Clan League Season 2 [PUBLIC Discussion]

[jpcloet]

The following is now open for public comments, all suggestions are welcome (related to the league)

Welcome to the 2009-10 Clan League (Season 2) After a very successful Season 1 and declaring THOTA the Champions, we are now ready to move into a league format that will hopefully be repeated each year going forward.

A number of positive changes to setup and execution have been added as requested by players and clans alike, as well as a nice surprise.

Setup

1. Participants must be CLA eligible (do not have to be a current CLA member clan), meaning they have completed at least one 20+ challenge and adhere to the 1 competitive clan rule
2. There will be 4 Divisions being 2 Premier Divisions (8 and 8 Clans), and a Secondary Core Division (8 and 8 Clans) that may not completely fill to 8 each.
3. Unlike Season 1, the Divisions will not play each other (until playoffs), but will act as promotional and relegation Divisions. Explained graphically below.
4. Clans will be placed in the Season 2 league based on performance in Season 1 and also influenced by their Clan Ladder Ranking
5. Each clan will play their 7 other division mates 8 games home & away for 112 total games (8 games * 2 home/away) * 7 clans
6. Each team has 14 play weeks (generally every-other week), and 16 full league bye weeks (there are 3 weeks off at Xmas and New Years)
7. No team is a home team more than 2 weeks in a row (to minimize game order pressure), however, your clan may be on the road for 3 weeks in a row.
8. All maps and games are equally weighted at 1.00 for all league results.
9. The top 2 Clans in each division will be promoted automatically (where applicable), and will also have a small Playoff (setup TBD)
10. The bottom 2 Clans in each division will be relegated automatically (where applicable)
11. The 6th place (3rd last) will have a Relegation Playoff against the next lower Division's 3rd place team. Winner will get to play in the higher Division the next Season.
12. Schedule is slated for the Season to run from September 6th, 2009 to April 17th, 2010

Challenge Settings

• 4 Doubles - Clan's Choice of Settings
• 2 Triples - Clan's Choice of Settings
• 2 Quadruples - Clan's Choice of Settings

That means there are now 22 spots to fill, rather than 20. However, there are also less overall games and more time to fill them.

1. No Freestyle, No Speed, No Beta Maps.
2. Given that a clan will only be making 56 home games and that there are over 100 maps available, there will be NO Duplicate maps in your chosen maps. This will also include the playoffs as well, so plan accordingly. That means at most, your clan will be using 56+4+4=64 maps.
3. Does not have to be fixed teams. Players can play in more than 1 home game and more than 1 away game.

Execution

• Season 2 has been approved by admin to be run with game creation rights!(But limited to the Clan Directors)
• The primary contacts are asked to order games 2 weeks in advance (using a standard format, hopefully aided with an Excel Order Form for those that would like some tools to help with this.), 1 week at the latest and will need to post in the Clan Season 2 Order Thread - All orders are FINAL
• The Clan Directors will then make the games and send the information to both clans' contacts for that week.
• The league contact is responsible for tracking their home maps. If you order a repeat map, it will be made into a random map.
• The league contacts (and clan partners) are all responsible for making sure their clan fills games
• NO games will be remade
• Clans will default the game if they put too many players into any game.

Clan Action Required Not needed yet, but we will take applications now. Aug 16th will likely be the sign up deadline
Each Clan Needs to Post the Following

• Clan Name
• Primary Contact
• Secondary Contact

The Clan All-Star Teams
Using the Tournament Stats script, the Clan Directors will be naming a First Team (Doubles-Triples-Quads plus 2 reserves) 11 Player All-Star team, along with a Second Team All-Star squad.

Going into Season 3, teams are then relegated and promoted. Other clans will "Switch" at the same level to provide some variety from season to season. Spots marked Stay and In are clans that would remain in the same division. (Not sure why I used 2 different words )

The red arrows are the 1st round playoff matchups.




Outstanding items:
Playoff Setup (7 Doubles seems preferred due to making sure the league moves along appropriately at the end)
Order template (Excel to CSV paste format) to be built by jpcloet for those that want the tool to help plan and order.


League Standings to be posted below. To be done later
Master Schedule to be posted below. To be done later
Personalized Schedules to be posted below. To be done later

[Bruceswar]

Confirming Knights of the Round Table in!

[peanutsdad]

OK, WOW, nicely done JP... That looks fantastic, and Mythology will gladly be joining once sign ups are ready. Hopefully i'll have actually remembered to tell the clan about this and set everything up by then too...lol

[reptile]

LoW is definately in of course

[GrimReaper.]

PCSIC is in!

But I have a few questions...

1. When you say no duplicate maps, does that mean for example. If we play Thota week1 and one of our games that week are classic. For the remainder of the match against Thota there can be no more classic in that matchup? Or the whole season?

Final question. Hone team chooses all settings for games right?

[Bruceswar]

PCSIC is in!

But I have a few questions...

1. When you say no duplicate maps, does that mean for example. If we play Thota week1 and one of our games that week are classic. For the remainder of the match against Thota there can be no more classic in that matchup? Or the whole season?

Final question. Hone team chooses all settings for games right?

To answer your questions:

If you use classic art week one you cannot use it again for the whole season.

As a home team you pick all the maps and settings for that week.

[jpcloet]

I've had a few good pm questions.

If a clan is not yet CLA eligible due to not having a challenge yet, they can join D2 if there is room available after the eligible clans have joined.

[GrimReaper.]

Then you would have to be prepared to accecpt sone forefits. An unorganized clan is likely to not create their games, or not join there own games they made, or the ones made by their opponents.

Meaning they will be forefiting that week. I think if the non elegible CLA clans forefit one week than they should be dropped from the league.

And if one of these clans makes it throught the season they will want to know if the season will count for their clan battle. I would say no but that is my opinion.

[jpcloet]

Then you would have to be prepared to accecpt sone forefits. An unorganized clan is likely to not create their games, or not join there own games they made, or the ones made by their opponents.

The first season had about 14 defaulted games, 10 by one clan in one week. Other than that one clan, all went well. The difference in Season 2 is that it is actually a tournament, so the Clan Directors make ALL the games. The league contacts only order them.

Meaning they will be forefiting that week. I think if the non elegible CLA clans forefit one week than they should be dropped from the league.

That sounds fair, and with 2 league contacts with each clan, that should be highly unlikely, although still possible.

And if one of these clans makes it throught the season they will want to know if the season will count for their clan battle. I would say no but that is my opinion.

In Season 1 all the 20 game sets counted. We are only playing 16 games, so no results will count towards the ladder based on the current 20 game minimum. There certainly needs to be another ladder discussion around this.

[the.killing.44]

If we were to use Classic Art one week, could we use Shapes the next?

.44

[jpcloet]

Yes, they are different maps.

[Fireside Poet]

The Imperials Dragoons are present, accounted for and ready to trounce.

[jpcloet]

The whole point of this is to show some versatility and to avoid farming the same maps, Random maps can be used as well. I see no reason why unlimited random map usage would be a problem, and could help those clans planning for the playoffs.

[DAAAAAAANG]

The Brethren of the Fat Mermaid are in!

Primary contact: FrancisBoyle

Secondary Contact: BoganGod

[GrimReaper.]

Wow I feel stupid. In my first post I said pcsic. I meant AoC is in

primary contact GrimReaper.

Secondary Contact... working on that.

[gogglez]

looks good!

[ahunda]

Sounds great. IA is certainly in. Will get our clan leaders to confirm.

Some thoughts & questions:

a) How will the overall winner of the season be determined ?

As I understand it, the 2 Premier Divisions are supposed to be equal in rank / standing (i.e. not a first and second league). Do the winners of the divisions play a playoff to decide the overall win then ?

EDIT: Ok. Just read again and noticed the red arrows in the pic. So if I understand correctly, there will indeed be playoffs. 1st of division A against 2nd of division B and vice versa. Winners of those playoffs then facing each other in a grand final. Right ?

b) Playoff Setup.

These playoffs would be rather important matches. Reducing them to 7 Doubles seems a bad idea to me. This would be even fewer games than in season 1, and the luck factor would be higher than in all regular season matches.

Since we are talking about max 2 playoff matches for a clan at the very end of the season, I don´t see, why those matches should be smaller. I personally would keep the league format (8 Dubs, 4 Trips, 4 Quads) and rather add 1 more game to avoid ties.

c) League counting towards the ladder.

I certainly think, it should. Maybe count it as one great 112 games challenge ?

[supergeek24]

the dark knights want in

supergeek24

TheOtherOne

[lanyards]

Count DLPP in!

the.killing.44

coded

[jpcloet]

Since we are talking about max 2 playoff matches for a clan at the very end of the season, I don´t see, why those matches should be smaller. I personally would keep the league format (8 Dubs, 4 Trips, 4 Quads) and rather add 1 more game to avoid ties.

Quads could take a while, there is some legitimate concern that quads would delay the playoffs. I will have to look at the average length of games.

c) League counting towards the ladder. I certainly think, it should. Maybe count it as one great 112 games challenge ?

[/quote]
That just means that all results would count which I would be in favour for. Since this will end up replacing clan wars the clans would have otherwise played in. The other option is for clans to agree to play the additional 4 games to make it 20 games, being (5-3-2)*2 = 20 total games. Some clans want more games, other clans are concerned about the number of slots.

[sailorseal]

D2 for Water's Fury

1. sailorseal
2. Sir Sinclair

[niMic]

I have to agree with ahunda here. One of my favourite things with the new format of the Clan League is that it's not all Doubles. It does seem sort of odd to have the entire regular season set up like that, and then have the playoffs be only doubles. I definitely think there should at least be some trips in there somewhere, though I understand the time-concern with quads (still want them in, mind ).

[jpcloet]

Me too, it is the time that concerns me, I guess there are no other game pressures though at that time.

[Bruceswar]

Yeah keep them in at all cost. Doubles for playoffs... Meh..

[hiddendragon]

Black Sheep Squadron are in under any format.
Primary Contact: hiddendragon
Secondary Contact: littlebrother2k7
Semper Fi!!