Barnstormers 2013 Survey

We will have at least one event be the shuffle the deck option. 24 team leagues are also POSSIBLE but it depends on the number of players who are in a particular event. We need to have a very close multiple of 24 players in the event to avoid needing to recruit 20+ fillers. So 120 right on the dot works. 144 works but we have never had that many players in Barnstormers before. Membership in the tournament has remained somewhere between 120-130 generally. Maybe an extra push this year can get us to that magic 144 level - then we could have one 24-team event.

I'm in favor of any sort of schedule for the 1st 6 rounds where the formats are not duplicated. Hopefully, SOM will get a real working live draft app (with appropriately slow time control and proxies enabled) where that can be used, too.

I'm also in favor of not giving managers a choice of conditions - the idea of the tournament to my mind is to find out who can adapt, not ho has the best collection of "canned" teams. If we use a "shuffle", it should be on the order of 80-90% of the player set - take out just enough players to kill the canned teams and make the entrants figure out how to adapt on the fly.

I like pre- and post-WWII subsets and am also in favor of at least one shuffle-the-deck round. Maybe different caps throughout? Instead of 80, 100, 140, maybe it should be 70, 90, 110-- something like that. I think the Barnstormer leagues in 2013 should be different from the run-of-the-mill 80 or 100m DH/no DH leagues that we play in all year long. So put me down for subsets, unusual caps, and shuffle-the-deck. Let's make each round of the Tour a truly unique experience.

This may be a very hard one, but I also think you should consider randomizing every round at the onset. (Try to spead out the managers each team plays against evenly). I noticed that there was a significant amount of duplication of foes.

The events get randomized in a public way. I've taken this a step further and will have each board member randomize one event. When I do the randomizing, all the players in an event are alphabetized and then a request made in the public boards for someone to give me a random set from 1 to XXX, the number of players in the event.

I then always post the randomization thread for all to see in the Barnstormers Forum.

The way people are randomized couldn't be more - er uh - random. There are a LOT of strong players in Barnstormers. You are going to run into lots of them. You cannot hide. If it seems like you were singled out to have bad pairings, thats not the reality of the situation at all.

In fact hackra, if you would like to assist in this cause and help me to randomize the semifinals, you can give me a random run of 1-36 and this will be paired up against the (presently completely unknown) list of those in numbers 10-45 and this will be the pairings for the semifinals.

Yep part of the problem with randomness is that it is totally random lol. Which means randomly you may be in the same league with someone 4 times or something. Not really anything that can be done about that unless you somehow seeded the leauge which would basically be impossible and cause more trouble than it would be worth. It is a high level of competition that is very fun to compete against.

Since we have the ability to select different caps, how about making the semi-finals and finals a random cap? Take a randomizer run between 70 and 120 (for example). This forces the best players to go away from their pat 100M stud teams and make adjustments to fit under whatever the new cap is.

I like the idea of using non-standard caps and shuffled-decks mixed in as I think it forces people to adapt.
Maybe a poll on non-standard caps, like 70 vs 60, 110 vs 120. Leave the staples in place, like 80 and 100.
Maybe a poll on where the DH gets applied. List 5 scenarios,

70
80
100
110
140

have the poll allow for 2 selections.
Then figure out where the shuffled-deck comes in.

I haven't played since the new site was activated, so please bear with me if I say something no longer doable. Whatever schedule is decided, I think it is imperative that everyone has to play a set routine. The proposed schedule looks good to me, as there are no "either/or" choices (i.e., pre OR post WWII; AL OR NL, etc). Any way possible to limit the player pool is a plus, as it forces a manager to be flexible each time, giving a better idea of who the best managers really are. I don't know a thing about "Shuffle Decks", but if that is what they do, I'm all for it.

I really hope to be able to play the next BS. I will search for the signup sheet.....Mike

I would be for some variety but also for two or three more or less standard leagues. I don't particularly care which non-standard formats are chosen, but ask that we not be overwhelmed with too much new stuff at once.

Also, I think it would be good to announce the new formats several months in advance, so that contestants have a chance to practice whatever the variant formats will be. That will also serve to encourage more experimentation with the game.

Just my 2 cents.