Hi everyone! As one of your league moderators, I've been looking at various ways to make the league better. I'd like to share an idea I've had that, if a combination of the players in the league and my fellow moderators agree, wouldn't go into effect until next season. (To be clear, I haven't won them over yet, and opinions here are my own, not the moderator team's as a whole).
If you're new or otherwise aren't aware, at the end of every season, the top two players from A play in a "Champion Match" to determine the league champion that year. The results of this 6-game match are added to the season's results, which just means that sometimes the leader only needs to win one or two of the six games. The Champion Match is a big event at the end of the year; it's usually streamed on Twitch with commentary and lots of spectators.
My proposal is to add analogous Champion Matches to other divisions. That is, for the prize of promoting to the next level, the top two players from each division would play an additional 6-game match, and those results would be added to the final results of the division to determine the winner. To the extent possible, we would also make big events out of these Champion Matches with streaming and commentary.
In particular, I'd most like to see this happen in the B division, where the prize (promotion to A) and quality of play are both highest. If it's successful and scales, we could potentially extend it to C, D, and E in subsequent seasons, but for now my proposal is simply to add a champion match to the two B divisions.
The main reason I'd like to see this is to add more end-of-season events like the Champion Matches in A. Those are nice for building community, showcasing talent, and (to a lesser extent) providing a dramatic finale to the season. B Champion Matches would ideally achieve the same goals, and additionally would also help ensure that those who promote into A are the best against strong competition (not that we've had any problems with that in the past).
There could also be an additional twist: The second-place finisher from B2 could play the top finisher from B1, and vice-versa. We balance the divisions (by rating at the beginning of the season) so there isn't a concern about imbalance, but it could happen that two players from the same division both have exceptionally good seasons, yet (under the current system, and under my proposal without this twist) only one of them may advance. Additionally, this cross-division battle would make for new matches that didn't take place during the season, unlike the current champion's matches.
What do you think? At some point we might hold a vote, but for now I'm most interested in hearing whether this is something that league participants would be interested in.