Hello everyone!
We are now officially at by far the largest season of the League ever. And it's not even close. After breaking the record with a total of 336 players last season, we've blown that out of the water with 787 this season, once we fill out divisions to 6 players with signups off the waiting list. Here's what that looks like:
Needless to say, this was unprecedented. We'd gotten used to the steady Season 27-38 numbers. How do we handle something like this? What tiers do we put all of those new players in?
At the Season 37 Town Hall, we all collectively developed plans to expand the number of tiers to eight, which came into effect in Season 39. The motivation behind this change was to keep the tier sizes more comparable, reducing the variance of skills within a given tier.
The problem is that we didn't have a natural way to increase the number of tiers should the player base balloon like this. We weren't the only ones not anticipating a pandemic! But given this rapid change, it's clear that we need to develop general rules for how to add or subtract tiers, and how to move returning players if we need to do so.
This will be the topic of the Season 40 Town Hall, tentatively scheduled for the weekend of June 13-14. For those who are new, a Town Hall is just a designated discussion taking place in the #town-hall Discord channel around a particular topic, closed out by some emoji reaction polls to gauge the feelings of the whole League community. To seed that discussion, and also to make the plans now for Season 41, the moderators have selected the following "scaling" rules:
- The maximum number of divisions at a given tier is double the maximum for the tier above (starting with 1 in A), except for every third division, in which case it is the same number as the one above. That is, these maxima are: 1 A, 2 B, 4 C, 4 D, 8 E, 16 F, 16 G, 32 H, 64 I, 64 J, 128 K, ...
- The lowest tier has (approximately) the same number of divisions as the second lowest tier.
These two rules imply the following maximal numbers of players as a function of the number of tiers:
- 8 Tiers: 1 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 16 + 16 = 67 divisions = 402 players.
- 9 Tiers: 1 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 16 + 32 + 32 = 115 divisions = 690 players.
- 10 Tiers: 1 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 64 = 211 divisions = 1266 players.
- 11 Tiers: 1 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 64 + 64 = 275 divisions = 1650 players.
According to this schema, with our 787 players in Season 40, we would have expanded to 10 tiers, adding Tiers I and J. However, we couldn't do this in Season 40, because we hadn't announced transition rules that would make it possible, and we didn't want anyone to demote unexpectedly. So how do we get from Season 40's eight tiers to these plans for Season 41? Well, here are each of those transition schemes:
This is a lot! Let's first focus on the first table -- that'll cover the most likely scenario, where we're about at the same size. Each row explains what happens to players in the tier indicated on the left -- for instance, the top finisher in an F division promotes to E, while 5th and 6th place demote to G. You'll notice that we include two new letters there -- I and J -- because we're expanding to 10 tiers, but it isn't quite as simple as sticking them at the bottom. You can think of it as adding one tier between the current F and G, and one tier below the current H, then relabeling the Season 40 G and H accordingly. That's why the winner of a Season 40 H division will be back in H -- it is a promotion, we're just labeling the tiers differently.
But getting first isn't the only goal of H tier players; getting in the top three could also matter for your tier next season. And if you're currently in G, well, I'm sorry to say that those bold/italics letters indicate that there's quite a bit of uncertainty as to where you'll end up next season. For instance, first place finishers by default will go to the new G (remember, that's the intermediate tier we're creating between Season 40's F and G), but could make it to F depending on numbers. The same is true for the other positions; the tier listed there is above is the more pessimistic scenario. Just do your best, and we'll sort it out when we see how numbers look next season.
(The next little table can be ignored for 99% of the League; it just covers what happens to that one 7-player division in B. Because it's a standard flexible division, caused by more returners than leavers at that tier, only the bottom two players demote.)
And that's just what happens if we stay at more or less the same size as Season 40. We just experienced a 134% increase in the size of the League, and we have no idea if that's temporary or just the beginning. We originally thought last season's increase was our quarantine bump! We need to be prepared for future scenarios, and we want to commit that we will not surprise you with an unexpected demotion. In that spirit of transparency, we're laying out the scenarios for what we will do given what seem to be the four most likely ranges of player counts for Season 41.
It's possible this is just the beginning, and we'll see another doubling in Season 42. In that 11-tier case, the third additional tier will be between the current G and H, following the transition scheme shown in the "11 Tiers" table. It's also possible that we shrink somewhat, losing 100 players or so. If that happens, then we'll follow the 9-tier system, which essentially adds just the one tier between G and H. And finally, if we shrink all the way back down to Season 39's numbers, we'll keep the eight tiers after all with fairly predictable promotions shown on the far right.
Once we have another client announcement and start to project out the size of the League, we'll have further clarity on which of these scales Season 41 will operate at. Unfortunately, this likely won't be until the very end of the season. For now, just do your best, and come to the Town Hall if you'd like to weigh in on these matters for Season 42 and beyond.
Best of luck with the new season, everyone! Please be friendly to all of the new players in the League, and if you have any questions, don't be afraid to reach out to your moderator!
