The Atlantic Kubb Tour is a six event tour which stretches from Pennsylvania to North Carolina and comprises the following events:
- Skuffle for the Shovel 1v1 Kubb Championship (Queen City Kubb – Charlotte, NC)
- North Carolina Kubb Championship (Queen City Kubb – Charlotte, NC)
- East Coast Kubb Championship (Currently Nokesville, VA)
- Maryland Kubb Championship (Old Line Kubb – Havre de Grace, MD)
- Pennsylvania Kubb Championship (Keystone Kubb – Elverson, PA)
- The Blasters (Raleigh Kubb – Raleigh, NC)
These events make up a season-long individual points race as well as a club championship. Recently, several new rules were added to the U.S. National Kubb Championship ruleset, which serves as the base ruleset for most kubb tournaments in the United States. On the Atlantic Kubb Tour, this ruleset has been traditionally used with the addition of the neighbor rule for elevated kubbs as defined in the Kubb United rules for open play.
Below is a brief summary of the rules changes to the U.S. National Kubb Championship ruleset:
- The baton cannot go more than 30 degrees off the vertical plane. This is a change from 45 degrees.
- The initial baton throw at the king to determine who goes first and side has to be a legal throw. Same as throwing from the baseline to field kubbs, the baton is required to at least start rotating vertically.
- There is an automatic penalty for practicing during a match. The rule has not changed, but a penalty is now automatic. During a match, players are only allowed to use game pieces from the pitch they are playing on and are not allowed to practice on another pitch. (For the next turn after the penalty, the team forfeits the maximum number of batons for every person that committed the penalty, and that person is not allowed to throw during the next turn. For example, if one person commits the penalty, the team forfeits two batons for the next turn and that person is not able to throw batons. If a person practices throwing kubbs, the team still loses two batons and that person is not allowed to throw batons and kubbs on the team’s next turn.)
After much debate about the pros and cons of these new rules and rule changes, the Atlantic Kubb Tour decided to leave it up to its players to decide which, if any, of these changes get adopted on tour going forward. Their goal is to be a player driven organization and they feel that at this point the players should drive the sport of Kubb forward in regards to rule additions and changes. The Atlantic Kubb Tour also feels that it’s important for all of the events on tour to follow a consistent set of rules across all 6 tour events.
The top 35 players in the 2023 Atlantic Kubb Tour were presented with an online poll where they could vote on the three changes presented above. It would take a 60% vote to change the rule that was used in previous seasons. Here are the results of that poll:
As you can see, the rule regarding the vertical rotation of the baton changing from 45 degrees to 30 degrees was by far the most controversial and it also was the only one of the three changes that will not be adopted going forward for Atlantic Kubb Tour events.
For more information on the Atlantic Kubb Tour and Atlantic Kubb Tour events please visit atlantickubbtour.com.
Update 11-16-2023: The practice graph previously incorrectly indicated players voted “yes” when they in fact voted “no.” The graphic has been updated to properly reflect the results.
