by EVE Online Team7:00pm on Tuesday 14th July 2026
Arena enjoying Capsuleers,
Alliance leaders, fleet commanders, and organizers of alliances, big and small, the time to gather your top fighters, big-brain researchers, number-crunching theory crafters, and spreadsheet wizards is fast approaching. The next season of competitive arena battles and broadcasts is just around the corner, with the 22nd Alliance Tournament on the way. Do you consider yourself a bit of a gamer? Do you have what it takes to play under pressure? Do you consider yourself a meme machine, or do you just love spamming a mademoiselle to support Rote Kapelle? Then keep reading!
Alliance Tournament 22 (AT22) registrations will soon open; this season's full list of key dates is available below. Once registrations open, leaders can gather their stalwart combatants to prepare to battle it out ten vs ten in the arena for glory. Matches will feature on the Fenris Twitch channel, with the EVE community cheering teams to victory.
The goal of today's article is primarily to get you all informed of the important dates for this tournament, so let's get those out of the way:
14 July – Tournament announcement, backlog of Thunderdome invites starts, talent applications open, ad submissions start. 23 July – Main tournament rules announced, team registrations open, Thunderdome is patched to mirror Tranquility, and the server becomes available for tournament account holders. 28 July – Talent application deadline (11:00 UTC) 30 July – Team registration closes (11:00 UTC) 31 July – Teams announced, roster lock 1 opens, and merc registration begins. Prelims seed broadcast 10 August – First look: ATXXII prizes 17 August – Prelims roster lock and ad submission deadline 19 August – Team rosters announced 28 August - First weekend reminder and prize update 29 August & 30 August – Prelim tournament broadcast weekend 1 5 September & 6 September – Prelim tournament broadcast weekend 2 12 September & 13 September – Prelim tournament broadcast weekend 3 16 September – Roster submission 2 opens 2 October – Post-prelim roster lock closes, and flagship submission begins 5 October – Revised team rosters announced 9 October – Flagship lock deadline (ad submission deadline for the main tournament) 12 October – Flagships announced 31 October & 1 November – Alliance Tournament XXII finals broadcast
As you may have noticed, there’s a significant change to the broadcast days; more details below.
After the successes we saw and the plethora of incredible talent applying in 2025, we’ll be opening applications once again to find experienced community members to join us as analysts and commentators to help break down the tournament content for viewers and (hopefully) offer helpful advice on who to put their channel points on to win even more prizes.
As we strive to improve the viewing experience, we'll also be opening up applications for "Observers" from the community to join us, both on location and this time, also remotely - for those unfamiliar with the lingo, more commonly known as in-game "3D mouse and camera operators". Got a steady hand and an eye for a good shot? Know the difference between a Bhaalgorn and a Barghest and a good play from a bad one? Show us some of your previous handiwork, and you might be joining the broadcast staff.
The final broadcast this year will be in Nottingham, UK, so if you're interested in joining us, please make sure you're available and free to travel between 27 October and 3 November. Community talent will be invited, in a paid role, to join FC staff to broadcast the event live as the main tournament matches happen. We've created a form with all the details here for you to check out!
For the last few tournaments, a pre-season registration method has been used, with individual team members responsible for requesting a tournament account and access to the Thunderdome server rather than the captain exclusively. For those unfamiliar with the Thunderdome server, it's our dedicated tournament server, separate from Tranquility. It has different rules and additional publicly available tools to help teams practice competitive play with greater ease and security, encouraging a more level playing field.
The prelims tournament (the tournament to decide who gets to play in the main tournament) takes place on Thunderdome, whilst the main AT matches take place on Tranquility. This means that any teams participating in the prelims tournament, aside from the entry fee and time commitment, won't incur any additional costs due to ship or module loss. But when it comes to the main tournament, teams will have to prepare for matches on Tranquility, where they'll be brought directly into tournament systems before being returned to their original station.
The pre-season and access cycle to Thunderdome has been established as the standard for our tournament. It will continue this year, so once the rules are published, Thunderdome access will open, and anyone interested in participating can start practicing there. This will allow individuals to begin tournament practice right from the moment the rules drop.
If you have participated in prior tournaments, access couldn't be easier: the login details you previously supplied when you requested access will work as before, and you'll get instant access. Do not re-request access.
If you haven't ventured onto the Thunderdome server before, fear not; you can request access using this form. The process isn't automatic; invites are usually sent out once a week, with the first wave set to go out later today. They can also be monitored in the EVE Online Discord, as well as in the #thunderdome-invite-status channel. Remember to poke your alliance executors to make sure they register your team on time.
Updates throughout the tournament will also be communicated via the official EVE Online Discord:
#at-announcements for important tournament updates. #tournament-questions or #tournament-general channel for any questions. #at-dates-and-info will track key dates and #thunderdome-status for any known issues or downtime for the tournament server.
After the sponsorship and ad-ridden broadcast of Alliance Tournament XXI, the IGC opted to take on a more imperial sponsor this year. Rumors of the sponsorship deal were leaked not long after the conclusion of the recent Anger Games tournament, and the IGC is proud to confirm that the sponsor for Alliance Tournament XXII will be the Amarr Empire!
For now, we can confirm that the IGC’s engineers have received a small batch of Sentinel and Curse hulls from the Amarr Empire and have begun scoping out adaptations to be made to the ships. It's been advised that on 10 August, they should have the design draft ready for wider publication.
One of the fun things about every Alliance Tournament is seeing the exceptional player-created adverts made for it. These are great opportunities to just tell people who you are/what you do/what services you provide, in a fun and engaging way. Think of it as next-level billboards!
The ad submissions for this year’s Alliance Tournament open as of today, and you can find more details on this link here.
The format for Alliance Tournament XXII has had some rather substantial changes following feedback from the previous tournament. 10v10 team battles, where ships have specific point values, remain the core design of the tournament. One of the largest recurring requests from previous tournament participants is the opportunity to play more matches, with teams facing more opponents before being knocked out of the tournament, as well as the request for additional best-of-rounds. To accommodate this request, some switches have been made from the standard double-elimination format to a more conditional format.
In times of old, the Alliance Tournament was a tournament where players could buy their way in rather than earn their way in through the hardships of what we used to call the feeder tournament, but we're renaming it to the prelims going forward (short for preliminary/preliminaries). One of the advantages of that system was that, from the get-go, it was decided the tournament would be a 64-team double-elimination tournament; there was no custom drawing to figure out how to match an unknown number with a known one. Below 64 teams would get a bye; above that number, names would go into a draw, and those that didn’t make it would have their entry fee returned (and preference into the following year).
For the last few years, the Alliance Tournament has seen around 50 teams participate. So, this year we’re going to try a flexible format. “Swiss” format tournaments increase the volume of tournament matches, providing teams with multiple additional opportunities for redemption and a way to balance team capabilities through matchmaking. For those unfamiliar with the Swiss format: match winners are matched against winners, ties against ties, and losers against losers. With that in consideration, we are governed by how many matches we can realistically fit within a broadcast day, so depending on the number of participants this year, we’ll strive to reduce the time between matches and adjust between a Swiss or a double elimination format, with the preference for a Swiss format if the volume of participants is similar to what we’ve seen across the last few years of tournaments.
This, in turn, will also reduce the time between the team submission deadline/closure and the draw, so teams will know sooner who they’ll be matched up against first and can find good practice partners sooner!
This also means that the second request, for additional best-of-rounds, can be provided in the “Live broadcast” element of the Alliance Tournament, whereby the final weekend is reduced from a top-32 team tournament to a top-16 tournament. The upside of this is that each match during the broadcast is an interleaved best-of-series game. For those curious about what it looks like, and to help see what time those matches would be, the initial match bracket and schedule for that is here.
The day of the finals will also offer a unique experience for anyone who wishes to attend the tournament broadcast in person. The studio in Nottingham (in the United Kingdom), where the broadcast is set to be transmitted from, offers a range of seating for attendees to watch the whole event live alongside our talent and production team, along with food, drink, and various other activities throughout the day. More details, including where to get tickets, will be announced closer to the broadcast date.
As with previous Alliance Tournaments, we continue to strive to make the tournament diverse and fun to both play in and watch, and emphasize pilot skill and team capabilities.
We’ve been happy with the quality over the last few Alliance Tournaments. The prelims tournament allows teams to earn their way into the main tournament while keeping the cost and barrier of entry low for new groups. As such, we'll be maintaining this as the standard going forward. The price of admission will remain at 4,000 PLEX. Given the changes to the format of Alliance Tournament XXII, teams that finished in positions 1-4 in Alliance Tournament ATXXI will not receive direct entry into the final broadcast. They will, however, be able to enter the tournament free of charge, but will still be required to complete the registration process to signal interest in participation.
Watch for further details about the submission process in the rules and format post next week!
Here are some of the rule changes you can look forward to this year:
In Alliance Tournament XXI many of the battleship-end ships saw a decrease in value; subsequently, battleship core-comps became increasingly commonplace. A few adjustments are being made to address this:
The maximum number of ships of a given hull that a team can field was adjusted from 4 to 3 in Alliance Tournament XXI. 3 will remain the maximum number, with the exception of battleships, where 2 will be the maximum number.
Their point value has also increased a small amount (greater than Alliance Tournament XXI but less than Alliance Tournament XX)
All battleships will be allowed to fit a maximum of 1 Armor Plate or 2 Shield Extenders of any size
Navy Ships, which are traditionally discounted for the sponsoring faction, will have battleships excluded from this range.
The Amarr Empire prides itself on its passive armor fit ships and their capabilities. A ship not conducive to that philosophy is the Cenotaph, which has been banned for this tournament.
The Odysseus and recently released ORE ships will also be banned.
The recently added Navy Destroyers will be available.
Points for Caldari ships discounted last year will be restored to levels comparable to their peers. Several Amarr ships will be discounted as part of this years ship sponsorship deal.
An adaptation to last year's point inflation rule will be applied. For every additional duplicate of a ship, points will be added depending on the ship's specific hull’s point cost, varying in range depending on hull size.
The “Avalanche Ban” system introduced for the best-of-series in the Anger Games, will be adopted for this tournament.
The Imperial Navy contributed to the creation of the Zarmazd and recognized its capabilities as an incredible armor-repairing platform. To reign that in somewhat, the only high-slot module allowed on the ship now is a single mutadaptive repair module.
The desire for Alliance Tournament ships to feature in Alliance Tournament matches has been a recurring request. Several attempts have been made in previous tournaments to provide teams with an opportunity to use these ships, but at a cost, in such a way that teams shouldn’t feel like they must have an AT ship to be competitive in the tournament. Additional changes have been made to this tournament to test a new method for potentially using these ships; full details will be in the main rules post.
Should anything change and any of these details require adjustment, keep an eye on the EVE Online Discord, where we will keep you apprised.
We look forward to seeing you in the arena!