Meet the Extremers!

No, wait, let's call them The Extremities! That sounds even cooler. X-Tremities. X-Tremites. X-Termites? I'll think of a cool name later.

Qualification is finished for the 2015 XMT, and if all the people who've qualified do decide to go to the actual tournament, the lineup looks like this - 7 Germans, 5 Mongolians, 3 Swedes, 2 Filipinos, 3 Americans, 1 Norwegian, 3 Britons.

The quarter-finalists from last year qualify automatically - this includes Simon Reinhard, Boris Konrad, Mark Anthony Castaneda and me, who all decided to take part in the online qualification anyway, and Jonas von Essen, Johannes Mallow, Christian Schäfer and Ola Kåre Risa, who didn't. Then there are the top sixteen of the online qualifiers, as below:

Rank	Name	Cards	Images	Names	Numbers	Words	Total
	Simon Reinhard	133.00	123.61	108.70	81.16	91.84	538.31
1	Johannes Zhou	69.54	154.00	117.39	71.41	87.76	500.10
2	Yanjindulam Altansuh	52.15	167.22	113.04	67.25	87.76	487.42
	Ben Pridmore	107.08	133.87	65.22	79.50	79.59	465.26
	Boris Konrad	74.96	169.49	100.00	74.99		419.44
3	Enhkjin Tumur	57.90	158.23	65.22	92.97	38.78	413.10
4	Johann Randall Abrina	99.06	116.28	100.00	37.85	51.02	404.21
5	Enkhmunkh Erdenebatkhaan	89.34	75.78	78.26	117.53	42.86	403.77
	Nelson Dellis	52.32	72.99	117.39	66.15	85.71	394.56
6	Annalena Fischer	42.18	129.70	86.96	44.04	83.67	386.55
7	Tsogbadrakh Saikhanbayar	51.58	130.26	78.26	49.05	75.51	384.66
8	Anne Reulke	43.87	125.47	100.00	37.38	77.55	384.27
9	Lance Tschirhart	70.19	66.86	100.00	73.58	71.43	382.06
10	Tuuruul Myagmarsuren	46.29	123.15	113.04	37.85	59.18	379.51
11	Alexander Mullen	53.04	101.97	82.61	69.70	71.43	378.75
12	Marwin Wallonius	58.70	115.43	73.91	71.81	57.14	376.99
13	Marlo Knight	62.88	101.11	91.30	55.18	59.18	369.65
14	Akjol Syeryekkhaan	37.96	80.52	121.74	52.92	73.47	366.61
15	Katie Kermode	30.37	76.36	117.39	42.44	97.96	364.52
16	Johnny Briones	45.69	93.87	100.00	38.33	75.51	353.40
17	Purevjav Erdenesaikhan	69.23	84.22	65.22	76.92	57.14	352.73
18	Konstantin Skudler	34.59	116.96	78.26	42.71	69.39	341.91
	Mark Anthony Castaneda		87.90	95.65	73.32	65.31	322.18
19	Tsetsegzul Zorigtbaatar	51.50	94.16	65.22	49.92	59.18	319.98
20	Norbert Reulke	37.96	104.57	60.87	40.46	65.31	309.17
21	Brad Zupp	42.18	62.88	91.30	37.38	67.35	301.09
22	Juliane Fischer	23.62	122.25	65.22	33.06	55.10	299.25
23	Tuvshintugs Nyamdorj	53.99	53.74	65.22	75.88	48.98	297.81
24	Clay Knight	33.74	96.96	69.57	45.43	48.98	294.68
25	Florian Dellé	30.37	89.07	60.87	32.58	53.06	265.95
26	Oddbjørn By	23.62	81.39	69.57	37.38	40.82	252.78
27	Brice Trejo	44.64	81.26	43.48	43.83	38.78	251.99
28	Omkar Kibe	29.53	62.37	60.87	25.88	48.98	227.63
29	John Graham	24.46	70.03	95.65	32.10		222.24
30	Javier Moreno	19.40	55.11	65.22	15.33	42.86	197.92
31	David Billington	25.31	35.00	69.57	28.75	36.73	195.36
32	Khaliun Bolor-Erdene	32.90	55.35	69.57	36.42		194.24
33	Luis Angel Echeverria	22.78	56.78	52.17	25.40	30.61	187.74
34	Andrej Savickij	26.99	50.00	26.09	35.46	34.69	173.23
35	Chris Forde	10.97	71.77	65.22	14.38		162.34
36	Kevin Horsley		80.39		64.68		145.07
	Simon Orton		59.93	78.26			138.19
	Idriz Zogaj		46.67		22.04		68.71
37	Alexis Rodríguez	23.62					23.62

Lance Tschirhart apparently had his words attempt disqualified and then reinstated, or something like that - I don't know if there's any kind of sensational controversy there, but it's bad news for Purejav Erdenesaikhan, anyway.

The others who were competing "just for fun" are Nelson Dellis, who will be running things admirably as always, Simon Orton providing the wonderful software and Idriz Zogaj helping out and cheering on Team Sweden, too.

How will the group stages and knockout rounds work? If I could make a suggestion before I know the seedings and so can't be accused of suggesting something that'd give me an advantage, I'd like to see a tennis-style thing (big tennis tournaments are seeded so that the 1st and 2nd seed will meet in the final, they'll each play a randomly-drawn one of the 3rd and 4th seeds in the semi-finals, and each of those four will play a randomly-drawn one of the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th seeds in the quarter-finals, and so on) coupled with the system that I think they used in the football world cup when it had 24 teams like this:

The top six seeds will each be in a group with a random one from the three other pots (7th-12th; 13th-18th; 19th-24th), split like this:
Group A - 1st seed
Group B - 3rd/4th seed
Group C - 5th/6th seed
Group D - 2nd seed
Group E - 3rd/4th seed
Group F - 5th/6th seed

The knockout stages will then be arranged to keep the top seeds apart if they win their groups, and the second and third places in each group be ranked according to the number of points they amass (the best being called 2nd-place-1, then 2nd-place-2, and so on), and split like this:

Match 1 - winner group A vs 3rd-place-4
Match 2 - 2nd-place-2 vs 2nd-place-3
Match 3 - winner group C vs 2nd-place-6
Match 4 - winner group B vs 3rd-place-2
Match 5 - winner group E vs 3rd-place-1
Match 6 - winner group F vs 2nd-place-5
Match 7 - 2nd-place-1 vs 2nd-place-4
Match 8 - winner group D vs 3rd-place-3

Then the quarter-finals are winner match 1 vs winner match 2, and so on to the final.

Any better suggestions, bloglings? Maybe an optional rule to stop people who've met in the group stages meeting again in the round of 16...