Fri Dec 21, 2018 3:07 pm
Rosie, as suggested, you will definitely have to get strat to set a message on the main page of 365 announcing the sign ups in order for us to get enough teams. I would think we want a minimum of 120 teams for 10 leagues per round.
I also think the change in format is scaring people away. Again, I appreciate the fact that you are stepping forward to organize this, but I feel like "if it ain't broke don't fix it". Let me try and argue again as to why the proposed changes are too ambitious:
1. Need to disregard worst 2 records is unnecessary. In tournaments like Barnstormers and Player's Championship, you know what cards you've got. There is no Mystery involved. For that reason a lot of it comes down to the luck of the roll and there is less strategy involved once your initial roster is set. For that reason, it makes sense in those other tournaments to have the concept of "6 leagues with only the top 4 counting" to determine who really deserves to be in the playoffs/finals. In the Mystery Tournament, I would argue that the "disregard worst teams" concept does a disservice to the determination of the best teams. The Mystery game is all about adjusting your strategy based on the cards you've been dealt, and the true accomplishment is using strong strategy to stay competitive in every Mystery league you are in.
2. Need some spacing between the start of rounds. Because of the increased need to analyze your results and adjust your roster, you need to spend more time on Mystery Teams. For that reason, you ideally want to stagger the league start dates so that at least 40 games are played before the next round starts. So, the less overall leagues we do the better, so that the leagues aren't overly staggered.
3. Cost. A few have mentioned that the commitment to as many as 10 leagues adds a cost burden over the commitment of a maximum of 5 leagues.
4. Total time of the tournament. With all of these leagues, including two playoff rounds, we are basically signing up for a full calendar year of play. This will run into other tournaments and summer time Daily leagues. This makes the overall commitment a greater one for some folks.
5. Standings will be impossible to have meaning. One of the nice things about the Mystery Tournament is that all rounds start on the same day, and all leagues count. It makes the standings very clean, and it is easy to tell where you stand. With the proposed new format, you will never know where you stand, because some will sign up for 6 total leagues, some will do 8, and the worst few scores for everyone will be disregarded. It takes away from the experience to not have a clean standings page to reference and keep you interested.
I think that regardless of the format, it should be finalized and communicated very soon to get all those waiting to commit a sense for exactly what they are signing up for. I've noticed that a lot of the names that usually are in the finals consistently haven't even signed up yet for this year. I'd hate to think the sharks that are so fun to try and compete with in this tournament aren't even signing up this year because of the changes.
Thanks for listening,
Juiced JC
