f13.net

Final day of the regular season and there's still a bit of room for upset. Most of the playoff places are locked in now but a few coaches won't be able to breathe out until all the results are in.
Here are the scores from day 6. Note that the Jaedar v Darth Roxor match is shown as a 3-1 win but is actually a 1-1 draw due to a mistake in validating. The avaia/Ruvaldt and Reborne/stabby games were not played and given as 0-0 draws.

(http://i.imgur.com/zubLFKk.jpg)

Day 7 fixtures are as follows:
(http://i.imgur.com/cuDvj3P.jpg)

These matches must be played by Saturday 22nd Feb.

Here are the standings after 6 matches:
(http://i.imgur.com/x9bw61g.jpg)

Note that due to the mistake earlier, Jaedar actually has 16 points and Darth Roxor should have 10. This doesn't affect playoff chances but could change their seeding in the playoffs.

BBManager stats below the cut.

Playoffs!

In Division 1, the four automatic playoff places are secure. The order can change in the last day but Jaedar, r3dknight, Megrim and Darth Roxor have qualified.

In division 2 it's a lot more fluid. Avaia and strazos are locked in but 3 points separate 3rd through 7th place. Proudft can still get an auto qualification spot if he beats Carnifex and Ericswiftblade, Willisterman and Ruvaldt all lose or draw their games.

Finally Division 3 still has one auto-qualification spot up for grabs. Ulysees, Ingmar and Gruntle have booked their places but Teleku needs to beat Reborne or draw and hope that Ulysees doesn't lose to Brocktoon.

As well as the top four from each division, the next four runners up across all three divisions are also going to the playoffs. It's lookign as though most of those will be coming from Division 2 and 3 but there is still an outside chance for Drogg, Satael and myself in Div 1.

Gonna be so many dead rats against Rk47.

I'm scared.

No playoffs for me for the first time it looks like.

Going to have to knee jerk into playing my chaos side next season...

(http://i.imgur.com/322gu2n.gif)

So much drawing games, then an unexpected loss and now I have to play the guy top of the league? Not looking good for the Orc Boyz....

Avaia, when you about? I'm GMT and happen to have Friday and Monday off work and am about some of the weekend.

Iain, I'll be pretty much available all time today and the entire following week, so just catch me on steam when the time is right (tm) for you. Only this weekend might be a bit messy, but Saturday before noon should work as well.

I'm trying to get a hold of you right now!

Sorry, someone came around. Am out for the rest of today. Weekend or Monday?

Monday will probably work out best, although possibly my Saturday morning might work.  I will let you know when I know.

Ahoy Lamaros! Would there be any chance of deciding who'll be in last place this weekend?  :grin:

Well, I won 2-0, but I may be fucked for the playoffs; my level 4 ball carrier ghoul died (as did my kicker zombie), leaving me with a total of 0 SPP on ghouls on the squad. Gruntle will also be short 2 guys for his first match I believe, one of which is a pretty nasty claw beastman.

Well Reborne, looks like we are actually pretty close time zone wise currently.  Give me a date and time that works for you, and I'll try to see if I can borrow my friends laptop in time to play the game.

This could have be a better game if I hadn't played so stupidly. Which is not to suggest that Ingmar wouldn't have still won it (his undefeated record against me speaks to the very unlikelyhood of that) but it would've been a lot closer if I hadn't managed to self-sabotage at crucial points. The Banned scored early in the first half leaving five turns for the Helmets to respond, and they would've if I hadn't for some inexplicable reason pushed a marking werewolf into the ball carrier's path instead of away (and even then the ball carrier could have made an attempt to go around it where it was clear, but again inexplicably I moved the goat to the wrong side of the werewolf trapping it against the edge of the field and forcing a failed dodge and a lost ball). A few silly unforced choices in the second half also let the Banned recover the ball and score without much difficulty.

Not to claim that everything went exactly right from the Banned perspective, they didn't take much advantage in either of their two kick-off blitzes (the other kick-off event for the Helmets was a quick snap) and Ingmar wouldn't have chosen to use Igor on a failed Badly Hurt regeneration of a 2nd level wight if he'd caught the impermanent nature of the injury (Igor failed the regeneration also, proving as useless as my apoth was later) but Ingmar's real misfortune only struck at the end; on his 15th turn, sitting on the by then insurmountable 2-0 lead, Dawn Falcon failed to dodge away from Mr. Big -- escaping the tentacles only to misstep and die in the process. Immediately following that turn-over (start of my 16th turn), a successful block against a level 3 zombie also resulted in a death (which unlike SirBruce the Flesh Golem's potential death in the first half, was not regenerated away).

 The Helmet's real shame is that we failed our main goal of getting Mr. Big to the next level, managing only one of the two casualties he needed to beef up in time for the play-offs (the two players missing the next game probably won't help our chances either).

So my Elves and the Dwarves who wanted to Keep Rolling got it on this afternoon.

I won the toss and elected to kick. The kick went awry, so the dwarves placed their trust in their AGI 4 runner and caged up. It was a brusing grind down the pitch, but no injuries occured before the elves were eventually able to penetrate the cage and pop the ball out. Normally I would have held out for the half, but that damn deathroller was a significant threat, so I scored immediately in order to force the use of the bribe. On the ensuing kick, the deathroller was on the bench, and he was back on the field for the start of the second half.

Things got a bit squirrely in the second half, as an attempted quick-strike from the Elves patented Cheater Elf (AGI 5 Bitch Elf) tossed up a brick for a dwarven INT. However, she would later redeem herself as she was able to penetrate a later cage and knock the carrier down on a 1D block and pick up the ball, then hold on for a turn until she could jump back out of the cage and pass the ball forward for another score. The dwarves' final drive was likewise stymied as the elves held on for a shutout after going up 3-0.

The only blemish for the elves was the loss of a level 2 (with enough SPP to hit level 3) lineman, as the persistent dwarf attack finally started to see some armor breaks.

Hi Stabby I'm pretty tied up for the next 10 hours so we might not make this weekend. However next weekend should work!

yo ramas i should be around more or less all day tomorrow! UTC-8.  will be on steam.

Me and rk played.

(http://bbm.jcmag.fr/BloodBowlManager.WebSite/ImageMatchReport.aspx?Id=270791&lang=en)

I probably should have used one of the 3 apoths I bought. On the bright side, I got 2 level ups on gutter runners.

Headsplitter died after 2 knockdowns, which means he proved to be way more useful than I thought he would.

rain ruined that game.

Ulysees: going to try to catch you on Steam but just in case I don't, I need to reschedule. I'm pretty no shit sick and am headed to the doctor.

No worries MA wife has a migraine so I have the baby so may not have been the best shot of getting the game played today anyway. Hopefully we will get another shot later in the week.

Played Roxor. Result was surprising given my form this season.

I startyed off well managing a bunch of early injures on key Humans including their Ogre. Also I got the ball off them on their offence and kept them busy long enough to go 1-0 up at the half. The second half looked bad for The Union with a very diminished lineup but they turned things around as far as injuries went anyhow. I was holding the ball back until the humans were tied up in a scrum as I didn't fancy feeding them free Gutter Runner deaths and that nearly went badly wrong when an early turnover left the thrower facing down the human blitz team. Between a failed pickup and a hail mary blitz, I got the ball back and lobbed it upfield where it landed in an empty square. The humans went for it as did the remaining rats but Skaven bullshit put the game beyond reach when I dodged out and put a Gutter Runner in the endzone then dodged a linerat over to the ball, made the pickup, a dodge away and then a pass in the rain to score. I was much luckier than I deserved to be to be fair, the whole game was played in the rain and all of my passes connected bar one. I got a level on the Rat Ogre and a MNG. Roxor got an MNG too but no levels.

(http://bbm.jcmag.fr/BloodBowlManager.WebSite/ImageMatchReport.aspx?Id=270863&lang=en&bg=orca)

My weekend was unexpectedly busy.
Generally speaking the only time I'm scheduled to be busy is Tuesday afternoon.
If you pick a time outside of that (preferably not in the early morning) then I'll make sure to be around.

Beetles over Bridgeburners 2-0, in a bloody match featuring not one, not two, but three deaths for the poor Bridgeburners.  The Beetles will almost certainly vault from the bottom to the top of the kills list after one game.  Playoff hopes, sadly, rely on other matches.

This match did... not go as expected.  My initial gameplan went right into the toilet on turn one because everything went into the crazy zone.  I don't even know how to describe it. 

I guess if you like almost everything going right for one team and nothing at all for the other, watch the replay.   Basically two early deaths for the Bridgeburners gave the Beetles a taste of blood and a glimmer of hope for a victory, and then everything the necromantic team tried ended in tears, failure, and sadness.   Another zombie died late in the game just to remind them that they were losing.  And the crowd was just as heartless, running all over the field, trampling players left and right.

I feel a little bad for putting a big hole in Carnifex's roster but then a pile of dead thro-ras call up to me from their graves, telling me there is no mercy in Blood Bowl.

Some stats:

Match rating NINE.... what the hell? You spectators suck.

I think Gruntle will stay ahead of you thanks to killing 2 of my dudes, but maybe not.

EDIT: Never mind, you already show as having 3?

EDIT 2: Ah, I see. It's because they're links straight back to BBM and they're updating as we upload. You're tied!

Yeah, it's like Superbowl rerun.  :grin:

So, would 5 PM my time (7 PM your time I think), Wednesday, be ok?  I can do that time for pretty much any other day of the week (give or take an hour or two also).

Only 1 from then as I don't get credit for the ones I didn't actively kill, ie those that died on dodges, being pushed out or even stomps i think.
My season total counting all deaths in games against would be higher than 3 but for actual number of deaths i get SPP for, 3 is all it's been.

Well, I started the match with the sole intent to not even give much of a damn about the score and finally get some level up SPP for blitzers. Of course that went to shit when all I got in the first few turns were pushes, while skaven linos and stuff kept getting KOs and badly hurts on all my dudes :why_so_serious:

Sure, Wednesday evening is good.
I'll be on, probably for most of the day but definitely from mid afternoon.
Send me a message on Steam when you get online.

So, the orcs and nurgle meet up for my game with avaia.

Things looked bad for me from the start, his team have crazy amounts of guard and were just going to out bash me. Combined with cyanide not letting me get my Black Orc from reserves so I had to play my no skill lineman instead, I didn't feel confident.

He won the toss and chose to receive. From then on, luck was mostly my side and all he could do was push me around. Still, he managed to own the pitch and got the ball down the field. Thankfully I put a couple of orcs to the backfield to slow him down. Amazingly, they managed to get the ball off him, gave it to a goblin who ran up the pitch and scored on turn 8 with 2 GFIs.

He had an injury and a KO who stayed off, both my KOs came back on. I felt more confident now. That confidence quickly left me as my Black Orc still stayed off the pitch and I quickly got bashed up. Taking a risk I threw the ball up field and made a successful pass. After this the ball kept switching hands until a failed pick up took the ball offside and it was thrown near his end zone. In a twist of irony my lineman was the only player who could take advantage, but he was double marked. My troll (who failed more stupid rolls that I thought possible) failed to help him out, so I went for it. Dodge, 2 GFIs and a pick up meant my second touchdown!

Then it all went shit as the match disconnected with only a few turns left. :(

I just checked and the Swiftblade vs Avaia game didn't register at all. Please arrange to replay it.

Also Strazos, can you upload your game vs Willisterman please?

From our discussion earlier I think Avaia is willing to concede.

My fault, I uploaded to the wrong league:

(http://bbm.jcmag.fr/BloodBowlManager.WebSite/ImageMatchReport.aspx?Id=271035&lang=en)

Pretty sure he only needs 2 out of those 3 to lose/draw since he beat Carnifex and thus holds the tiebreaker at 9 points. So despite Ericswiftblade's apparent win, proudft should be OK as long as Ruvaldt ties/loses (no sure thing of course.)

Yup, and I'm out either way.

I think you are a near-lock for one of the wild-card spots, but I haven't figured the odds on those out yet.

It wouldn't be fair to Swiftblade to replay this match, I am fine with awarding him a 2-0 victory.

Well crap, sorry Reborn, guy with the laptop left class early.  Trying to get ahold of him, but not responding.  Doesn't seem to be in his room.  May not happen tonight....

Well, I managed to get the laptop now, but Reborne looks like he'll be unavailable tonight.  With that, the next time I'll be able to play is sometime Thursday, the 20th.  After that, maybe Saturday the 22nd (which I believe is the deadline).  Just want to give a heads up in case later people wonder whats going on with our match.

Ramas come back  :oops:

Lamaros!

So, how's this weekend looking for ya in the prospects a fabulous loser such as myself? Any particular time sound interesting for such an event?

What's your GTM +/-? I'm in Sydney, AUS. I've got some free time on the saturday and sunday but not the whole days.

I'm in Eastern whatevertimeofyearitis Time, or GMT-5, and weekend is, *sigh*, completely free as always. Will quickly note that tomorrow night may be a problematic in my keeping awake, as my shift has already changed so now the-totally-not-at-all-a-morning-person that is stabby gets to wake up at 4am.

... which just occurred to me is in 7 hours, so maybe it's time to go to bed.  :oh_i_see:

Ok, so you're 8 hours ahead. I expect our best bet might be my Sunday morning your sat evening, say about 5-6pm start your time.

I am currently enjoying a 2010 AA Badenhorst red blend on a balcony overlooking the beach in cape town, there will be no blood bowl until the 24th of this month. If this round is still open at that point my flings will be happy to gift you spp in a tight but ultimately futile attempt to secure 7th place.

Otherwise, I will unfortunately have to concede.

I would claim to be sorry, but here in the land of biltong we have wall to wall sunshine, steaks, and excellent wine, so I would lying to you.

Sounds like a plan to me, and seeing as it's your Sunday morning that's being robbed of pancakes for Bloodbowl (note to self: use as team name, sounds quite fitting) do feel free to ping me when you're good to go, k?

Is this the point of the season where stabby earns her first legit league points?   :why_so_serious:

Huitzilopochtli's Gift 0 - 0 Chaos String Theorists

rep uploaded.

Chaos String Theorists get butchered with 4 casulties including 1 dead (and only managing to inflict 1 KO in the game...compared to 4+ by khorne). The karma was balanced by Megrim's fireball failing to hit any of the 6 targets and a turn 15 blitz by a bm that included 2 dodges to take down the ball carrier (and to get the ball only to be taken down next turn with the ball going out of the field and back in at a place where the khorne couldn't get it in time to score).

3 Chaos String Theorists players remained on the field at the end of turn 16 compared to the full 11 by the Huitzilopochtli's Gift.  :grin:

Well, Lamaros and I played our game, and it had it's ups and downs. How'd it turn out?

Well, in four words:

(http://forums.f13.net/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=6304;type=avatar) Yay.

ruvaldt and I have played our match.

Your check is in the mail, Wolven.

Yet another draw for the Ladies!

It was close, and I had my opportunities.  If I had been more liberal with my use of gfis I think I could've scored in the first half.  That's the way the game goes though.  It was a well played match by Wolvens, and I look forward to more with him.

This has been a lousy season for me.  I'm likely dropping these Chaos Dwarves.  I just can't get into a rhythm with them.  I have some serious thinking to do about what I want for Season 9.

(http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/arsen.gif)

Hehehe, the cheque for that totally legitimate deal we had... yes! Excellent.

Any idea if you are going to be fit to play this Saturday MA? If I can get a time nailed down I might be able to free some time up but am back at work now so playing during the week will not be possible.

Well I finally made it back to Poland from Boracay.  I'll be free to play for the rest of the day Reborne, if you have any time.  If not, we can try Saturday.

I can't. It's my grandmother's 97th birthday and my entire weekend is booked with people coming in from all over.

Since we're bumping the expiry, I'm willing to concede given that it's been my scheduling and deathly illness preventing the meeting.

It's a shame we won't get to play our match, still appreicate all the help and advice you gave me in my early days playing blood bowl so was looking forward to seeing how much I had improved against you :)

Happy to take a draw tbh since I couldn't play any other time realistically other than last Sunday and this weekend will actually be tough for me too so unless anyone else objects am happy for Iain to set the match to a draw.

Aw, I appreciate the compliments, though I'm so mediocre at the game that I'm blushing a bit.

This has honestly been a rotten season for my availability all around. Even the games I've been getting in have been by the skin of my teeth.

still no sign of ramas :(

Reborne and I played.  Dice were not very kind to me, despite my pyrrhic victory.   :oh_i_see:

(http://bbm.jcmag.fr/BloodBowlManager.WebSite/ImageMatchReport.aspx?Id=274824&lang=en)

Ramas is on holiday in Sif Ifrika so that game won't get played, however as we can't move on until he's back anyhow I'll bump the due date to the 25th. If that game gets played then that would be great. Likewise I'll hold off on awarding the draw in the Ulysees v MA match until then on the offchance that game gets played too.

Seriously ? :/

This gameday has already been going on for 3 weeks which is already too long in my opinion.

If I awarded default results all around and ended the game day, I wouldn't be able to start the new playoff and failoff leagues until everyone had joined anyhow - and that means either way we need to wait for Ramas to get back from his holiday.

thanks for the heads up iain - i'll try and grab ramas when he gets back.

So my game with Teleku didn't go at all how I expected.

Wrestlers 2 - 3 Hippies

My matches against these elves tend to be close to 1 - 5 normally but Teleku was having a bad start to the day.
He was really good about it too, so I wanted to say thanks for being a good sport.

The first half went almost as expected.
I managed to draw things out so that the elves only managed to score twice and we both had some bad luck moments, but these things happen.

The second half is where things just started to fall apart.

Teleku had used his apothecary in the first half because I broke the arm of one of his huge blitzers, which re-rolled into a badly hurt.
That meant that it wasn't around for when I killed his new elf with strong arm.
Then the star player managed to kill himself by trying to dodge through my line of ogres.
Then I think it was a wardancer managed to get triple skulls while trying to take out my snotling with the ball.

I always feel bad when the dice are so solidly against someone and really that's all that the second half was.

Playing ogres means you never have to feel bad for anyone, especially elves!

Never feel bad for elves or dwarfs. It's a rule to live by.

Back in the UK now. Available to play till 5pm today at which point the Lego movie beckons. Can also do tomorrow evening UK time.

But under the circumstances, perfectly happy to concede.

gonna be tricky for us to schedule since i'm GMT-8 and stuck at work 10-6 the rest of the week, but willing to give it a shot!

Realistically I think early my time Saturday is the only thing that might work - or possibly late Saturday my time.

What's the latest you could start on Friday your time?

Sorry, been super busy at work and this just fell off my radar. I'm going to award all unplayed matches as draws this evening and start the playoff and failoff leagues. If you have an outstanding game and you intend to play it imminently (like tonight or tomorrow) then this is your last chance to get it done.

Come on people.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85916/Angry_coach_fist.gif)

Will do it today I promise. Game is being released this week so I've been crazy busy.

Ok, so I've awarded 0-0 draws to the two unplayed games and worked out who is going where.

(http://i.imgur.com/AvTnLHd.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/aIXHwNP.jpg)

Playoffs. if your name is in this list, leave the Season 8 league and join f13 Season 8 Playoffs. Password is fearchange.

Division 1
1: Jaedar - Family of Twitch
2: r3dknight - Knights of Codexia
3: Megrim - Huitzilopochtli's gift
4: Darth Roxor - Secret Military Union

Division 2
1: strazos - Effing Elves
2: avaia - Bleating
3: ericswiftblade - The Camp-town Orc Boyz
4: Proudft - Burrowing Beetles (beat Carnifex on head to head)

Division 3
1: Ulysees - The Minizillas
2: Ingmar - The Banned
3: Gruntle - Nifty Helmets
4: Teleku - Hazardous Hippies

Wild Cards
1: Carnifex - [F13] Brigeburners
2: Ruvaldt - The First ladies (beat Brocktoon on TD difference)
3: Brocktoon - Power Team Volcano
4: IainC - Fursecution (beat willisterman on TD difference)


Failoffs, if your name is in this list then you should firstly hang your head in shame then leave the Season 8 league, take a moment to think about the life choices that have led to this moment then join f13 Season 8 Failoffs with the password fearchange.

Division 1
Drogg - Muscle Daddies
Satael - Chaos String Theorists
Ramas - Sidekick Storm

Division 2
willisterman - Keep Rolling
Wolven86 - Vibrant Filling

Division 3:
Reborne - Reborne's Wrestlers
Lamaros - Best With the Mess
stabby - Daring Believers!


Go do it!

How is seeding going to work?

For the playoffs it will be as normal with the wildcards taking the place of division 4. For the failoffs it will be the random hand of Cyanide letting the leaves fall where they may.

I don't know what as normal actually is, but ok.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/829607/BB/playoff.png)

Can we fix the ladder so players from division 1 & 3 don't run a chance of playing their second game against someone from their same division?
(something more like:
A1+D4                 B1+A4
    +-->\            /<--+
B2+C3  |          |   C2+D3
           +>  +  <+
C1+B4  |          |   D1+C4
    +-->/            \<--+
D2+A3                 A2+B3
 
unless there is a reason i've missing to possibly play the same divisions again?)

Doesn't make a lot of sense to have the wildcard people have more favorable matchups than second/third/fourth place finishers, does it?

if we took divisions A, B, and C and were to retier/redivision by pts earned over the season:

1   19:Ulysees(C1)       18:Jaedar(A1)     18:Ingmar(C2)       15:R3DKnight(A2)
2   14:Strazos(B1)       14:Megrim(A3)    13:Gruntle(C3)       12:DarthRoxor(A4)
3   11:Avaia   (B2)       11:Teleku(C4)     10:SwiftBlade(B3)    9:Proudft (B4)
4   Carnifex(W1/B)       Ruvaldt(W2/B)     Brockton(W3/C)     IainC(W4/A)

that breaksdown to
 2As  (0Bs) 2Cs in tier I placement
 2As   1B    1C  in tier II places
(0As) 3Bs   1C  in tier III places
 1A    2Bs   1C  in tier IV (wildcard) places
==========================
5A    6B     5C

swapping in the tier to maximize for the original divisions (so they are less likely to replay games)


A [3A+1B] = A1:Jaedar (A)    A2:Megrim   (A)    A3:Swiftblad(B)    A4:IainC   (A)
B [3B+1C] = B1:Ingmar (C)    B2:Stazos   (B)    B3:Avaia    (B)    B4:Carnifex(B)
C [4C]    = C1:Ulysees(C)    C2:Gruntle  (C)    C3:Teleku   (C)    C4:Brockton(C)
D [2A+2B] = D1:R3DKnig(A)    D2:DarthRoxo(A)    D3:Proudft  (B)    D4:Ruvaldt (B)


I don't know if that's better or not, but it would mean that the wildcards wouldn't be favored over those who got 4th place.
Mind you I don't like doing it strictly by points as that changes each division quite a bit (and devalues Strazos first finsih in B division).

So instead, we could just build the 4th division by promoting one out of each division and then fill in all the wildcards into the vacant 4th places.
Division A [all A]
1: Jaedar - Family of Twitch
2: r3dknight - Knights of Codexia
3: Darth Roxor (A4) - Secret Military Union
4: IainC (W4/A) - fursecution

Division B [all B]
1: strazos - Effing Elves
2: avaia - Bleating
3: ericswiftblade - The Camp-town Orc Boyz
4: Carnifex (W1/B) - [f13] Bridgeburners

Division C [all C]
1: Ulysees - The Minizillas
2: Gruntle (C3) - Nifty Helmets
3: Teleku (C4) - Hazardous Hippies
4: Brockton (W3/C) - Power Team Volcano

New Division D [2B 1A 1C]
1:Ingmar (C2) - The Banned
2:Megrim (A3) - Huitzilopochtli's gift
3:Proudft (B4) - Burrowing Beetles
4:JRuvaldt (W2/B) - The First ladies

Because originally there were only 3 divisions of 8.
If we had 32 players, we could've done it.
But not with 8-8-8 grps.
Unless you want Iain to manually dump the league after every playoff stage just to rearrange the match-ups.
It's a compromise we have to accept.

Not sure i understand are you saying it's a cyanide ui problem?
that I can believe.

Yes, it's Cyanide's problem.
But it's also problem going in with an unorthodox grouping due to player shortages.
Anyways,

The meta works out that some highly rated teams underperformed and got dropped to lower tier match ups hence you see stronger teams appearing on the Wildcards.
Thing is, this whole drop is unplanned - I'm sure they'd rather be top dog and beat on a 4th placer. That's why the 'Wild ones' are.. wild. Yeeeah.
This isn't the fault of the system. It's an unplanned 'easy match-up' - AKA - a 'happy coincidence'

Let's take a look at their line ups:
Wild Cards
1: Carnifex - [F13] Brigeburners Necro 1610 v Secret Military Union Human 1630
This isn't an easy match up. But it's a competitive one. I don't see how this is slated against either side.
Necromantic has the better player base stats while humans have skill defaults to fall back on.
It's a good match between two strikingly different teams. Moving on. Potato to lose badly, as usual.

2: Ruvaldt - The First ladies v C.Dwarf 1600 v Huitzilopochtli's Gift 1490TV Khorne
Most match-ups against dwarves  are always going to be a bitch. But Khorne is an imbalanced team - not in an overpowering sense. It's a basher team with just a single high ST while a single player gets +1 ST per turn. I have to say, yes this is slightly unfavorable to the Khornes - but he has a choice between facing 1610TV Necro or 1600TV Ch.Dorf. What would he pick? He's punching above his weight with the TV in the play-offs, on paper his team looks weaker, but the field plays determine the outcome.

3: Brocktoon - Power Team Volcano C.Dwarf 1270 v The Banned 1700TV Necromantic
This is the hardest match up for Wildcard, no question.

4: IainC - Fursecution Skaven 1720 v Minizillas 2240 Lizard
IainC will run circles around the Lizards easily.

I guess I'm saying I'm not seeing where this helped in anyway, as it is in your picture, we have a ladder where
(broken into quadrants)
In the upper left out of the 4 teams, 2 came from division 1 originally, 2 from division 2.
In the lower left out of 4 teams, 2 came from division 3 originally, 1 from each of the others -- this is the most mixed (and they could all have this 2:1:1 ratio)
In the upper right out of the 4 teams, 3 came from division 3 originally, 1 from division 2.
In the lower right out of 4 teams, 2 came from division 1 originally, 2 from division 2.

Just seems like the playoffs won't favor new match-ups... heading towards regular season call-backs.

Would it be wrong to go with completely random seedings? As in, drawn out of a hat? Or would people be against that, because placements at end of regular season matter.

Re Failoffs. They never seem to get played so is it cool if I just don't do them? Not worth the effort for a side that is retiring.

Well, it denies other people the chance to play against you and develop their own teams (the point of the failoffs), but I guess if they just give who ever you were suppose to play a win, they get a ton of free points (two MVP's right?).  So should be ok in that case.

Even if you don't intend to play, please join the league as I can't start it until all 8 teams have entered.

ETA re seedings.

I don't really want to manually fuck about with seeding too much as I'm not impartial because I'm also a player. I'd much rather have a system that is self-sustaining and internally consistent even if it sometimes throws up the occasional screwball. In this case, we have 4 wildcards which could potentially come from any combination of the divisions. Fudging things to make sure that wildcards don't get seeded vs people from their original division introduces a lot of room for subjective judgement calls and I'm not terribly comfortable with that. Much better to just say the wildcards form a 4th division of playoff winners and let the cards fall where they may in the matchups.  As RK said, with 32 players in the main season, this solves itself. We also used this system in Season 6 when we had 3 divisions - that one was even worse because we had 2 divisions of 8 and one of 10.

Imho, do a tennis style draw, so top 4 seeds (winners plus best runner up) play bottom 4 (wildcards), next 4 (worst 2 2nds & best 2 3rds) play the rest, but random within the groups of 4. If any group mates play each other in the first round then redraw the bracket, from second round on its everyman for himself.

If you'd prefer someone neutral to do it I don't mind posting a bracket this evening.

Ok, if you want to do that then I'll go with your bracket suggestion Eldaec. Be aware that it's not possible to change seedings once the tournament has started.

For those of you who have never run a league, the thing you should know is that the playoff seeding interface is orders of magnitude worse than every other part of the Bloodbowl UI. It's seriously horrible, unintuitive, lacking any kind of tooltip guidance or labels that make sense. Moving people into the right place is an exercise in swapping people between divisions and also sides of the matchup and between two lists helpfully labelled 'Qualified Teams' and 'Unqualified Teams'. I still, after three seasons of sorting this shit out, have no idea what the difference between those is.

Dem words.. I duno what they mean, but you do whatchu gotta do.

Same here. Plus it's midterms, which my classes have brilliantly spread out over three fucking weeks this semester.

This has, to put it mildly, been a nightmare season for me with illness, work, scheduling issues, etc and I am so sincerely fucking sorry for being a flake.

Those of you in the failoffs who don't want to play, please join the league anyhow otherwise I can't start the league at all.

I'll do so, Iain.

Wait, my god. I made the playoffs. WELL THEN

Applied

As promised, THE DRAW

If you just want to see the final result, click the spoiler:


Process as follows...

 16 teams will be split into 4 pots:
 - Pot A : group winners and best runner up.
 - Pot B : worst 2 runners up, best 2 3rd places.
 - Pot C : worst 3rd place, all 4th place
 - Pot D : wildcards

Within each pot the the teams will been drawn randomly into position 1 to 4 within the pot, and then fit into the following bracket:

Team A1 vs Team D1
Team B1 vs Team C1
Team A2 vs Team D2
Team B2 vs Team C2
Team A3 vs Team D3
Team B3 vs Team C3
Team A4 vs Team D4
Team B4 vs Team C4

If this results in anyone playing a team from their group in the first round, there will be a redraw for pot C or D as necessary.

So here we go...

Pot A teams:

family of twitch  (sic)
Effing Elves
The Minizilla's  (sic)
The Banned

Pot B teams:

Knights of Codexia
Bleating
Huitzilopochtli's Gift
Nifty Helmets

Pot C teams:

The Camp-town OrcBoyz
Secret Military Unicorn
Burrowing Beetles
Hazardous Hippies

Pot D teams:

[F13] BridgeBurners
The First Ladies
Power Team Volcano
Fursecution

Draw will be completed using the sequence generator on random.org. If you wish to rerun the draw yourself, remember you need to enter the date of the actual draw (6th March)

Pot A will be drawn using the random seed 'Pot A'.

family of twitch  (sic)  : 1
Effing Elves               : 2
The Minizilla's  (sic)    : 4
The Banned              : 3

Pot B will be drawn using the random seed 'Pot B'.

Knights of Codexia     : 4
Bleating                   : 3
Huitzilopochtli's Gift    : 2
Nifty Helmets            : 1

Pot C will be drawn using the random seed 'Pot C'.

The Camp-town OrcBoyz   : 3
Secret Military Unicorn       : 2
Burrowing Beetles            : 4
Hazardous Hippies           : 1


Pot D will be drawn using the random seed 'Pot D'.

[F13] BridgeBurners    : 4
The First Ladies          : 3
Power Team Volcano   : 1
Fursecution                : 2


Combining this with the bracket above the provisional result is :

family of twitch  (sic)	~ vs ~	Power Team Volcano
Nifty Helmets	~ vs ~	Hazardous Hippies
Effing Elves	~ vs ~	Fursecution
Huitzilopochtli's Gift	~ vs ~	Secret Military Unicorn
The Banned	~ vs ~	The First Ladies
Bleating	~ vs ~	The Camp-town OrcBoyz
The Minizilla's (sic)	~ vs ~	[F13] BridgeBurners
Knights of Codexia	~ vs ~	Burrowing Beetles

However, 3 pot C teams have been drawn against teams they have already played in the group stage.

POT C REDRAW!

Random seed will be 'Pot C first redraw'

The Camp-town OrcBoyz   : 4
Secret Military Unicorn       : 1
Burrowing Beetles            : 2
Hazardous Hippies           : 3

Revised, and final result :

family of twitch  (sic)	~ vs ~	Power Team Volcano
Nifty Helmets	~ vs ~	Secret Military Unicorn
Effing Elves	~ vs ~	Fursecution
Huitzilopochtli's Gift	~ vs ~	Burrowing Beetles
The Banned	~ vs ~	The First Ladies
Bleating	~ vs ~	Hazardous Hippies
The Minizilla's  (sic)	~ vs ~	[F13] BridgeBurners
Knights of Codexia	~ vs ~	The Camp-town OrcBoyz

No group conflicts, so this is the final draw.

Afaik this means QFs will be

winner match 1 vs winner match 2
winner match 3 vs winner match 4
winner match 5 vs winner match 6
winner match 7 vs winner match 8

and Sfs

winner QF 1 vs winner QF 2
winner QF 3 vs winner QF 4

In other news, noted Halfling blood bowl franchise 'Sidekick Storm' have applied for failoff glory.

Their head coach, Mr El Daec commented 'Phew, the bottom half of that playoff draw looks rough'.

 :ye_gods:

I think I much preferred my earlier draw.












ALSO ITS UNION FFS ;_;

Ooooh, I see how it is. Finally shameless stabby gets block* on a Flesh Golem, and suddenly people are backing out of the Failoffs eh?  :roll:


Also, applied for Failoffs, here's hoping I don't end up with a second asterix on my season record.

(* Or did Stan Bush roll Doubles again? Muwahahah!)

Yesssss I got Khorne yessssss muhuahuahahahuahaahaahaaahaaaa (cough, wheeze).

RPGcodex's 4 teams reaction to these changes:
(http://i.imgur.com/T2riItF.gif)

No, really.

Iain.
As a participant of a season and a half. I was kinda sad this season has developed in this manner.
You knew how it was supposed to be done from the start, so I'm not sure why you passed the ball to the players (I don't care if this guy is in the play-offs or not, that's not the point.)

The delay was meh, Jaedar and Roxor was tapping my shoulder over internetz about it repeatedly. I try not to nag. Shit happens, I don't know your job or daily shit, so we dealt with it. It annoyed me but not to the extent of this sudden change of rules that's happening at the moment.

You got the format down from the start, you knew how it's supposed to be done.
I certainly don't have the know-how or patience to formulate 'a better way (tm)'.
I follow your rules and we move on to match day 8.
So what if someone drew a bad match up?
So what if it's undeserved?
It's your tourney, it's your format.
It's not like you were biased on anyone in the original draw, you even volunteered to take on the Minizillas, probably one of the hardest opponent in the season.

So why change your mind?
I don't see the majority whining about this. Blood bowl is a frustrating game, this draw is part of it. Sometimes you get easy draws, sometimes you don't.
I just see 1-2 saying 'oh man, this doesn't look right to me.' and then suddenly someone can make every bad thing go away?
We're just here to play Blood Bowl, so let's not waste time and discuss 'the fairest video game tournament format' cause that's not why we came here.

Let's get the play-offs started next weekend instead of bouncing off ideas that won't please everyone.

Hey, I was happy to postpone getting lawnmowed by monster lizards as much as possible :awesome_for_real:


Apart from that, I agree. This has been postponed long enough as it is, and I fail to see how the original draw was even problematic anyway. As far as I'm concerned, the drawing could be completely random and I wouldn't really care, but if we go by the "let's diversify stuff a bit so that it's less likely there are 2nd matches that were already played in qualifiers" angle, the original draw was much better than Eldaec's.

As for wildcards, well, they are called wildcards for a reason.

I'm inclined to agree with RK, I'm going to use the original system of wildcards making a division 4 for the playoff seeding.

As long as we don't do it this way again, I don't really care that we have an odd playoffs this one time. In general though this way essentially rewards 4 other random teams with 'easy' matchups instead of rewarding good regular-season performance. It's kind of messed up that, for example, proudft's winning the tiebreaker with Carnifex actually hurts him. If we end up having to have wild card slots again next season, they really should be bottom seeds, like they are in basically every sports league ever.

I think it's worth prioritizing that over caring whether people play teams they've already played or not - of such things are rivalries born, after all.

Waiting for Strazos and Ingmar to join the Playoffs before that can start. Failoffs need Lamaros and Reborne to join in order to get that rolling.

Whoops! I'll get it done at some point tonight.

What? I was like the second person to apply?  :oh_i_see:

Sorry for the delay.
I thought there would be a new threads for the Playoffs and Failoffs.
My bad.

Applied now.

Playoffs have started and seeding is done. New thread inc.

Failoffs still need Lamaros to join before they can start.

I think lamaros indicated he'd rather not play - so you might as well just put a dummy team in .

Lamaros could still have put his team in and not play any of the games. I'll stick a dummy team in. Whoever gets it in the first round gets a bye.

ETA:
Failoffs have started, please see the new thread.

Really sorry, I meant to put the team in on the weekend but was really busy and completely forgot.