This was posted a while ago:
An Update from the Altador Cup Rules Committee wrote:
The Altador Cup Rules Committee has been keeping a careful eye on player performance this year, and it has come to their attention that a disease has been spreading among some participants. Symptoms include multiple personality disorder and temporary feeling of supernatural or magical performance in the games. In order to stop the spread of this plague, we have quarantined the affected players (and their scores), which have initially caused a dramatic upheaval to some overall team scores. We do expect these to stabilize as we move forward and remove quarantined players from the tournament. We will also continue to monitor other teams closely to make sure that all others stay healthy and unaffected by this plague. No other changes have been made to how the results are tallied, so uninfected players can and should keep playing normally for their teams.
In other news, now that round 1 has come to a close, we are excited to announce a new ending to this year's Cup. Round 5, instead of being another round of regular gameplay, will be a Finals Bracket! The top 6 teams will be placed into one bracket to battle it out for the top spot, teams ranked 7-12 in the next bracket, and 13-18 in the final bracket. The stakes are higher than ever to make sure your team performs well throughout the next few rounds. Each bracket will be worth different amounts, so winning the top bracket will earn more bracket points than the top spot in the second bracket, which will earn more than the last.
Game on, Neopians! This is shaping up to be one of the most dramatic Altador Cups yet!
I haven't followed the exact scores, but apparently they've been tweaked?
I played minimums today, and maxed out on SOSD. Between that, and the handful of SS games I've played solely because I like the game (even if it's long), I just barely made it to rank 8. My goal is to get to rank 13 at least, as I hate the Rank 9-12 trophies.