Start date, i'm hoping to organise pools and start by the 1st of March. But signups have been slow, so i'm not certain whether to delay by a few weeks...0

What is going to happen with A* 4A?

I signed up, but im at slot 80. Just to let you know

Orka, you had my hopes up,

you are now number 35!

And Draug, I think a 6-way draw will have to suffice.

bump

@Ora, I'm fine to share the address with humans, but I'm still spamfree (thanks to persistent paranoia) and prefer to keep it that way. Can you blank the fields once you note down the addresses?

Ok, i've wiped the emails from the public list for now.

i have all of your email addresses. Don't worry, i know where to find you...

49 would be a nice round number to play with... so any more takers?

49 works well. I have an idea (up for discussion and up to ora if he wants to try it).

A* - 1 league of 7 (6 demoted)
A - 1 league of 7 (4 promoted, 3 demoted)
B - 2 leagues of 7 (5 promoted - winner of each promoted all the way to A*, top 3 by points of rest of players go to A, 6 demoted - losers of each and worse 4 amongst middle group between the two leagues , 3 stay )
Open - 3 leagues of 7 (6 promoted, winners of each of the three leagues and best three of the rest)

This makes it important to consider not only your position in your league (B1, B2, C1, C2, C3, etc) but also amongst your entire tier.

What I like about this is it gives meaning to winning the B league by getting the double bump, winning A* is the only way to repeat, and you never repeat in A as you are either promoted or demoted.

I would counter with this, I don't really think it's a good idea to do that much switching:

A* - 1 league of 7 (5 demoted)
A - 1 league of 7 (3 promoted, 3 demoted)
B - 2 leagues of 7 (5 promoted - winner of each promoted all the way to A*, top 3 by points of rest of players go to A, 6 demoted - losers of each and worst 4 amongst middle group between the two leagues , 3 stay )
Open - 3 leagues of 7 (6 promoted, winners of each of the three leagues and best three of the rest)

My intention was to be more conventional, the last season - 14 players in A*, 14 players in A, 21 players in (3 pools) in B. (C built as a few games for the subs bench to play) and try a smaller change.

7 players in A*, (demote 6) 3 pools of 7 in A (promote 6, winner of each pool and the best runner-up place across the 3 pools, 9 demoted : bottom three from each pool)

Open B leagues - pools of 7 - promoting best of each pool, plus best runner-up places across pools.

This does away with the 14-player pools entirely; gives a sense of progression (so you have to earn your place in the A leagues and really fight to get into A*; with only one A* player remaining - which should make the A leagues very competative when they have several demoted players, but also these six demoted players will be mixed into 3 pools, which may be nice to give them some fresh challenges)

This conserves the top 28 players in A/A* which we had this season but breaks the pools back into 7-man groups.

Any other suggestions or comments?

I do like the idea of the top league, whether you call it A, A* or whatever, being only 7 players. This makes it the ultimate draw and sets up the perfect Highlander scenario. "There can be only one." This ain't little league. Everyone doesn't get a shiny trophy. The winner of the top league should be regarded as the best that season has to offer. No questions.

I find the idea of promoting from B directly to A* troublesome. It seems strange to me that you can bump all the way up to A* without proving that you can beat the A-league players.

I rather like it, to be honest. One of the reasons I never bothered with the leagues was that the time needed to get to the top was painfully long (not that I believed I had enough talent to get to the top quickly, but it would have been nice to know it was possible if I did).

Besides, I can say with complete confidence that ta man with the nous to win group B will almost certainly be able to cut the mustard in the top flight.

I really think more than one person should stay in a*. I may be alone, but it kind of solidified as the best of the league players before. maybe 3 or 4. With others switching out...

orathaic is running it, so he gets final say.

Also...I would say that while A* and A are important leagues...the other levels should be important too. It used to be an honour to be in the upper levels, but also to do well in your league. In the last round of leagues, the A and A* seem to be the only ones that mattered. B isn't even updated on the website. The games have been over for a while...

That also makes me worry about having 28 in the A and A* league levels. More than half of the entire number are in those two leagues. With 49 players, B will be a mishmash.

I would also say that having progression is good, because if you fight to get to A* or A, you aren't going to just start missing games. You have gone through C and B, or whatnot, without missing games and such. It would cut down on drop-outs and subs needed.

"I really think more than one person should stay in a*. I may be alone, but it kind of solidified as the best of the league players before. maybe 3 or 4. With others switching out..."

+1

@Tantris - The complaint was from the old Premiere games that there was massive metagaming going on to keep the top two or three in A* for the next season. The eliminates completely the metagaming because only one survives.

While I see ora's view on the 28 in A/A* like before. I think Tantirs has it right that, with just 49 players, having over half in A/A* is a mistake. Two leagues in A reduces that to 21 and allows the remainder to all be in B.

How about top three from each of 2 As move to A* and bottom three move to Bs where the top 2 from each of 3 B leagues move up and the bottom most players from them as a group get demoted to open leagues, 1 for each open league. To get promoted out of open, you *must* win your league pool.

@Draugnar:
I hadn't heard that about the old Premiere games. That is a good reason to not keep many in it...though, it is sad to think that the names in those games were doing that.

I also don't see which people would have been involved in that. The top 3, and the premiere leagues in general, were not very static.

I didn't say the complaints were necessarily founded in reality. While perception is reality, it rarely reflects it. They were there. If you search the forums (google search works well), you can see the complaints in seasons back when the leagues were forming up.

Complaints were the reason for re-organising the top level of the leagues.

b leagues were not updated due to my lack of time; for whih i must apologise.

Looking at terminology - the current A* league is made up of the old A and Premier league combined. The current A league is made of the old B leagues. And the current B is essentially the old C.

I'm looking at the numbers and trying to setup the best level of difficulty. It will entirely depend on the skill of the players who sign up; but i recall being good enough to win C or D leagues but was demoted from A, it was a steep skill curve. In my suggested plan, i think random pools of 7 at A level will allow the best to compete and be rather tough level of competition but not something which will be too hard to reach - in practice i think any combination will work; but i don't know wha basic principle to use to guide the decision... (previously i was trying to follow the rules of the old as closely as possible while taking the complaints into account)

Here is an interesting idea. Run A* separate from A so that all players in A* are also in A. The winner of A* is guaranteed to stay there thebnext season, but anyone who can rank in the top 6 in A, including the current A* players, will move up the following year. So one may stay in A* by winning their A league even if they lose A*.

The key to this woild be that no more than 3 A* players could be in the same A group and maybe the previous years winner wasn't allpwed to try for an A victory meaning 2 A* players in each of 3 A leagues.

is it to late to join? i posted on the list and it says im 43rd

yes i know it says not to post here, but i want to make sure it isn't to late

Nope, not to late. It just means don't do the signup here. Confirming is fine like that. If you used the list, I'm sure ora will find an appropriate spot for you.