2021 Mystery Tournament - Key Rules, Key Terms, Key Dates

Well 2020 has been a tough year, so what better way to turn the calendar to 2021 than with the 2021 Mystery Card Players Championship tournament! No need for masks here, most of us have all been self-isolating playing strat for a long time now! My name is John (aka Juiced JC) and I am going to be the Commissioner of this tournament again this year. For all the new participants, I want to make it clear that I am not affiliated with Strat-o-matic in any way, I am a 365 player just like you and I volunteer to run this simply because I love this tournament so much I want to see it thrive. I think this pandemic has added a lot of new 365 players, so I'm hoping we can have the the biggest and best tournament ever this year. Like last year, I'm going to highlight the key rules, key terms and key dates below.

Key Rules / Details
The deadline for signing up for the 2021 Mystery Card Players' Championship is Monday January 11th. There is a separate thread for sign ups - please go there to be a part of this year's tournament! By signing up you are making a four season commitment and will therefore eventually require 4 credits to enter your teams in this tournament. New players are welcome in the tournament! Veterans will generally be glad to get you quickly up to speed in playing the mystery format - so just ask! You'll be playing like a pro in no time. Once you have signed up for the tournament, please check the Mystery Tournament thread on the Discussion Forum site regularly for updates, and keep track of your private messages on this Discussion Forum page (up where it says "x new messages") as league assignments and other notifications are sent out that way.

The rules are generally the same as last year except we will be expanding to a 5th round for the top 24 teams using the new 2000's Mystery Set. The only other difference from last year is the 70s league will NOT be using the DH this year - we have been alternating this every year the past few years. There are 4 rounds to the tournament for ALL participants- one each for the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's. Each round, the tournament participants are divided randomly into 12 team leagues (i.e. if we have 120 participants we will have 10 simultaneous 12 team leagues running each round). A random number generator will be used to assign each manager to one of the 12 team leagues and this will be done for each decade so you will play against mostly different managers in each decade. Each of these individual leagues run exactly the same as the regular 12 team Mystery leagues do, including the championship participants receiving credit bonuses. These individual league results roll into an overall tournament standings in which every league win counts as 1 point, with bonus points coming for every round of playoffs that you advance to in each decade round. At the conclusion of the 4th round of the tournament (the 90's) the top 24 teams will be divided into two 2000's Mystery Set leagues (assigned in a "snake" distribution based on the standings after 4 rounds (1-4-5-8-9 etc in one league, 2-3-6-7 etc in the other) and the total from those two leagues simply get added to the cumulative standings. This gives teams 13-24 a chance to do well in this 5th round and get themselves into the top 12. At the conclusion of this new 5th round, the top 12 overall teams in points in the overall tournament standings advance to the finals round (Mystery set to be used to be determined by vote by the 12 finals participants). The winner of the finals league is the 2021 Mystery Tournament Champion! Please note that each round of the tournament has a staggered start date, but they are run in parallel, with just a 2-3 week break between drafts for each round. Specifically, there is a 2 week gap between the start of the 60s leagues and the start of the 70s leagues, a 3 week gap between the start of the 70s leagues and the the start of the 80s leagues, and a 2 week gap between the start of the 80s leagues and the start of the 90s leagues. So by the 4th round you will have all 4 teams "active" at one time.

For additional rules and other info, please go to the 2020 (last year) Tournament website: http://365.strat-o-matic.com/tournament/36

Key Terms / Definitions
Tournament Participants - These are the 365 strat members that have signed up to participate in the tournament.
Tournament Commissioner - This is the person organizing tournament activities. This is a 365 strat member who is participating in the tournament, not a strat employee. The commissioner will however be in regular contact with 365 support to resolve any issues and assist with any setup.
League Closer - The commissioner will assign two closers for each tournament league. The closers do not join the league until the other 10 league participants join, and they are to ensure the correct members have joined before they do, and they are to ensure they do not join before the designated date for closers to join. It's important leagues close at the proper time so that the leagues for each round all have the same opening day.
League Fillers - Fillers are 365 strat members who are taking up league spots if we start, or end up with, a total number of participants that is not divisible by 12. Filler teams scores do not count toward the overall tournament standings. There are two types of fillers - guest fillers, who are not tournament participants , and participant fillers, who are tournament participants who are entering a second team for that round of the tournament (but only their primary team's totals count).

Key Dates / Deadlines
Please note that these dates reflect that the fact that we will continue to run the leagues the "old way" in which the season will start on the first Monday 3 days after the league fills and the draft takes place. Using this format will allow us to avoid the headache of being dependent on teams setting themselves as "Ready for Draft".

Monday January 11th - Deadline to join 2021 Mystery Tournament (at 12:00 midnight Eastern Time on Sunday night / Monday morning)

Monday January 11th - 60s leagues membership will be randomly generated and leagues created
Saturday January 16th - Non-closers must join their assigned 60s league before this date, closers must NOT join before this date
Monday January 25th - Opening Day for the 60s leagues

Monday January 25th - 70s leagues membership will be randomly generated and leagues created
Saturday January 30th - Non-closers must join their assigned 70s league before this date, closers must NOT join before this date
Monday February 8th - Opening Day for the 70s leagues

Monday February 15th - 80s leagues membership will be randomly generated and leagues created
Saturday February 20th - Non-closers must join their assigned 80s league before this date, closers must NOT join before this date
Monday March 1st - Opening Day for the 80s leagues

Monday March 1st - 90s leagues membership will be randomly generated and leagues created
Saturday March 6th - Non-closers must join their assigned 90s league before this date, closers must NOT join before this date
Monday March 15th - Opening Day for the 90s leagues

Important Note: New Extended Playoff Format
As mentioned above, starting new this year we will have a 5th cumulative points playoff round for the top 24 teams. After the first 4 rounds, the top 24 teams will be split into 2 leagues (based on a snake order of the final standings after 4 rounds) and those 24 teams will have their points from this 5th round get added to the cumulative standings. The new 2000's Mystery Set will be used for this 5th round. Anyone who is in the 25th spot or later will not participate in the 5th round and will not get to use the new 2000's Mystery Set in this year's tournament.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Tournament veterans, please reply with comments if I have left out any important details.

Thanks,
Juiced JC

To any newbs that may be wondering about a crazy tournament like this and whether they are worthy to play, let me see an emphatic, "YES!"

I am just a lowly Starter rank in this SOM 365 thing and was a lot less experienced when the 2020 Tourney started and I can tell you that this format makes it a fantastic way to enjoy the Mystery Leagues and is the best bang for the 365-buck that there is to play.

Also, Juiced ran a fantastic tourney last year and is truly a blessing as a Commish - great to find someone who is so dedicated, voluntarily, to making this a fantastic, Ritz-Carlton like experience! I only wish I had won something so I could share it with him - really a difference maker on how smooth it ran.

So jump in, it's a lot of fun, you won't be sorry!

Jason

Very well run and organized.

Please note I have updated the original post in this thread with details of the new possible extended playoff format.

Please note I have updated the original post in this thread again as the 5th round is no longer just "possible" it is now happening regardless of the number of participants signed up and it will be using the new 2000's Mystery Set.

Thanks Juiced for the information.
Providing the dates and walking thru the process is very helpful.
Thank You

Good luck everyone

somwillis

I decided to withdraw my enrollment from the Mystery Tourney.
A League I was recently competing in was contaminated by a SOM BOT- strange results.
The entire League was blindsided by a BOT being included in the League and agree with my sentiments....
I'm OUT unless SOM addresses the issue.

While I'm concerned about the situtation stratorat is describing and am interested in hearing strat' support's response, I want to re-assure tournament participants that this will not be an issue in the tournament. We use private leagues in which the password is sent to you via private message. No way for bots or bad actors to get in the way,

Let me use this as a reminder to keep checking this discussion forum for updates and your private message inbox where you will get the password for your first league from me on Monday January 11th. We're almost there!

For what it's worth, here are two comments from veteran Strat-players regarding SOM use of BOTS.
\In the meantime, no response fro SOM after 2 days....

BEWARE!

“If my team ended up in a league with a BOT, I would ask for a refund. I assume BOTs do not respond to trade offers nor do the manage the team other than to set a line up. Wouldn't be the same experience as playing with real people even if some of them have a hard time playing within the spirit and integrity of the game.”

“I looked at this league, and they should never put a BOT team in the play-offs in any league. In this case they should've chosen the next team as the WC. And if it wins a division, the title and play-off berth should go to the 2nd place team. "

I play in a lot of leagues and I've never had a bot put in. I agree it should not have happened. But it is a very rare event and it is very unlikely to affect the Tournament. Weighing the fun of playing in the Tournament versus the risk that SOM will put in a bot makes staying in the Tournament an easy decision for me.