Proving Ground's back. Sign up here.

For those of you who don't know what Proving Ground is, I'll give a brief summary. It was started by emgzapper over a year ago and the first season consisted of 2 10-player round robin tournaments and the top 4 in each tournament competed in a 8-player double elimination tournament to see who won. The second season was similar but with more people, the third included team games for the first time. Some Very Good Proving Ground Graduates: JSA, Frank, Veelvraat

Proving Ground is basically a series of tournaments for plaeyrs that are decent players but not good enough for [20] yet ([20] players are still allowed in but most will not be interested).

Let me know if you are interested.

The list so far:
Apollo

I'll play, why not.

i really want play, thought i don't know if i will have enough time.
we will see.

I mentioned it to you, but sign me up please. Please keep all RRs to 2 games at a time though.

I would like to play, it would be nice to play more to improve.

How will the 20 players be split up, ranked in pairs and 1 from each pair in each tourny or at random?

It isn't necessarily going to be 20 players, I was hoping for more. I am not sure what exactly I will do with it yet, I'd like to see the amount of interest first and then decide.

i may join

Guess I'll sign up, haven't seen this in a while :P

I think Hedja meant how will the [20] players (as in elite players) be split, not "20" players (as in 20 total players in proving ground).

Personally, as one of the people in the "not good enough for [20] camp", I'd rather not play people from that group. Otherwise they will probably just dominate most of the players. Why not have no [20] players in it at all, and use it as sort of a minor league system? That way it is used as sort of a scouting resource for the next run of [20]?

And to clarify, I don't mean don't allow anyone that participated in [20] tournaments. Just those that actually made it?

Chris I meant the 20 as in the 20 in the proving ground, that includes the players from the [20] league, as the same would happen.
I think chris has a good point, and not letting anyone who joined the [20] tournaments to join this might be good, but I don't think enough would join.

i'll play

My plan is to possibly divide the players into 4 leagues or so. [20] has changed from previous seasons(except for B League last season). If the [20] players want the older style of having round robins to determine how people finish instead of elimination tournaents, Proving Ground is the way to go. The division won't necessarily be equal in numbers but instead by the tier of skill you are in. I'll explain more as we go along. For right now, sign up if you are intersted in some games with plaeyrs of your skill level.

I think you misunderstood me Hedja. I mean that an idea is do not allow anyone that finished in [20] A, B. But, do allow anyone that competed in [20], but fell short.

If you allow anyone in [20] to compete, like I said they will end up winning it (or you just end up creating a tier just for those players to compete in only). I just think they need to be separated for the most part so groupings are fairly even in skill.

To use my minor league analogy, it would be like allowing all the major league players to play in the minor leagues after the season is done. Then it is no longer the minor leagues. NHL is a good example of this. There is some overlap in seasons, and you can send you major league players down to the minors to finish that season (only players with minor league options, which is only the younger players). But you don't see Crosby playing for their minor league affiliate for a couple weeks. That seems silly to me.

Ill play

I guess I see it this way. Why not have [20] A-C and Proving Grounds A-C. Those that are not the top 60 players in the game (did not finish in top 20 places of [20] C, or in A or B), can compete in Proving grounds A-C.

It is your league though, those are just my suggestions.

chris since we don't have ranks for [20], the first tournaments haven't begun yet, we cannot say who can and who can't enter Proving Ground based on their [20] ranking, only if they are or aren't, or base them on JSA's view of each player.

We'll base them off of my views on each player. I have already talked to others about the top 20 before, so that should be easy and after that, it won't be very hard either. Here's how I look at it now:

[20A]: Top 25 players in game are invited to 3 round robin tournaments
[20B]: Next ~25 players in game are invited to 3 round robin tournaments
[20C]: Next ~25 players in game are invited to 3 roudn robin tournaments
[PGA]: Next ~25 players in game are invited to 3 round robin tournaments
etc.

I figured inviting 25 players should get about 15 to join on average which is about what we want I think.

I thought Qi was doing the [20] Leagues? Are you bringing it back as well?