[Discussion/Ongoing event] 2018 World Cup

We're only a few days away from 2018's edition of FIFA's World Cup and, as a soccer fan, I'm very excited! To share some of that happiness, inspired by Jakebag's competition 4 years ago, I have created a guessing contest! Make sure you read everything, instructions are on all parts of the post!

How it is going to work:

The contest will be divided in 2 parts - Group Phase and Knockout Phase

In the Group Phase, you will try to guess the order in which each team in each group will finish. You get points for each team standing you guess correctly, even if the rest of the group is wrong.

Points for each correct prediction are as follow:
Guessed 1st place in the group correctly - +2 points
Guessed 2nd place in the group correctly - +1.5 points
Guessed 3rd place in the group correctly - +1 point
Guessed 4th place in the group correctly - +0.5 point

You will also attempt to guess which team will have the best campaign after all group phase matches. Best campaign is defined by the following criteria:
1. Most points overall
2. Most wins
3. Highest goal difference (Goals scored minus goals conceded)
4. Most goals scored
5. Least red cards
6. Least yellow cards

Any player that guesses the team with the best campaign correctly wins a 20,000r prize.

Top 3 players that get the most points will get a rupees prize, calculated with the following formula:

P = ([Points/2] + 1.8)
$ = 2.018^P

The most points you can get (if you guess everything correctly) is 40, meaning the highest possible prize for Group Phase is:
P = ([40/2] + 1.8) = 20 + 1.8 = 21.8
$ = 2.018^21.8
which is roughly 4,438,961 rupees.
If there is a tie, the winner will be the player that picked the team with the best campaign. If no winners guess that correctly, or more than one winner does, the ones that sent their responses first win.

Pick which teams you think will advance in the Knockout Phase, up to 2018's World Cup winner. Pay attention, however, as this form will only be open for 44 hours (6/28 2 PM EMC Time - 6/30 10 PM EMC Time)!

Prizes:
Top 3 players with the most correct guesses will win 100,000r x amount of correct guesses.
Maximum prize for Knockout Phase, therefore, is 100,000r x 15 = 1,500,000r.
If there is a tie, players who sent their responses first win.

Rules:
1. No alternate accounts.
2. Only 1 response per player per phase.
3. After you have sent your response, reply to this thread. Can be anything - How you feel about the World Cup in general, which team do you think is the best, a question. Feel free to reply more than once to the thread!

My predictions:

Group phase winners:
1st place - MARKELLEFULTZ WITH 24 POINTS! Won 161,400r and a Permanent Derelict voucher!
2nd place - Tuqueque with 22.5 points! Won 95,330r!
3rd place - fBuilderS with 20.5 points! Won 47,240!

Guessed the team with best campaign correctly - belac555! Won 20,000r!

Knockout phase winners:
1st place - ELITE WITH 12/15 GUESSES! Won 1,200,000r!
2nd place - Smooshed_Potato with 11/15 guesses! Won 1,100,000r!
3rd place - Markellefultz with 10/15 guesses! Won 1,000,000r!

Nice! I was wondering when the World Cup was going to be mentioned in the forums! lol

Edit: just submitted

Edit 2: who is collecting the album? how many stickers are you missing?

I am just missing 5 =D

...and posted - I haven't kept up with them this year ... but I'm going to guess Argentina

Interesting. I don't quite remember how this works, but I'll probably remember if I see the options in the poll.
I surprisingly hadn't heard about this yet, though. Is the Netherlands not in or something?

From some supermarket?

Personally I'm routing for Australia but that's not going to happen, oh well
Should be an interesting tournament this year w/o Italy and Netherlands
cmon Mattie Ryan

So indeed! Ah, that's really nice! But how does that make such a difference for you? You don't live in either of those countries, right?

I honestly have no knowledge about soccer and which teams are good. The only thing I know is that when the Netherlands participate, we can all celebrate when they make a goal and even your worst foes will be great friends for a bit again (bummer that they don't participate this year, even though they got 3rd place last year!)

Anyways, I just filled the form and who knows, maybe I'll be lucky . Thanks for hosting Mattheus!

I don't watch that much or know of that much of soccer XD

But I sent mine in just to see how close I can come

Not at all but England are really bad so I just prefer to support my club's players instead. We only have 1 player who is going to start in the world cup (Mattie Ryan) so I'm routing for him. We would've had 2 or 3 if Italy or Netherlands qualified

I don't know a lot about Football but I submitted

I noticed Canada wasn't on the list. Surely this is a typo!

I've always cheered for Germany so I'm going with them. I've gone with the fool proof strategy of not knowing a thing about any of this and picking all random like.

I'm missing like 200 stickers still, been super lazy about it ;-; But I've collected all the World Cup albums since 2006!
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Make sure you post on the thread after you fill out the form!

36 days to the World Cup bump!

ps nothing against either of the teams, I'll be posting random World Cup bumps which will include other teams as well.

Matheus, you should submit your predictions as well, to see if you were close or not =P just for keeping record of what you thought

I don't follow soccer at all, but it's a chance for free money? So why not?
Thanks for doing this.

You will notice the absence of Scotland, this is because we are boycotting this world cup because it is taking place in Russia, who have done some questionable state level things.

I am proud that my national football team took the proactive stance to fail to qualify. We are a proud nation and it would have been wrong for us to lift the Jules Rimet Trophy World Cup Trophy with the current issues with Russia.

Sent mine in.

It is a shame I don't know how "sports" outside of the Olympics work.... But as Rhy stated FREE MONEY! Heck! I'll give it a shot! Thanks Matty!

Brazil! - Sent mine in