Missed Connections

At the time of this writing, Sunday evening, 9 of the 15 matches for this week have happened. Amazingly, 6 of those 9 matches were sweeps. I have no idea if that's meaningful or not but it's interesting.

I'm am concerned about the missing matches and I see this as a threat to the league's continuation. We're all here to play and have fun so obviously not playing is not fun, especially if someone shows up expecting to play and then doesn't get to. If that happens too much, that person will be more likely to not show up because they aren't having fun. It's a self-perpetuating cycle that can wither the league.

This is why I've implemented the rules changes detailed in last week's blog post. Starting this week, anyone who doesn't submit class selections by the Wednesday deadline may be replaced in the competition for that week. If a player doesn't submit classes and a sub can't be found, that team forfeits all point to the opposing team. This part is to cut out missed matches caused by a player who has been unresponsive or MIA. I completely understand there are many legitimate reasons why you might go MIA from your Hearthstone league and hopefully this way other people still get to play. So instead of saying "select classes", I'm now going to call it "registration" for the week. Registration is much better description of what we're doing and part of registering is choosing your 5 classes for the week.

The other big part of this that we need to tackle is when both players submit their classes and bans but for some reason or another aren't able to meet up to play. It turns out that this is just harder to do than I expected but I think we can clear it up with a better process that is clear to everybody.

1. The week's match-ups will be up by Monday evening at the latest. I'll notify when they go up by the facebook group and twitter so follow/like one of those to be notified.
2. When you see your match-up, go ahead and add your opponent right then. Both players should add the other. Don't wait for your opponent to do it. When you add your opponent, check to see if they have already added you. See the battle.net ID's of all the players on the Players page. Use copy/paste to prevent typos.
   
3. If this doesn't work the first time, keep doing it until it works. If you don't have them on your friends list by Wednesday, try emailing them. Email addresses are also on the Players page (click the names).
4. The official match time is 9:00 PM EST on Saturday each week. If you can't play at this time, it is your responsibility to reach out to your opponent and schedule a different time. The earlier you do this, the easier it will be.
5. If a player has not requested a reschedule, it is assumed that they will be there for the official match time. If the player is not heard from by 9:30 PM, they will forfeit their match. If you're running late, email me and we'll work it out.
6. Since you should be adding and contacting each other earlier in the week, you can confirm your match time together so there's no guessing about whether your opponent will show up on Saturday evening.

If anybody has any suggestions about a better way to do this, please let me know!

Thanks to everyone for your participation!