Hi everyone. There are just two games left in season 5 (though one of them hasn't really started yet), and more updates will soon be posted here.

Current players: this is the time to let us know if you do not wish to be automatically included in season 6. This information is important to plan the consequential movements up or down for a successful next season.

Also, new players, including Reza, will be included in the lowest group by simply expressing interest in this thread. The "notable thread" feature of the forums might have decreased the exposure to this open league.

Question, comments, bragging and expressions of frustration or despair are also always welcome.

count me in!

cool.

you can add me in also, thanks

I'm totez in this league of debauchery.

I'll rejoin too.

Also want to join. So count me in, please.

count me too please

Welcome newcomers!

Here is a preview of how I think season 6 is going to shape up. As usual there are a number of retirments to handle and this means fewer relegations and more super-promotions to try to have groups of 6. I try to do things in an objective way but want to allow for comments before the new season starts.

Currently, we have 4 from Group A, 4 from B, 6 from C, 6 from D, 4 from E, 5 from F, 5 from G and 6 from H. Here is how I see that shaking out for the new season with new groups (showing the Season 5 origins):

A - AAAABB
B - BBCCCD
C - CCDDDE
D - CDEEFF
E - DEFFGG
F - FGGHHH
G - GHHH,Reza,Hellbender
H - Remaining newcomers

Comments? Questions?

join but probably stuck in the bottom.

any chance for 4 superpromotions from group H instead of 3? :D

Huh, no relegation from Group A this time? (I wouldn't go up if someone did relegate, but I went down last season when there was 4 in the A group.) :P

Fridge: Ha! 3 is already quite a bit for super-promotion, but you never know, I suppose if there are too many more retirements it could happen.

Kero*Sea: You raise a good point. I guess the difference in circumstances between seasons 4 and 5 are this. In season 4, you ended in 5th place at the end of a 5 team round-robin tournament and someone who ranked above you retired. This time the participants who are retiring ended in 5th and 6th place in a 6 team round-robin. The other thing that compliates it is that both Groups A and B this time are down to 4 players each, making it a challenge to fill each of the highest groups in a logical way. The other thing to consider is that if we insisted on 1 relegation for each group (not necessarily a bad idea, but difficult in practice with lots of retirements), then I suppose we would have to consider a relegation from group B, right? What would be your proposal for sorting this out objectively? I'm open to change if it can work out overall in a fairly consistent rational way.

I'd say:

1) there could be a fixed number of leagues until they are less than 10players each.. (more players would require creating more leagues, cause it would take ages to finish a RR) lets say - 8 leagues for now - a b c d e f g h.

2) Then i would divide the total number of players by 8 to count how many players will there be in each group.

3) I would say - 3 promotions is a minimal must, relegations are dependant on retirements - eg. if a group has 3 or more retirements, then no relegations happen from it

4) I'd say 1 superpromotion/group is a great idea to make people shuffle more, or make newcomers get to their proper league faster.. and more superpromotions should happen only if there would be so many retirements that they would clean a group (or make all remaining members of a group promote)

by the way - i was joking about the 4 superpromotions.. I can humbly take my way up the league. It's funny how strong was group H though - theoretically the weakest of all) ;)

Maybe instead of newcomers always starting from the lowest league, there should be a round robin for all the newcomers to shuffle them into different groups? it would make it less of a struggle to join the league for best players, cause in the current system it would probably take at least 4-5 seasons to go to group A and some of the best players out there might not be interested just because of that..

Fridge, I appreciate your thoughts on this.

In response to your first post, I think your ideas reflect what we've been doing fairly closely, except that the groups have been usually only 6, and with that size the ordinary promotions of 2 fits pretty well when they are that small. I am open to groups growing in size, especially if participants grow significantly - I don't know if we're there yet. I'm open to feedback on that, maybe for season 7? Superpromotions are becoming a fact of life that I hadn't anticipated, and I'm more comfortable with them than I used to be.

Expansion shuffle groups have happened in the past (when there have been too many for one expansion group), but we've never tried to slot newcomers into higher groups than natural promotion offered. We've also discussed your point about the long climb to the top. It's always been my expectation that the basic idea of the league was to allow, over a long-term participation, a gradual discovery of where your level might naturally take you. I am hesitant to stick people into high groups based on obvious ability rather than earning the higher spots bit by bit. I was hoping that would be part of the appeal.

We've had a number of strong players start at the bottom and climb up, some pretty quickly. Niko, for example, is coming into Group A for the first time. He started at the bottom of Season 2 where there were already 7 groups. He'll be in the top group now after 4 seasons of play, only losing one match, I believe, along the way.

Ha! Just blew my cover there! Anyway, I've not done anything unfair or prejudiced along the way.

Hmmmm... well, I'd say to superpromote the winner of Group C, relegate the loser of Group B, and superpromote another person in Group D.

My proposal would look something like this:
A - AAABBC
B - ABCCDD
C - BCCDDE
D - CDEEFF
E - DEFFGG
F - FGGHHH

This set up relegates one person from Groups A-D. For Groups E-H, there were 6 people removed in their group or before (2 from A, 2 from B, 2 from E), so getting promoted is actually the normal thing to do. Staying in the same group is essentially getting relegated for those groups.

(I'm being relegated again if this happens. Oh well.)

Kero*Sea, I think your set-up actually has better consistency and merit to it than mine. I'm willing to go with that, subject to further comments.

Hi, i'm interested in joigning the next start :)