Division B: The Title Contenders
VentusVentus have 6 games remaining worth a total 26 points. They only need 2 wins to secure 8 points while the remaining 4 being losses; Ventus would end on 83 points, the highest max points for a team other than The Force. If that happens
and The Force win their remaining games to reach their 83 max points, the two clubs would be equal on points
and on win rate. However, head-to-head across all 7 tournaments Ventus would lead 4-3. Assuming that's the tie-breaker, long story short, Ventus need just 2 wins from their remaining 6 (or more precisely, 8 points from the 26 still available to them) to win Division B.
Alpha HuntersOf Ventus' 6 remaining games, 3 of them are against Alpha Hunters, and the same 3 are in fact Alpha Hunters' last 3 games of the season. What does this mean though? Ff Alpha Hunters loses a single game, Ventus wins the division; Alpha Hunters max points would fall short of Ventus' total. The only way Alpha Hunters can win Division B is by winning all their remaining games, and hoping two things (outside of their control) also happen:
- The Force lose at least 1 game
- Ventus do not find 7 more points in other games
Alpha Hunters do have a chance of winning their last 3 games against Ventus; they've proven strong in team games. It's not unreasonable to also hope that The Force lose at least 1 game; The Force still have 6 games remaining. But needing Ventus to lose 2
more games? On top of the 3 games they wish to beat Ventus in, that's a tough ask given that Ventus have so far been the strongest team in the Division.
The ForceWhat sequence of events would make the Force Champions of Division B? Well they still have 6 games left to somewhat influence events, but only 2 games against Ventus and none against the Hunters. What that means is, their path to the title is the least obvious.
There's a few scenarios that could play out. In the section on Ventus, we've actually already considered one scenario; The Force win all their remaining games. As we said before, that still won't be enough; they'd still need Ventus to secure less than 8 points i.e. they would need Ventus to lose 5 of their 6 remaining games. Again, that's a tough ask given that Ventus have so far been the strongest team in the Division. We'll now slowly begin to show that this is the effectively the only scenario where The Force can win the title.
Is there any scenario where either Alpha Hunters or The Force don't need Ventus to lose 5 out of 6 remaining games? No there is not; the section on Ventus is clear that 2 wins is all they need. To make things difficult for them though, Alpha Hunters still play 3 games against Ventus, and The Force play 2 against Ventus. Ventus' last game is a 3v3 against Cat Attack. With Cat Attack not having the record this season to be deemed reliable, Alpha Hunters and The Force will likely have to rely on one another to defeat Ventus 5 times between them.
Suppose one of them takes their eye of the ball though, and loses a game to Ventus. Well, if Ventus manages to beat Cat Attack too, Ventus are crowned champions. But if Cat Attack pull off a victory, Ventus will have lost 5 games as required, giving both Alpha Hunters and The Force a chance at the title despite the slip up. If it's The Force that lost to Ventus, Alpha Hunters would win the title, but if it was Alpha Hunters that lost to Ventus, that would rule them
out of the title race (see section: Alpha Hunters). No matter Alpha Hunters' loss, The Force would unfortunately still need to win all of their 4 other games against the lower teams of the Division to secure enough points to surpass Ventus. Such is the lead Ventus currently have over The Force.
The last scenario is Ventus lose all 6 remaining games. In that case, Alpha Hunters clearly had to have won their 3 games against Ventus. In order to then stay ahead of Alpha Hunters, The Force
still need to win every last game! Neither team then has any margin for error if they want to win. And that brings us to the conclusion.
TL;DRVentus will win Division B with 2/6 wins.
Alpha Hunters can only win with 3/3 wins, at least 1/6 losses for The Force, and 2/3 further losses for Ventus.
The Force can only win with 6/6 wins, and at least 5/6 losses for Ventus.
Edited 5/12/2016 18:19:03