I've been itching to do one of these for awhile now, so I'm going to attempt a revival. I will NOT be updating these every day like I was doing (which contributed much to my burning out), but I should update somewhere in the area of three times a week at least. You will have at least two days to place your bets, possibly more if you're lucky/unlucky.

If there are enough people getting involved in this, I'm more than happy to expand it. There will be the betting element as there was in the prior tournaments, I'll openly track all bets in the thread since trying to do it via PMs was just a pain.

For the unaware, the Grand Tournament is something where I write a fight scene between two characters and people bet on them. Those that bet correctly gain double the money they bet, those who bet wrong lose it. Fights are conducted on various battlefields submitted by you, the readers/bettors.

The rules:

1. I write all the fights based on my analysis of a given character and their strengths and weaknesses. I stand by my decision on who wins and who does not win, if you're just going to troll the thread, don't bother reading it. Nobody's forcing you to do so.

2. Only bet on the upcoming fight. Again, it's too much of a pain to track a bunch of bets for fights that I won't be writing for awhile.

3. Discussions of the fights and matchups are welcome and encouraged. I have no problem with people thinking I'm wrong, so long as it doesn't turn to trolling (covered in rule 1). People may change their bets based on discussion up to the point of the fight being posted (I will refresh right before the fight itself is finished and take all of the bets I see).

And now for the protocol:

1. This is fantastical realism. I let people bend and break rules, but they're still bound by certain laws (if you get stabbed, you'll be hurting. Likewise if you get shot, you'll be hurting). All characters are going to be used at their peak potential, although they may not use all of it in fights if they don't need to. Generally, the more of their abilities they use, the later in the rankings it is.

2. Seeding will be random. I will either draw lots myself or have a friend do it.

3. This is a mixed tournament. There will be 64 entrants in all, 32 heroes and 32 villains. I'll start with the heroes, if it lasts long enough the villains will then fight, and the final round will be between the champion hero and champion villain. Characters can be taken from any video game or anime series.

4. Everyone may make one battlefield that will be randomly selected before a fight. The battlefields may be any manageable size and can be taken from any video game or anime series. I need a good working description of the battlefield so I have an idea of what it looks like.

5. Voting is open now. You may vote on 10 heroes to be included in the tournament. Villain voting will be held later.

6. Emeralda and Grahf are barred from this because they have already won a tournament. All victors will be barred from future tournaments.

7. Starting balance is 10,000 for EVERYONE.

There you have it. Voting starts now.