2v2 Teams Tournament

Since it was so much fun, BountyFrog and I (mostly BountyFrog with my help) have decided to organize a tournament of 4p games. The plan I think is to have the games be FoW, but if we have a big push for no fog we can always do without it. What we aren't really sure about yet is how exactly to organize it and what the rules should be. For example, here are some potential options:

FFA games: With no/limited diplomacy/truces with other players to reduce the odds of people getting ganged up on? Advancement through the tournament might be based on a point system with the first player out in any game is eliminated and the next group are ranked based on position? Potential to instead just keep the top 2 finishers of each game and maybe favor someone with a 1st place vs a 2nd place in the cases of draws etc? Keeping only the winner of each match would mean we need a lot of people so I don't think that's realistic.

Team games: With teams, the advancement options are pretty well limited to the winning team and diplomacy isn't an issue. The real question is, if we go with the team game approach, do we keep fixed teams or do partners change based on some sort of ranking system (who did well and who didn't etc) so that they are balanced somewhat after every round. Also, if we have it open to anyone on the street (so to speak) what happens if a team member gets booted? Do we find a new player and rematch?

Regardless, I think resigning is unfair unless it is either down to 2P in an FFA setting, or both members of a team agree to resign.

I'd personally prefer this to be a teams tournament so unless anyone has major objections, consider this to be for 2-player Teams! I'd also prefer to have teams randomly selected from all participants for the sake of being fair, but that still leaves 2 options:

1. You get the same (randomly assigned) teammate every game
   
2. New, random teammates are assigned with each new game
   

Due to general lack of players, a round robin is probably best to start (maybe 3-5 games?) so I was thinking of implementing Option 2 for the round robin and getting some stats built up, and then effectively generating more permanent teams for elimination based on seed. Players with the best record would be paired with players with worse records, but, as incentive for landing a higher seed, those with the best records after the round robin get to decide the maps for the tournament (like homefield advantage). At each elimination match, the highest seed player in that match picks the map unless there is a tie. At that point, the highest combined team seed wins and that team has to agree on the map. Normally the higher ranked player does not need to consult their teammate, but here it would be mandatory to reach a team decision; if a timely decision is not made, an automatic deferral to the opposing team would be implemented. For maps, I would probably provide some general constraints on size and funding but more or less leave the player the freedom to pick at will (pending my approval, of course).

On booting and resigning: All players must take their turns in a timely manner and avoid being booted and all resignations must be a team decision. A warning will be issued to any player in violation of this rule and any player that gets booted or inappropriately resigns more than once can be ejected from the tournament. I would posit that any match in which a player is booted or a player resigns prematurely/without their partner's consent should result in a loss for that player and a draw for the remaining 3, unless there was a clear victor at the point of boot/resignation. During elimination rounds things will be more complicated and I will probably take things on a case-by-case basis should problems arise at that point.