Tournament Formats

History

Tournament Paintball has been a part of paintball from nearly the beginning; however, the modern tournament has developed in earnest within the past 15 years. Tournaments, while once held in the traditional woodsball fields, have quickly made the transition to speedball fields, generally utilising inflatable bunkers. The most widely-used bunkers are made by Sup'Air. These bunkers are easy to inflate, deflate, and move about the field in order to change field configurations between matches or tournament stages.

Format

The most common tournament formats are with teams of either 3, 5, 7 or 10 players per team, with two teams per field per game. The object of the game is to pull and hang the flag (usually placed in the centre of the field) on your opponent's starting bunker or base.

Points are given per game: Eliminations are worth a certain amount, as is pulling the flag, and finally, hanging the flag. Depending on the format, a perfect score includes eliminating all opponents, pulling the flag from its original position and hanging the flag.

Organisations

Current professional and semi-professional leagues, such as the NXL (National X-Ball League), NPPL (National Professional Paintball League), PSP (Paintball Sports Promotions], NCPA (National Collegiate Paintball Association), CFOA (Carolina Field Owners Association) and the NEPL (New England Paintball League], regularly hold high-class, well-organised events. These aren't the only leagues, however, and most regions in both the USA and the globe have leagues. The Millennium Series, the former European X-Ball League, the Centurio Circuit, the XSPL, and many more leagues exist and draw large amounts of teams and fans.