any chance for 4 superpromotions from group H instead of 3? :D

Huh, no relegation from Group A this time? (I wouldn't go up if someone did relegate, but I went down last season when there was 4 in the A group.) :P

Fridge: Ha! 3 is already quite a bit for super-promotion, but you never know, I suppose if there are too many more retirements it could happen.

Kero*Sea: You raise a good point. I guess the difference in circumstances between seasons 4 and 5 are this. In season 4, you ended in 5th place at the end of a 5 team round-robin tournament and someone who ranked above you retired. This time the participants who are retiring ended in 5th and 6th place in a 6 team round-robin. The other thing that compliates it is that both Groups A and B this time are down to 4 players each, making it a challenge to fill each of the highest groups in a logical way. The other thing to consider is that if we insisted on 1 relegation for each group (not necessarily a bad idea, but difficult in practice with lots of retirements), then I suppose we would have to consider a relegation from group B, right? What would be your proposal for sorting this out objectively? I'm open to change if it can work out overall in a fairly consistent rational way.

I'd say:

1) there could be a fixed number of leagues until they are less than 10players each.. (more players would require creating more leagues, cause it would take ages to finish a RR) lets say - 8 leagues for now - a b c d e f g h.

2) Then i would divide the total number of players by 8 to count how many players will there be in each group.

3) I would say - 3 promotions is a minimal must, relegations are dependant on retirements - eg. if a group has 3 or more retirements, then no relegations happen from it

4) I'd say 1 superpromotion/group is a great idea to make people shuffle more, or make newcomers get to their proper league faster.. and more superpromotions should happen only if there would be so many retirements that they would clean a group (or make all remaining members of a group promote)

by the way - i was joking about the 4 superpromotions.. I can humbly take my way up the league. It's funny how strong was group H though - theoretically the weakest of all) ;)

Maybe instead of newcomers always starting from the lowest league, there should be a round robin for all the newcomers to shuffle them into different groups? it would make it less of a struggle to join the league for best players, cause in the current system it would probably take at least 4-5 seasons to go to group A and some of the best players out there might not be interested just because of that..

Fridge, I appreciate your thoughts on this.

In response to your first post, I think your ideas reflect what we've been doing fairly closely, except that the groups have been usually only 6, and with that size the ordinary promotions of 2 fits pretty well when they are that small. I am open to groups growing in size, especially if participants grow significantly - I don't know if we're there yet. I'm open to feedback on that, maybe for season 7? Superpromotions are becoming a fact of life that I hadn't anticipated, and I'm more comfortable with them than I used to be.

Expansion shuffle groups have happened in the past (when there have been too many for one expansion group), but we've never tried to slot newcomers into higher groups than natural promotion offered. We've also discussed your point about the long climb to the top. It's always been my expectation that the basic idea of the league was to allow, over a long-term participation, a gradual discovery of where your level might naturally take you. I am hesitant to stick people into high groups based on obvious ability rather than earning the higher spots bit by bit. I was hoping that would be part of the appeal.

We've had a number of strong players start at the bottom and climb up, some pretty quickly. Niko, for example, is coming into Group A for the first time. He started at the bottom of Season 2 where there were already 7 groups. He'll be in the top group now after 4 seasons of play, only losing one match, I believe, along the way.

Ha! Just blew my cover there! Anyway, I've not done anything unfair or prejudiced along the way.

Hmmmm... well, I'd say to superpromote the winner of Group C, relegate the loser of Group B, and superpromote another person in Group D.

My proposal would look something like this:
A - AAABBC
B - ABCCDD
C - BCCDDE
D - CDEEFF
E - DEFFGG
F - FGGHHH

This set up relegates one person from Groups A-D. For Groups E-H, there were 6 people removed in their group or before (2 from A, 2 from B, 2 from E), so getting promoted is actually the normal thing to do. Staying in the same group is essentially getting relegated for those groups.

(I'm being relegated again if this happens. Oh well.)

Kero*Sea, I think your set-up actually has better consistency and merit to it than mine. I'm willing to go with that, subject to further comments.

Hi, i'm interested in joigning the next start :)

(Thus G would be last place G, three last H and first two newcomers, with additional newcomers forming H.)

Chokecherry I think your movement plan is better as I feel it is more fair to the players who spent time climbing up the ranks and gives promotion to those who deserve it

I think you made yours with super promotions as a way to fill spaces while enforcing the minimum of at least 1 relegation
while kerosea made his as if super promotions are the norm which in my opinion takes this tournament out of it's original plan that was in your own words

"The league is meant to appeal to players who want to see, over the course of several seasons, where their natural level of competition might take them. For new, skilled participants, this means patience in getting to the levels where they will be challenged. Hopefully, that is part of the fun. The idea is to see how quickly you can progress, how long you can stay high, or how long it takes to stop a skid."

so please stay on course and only use super promotions as last resort

Chokecherry doesn't relegate anyone from Groups A or B, actually, but I think you make some good points.

~~~~~

My proposal followed two rules...

1) Every group should have at least one relegation. In the case of 6 or more retirements at or above their level, the group should have one person stay at their group. In this case, it's like a whole group above them all quit, so they would all naturally receive a promotion.

2) Except for the top and the bottom groups, every group should have only two people from the same group last season.

~~~~~

Three people in the same group as last Season wouldn't be too bad. I think only Group A should have 4 or more people in the same group as last season, though.

(From here, I'll use lowercase letters to indicate next season, with uppercase for this season)

If you want to prevent anyone from Group C from superpromoting to Group a, while keeping one relegation in each group...

a - AAABBB
b - ACCCDD
c - BCCDDE

Group B is awkward because it's forced to relegate someone while promoting the others to prevent anyone from superpromoting to Group a. Group b has to take the two superpromotions from Group D, because we don't want 4 people from Group C and we need to relegate someone from Group B. As for the superpromotion from Group E, see point #1 above; it's not really a superpromotion.

if you look at group A you can see the players that finished #5 and #6 retired so we shouldn't punish #4 that is not fair
if only 4 had started than i would agree that last place should be relegated but this is not the case
in our group B we had 5 players and one should get relegated but someone retired so he is "relegated"
as I see it you should look at the number of players that joined each group and according to that make a rule
relegate bottom 2 if 6 joined 1 if 5 or 4 joined but when last place or 2 last places are retiring no relegation should be made.

Relegation shouldn't be a must. If somebody from a group retires, that is a natural equivalent of relegation.. and THIS allows superpromotions to happen. I agree with ineffable - the idea of "you just have to relegate somebody" is simply not fair. And this season's group A is a perfect example.

Good points being made here. I'm going to try my best to respect the views of the majority on this and of the spirit of the expressed ideas of the league.

OK, all things considered, I'm going to revert to the pattern I had originally announced for Season 6. All but 1 game of season 5 is now complete and that game will not affect placements for the new season. Here are Season 6 placements with season 5 results! I expect to get the new season started very soon.

GROUP A
Heyheuhei (5-0)
Dunga (4-1)
Frankdeslimste (3-2)
Aper (2-3)
Niko (promoted from B, 4-0)
Ineffable (promoted from B, 3-1)

GROUP B
Luxis (1-3, won tie-breaker)
Kero*Sea (1-3)
Ruthless Bastard (promoted from C, 5-0)
NoobSchool (promoted from C, 4-1)
TexasJohn (promoted from C, 2-3)
Hangblague (super-promoted from D, 4-1)

GROUP C
Grinche (2-3)
CEBearsfan (1-4)
Dreuj (promoted from D, 4-1)
Elledee33 (promoted from D, 3-2)
x (promoted from D, 2-3)
J Russell Mikkelsesn (super-promoted from E, 4-0)

GROUP D
Ironheart (relegated from C, 1-4)
Grzechoo (2-3)
Old Surehand (promoted from E, 3-1)
Chewie (promoted from E, 2-2)
dodo commander (super-promoted from F, 4-0)
Ryan (super-promoted from F, 3-1)

GROUP E
Nighthawk (relegated from D, 0-5)
Min34 (1-3)
AwsomeGuy (promoted from F)
Zakyman (promoted from F, 1-3)
Z-Dog (super-promoted from G, 4-0)
Ze (super-promoted from G, 3-1)

GROUP F
Justin Gawner (1-3 or 0-4)
Arc-77 (promoted from G, 2-2)
Iblocka09 (promoted from G, 1-3)
Tenshi (super-promoted from H, 5-0)
Gnuffone (super-promoted from H, 4-1)
Warflowvet (super-promoted from H, 2-3)

GROUP G
Nayrb11 (0-4)
Fridge (promoted from H, 2-3)
HMS Dragon (promoted from H, 1-4)
AlexVGreat (promoted from H, 0-5)
Reza (new)
Hell bender (new)

GROUP H
Chris CMU (new)
Lolowut (new)
General Arun (new)
Mirror (new)
Grona (new)
The X Juggernaut (new)
Marc2013 (new)

I'd suggest putting Grona and Lolowut up a division and move Hell Bender down (I know you put new people in bottom but you should also try to put best new players as high in new divisions as possible).

I get the rationale, but I've been doing this in a blind first-come, first-served basis and prefer to avoid controversy and judgment calls as much as I can.

If it's still not too late I'd love to join this league too :)