Competitive:Inkling Performance Labs

Unofficial!

This article discusses content that is not part of the official Splatoon series canon but is part of the community or competitive gaming space.

Splatoon 2​

Inkling Performance Labs

Organizer	IPL Staff
Type	Online
Location	Inkling Performance Labs IPL Battlefy
Format
Modes
Date
Winner

Inkling Performance Labs or IPL for short, is an organization creating Splatoon tournaments and content.

History

Inkling Performance Labs has a long history stemming back to the beginning of 2018.

Casual Splatoon Tournament Era

On January 25th, 2018, HoeenHero created what would become the "Casual Splatoon Tournament" server. This tournament series was aimed at the players of the former Splatoon Pokemon Showdown chat room and was to be a monthly friendly event. The first event happened on February 3rd, 2018, and was composed of 4 teams of 2 players. After this first event, HoeenHero officially brought Kraken Mare on for staff. Kraken Mare was an advisor and player in the first event as well. This would be the only other staff member added for an extended period until April 2019 (in the Low Ink Era). The Casual Splatoon Tournament would continue to stay small and mostly contained to the Splatoon room over the next few months, moving to Challonge in this time, and updating the rules month to month. During this time, HoeenHero and Kraken Mare received outside interest to expand this tournament into a larger tournament but aimed at lower levels. This change would begin the second era.

Low Ink Era

The Low Ink Era began on August 1st 2018 with the announcement of the name of the previously known "Casual Splatoon Tournament" to "Low Ink" and change in focus to "Low Ink - A Splatoon tournament for newer and lower level teams". With the change of focus, Low Ink began to expand beyond the PS! Splatoon Room, bringing in teams from different parts of the Splatoon community. The first Low Ink was played on September 29th, 2018, which "Team E" would be the first victors of Low Ink. Low Ink would continue on expanding, reaching 14 teams in February 2019, which was the last month on Challonge. Starting in March 2019, Low Ink was moved to Battlefy, which it is still on to this day.

On April 3rd, Low Ink announced the first tournament that was not a Low Ink, the Spring Pairs Festival. Spring Pairs Festival was a 2v2 tournament with an Easter theme, as it was held on Easter 2019. This was the first tournament that would also feature a prize pool. This prize pool was $20 USD in eShop credit per player, or $40 USD total. This would also be the month the Low Ink twitter was officially launched, and the addition of the first staff member since early 2018, Leaf.

On April 4th, Low Ink April 2019 was announced. This event was to take place in early May. This edition would be a major step in Low Ink's history. This would be Low Ink's first prize pool (starting at $40 USD for the winning team), Low Ink's first time implementing the "Play All 3" format for the swiss section of the tournament and the first use of dedicated Low Ink graphics on stream and would be in use until the end of the year. This would also be the first month that the winner would be ineligible from participating in future Low Inks.

On November 1st, 2019, Low Ink opened a staff and commentator form, along with the addition of the temporary staff program, which allowed people to learn about staffing and what went into making an event like Low Ink. This program allowed those that were interested to potentially stay on the long term. With this program, Low Ink's staff team would expand quickly over the coming months. This growth of staff members in both quality and quantity helped pave the way to expansion in the future.

From the beginning of 2020, Low Ink's number of sign-ups quickly swelled, reaching the 100+ team mark in June of 2020.

On August 22nd, 2020, Low Ink announced its second tournament ever outside of Low Ink, with the first Unnamed Tournament, or UT for short. UT was the first tournament for a Low Ink tournament to use smash.gg and was hosted on September 5th. Unknown to most players, this announcement was hinting at something larger to be announced shortly.

IPL Era

With the conclusion of the August 2020 Low Ink, there was a major announcement for Low Ink. As of that day, the Low Ink team would be expanding into a large organization. At the time of the announcement, there would be an expansion into 3 more tournaments, the previously mentioned occasionally running Unnamed Tournament, the weekly Swim or Sink and the Bi-weekly Testing Grounds. Low Ink would continue as it was before the expansion as a 2-day monthly.

This format would continue unchanged until January 2021, where IPL partnered with I Dair You, a charity event that was raising money for the RAINN Foundation. This event had a base of $600 in prize pool money for Splatoon, and had other events, such as Melee, Ultimate, Rivals and Mario Kart.

In February 2021, IPL expanded to have dedicated tournaments for Oceania and European players, with Reef Rushdown and King of the Castle respectively. This allowed players from all over the world to have reoccurring tournaments that most likely fit their schedules.

One year to the date of announcing what would be IPL's first tournament under the new brand (UT), IPL had another major announcement. This announcement was IPL's first major, SuperJump. SuperJump was a 2-day event with a base prize pool of $500 USD. Through donations from the community, this event would have a prize pool of over 3,000 USD to be split between 10 different teams. This event had 151 teams complete the tournament until the end across the two days and over 5 different brackets. Kings would win this event, winning over $950 USD and beating Starburst in a bracket reset.

Tournament Series

Active

These are IPL's active series, along with how often they occur and targeted regions:

• Low Ink (Monthly, NA/EU)
  • High Ink Invitational (Yearly, NA/EU)
• Swim or Sink (Weekly*, NA)
• King of the Castle (Monthly, EU)
• Reef Rushdown (Bi-Weekly, OCE)
• Unnamed Tournament (Occasionally, NA/EU)
• SuperJump (Rarely, International)

The last week of every month is a break week for SoS.

Inactive

These are IPL's inactive series, which may or may not come back in the future:

• Casual Splatoon Tour
• Spring Pairs Festival
• Testing Grounds