Making things happen

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 For anyone who has not submitted their ban, their opponent's ban will also not be published (as a means of preventing counter-banning).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

---