MACF
mACF is a term applied to academic tournaments that follow the ACF format without being official ACF events. They may occasionally deviate from ACF Rules, such as by having powers.
Usefulness of term
The term was used more often in the early and mid-2000s, when college and high school tournaments were more likely to imitate CBI or bad local formats. Since every full-length tournament in collegiate quizbowl besides actual NAQT events uses untimed tossup/bonus format, and most use questions that are closer to ACF style than NAQT's, it is unclear what helpful information is communicated by dubbing a collegiate tournament mACF as opposed to not doing so. It is generally more effective to give a more detailed description of the intended length and difficulty standards of one's tournament (e.g. "7-line tossups, difficulty akin to ACF Regionals 2010"), and more tournament announcements have done so since the early 2010s, leaving the term "mACF" behind.
Notable mACF Tournaments
- Michigan MLK (from 2006 to 2008)
- Terrapin Invitational Tournament
- Western Invitational Tournament
- Penn Bowl
- Chicago Open
- Illinois Open
- Bulldogs Over Broadway
- Cardinal Classic
- PARFAIT
- Deep Bench
- Early Fall Tournament
- actually, pretty much every tournament
Tournaments with Doubtful mACF Status
Tournaments run by Charlie Steinhice usually advertise themselves as "mACF" despite not using the ACF format, distribution, or question style. This tenuous semantic connection may be why Charlie Steinhice, who has previously accused ACF of being poison and repeatedly told his teams that ACF is impossible, continues to claim that he is a "supporter of ACF."