Two weeks down! There were a lot more close matches this week than last week and I think we'll continue to see things get more competitive as the PR scores settle in.

The two biggest problems I am having right now are:
    1) getting class selections/bans submitted on time
    2) people having trouble connecting for their matches

I want to make this league great but honestly I don't have the time or desire to chase people down to turn in their selections every week like I have been. I hope to continue to grow the league to a point where this would become impractical anyway. For these reasons, I am going to lay down some clear guidelines on how and when these things should be done and what will happen when they are not. These rules below will go into effect for the fourth week of competition (next week), which is the first position round of this season.

1) Class selections - Class selections will be due by the end of the day on Wednesday. I won't be sending out reminders - it will be up to you to remember to do this. Thursday morning, I will send the captains a list of players who have not submitted their classes. The captains can either a) track down their own player to get the classes submitted by the end of the day Thursday, or b) Find a sub for that player for that week.

2) Subs - If a player isn't able to play one week, they or their captain may replace that player with a sub from the available free agents. All subs must be registered with the league as free agents at least a week in advance to the match date in question. Each player may be replaced by a sub only one week per season. If a player is unable to play (or neglects to submit class selections) and has already been subbed for once during that season, that player will forfeit their matches and the opposing player will be awarded the full 5 points for the match. In season Alpha, subs may have any PR. In future seasons, subs must have a PR that is equal to or less than the PR of the player they are subbing for. All substitutions must be communicated to the league by the end of the day on the Thursday before that week's match. Unannounced substitutions are not permitted.

3) Bans - Bans are due by the end of the day on Friday. I will email the bans and publish them in the spreadsheet at 8:45 PM EST on Saturday. For anyone who has not submitted their ban, their opponent's ban will also not be published (as a means of preventing counter-banning). If you have submitted your ban on time but you opponent has not, at the time of your match you may insist that your opponent tell you his/her ban first, since your ban is already on record. If you and your opponent both want to share bans early, that's fine with me and I don't see any fairness issue with allowing that to be discretionary.

4) Scheduling matches - The next week's matches are published on Monday (or possibly Sunday if all matches conclude on Saturday). When the match is published, both players should attempt to contact each other and confirm the time of their match. This can be done either through battle.net or email, but email is usually a more dependable method. If there is no communication between players during the week, it is assumed that the match will occur at the standard time of 9:00 PM EST. If one player is online and waiting at 9:00 PM EST and the other player is not heard from within 30 minutes, the waiting player may claim victory by disqualification. The waiting player may otherwise choose to allow his/her opponent another chance to compete before the end of the day Sunday. All matches must be completed by the end of the day Sunday. Once the matches are published on Monday, if you cannot compete at the scheduled time on Saturday evening, you may coordinate a match time with your opponent any time before Sunday evening.


That covers the most important things I wanted to address. I want to remain as flexible as possible and I want everyone to play and have fun. At the same time though, as competition heats up, fairness is very important and flexibility can almost always be seen as unfair to one party.

Some other errata:

1) In the rare event of a game ending in a tie, both player take a loss and must change classes.
2) If two competing teams have an equal score at the end of the week, they will each receive 1 bonus point instead of the normal 3 point team victory bonus.

If you think of anything else that should be addressed, please let me know. I'll be working to get these added into the rules section as I find time.

Thanks to all of you for making this a success so far! Our league is shaping up nicely :)
-JediNinja

The week one class selections are published. Check them out on the "week one" tab of the Season Alpha Spreadsheet. If you see no classes beside your own name, it is because your opponent is a replacement and has not yet submitted their class selection.

Use the Week One Ban form to select which one of your opponent's select you will ban. Please do this by Tuesday (2/10) afternoon at 1:00 PM EST.

Your selection of five classes to use in week one competition are due tonight. There is a form to submit class selections on the site under Seasons > Season Alpha > Week One to submit the classes. Tomorrow, I will email everyone who has not submitted their classes to remind them to do so. After the picks are in to me, I will publish them all on the site simultaneously. Then there will be a new form for selecting bans. You choose which class on your opponents list that you don't want to let them play. Then I will email the bans to the players 15 minutes before match time. That is why it is important to let me know if you have arranged a different match time with your opponent.

If you haven't already, you should contact your opponent to confirm the time you will be competing. You can see who your week one opponent is on the "Week One" tab of the Season Alpha Spreadsheet. If you cannot meet at the official time (Wednesday 2/11 9:00 PM EST) it is your responsibility to coordinate a different time with your opponent. Let me know if you need any help contacting your opponent.

Anyone who has not submitted their classes by the end of tomorrow (Sunday) will be disqualified for week one. Teams have the opportunity to find a substitute for any disqualified players. We have RadDreams waiting as a free agent and any new people can be brought in as well (this will be less flexible in future seasons/weeks).

It's pretty likely that we will have a few people who have signed up that we'll never hear from again. That's just another part of the growing pains for this first week/season. Players who have been unresponsive will just have to be removed from this season so we can start working on replacements. They will all be welcome back next season or even this season if their spot is still available.

Thanks to all those who have been asking questions and helping me identify where I need to better explain things. If you haven't already, you can like our Facebook page or follow on Twitter to be notified about updates like this one. I don't want spam up people's email boxes any more than necessary. Or you can just check this page regularly.

I have some very important rules updates and clarifications here. Please make sure to read this full post carefully.

1) Players may have multiple decks ready for a single class. Once one of those decks is played, it is locked in. For example, if one of my selected classes is mage, I could have both a mech mage and freeze mage ready to go. After losing my first game with a different hero, I could choose whichever mage deck gives me the best match-up. Once I pick a mage deck, I have to stick with it for the remainder of the match. This isn't the way it's normally done, but since we aren't submitting deck lists there's no way to prevent it, so we might as well officially sanction it and allow everyone to benefit from this tactic.

2) All decks must be fully constructed before a match begins. No teching out a deck after you've seen what your opponent has. This is pretty easy to enforce - just don't cancel the challenge after it has started and definitely don't go into your collection after the match. If you need a break during the match, just stay in the hero selection screen. If you go into your collection after the beginning of a match and your opponent catches you, the penalty will be a DQ and the REMAINING points in the match will go to your opponent.

3) This one is really important - NO GETTING HELP DURING A MATCH. All players must disable spectator mode before a match. Getting help during a competitive event is completely unfair and blatant cheating. Anyone found to be sharing their screen during a match, either through Hearthstone spectator mode or any other software will be permanently banned from the league. This is super important and we will have a zero tolerance for any violations.

4) Streaming a league match is allowed but all streamed league matches must be on at least a 15 minute delay. (As an aside, I think it would be fun to cast the matches of the final week that will determine the winner of the season. Anyone who's interested in casting, please contact me).

5) Our official match time for week one is 9:00 PM EST on Wednesday 2/11. If you can't make that time you can coordinate with your opponent (find you opponent on the "week 1" tab of the Season Alpha Spreadsheet) to set a different time to play. That time must be BEFORE the official match time for that week. All matches need to be complete before the end of Wednesday night.

If you can think of any rules that need to be addressed, please let me know! Unfortunately, this first week is almost sure to be a bit bumpy and chaotic but we have to start somewhere. We're having this alpha season so we can identify the problems and correct them.

Thanks!