the edges of the map. Submissions will be classified in the following manner:



If you have a new design idea (think Blargball from Halo: Reach) that will change the court design completely, those submissions are welcome as well, and will be classified as “Abnormal”.

Judging Criteria:
Each submission will be judged by a panel of 8 people. These selected persons may consist of NGA admins, Forgers, and/or grifball players. This panel will not be revealed before the submission deadline. Each judge will offer a score/rating for every map 1,2, or 3 (Where ‘1’ is ‘Needs Work’, and ‘3’ is ‘Excellent’.) We will tally all scores together, and add it to an Overall Score. At the end of the contest, the maps with the top three scores will be our winners. To see all of the judging requirements and a scorecard, click here: http://bit.ly/11uXrte. Spawns must be setup to rival the current NGA spawn style (identical to Halo: Reach style), unless your map is ‘abnormal’, in which spawns must work appropriately. For a resource defining how an official NGA court should be setup (Spawns, safe-zones, etc), click here: http://bit.ly/VLsAWQ.

Note: Following those general requirements will aid greatly in the creation of a perfect grifball map, in case you may not be familiar with them.

Prizes:
[1st Place]
A copy of Halo 4: Forward unto Dawn on DVD.
A code worth 800 Microsoft points
Map consideration for NGA league play and tournament use
A grifball-themed avatar prop for xbox 360

[2nd Place]
A code worth 800 Microsoft points
Map consideration for NGA league play and tournament use
A grifball-themed avatar prop for xbox 360

[3rd Place]
Map consideration for NGA league play and tournament use
A grifball-themed avatar prop for xbox 360


How to Submit:
Submission link will be made available from the homepage and forums of http://www.grifball.net. You will need a free account to submit your map.

Disclaimer:
The NGA reserves the right to reuse and/or rename any submissions for the use in the NGA Grifball Leagues as determined by the judges. We may request you to edit any map to comply with NGA requirements, and can edit any submissions to accommodate these requirements ourselves.

All winning maps will be submitted to the matchmaking community cartographers responsible for Grifball Matchmaking, for possible inclusion into the playlist.
(Matchmaking is not controlled by the NGA, and winning is not a guarantee of inclusion.)

“Good luck, have fun, and happy forging!” - The NGA Staff

[shadowxtc]

It's baaaaaaaaaack! This weekend is a Free XBox Live Gold Weekend (thanks BioShock Infinite!), and since we had so much fun last time, we're going to be running an NGA Gamertag Night starting Saturday at 9pm ET, once again going strong until, well, until we're not. We'll play whatever the community wants, with preference given to matchmaking playlists so we can show off. If you'd like to volunteer to be a party leader, leave a note in the event thread. Here's the fine print:

To participate, you must register an XBL account with the format NGA (space) whatever you want, for example: NGA Shadow. You're free to brag about your incredible tag, and you're also free to treat the night like a masquerade ball and hide behind your mask. XBL should take care of the most offensive choices for tags; don't go and pick a name directly insulting to another member of the community, or your participation may be denied. If you joined us last time, you're free to use the same account again if you'd like. If you need help making a new account, please let Squirrel or Shadow know and we'll make it happen.

Once you've registered your tag, send a FR or message to our existing group tag, NGA Grifball. That's where you'll get your party invites from. To make things interesting, if we get 16 or more unique players to participate with gamertags in the correct format, we'll set up a poll to vote for the best one, and reward the winner with a little MSP prize.

As a bonus, Microsoft will be giving away an exclusive Halo 4 avatar code to the first 600,000 people to play Halo 4 for one hour during this promotion, but only if your profile indicates you are 18 or older. There are other bonuses in Forza Horizon and Borderlands 2, and a 30-day trial offer from Netflix too (see here for details).

Even finer print: Xbox Live Free Gold Weekend lasts from 3/8 through 3/10*. You should be able to register and use more than one account during this promotion, so if you've wanted to setup and pre-rank-up a second gamertag for one of the other... purely legitimate reasons, yes, that's it... now's your chance to do that and have a little fun with all of our NGA friends this Saturday night!

* March 8, 12:01 GMT (5:01am ET) and conclude on March 10, 23:59 GMT (4:59am ET). You may have to change your Locale to Great Britain under your console settings in order to participate.

[shadowxtc]

From Gastric Timmy:

Those who abstain, shall not complain.

Come join us tonight over at Grifball.net and get a sneak peek at the possible game and map variants for the upcoming season! Two nights ago we tested a no-shields gametype and map - both were very well received by almost every participant! Tonight we'll be focusing on a shields variant that's up for consideration, played on what I think may becone one of most iconic and memorable maps. The NGA is looking for participants for full test runs tonight (April 26th), from 10pm-Midnight EST. Simply jump into the NGA chat, where game host names will be posted-open and ready for joining - you can also pre-register as a team or individual player. Feedback will be welcomed from participants throughout this period in NGA chat. Don't miss out on this opportunity to be a part of the decision making process as we all eagerly await the best NGA season ever!

Discuss in the NGA Forums

Player Registration
Team Registration

[shadowxtc]

April 15th, 2013 changed the lives of the people of Boston and its surrounding communities. Since the National Grifball Association (a Nonprofit Corporation) is headquartered out of Boston, we felt action should be taken on our behalf to help our fellow citizens in this time of need. Over the next two weeks, we will be holding multiple "marathon-themed" Grifball events, and we have an open charitable donation campaign on HopeMob.org. Donations are now being accepted, and will continue to be open throughout the events. Please give generously, as every donation will completely go to The One Fund Boston, Inc.

We are pleased to announce that so far, we will be giving away download keys to two great games from Fire Hose Games (@FireHoseGames), which is run out of Cambridge, MA: 10 codes each for Go Home Dinosaurs and Slam Bolt Scrappers. We have also received 26 Boston-themed prize packs from Yawkey Way Report (@YawkeyWayReport), a publication about the Boston Red Sox, and Beantown Collectibles (@BTCHeadquarters), a sports-and-geek memorabilia retailer. Both of these companies are run out of Boston. In addition, the fine folks at Halo Waypoint (@HaloWaypoint) have agreed to donate a Halo-themed XBox Live download to each donor in our drive. This includes themes, Avatar armor, props, and picture packs. If you are reading this, and would like to help us in the way of sponsorship, please send an email to "squirrelburrito@gmail.com" or "mastersundown@gmail.com". Our most sincere thanks to our generous donors so far!

EVENTS

May 4th 6:00PM Eastern - May 5th 8:20PM Eastern - live 26.2 hour Grifball stream. We are asking interested community leaders and Halo personalities to join us on the stream on the NGA Grifball Twitch.tv channel for half-hour blocks of Grifball. We are maintaining a Google document with all available time slots. Please contact us in any of the ways listed on the document if you are interested in participating.

May 6th - May 12th: We will be encouraging the community to commit to playing 26 games of Grifball during this week. Players who report their games through a form on our site will be eligible to win prizes when the week is over. We will also give a prize to the player who gets the most sponsorships for this event. More details, including how to donate or sponsor your favorite Grifballer, can be found here, and will continue to be updated as the event nears.

In addition, we are strongly considering holding a pay-to-play Grifball tournament, to be held on or around May 18th, depending on the amount of interest from the community at large. 80% of the fees for the tournament will be donated to charity, and 20% will go to the winning team. If this is something you and your Grifball team would be interested in, please drop us a line. There will be a cap of 16 teams (with four players) for this event.

To stay up-to-date with this charity drive and our events, be sure to watch the grifball.net forums, as well as following @Grifballnet, @squirrelburrito, and @MasterSundown on Twitter. Thank you for your time and support!

#BostonStrong
#GrifballStrong
#SpartanStrong

- - - Update - - -

We've partnered with Duxter! If you can't donate money to the cause, you can still help out by donating your time!

For every person to sign up to the Duxter community, They will donate 20 cents to our charity drive! Use our referral link and take 2 minutes to create a profile, and you will be entered into one of our weekend prize drawings for 800 MS Points!

Additionally, if you can spare the bandwidth, have our stream open on Saturday/Sunday (even if you don't watch, just mute it). Help us become the top channel on twitch this weekend and get the word out! You can make a difference!