I am thinking about a tournament series for only non-member players.
For members there is the ladder to get some glory, but there are many very strong non-member players and I would like to give them a chance to get some fame as well :)

So this is my proposal for it:
There will be 4 seasons in a year (summer, autumn, winter, spring).
Every season has 3 phases.
1. Joining phase
There will be a forum topic for every season where the non-member players can join with a post.
There will be a deadline for join.
2. Qualifying phase
There will be an invitational double-elimination tourney for players who joined in the forum topic.
The best 8 players will qualify to the finals.
3. Finals phase
There will be an invitational round-robin tourney for that best 8 players.
The winner of this tourney will be the Non-Member Word Champion.

After the first season there will be some changes.
In the new season, for the reigning Non-Members World Champion has to play only in the new finals (no qualifying matches for him).
The finals of the new season will be for 10 players, not only 8 like in the first one:
8 players from the new qualifying phase
1 player is the reigning Non-Members World Champion
1 player is an invited good member player (if he win the final, it means the 2nd player is the new Non-Member World Champion)
And during the new joining and qualifying phase, for the reigning Non-Members World Champion there will be organized best of 5 matches againts good members players.

All of the matches will be on "Strategic 1 v 1" built-in template.
Criterions of the joining:
- the player is not a member
- the non-member account is not an alterego account of a member player
- the player is registered into warlight before the current season
- the player has at least 100 matches

Organizer team:
League admin(s)
Tasks: organize all of the phases, write summaries, news, etc. Now I am the only league admin.
Sponsor
Of course (present) I cannot create any tourney, because I am not member :)
So there will be a member sponsor for every season, who will create the tourneys. Only this is his task, and he has the right (if he wants) to choose the member players for the finals and for the best of 5 mathces.
If a member likes this tourney series a lot and wants become a league admin (as my partner) then it means the sponsor role will be discontinue. Anyway, I still have a lot of tourney idea, so we can organize them as well together :)

So this is my idea.
I am waiting your opinions, suggestions.
And I am waiting for a member who wants to be the sponsor of the first season (2013 summer).

This won't work without any members...
Most don't work very well with members, so excluding them ill mean hardly any players.
Also this tourny will not mena you are the best non-members, many of the good non-members will no doubt win memberships in tournies or buy one while the season is occurring.
You plan on doing all this in 3 months? not doable without 1 day autoboot no vacations. Double elim takes a very long time to get top 8, and RR of 8 players as well...

Be positive hedja :)

Some of the problems mentioned by you are probably exists.
So lets and try find solutions :)

I am not afraid the number of joined non-member players, couse not the number of players is the essence. We can find almost all the best non-member 1v1 strat players I am sure. And after we can recruit them one by one. And if we cannot find somebody, he will join himself, I am sure (maybe only to the 2nd season but he will)

Becoming members during a season is not really a problem neither, I think. He can win that season, but after that he will retire (as champion :) )

I am not an experienced tournay player, so I really don't know about how is an avarage tourney long. So this is a possible problem. You already give a solution (1day autoboot, no vacation). Help find is it ok, or need other settings (season long, etc.)

So I am waiting your help, proposals.

And don't forget, be positive :)

Impossible to stop alts.

Ekstone, most of the top non-member 1v1 strat players are too bored to play so many games in a row, especially if there isn't a reward (anyone will play for a membership, but depends if they have the time to join a new one).

Also the 1 day autoboot no vacation was a joke, you cannot expect anyone good to do that, it means if there is 1 small problme you get booted, in the RR this would mean within a week you have been booted every day (forcejoin + boot = 2days, and there will not be 1 match at a time). People go on vacation all the time, so I think this an impossible dream.

However having said all that I do wish you the very best in your attempt to do this, but will not be joining it myself.

@Truthless Hero
Yep, the alts is a real problem.
This was one of the reason that an invited member can play in the finals and the best of 5 challange againts a member as well. So if a member would like to test the non-member elite he can with his real account, not necessary use his alt account.
Otherwise not a huge problem if some good alts will play, couse the goal is a hard tourney with very good players :) And I am not sure that the best non-member won't beat most of alts ;)

@Hedja
I hope that for the most top non-member 1v1 strat players will be enough the glory to win a hard tourney (finals) and not necessary free membership or other :)

And yes, the biggest problem that one season is too short for the format I wrote above.
There is two way for solving this problem.
1. Longer seasons. I mean not necessary 4 seasons per year, we can start a season, and when finals ended, we can start the new one. In this case we can use suitable settings (boot time, vacation, etc.) for the double-elimination and round-robin tourneys as well. I think it is correct. Do you have problem with it Hedja? :)
2. We have to change the format, which one is fit for the shorter (3 months) interval. If somebody has an idea about this just write here.