Changes to our playoff format
Many of you have speculated that with the addition of Division 1+ our playoff format has changed. In this post we outline the changes that are coming up. To start off, we want to share the objectives we had in mind when changing playoffs:
- Give all divisions achievable goals. Many players from divisions 3, 5, 7 felt that facing a division above them was demoralizing.
- Shorten the off-season, but put less pressure on schedule.
- Increase the number of best-of-5 matches played.
- Increase the incentive for teams to win in the last few weeks of the season.
The most impactful changes are:
- Each division will have their own playoff.
- There will no longer be group stages.
The playoffs format will look like this:
Seeding
How do you get into the playoffs? The top 8 of each division will go onto a single division, single elimination bracket.
How will we seed the bracket? The top 3 teams of each division will pick their opponent from the team's placed 5th to 8th as follows:
- 1st place - Picks first
- 2nd place - Picks next from remaining 5th to 8th teams
- 3rd place - Picks next from remaining 5th to 8th teams
- 4th place - Gets matched with the remaining team.
Quarter finals
If you are eligible to play in the playoffs, you are given your best-of-3 quarter-finals on Saturday as soon as round 10 finishes. If teams finish their quarter-finals early, they are able to start organising and playing their best-of-5 semi-finals.
- Division 4 to 7 are required to play this quarter-finals match in one week.
- Division 1+ to 3 are required to play this quarter-finals match in two weeks.
Why is the quarter finals a best-of-3? We decided on a best-of-3 quarter-finals as there is a limited time to organise for a match and finding the extra time to play a best-of-5 could be problematic for some teams. At semi-finals level there is slightly more time and half as many teams, so conflicting schedules is less likely to happen.
To accommodate these changes, we have had to make some sacrifices.
We are removing the group stages.
- Having individual playoffs means there is less need for the group stage
- It takes a large amount of time, and players felt that sometimes teams scheduled their group stage games “tactically”.
- Some players felt that if they scheduled their group stages too early, or too late, it removed the momentum of the playoffs for them.
“Finals day” will be the grand finals for multiple divisions.
- To make room for more divisions, finals day will now be two grand finals from two different divisions. Both of these are still best of 5.
- Starting a little later
No more Draw show :(
- The draw show has been a staple for many lounge seasons now, however, with this new format, there is less need for the actual draws.
- All the juicy statistics content will now be on the finals day for each division. Before each division’s grand final, we will supply you with all the statistics and overview, and insight you got from the draw show!
Many of these changes were made because of our community feedback session back in December. As always we will keep a keen eye on your feedback, try to answer any questions you have, and once again hold a survey after the season ends.
For Season 15 the playoff dates are as follows:
23rd of July - Last day to play Round 10 matches
24th of July - Rigging of playoff quarter-final matches
30th of July - Last day to play Divisions 4 to 7 quarter-final matches
6th of August - Last day to play Divisions 1+ to 3 quarter-final matches
6th of August - Last day to play Divisions 4 to 7 semi-final matches
7th of August 15:00 CEST - Division 7 Grand Finals
7th of August 18:00 CEST - Division 6 Grand Finals
8th of August 15:00 CEST - Division 5 Grand Finals
8th of August 18:00 CEST - Division 4 Grand Finals
13th of August - Last day to play Divisions 1+ to 3 semi-final matches
14th of August 15:00 CEST - Division 3 Grand Finals
14th of August 18:00 CEST - Division 2 Grand Finals
15th of August 15:00 CEST - Division 1 Grand Finals
15th of August 18:00 CEST - Division 1+ Grand Finals
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