Tournaments
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BattleFrame Industries sponsors and directly runs the majority of worldwide events, with the most notable being the World Grand Prix, the largest and most prestigious Frame Girl tournament which runs once a year. These events are gated by a score called "Battle Rating" (or BR), which is tracked through an app called the Frame Tournament Tracker. Battle Rating is accumulated through participation in 'sanctioned' events, which are any event that mandates the use of the FTT app and uses tournament rules the app provides. Battle rating henceforth is awarded based on performance, with factors like attendance, numbers of rounds won, number of participants, format, and sportsmanship taken into account. The tournament organizer/s use the FTT app to award these points to players at their discretion.
With enough battle rating, participants become eligible for bigger, sponsored events. For most, as long as they have the rating, they are eligible to purchase a ticket to participate in that event, which is usually used to pay for the venue and judge staff. Some events are also gated by both rating and a specific invite from the tournament organizers, and these would be considered invitationals. The FTT app is considered the replacement for a traditional qualifier system, and serves as such. Practically speaking, its better to do well in as many big events as possible to get to the grand prix.
Unsanctioned Events
Other tournaments are often organised either by small Frame Battler communities, competing companies, or underground venues. Due to not being sanctioned by BFI, these events do not award Battle Rating and are usually not acknowledged by BFI at large. However, they often offer alternative prizes, such as cash or rare mods, or even just bragging rights. The most common distinction in these tournaments are differing rulesets, typically accommodating more extreme modifications, offering different battle formats, or even allowing the entry of Frames that are banned from BFI tournaments. Due to lacking the infrastructure provided by BFI, these smaller events often have weaker protections for participants, and are generally entered at one's own risk.
Community Discussion
Banned Frame Girls
Frame Girls who exhibit an overwhelming advantage over competing models or who are capable of causing permanent damage are at risk of being banned from official BFI tournaments. BFI generally only bans models as a last resort, as they are loathe to alienate partners and customers by barring popular models from competitions.
The most infamous case of a banned Frame is Hexentanz, a Frame Girl that was able to cast 'hexes' that would cause irreversable damage to the CCUs of opponents.
"The Tyrant's Reign"
A BattleFrame Fighter who competed under the name "Hyperion" is infamous in the BattleFrame Girl community for entering and winning the first six World Grand Prix tournaments consecutively. While the Grand Prix was originally conceived as a way to promote BattleFrame Girls, BattleFrame Fighters were allowed to enter; Hyperion proved to be extremely dominant, with his six year stretch earning the nickname of 'The Tyrant's Reign.' Hyperion's competitive dominance came to an end when his owner agreed to a lifetime pension fund paid for by BattleFrame Industries, on the condition that Hyperion was never allowed to take part in any BFI sanctioned events again.