I see nothing wrong with the rules for inter-portal tournaments being formed based on the rules of all participating portals, or even having games without any rules at all. By defining the rules of a single portal for a tournament, we immediately tailor it to players from that one platform — that is not right. The chances, comfort, and practice need to be balanced between players from different countries and platforms.

Forming a tournament from just HeroesWorld, we won't even reach the quorum of the previous tournament, let alone anything larger. The previous quorum of players was gathered from many places.

Added after 13 minutes

The funny thing is that HotA is fundamentally not played, but a bunch of changes are being introduced into SoD that heavily affect gameplay. Please make up your minds: do you want to play SoD or a balance mod?

Apparently there is no understanding of why not just HotA. I'll explain:
1) HotA — it's the impossibility to configure the game for a specific tournament as flexibly as in SoD through game settings and plugins. HotA forces you to play with everything the developers made each tournament.
2) HotA is a constant expansion of features and variety, moving further away from the original every year, without the ability to enable/disable what you need or don't need. That is, in HotA players constantly have to adapt to something new, while SoD is more stable in this regard (except for rare tournaments where the organizer tries to diversify the format or fix something with plugins).
3) Not all of HotA's innovations are unambiguously perceived as good. There are both good ones and, to put it mildly, not-so-good ones. If we decided to hold a tournament as a world championship for Heroes, then the latest official version is SoD, and that is our starting point.

All changes that might be made are still being discussed and are not aimed at trying to create a different version of the game, but at tweaking the game for a specific tournament format — nothing more. Moreover, most of them are some kind of bug fixes or utilities (Mage Guild rework, skill removal, etc.). This does not introduce a radically different balance into the game, like in HotA.

You can make a bunch of add-ons for any game and try to run something with them. But the official versions still remain — firstly, as the engine and common link for all subsequent add-ons, and secondly, they are what will be considered the original, the classic, and the official versions. Whether anyone likes it or not.

But it's clear that everyone sees what they want to see.
You can endlessly ask why not HotA, why not WT, why not Vog, why not MOP, etc.? The answer will always be simple — why?

Currently, we have the following preliminary teams:
Russia
Ukraine
Belarus
Latvia
Romania
Bulgaria
Serbia
Syria
Estonia and Kazakhstan need reinforcement from players or merging with other teams

Still in question:
Moldova
South Korea
Georgia
Armenia
Lithuania
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Croatia
China
Vietnam
Poland
Hungary
Kazakhstan
Uzbekistan

Declined:
Sweden

Added after 3 hours 36 minutes
A rough draft of the tournament regulations currently looks like this:

TEAM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 2019
IN HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC 3

Requirements for National Teams
0) Each national team must select a captain, who is responsible for recruiting players for the team. He decides how many people will be on the team and which player to field for a game when.
1) A team from any existing country can register for the tournament (autonomous republics and disputed territories may register as a separate team).
2) The number of players on a team is not limited by a maximum.
3) The minimum number of participants on a team is 2 people
4) Players who cannot form their own national team may unite into a team with other players who also cannot form their national teams (e.g., Central Europe Team, Asia Team, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan Team, or 2-3 players from neighboring countries unite). There is, of course, the option to allow those teams to play individually if no one is known besides just one player.

Requirements for Team Participants
4) A player has the right to play for a national team if they meet one of the following points (and can provide proof if necessary):
- Holds citizenship of that country
- Resides in that country (autonomy)
- Has roots (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents are from that country)
5) Each player has the right to play for only one country
6) Each national team must appoint a captain and their deputy (they do not necessarily have to play), who can be contacted by both opponents and organizers/referees. The captains also decide who will play in a particular match.

Requirements for Tournament Players:
1) Must be able to stream their game on Youtube.com, Twitch.tv, or other streaming platforms, or provide a screen share via Skype, Discord (full or web versions), ICQ, or as a last resort Teamviewer. The game video after the stream must remain publicly available after the stream. A player streaming their game must set Fps to no more than 30-40 — otherwise, the lead streamers may have video desync between different players.
2) Each player must provide data for the intro at least 1-2 days before the game:
Photo, Year of Birth, Country, City (or cities), Achievements (prize places, nominations, organized events) with years specified

Template Pool (with specific settings to be added later):
Vera S+U, Karnaval S+U – ultra-fast
Vera M or mt_Vera – very dynamic
Dom M+U – dynamic, sometimes moderately dynamic
mt_Dom M+U – dynamic, sometimes moderately dynamic, mirror
Jebus Cross XL – fairly dynamic
mt_Jebus L+U – moderately dynamic, mirror
Diamond L+U – moderately dynamic
2sm4d(3) XL – moderately dynamic, sometimes drags on
6lm10a XL+U – fairly balanced and most popular among XL+U, but sometimes games last 8-12 hours, which is costly for everyone. But it's quite interesting

Tournament Format:
1) Presumably a group stage, followed by playoffs.
2) A pair of national teams play a series of games best of two victories.
3) The captains of the national teams or their representatives must contact the captains (or representatives) of the opposing team and decide by coin toss who chooses the template and the first player for the first game, and who for the second. For the third game, the fielded players ban templates.

Game Settings:
1) The game is played on Heroes 3. Shadow of Death + HD mod (latest version)
2) Timer 12+6+2 with simultaneous turns until 121.
3) All games must be played with simultaneous turns. For those who cannot pay for their simultaneous turns, OsFaraon will pay for it. The duration of simultaneous turns for all templates is specified individually for each.
Players must check the boxes in the launcher:
- save before battle
- save all days for tournaments

GAME START:
1) Before the game starts, a random pair of castles is generated. Then bidding for towns takes place (players, as in an auction, take turns offering more gold (each has 10,000); whoever offers the most or offers the maximum chooses any castle from the drawn pair of towns. The offered gold is transferred in the settings to the player who lost the auction).
2) Then bidding for color choice takes place (based on the gold remaining after the town bidding), similar to the previous bidding.

Restarts
0) Restart — the ability to refuse to play a bad draw or a poorly played opening draw.
2) Players have a total of 2 days (day 112) for restarts (2 times a restart can be taken on the first day of the game before passing the turn, or 1 restart can be taken on the second day). If a player has already passed the turn, their restart is counted for the next day.
3) On mirror templates, only 1 restart is given on the first day (day 111).
4) When playing with simultaneous turns, the red player first says if they are playing the draw (writes + or "I play" in chat), and then the blue player decides whether to restart. Even if the red player passed the turn during simultaneous turns, the blue player has the right to take a restart for a new day as if it were the previous day if the blue player has not yet moved their heroes or built in the new day.

Game Rules:
1) It is forbidden for both the playing player and their team to watch the opponent's stream. A player caught doing so may receive a technical loss, disqualification, or substitution.
2) If a player's actions on the map or other facts allow strong suspicion of unfair play, a replay, technical loss, or disqualification may be assigned.
3) 1 week is given for each series of games.
4) Player substitutions are allowed if a player cannot or does not want to finish a game for another from their team
5) If a player cannot provide a video of their game, stream, or screen share, the result of their game may not be counted.
6) Before each game, players must notify the organizer or hosts at least 1 day before the game about the time and date of the next game. It is advisable not to play without notice — since if one of the players ends up without a video of the game, their result may not be counted.
7) If a disconnection or crash occurs in the game, the player who was taking their turn must repeat their turn as closely as possible (as it was up to the point of disconnection or game crash). Losses in battles are especially important. If the player loses fewer troops during the repeated turn (they need to remove troops to match the same losses).
8) Each player must keep all saves until the end of the tournament.
9) The game must be played with passwords enabled for saves.
10) Players must exchange passwords after the game.

Resolution of Disputed and Problematic Situations:
1) Preferred playing time — weekdays from 19:00 MSK and weekends from 12:00 MSK. Games can be played at other times by agreement with opponents and hosts. Each game must be announced in advance — ideally 1-2 days before the game.
2) If teams cannot agree on a date and time for the game. Then the organizer, referees, or team captains determine the date and time of the game by coin toss on the website random.org. All remaining dates for the current round are written in a column and a date is randomly determined. Then the following hours are written and the time is also randomly determined for the mandatory game date:
12:00 MSK
13:00 MSK
14:00 MSK
15:00 MSK
16:00 MSK
17:00 MSK
18:00 MSK
19:00 MSK
3) For a player being an hour or more late for a game — they receive a yellow card. For 2 yellow cards or one red card — the player misses the next round of games.
4) For 2 late arrivals to a game from one team during a single series of games — the team receives a technical loss at the request of the opposing team
5) In the event of force majeure circumstances, the tournament referees will consider the incident and issue a decision on it.
6) In the event of a stalemate in battle where one player cannot catch the second, and the second cannot kill the first — a draw in the game is recorded if neither player wants to buy their way out or flee.
7) If a battle between heroes in a game lasts 50 rounds or more — one of the players must buy their way out or flee. If neither player flees or buys out — a draw result is recorded.
8) In the event that one of the teams cannot field any player for a game by the deadline — a technical loss is recorded for them in that game.
9) If a crash or disconnection occurs for one of the players, they are obliged to load from the battle file or the latest save, autosave, which is later in time.
If for 50 consecutive rounds the attacker does not kill the enemy and does not cause damage — they are forced to retreat or surrender.
If during a battle a player does not make a move with their unit for more than 15 minutes — they receive a yellow card. 2 yellow cards — technical loss and missing the match.
The number of games a player misses increases by one unit with each red card (or two yellow cards) for them.
Distribution of places in the group.
The following priorities apply in order of decreasing priority:
1) Points earned
2) Difference between wins and losses (if the difference is equal, the one with more solo wins ranks higher)
2) Head-to-head result
3) Berger coefficient
4) Who spent fewer days on winning games

Issuing Cards:
1) For serious suspicions of unfair play, a player may be issued a yellow or red card.

Requirements for Streamers:
-The stream design must include pre-designed overlays and a banner with the tournament name. Show the intro video splash screen of the tournament at the beginning and end of the stream.
-Broadcast showing both sides of the players (ideally focusing on the conduct of battles — since there is more action there). The second player should also be visible, either in a corner in a small window, or by splitting the screen in half to see both at once until the simultaneous turn ends.
- Each streamer must be backed up by another streamer in case the first has technical issues or force majeure circumstances. This could be a second co-caster, for example.
- If possible, do not use profanity during commentary. Otherwise, our videos may fall under 18+ restrictions and not everyone will be able to watch them.
- As soon as it becomes known that a pair of players has agreed on a game, information about the game and date is sent to the common chat of the tournament hosts, and whoever can stream it replies in the chat. Those who wish to commentate together can also reply there. Also, the person who can back up the main streamer in case of issues writes there (i.e., will also capture the players in OBS in advance and wait). Streaming the same game by different streamers in parallel is also possible — this is essentially another form of backup.
- Streamers who will stream in any language convenient for them are allowed into the tournament for streams. But for each game, ideally, at least 1 Russian-speaking streamer is needed for CIS countries.
- During the stream, it is advisable not to use copyrighted music so that the tournament video can be preserved for the longest possible time. Ideally, proceed with one of the following options:
1) Stream without music
2) Stream with royalty-free music of any genre (links to it will be provided) from YouTube or social media groups, specialized websites.
3) Stream without music at all
- All streamers, by agreeing to participate in covering the tournament, automatically allow the organizer, if necessary, to re-record their streams onto our channel so that all videos are saved and edited (in case any problems arise), for viewers and sponsors.