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1
Dominion League / Season 40 - Championship Match
« on: July 12, 2020, 09:02:47 pm »
The Season 40 Championship Match, featuring Mic Qsenoch and nasmith99, just concluded today. We've written a recap on our website, our first written recap in a while; let us know what you think of this format!

If you just want to watch the video, it's here:

2
Dominion League / Season 41 - Call for New Mods
« on: July 01, 2020, 06:43:51 pm »
Hello everyone!

The League is run by a team of volunteer moderators, and due to the growth of the League in the last few seasons, we're looking for more!

Moderator responsibilities consist of the following:
  • Meet with fellow moderators on the weekend before the season to set everything up. For Season 41, this will be the weekend of July 18-19. These meetings vary in length but usually last a few hours, including post-meeting tasks.
  • Meet with fellow moderators on the final weekend of the season to discuss and vote on any necessary rules changes. For Season 40, this will be the weekend of August 29-30. These meetings also vary in length, but usually last an hour or two.
  • Answer any questions from players in your 8-12 divisions.
  • Resolve any disputes between players that arise in your divisions.
  • Message players in your divisions who have fallen behind and remove them if they don't reply or can't finish. (For this purpose, you will also need an account on these forums.)
  • Help out with miscellaneous tasks like onboarding new players and updating our Google Sheets automation systems.
In general, the moderator role tends to be a reactive responsibility. Accordingly, we expect moderators to be responsive within 24 hours on Discord throughout the season. We also require new moderators to have played at least two full League seasons (which can include Season 40).

To apply, send the current mods a PM by clicking this link some time in the next 48 hours from this post. Applications have officially closed.

3
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!

4
The moderators met again to finish up the topic of tier sizes and promotions for Season 40. We have decided to keep the current 8-tier structure and just balloon the size of the lowest tiers for Season 40. This was a difficult decision, but neither of the alternatives (unexpected demotions or a tier composed solely of new players) was attractive.

We have also realized a need for a more general "scaling" solution -- under what conditions do we add or remove a tier from the League? In other words, our rules for tier sizes need to be much more general than fitting the relatively narrow range of player counts we had from Season 27 to Season 38.

The Town Hall will address exactly this question and hopefully help us come to a fully-general answer. For Season 41, we will be releasing our first attempt at a solution which can then be used as a starting point for the Town Hall discussion, along with the other options we're considering.

Here are the minutes from that followup meeting:
  • Season 40 Tier Sizes
    • Number of Tiers
      • Suppose we have at most 786 total players in the League for Season 40. Motion to, in that case, maintain the current 8-tier structure, expanding to at most 1, 2, 4, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 divisions per tier (that's 131 total divisions, so 786 spots).
        • YES (2 dissenting)
      • We had a long and difficult debate on this one. Given the scale Season 40 will be at, it would be ideal if we could add a ninth (or maybe even tenth) tier. However, doing so at this stage would involve either demoting players who weren't expecting it (e.g. 4th-6th place finishers in H) or forming a new tier entirely out of new players. We have never demoted players unexpectedly in the past, always notifying players of the possibilities of where they might end up prior to them playing any games. Moreover, a tier entirely out of new players would be problematic because some of those players would clearly be better than the worst returning players in H, and it would be ideal to have experienced players in as many divisions as we can.
        • Dissent (truffles): The presence of 64 Divisions in H tier means that, at an upperbound, almost half of all league players will be in one tier. I think categorizing/generalizing such a large number of league players as one single tier will increase player variance and skill imbalance within H divisions. Given that there's only roughly 12 full H divisions of Season 39 Returning Players, I would like to bound H by 32 divisions (rather than 64), and create a division I, while avoiding any surprise non-demotion of H returners. This leaves 20 divisions to fill for new players in H, and space to place the rest in I. Having even an extra tier of skill separation, especially given the influx of new-to-dominion players appearing in the client, will help reduce player variance and division-internal skill balance.
          • Suppose we get more than 786 confirmed on-time players. Motion to add extra divisions beyond the maxima indicated, and at most five 7-player divisions to fit everyone.
            • YES (1 dissenting)
          • We do not think this is particularly likely at this point, but if it does happen, we will not worry about the consequences of an extra promotion or two in F or G. The flux of players in or out of the League should dwarf any such differences.
            • Dissent (volfied): The majority are probably right about the fluctuations making this work. I just don't like giving ground on 7-player divisions. They should only be for their original purpose of players coming back from breaks.
              • Motion to add any extra divisions (see previous motion) to H.
                • YES (4 dissenting)
              • This seems like the simplest rule, and will also make it easier to form more tiers at the bottom in the future.
                • Dissent (nottoobad): if we need extra divisions, it might be worth considering where in the scheme they best fit. Almost half of the league will be in H this season; perhaps a small move in the other direction would be best. Specifically, we are over capacity in E; if more players continue to sign up in that level or above it might make more sense to add a division there instead.
                  • Dissent (truffles): It seems that we are only expanding at the bottom and not at the middle, especially if we are placing Level 57 players in F. Given that the cut-offs for Season 40 E Division (57+) is higher than what the cut-off was for Season 38 D Division (55+), it may suggest that increasing back D to 6 or 8 divisions would help the overcrowding in the middle tiers. The initial concern for D division was imbalance in skill, but now that the number of Dominion players and League players have grown drastically, there may be enough space to increase D back to 8 Divisions while maintaining the competitiveness of the tier.
                  • Late Signups Protocol
                    • Motion to, for Season 40 only, invite late signups to play on a rolling basis, i.e. exactly enough that we know we will fit within 786 total players if all of them and everyone else who is pending, confirms. This will occur on May 19, 20, and 21 and be the responsibility of the mod who closes out the batch whose deadline is that day (but they can delegate as usual).
                      • YES (unanimous)
                    • This should allow us to add as many Waiting List players as we can while minimizing the number of divisions that might remain stuck at 5 players.
                      • Motion to not form any 7-player divisions in Season 40 with Late Signups, but only invite them to fill divisions to 6 players (unlike in Season 39).
                        • YES (unanimous)
                      • This isn't something we should be doing in general. In Season 39, we chose to do it in order to make (nearly) every division at each of the E, F and G tiers 7-player. This season, and in general going forward, we plan to simply keep every division to 6 tiers, only forming a very small number of 7-player divisions.
                      • S39 -> S40 Outstanding Promotion Rules
                        • Motion to not change the demotion of 5th place finishers in 7-player tier E divisions.
                          • YES (unanimous)
                        • Since E won't be growing for the next season, it is already maxed out, and we need to demote these 5th place finishers.
                          • Motion to change the 5th place demotions in 7-player F divisions to instead remain in F.
                            • YES (unanimous)
                          • Conversely, we are doubling the size of F, so there is room to keep these players in F.
                            • Motion to promote 2nd place finishers in Season 39 H divisions.
                              • YES (unanimous)
                            • The players who finished in 2nd place in Season 39 H divisions seem to compare favorably to the new players currently on the cusp of G. It makes more sense to promote them.

                          5
                          As usual, here are the minutes from our League mod rules meeting.
                          • Returning form questions
                            • Division balance
                              • No change, because 78% of responders found their division to be somewhat or very balanced. We will continue to poll this.
                              • 7-Player divisions
                                • No change, because 86% of responders in 7-player divisions had somewhat or very positive experiences.
                                • Flexible divisions
                                  • Motion to generally reduce the number of temporary 7-player divisions (i.e. those in E/F/G) in Season 40.
                                    • YES (unanimous)
                                  • The purpose of those divisions in Season 39 was simply to manage a temporary numbers issue. With Season 40, we hope to simply change the number of divisions appropriately.
                                  • Town halls
                                    • Motion to make the Season 40 Town Hall about the topic of Scaling: How does the League increase and decrease in size on a more substantial scale?
                                      • YES (unanimous)
                                    • This is a new issue that has arisen with the explosive growth of the League in Season 39 and especially Season 40. Previous town halls only imagined the sort of small variations in interest we had seen between Seasons 27 and 38, but clearly new decisions will need to be made for these new scales.
                                  • Suggestions from Discord
                                    • Matches remaining messages
                                      • Motion to add a breakdown of how many matches people have remaining to the late season bot reminder messages.
                                        • YES (unanimous)
                                      • This was a suggestion meant to highlight exactly how many matches each player has left. It will make it easier for moderators to see who has the most to do to catch up.
                                    • Suggestions from moderators
                                      • Playing under multiple accounts
                                        • Motion to add something to the rules forbidding playing as multiple League players simultaneously.
                                          • YES (unanimous)
                                        • This should be obvious, but it wasn't explicitly in the rules yet.
                                        • Requests to avoid playing someone you know
                                          • Motion to keep a record of pairs of players (e.g. family members) who do not wish to be placed in the same division, with no promises but the desire to do the best we can to avoid placing them together within the purview of moderator discretion (e.g. in creating mixed time zone divisions).
                                            • YES (unanimous)
                                          • We've heard a few requests for this sort of thing over the seasons. There isn't a good formulaic way to guarantee it, but if we have leeway in e.g. creating hybrid divisions, we can try to make it happen.
                                          • Accommodating the large size of Season 40
                                            • Motion to, for the numbers we're seeing in Season 40, increase the sizes of the F, G, and/or H tiers rather than adding an I tier.
                                              • WITHDRAWN
                                            • Arguments for (SamE): It's very important to me to never unexpectedly demote anyone, so I wouldn't want to move any existing players down into a new tier. Filling tier I with all new players doesn't make as much sense, either; then the new players in H will be significantly better than the returners. The addition of new players hasn't necessarily changed the range of ability levels. I think we'll have enough space if we just expand F to 16 and G and H to roughly 32 divisions.
                                              • Arguments against:
                                                pt 1 (volfied): We'll need to figure out the fairest way to draw a line between the surprise demoters and the new players, but I'm confident there's a way to do it. Adding all new players to I would create too many problems down the road. The upshot of the vote on expanding the league this season was that it should do so vertically, rather than horizontally. Subdividing skill slices is an acceptable way to do this. Skill variation between tiers need not be equal. More tiers produces more balanced divisions and people were quite happy with the balance this season.
                                                pt 2 (nottoobad): Given that it's likely many tiers will double, I personally would be ok with skipping I for now (but I'd advocate for it in the town hall if size stays this way). I agree that there's no good way to add an I tier this seasons without surprise demotions. What would concern me though, is if the numbers indicate we should expand H to 32 and not expand other tiers-- to me, that would lead to too much of a skill difference, as volfied says. Curious to see what the signups look like before deciding.
                                                • Motion to delay the vote for the tier structure of Seasons 40-41 to Friday (later seasons will follow scaling rules determined in the town hall).
                                                  • YES (unanimous)
                                                • Since this is going to just be a short-term decision, we'd like to get a better feel for the numbers before deciding.

                                              6
                                              Hello everyone,

                                              Season 39 started in mid-March, as lockdowns around the world were coming into effect. It was, unsurprisingly, our biggest season ever. But that was apparently just the beginning.

                                              This last Friday, the first day that we advertised in the client for Season 40, we got a total of 181 new signups. For reference, we got only 140 new signups for the entirety of Season 39, with just 30 of those on the day of the client advertisement. We immediately knew we were in for another big ballooning of numbers in the League. Just four days later, we're up to 360 total signups, an even bigger number than we saw in Season 27, the first season we advertised in the client. (On a log scale, though, we probably won't exceed that 344% growth.)

                                              It seems clear that there's actually been an increase in interest in playing Dominion Online, as they've also experienced growth in new user accounts and games during this time, in part due to some nice publicity from Vox writer and League player dylanmatthews. Thanks for getting the word out, Dylan!

                                              As such, we will need to grow, starting with the moderator crew. We're excited to welcome back H.exe (formerly known as Seprix) and welcome new moderators Cave-o-sapien, Earl, eh1414, and truffles. With the 10 of us all remaining on from Season 39, this 50% boost should help everyone keep their division workloads manageable.

                                              We will also need to expand the sizes of some of the tiers of the League. In last season's newsletter, I had anticipated doubling G to 16 divisions, but it's now clear that won't go far enough. If some back-of-the-envelope estimates I made come true, we will also need to double F to 16 divisions, double H to 32 divisions, and then double G again to 32 divisions.

                                              The signups firehose is still running, though, and the moderators are already engaged in a vigorous debate over whether those tier-doubling plans are enough. Given this disagreement, we've decided to announce the Season 40 Town Hall, which will take place on the weekend of June 13-14, on the topic of Scaling: How should the League deal with large-scale growth and contraction? Thanks to everyone who suggested other topics; we'll file those away for discussion at future town halls.

                                              Other Changes
                                              The scaling issues aside, we have also resolved some smaller questions:
                                              • Flex 7-player divisions were generally popular and are here to stay. However, we will try to reduce the number of such divisions in E, F and G, where they were used as a temporary scaling solution.
                                              • You can now request not to be in the same division as another player (e.g. because you are married) and should the moderators have some discretion to do so (e.g. in creating hybrid divisions in your tier), we will try.
                                              Moderator Churn
                                              Remaining from Season 39: alibby1152, Apostolosoruler, crlundy, Gazbag, Lemonspawn, nottoobad, SamE, singletee, volfied, wharf_rat
                                              Leaving: None!
                                              Joining in Season 40: Cave-o-sapien, Earl, eh1414, H.exe, truffles

                                              Suggestions?
                                              As a reminder, you can reply to this forum post with any reasonably-complete suggestions you would like the moderators to discuss at their next rules meeting, tentatively scheduled for the weekend of July 4-5, and we guarantee we will discuss and vote on your suggestion. (You can also still give feedback in the Returning Forms and through Town Halls as usual.)

                                              7
                                              Dominion League / Season 40 - Call for New Mods
                                              « on: May 08, 2020, 05:47:42 pm »
                                              Hello everyone!

                                              The League is run by a team of volunteer moderators, and due to the growth of the League in Season 39 and Season 40, we're looking for more!

                                              Moderator responsibilities consist of the following:
                                              • Meet with fellow moderators on the weekend before the season to set everything up. For Season 40, this will be the weekend of May 23-24. These meetings vary in length but usually last a few hours, including post-meeting tasks.
                                              • Meet with fellow moderators on the final weekend of the season to discuss and vote on any necessary rules changes. For Season 40, this will be the weekend of July 4-5. These meetings also vary in length, but usually last an hour or two.
                                              • Answer any questions from players in your 5-8 divisions.
                                              • Resolve any disputes between players that arise in your divisions.
                                              • Message players in your divisions who have fallen behind and remove them if they don't reply or can't finish. (For this purpose, you will also need an account on these forums.)
                                              • Help out with miscellaneous tasks like onboarding new players and updating our Google Sheets automation systems.
                                              In general, the moderator role tends to be a reactive responsibility. Accordingly, we expect moderators to be responsive within 24 hours on Discord throughout the season. We also require new moderators to have played at least two full League seasons (which can include Season 39).

                                              To apply, send the current mods a PM by clicking this link some time in the next 48 hours from this post. Applications have officially closed.

                                              8
                                              Dominion League / Re: Season 40 - Signups
                                              « on: April 06, 2020, 11:29:14 am »
                                              Sign up using this Google form:



                                              Signups and Counts are listed below. Tiers are tentative. Counts for returning players may be a bit off before the season ends.



                                              9
                                              Dominion League / Season 40 - Signups
                                              « on: April 06, 2020, 11:25:48 am »
                                              Season 40 will run from Monday, May 25 until Sunday, July 5 and you can sign up until Monday, May 18 at 15:00 UTC. Signups are now officially closed. If you would like to sign up for next season, you can do so here.

                                              You will need the following in order to sign up:
                                              • An account on the Dominion Online client. In order to place you appropriately, we highly recommend playing at least 20 rated 2-player games through the automatch system before Friday, May 22.
                                              • An account on the Dominion Discord. All League communications will take place by default over Discord.
                                              • (Optional) An account on these forums. This gives the moderators a second means of contacting you should you become unresponsive on Discord.
                                              After you fill out the form, please check back in about 5 minutes for the table of signups to update with your signup. If any of the entries are highlighted in red, this indicates that we have detected a problem with that entry. Please remedy this right away, or otherwise reach out to the moderators on Discord or by using the Dominion League Hotline.

                                              A moderator will contact you on Discord to confirm your participation. You must reply to this message within 4-7 days depending on how close your signup is to the deadline. In addition, we require all players to "check in" during the first week of the season or forfeit their place. This consists of filling out a very short form to confirm that you plan to play the season that will be sent at the start of the season. If you fail to check in promptly, you could be removed.

                                              Season 39 players should not use this signup form and should instead fill out the Returning Form which is posted in their division channel on Discord.

                                              10
                                              And here are the minutes from the setup meeting.
                                              • Outstanding Rules Questions
                                                • Rules around 7-player divisions
                                                  • Motion to go with the 6-player demotion rules if there is a drop from an originally-7p division with fewer than 18 games played, but otherwise to go with the 7-player demotion rules.
                                                    • YES (unanimous)
                                                  • This middle ground will prevent any surprise end-of-season demotions if a divisionmate drops, while also taking advantage of the reduction to 6 players if it happens.
                                                • Season 39 Specific Details
                                                  • Promotions and demotions
                                                    • Motion to announce that only one player from each H division will promote. (This would be the case if we stay at about the same or slightly lower.)
                                                      • YES (unanimous)
                                                    • There are currently twice as many H divisions as G divisions.
                                                      • Motion to announce that 5th place finishers in E and F will demote by default. (This would be the case if we grew any amount further.)
                                                        • YES (1 dissenting)
                                                      • We are nearly at capacity in all tiers except G and H, and if we grow any further, there won't be space even with every division at 7 players. To be clear, this is a temporary injunction for Season 39 in particular, which we might not have to invoke.
                                                        • Demoting 3 feels wrong even if its just a potential temporary measure (apostolosoruler).
                                                        • Waiting List Invitations
                                                          • There are 19 players on the waiting list currently. Apart from LaLight (addressed later), and the last of the H signups (who would be next in line), motion to add all of the players to create four more 7-player divisions in E, F and G, and fill the last 5 H divisions to 6 players.
                                                            • YES (unanimous)
                                                          • This waiting list was much longer than usual, and with so many people stuck at home, we wanted to give everyone who signed up the opportunity to play. If they confirm quickly, there won't be any cost to being on the waiting list.
                                                            • Motion to only fill to 6 players with any players not currently on the waiting list.
                                                              • YES (unanimous)
                                                            • That said, future waiting list signups will start as late as Week 2, and we don't want to exacerbate 7-player divisions that late.
                                                              • Motion to invite LaLight to take the open spot in D3.
                                                                • YES (unanimous)
                                                              • A spot in D unexpectedly opened up for LaLight, who had earned a C tier return but signed up late.
                                                              • Future Changes
                                                                • Motion to decide at the S39 Rules Meeting whether to add Tier I to Season 40.
                                                                  • YES (unanimous)
                                                                • The moderators will examine whether the H tier should be further split up if we remain at a similar size.
                                                                  • Motion not to have a town hall this season.
                                                                    • YES (unanimous)
                                                                  • We are currently all out of topics and will be collecting more in the Returning Form!

                                                                11
                                                                To no one's surprise, given world events, Season 39 will be the biggest League season ever! We have crossed the 300 player mark for the first time to 315 -- our previous high was 281 in Season 32 (Winter 2019). And that's even before counting the 17 additional players we've invited off the waiting list.

                                                                Correspondingly, we are now up to 51 divisions: 1 A, 2 B, 4 C, 4 D, 8 E, 8 F, 8 G, and 16 H. Yes, the original plans only called for H to go up to 12 divisions, but these increased numbers don't necessarily indicate a broader skill range than before, so there's no impetus to add an I tier.

                                                                In addition, we have also expanded in another way: This is the first season when we are actually implementing a rule change passed a couple seasons ago, allowing for 7-player divisions if enough players return to a given tier. For instance, in the A1 division, E.Honda rejoined after taking last season off, and with the other six players remaining, we expand the division to 7 players.

                                                                A similar story occurred in C, when we had 5 returning players for only one spot. However, we've also hit our limits in E, F, and G, but rather than moving nearly all new players into H, we've chosen to expand those tiers to nearly-ubiquitous 7-player divisions, including inviting nearly the entire waiting list at this point to join. If all of them do, we will only have one division in each of E, F and G with only 6 players, the division with the most difficult time zone differences.

                                                                7-player divisions mean more Dominion for everyone involved! It's six matches in six weeks, so really try to keep to about a one per week pace. We will be especially proactive moderating these divisions since there's more to catch up on if you fall behind.

                                                                For the A, C and G divisions, at the end of the season, only 2 players will demote from each 7-player division, so there could very well be 7-player divisions in that tier in the future. However, we will no longer be promoting any additional players into any tiers with 7-player divisions, so if/when anyone leaves (or more technically, if more people leave than return), they will go back down to 6.

                                                                For the E and F divisions, because these are taking place in an unusual circumstance, we have decided to anticipate potential future growth and by default demote three players from each of these divisions. Nothing is certain at this point, especially months away, but given that we could see greater than usual shifts in the number of League players, we would like to offer how we anticipate we would deal with those:
                                                                • As the default, if future seasons appear to be around this size, we will keep this structure and promote only the 1st place finisher in each H division. If this holds, we wouldn't have to demote 5th place finishers in 7-player divisions in E and F.
                                                                • If the number of League players goes back down, we will additionally reduce the number of H divisions, offering some additional promotions to 2nd (and maybe 3rd) place finishers in H in the process.
                                                                • If we see another big increase in the number of players, we would expand G to 16 divisions. This is the situation that would require additional demotions from E and F to make space and put those extra players in G. We would also likely see the 2nd place finishers in H promote in this cirumstance, too.
                                                                Given these potential changes, we will be publishing the Promotion Rules tab for a new season along with the signups. We've gone ahead and done that for this season (see the Signups post), which was that same table you've already heard of. You'll see Season 40's in its Signup post when it goes up in a week, and so on for future seasons, but here's a sneak preview:



                                                                The highlighted boxes are subject to change, currently set to the worse of their two outcomes. As with many things in the coronavirus era, we'll be playing this by ear. Stay safe, everyone!

                                                                12
                                                                Dominion League / Season 39 - Newsletter: The First Eight-Tier Season
                                                                « on: March 17, 2020, 12:40:45 am »
                                                                Hello everyone,

                                                                Season 39 will be the first Dominion League season with eight tiers. As I've been explaining to people, the easiest way to think about it is that we've added tiers D/E and E/F, and then renamed all of the tiers to just the letters A through H. In fact, the E and F transition schemes from Season 38 are the exact same as the F and H transition schemes going forward, so it's really as if E and F players were already in F and H, respectively. Here are those transition schemes again:


                                                                Other Changes
                                                                Apart from this big change, we only have a few small changes (see the minutes below for full details):
                                                                • This will be the first season with Menagerie! The default rules will be to include the new cards. However, we ask that all playtesters identify themselves to their League opponents and offer their opponents flexibility to play without them if they desire.
                                                                • The moderators have more flexibility to address inequities around dropped players with extra "tiebreaker" matches.

                                                                Moderator Churn
                                                                While there is a lot of change going on, it helps to have a steady set of leaders. We will have the exact same moderator crew for the fourth consecutive season!

                                                                Suggestions?
                                                                As a reminder, you can reply to this forum post with any reasonably-complete suggestions you would like the moderators to discuss at their next rules meeting, tentatively scheduled for the weekend of May 9-10, and we guarantee we will discuss and vote on your suggestion. (You can also still give feedback in the Returning Forms and through Town Halls as usual.)

                                                                13
                                                                Dominion League / Season 38 - Standings
                                                                « on: February 01, 2020, 01:38:46 pm »

                                                                14
                                                                Dominion League / Re: Season 38 - Newsletter: The Last Six-Tier Season
                                                                « on: January 21, 2020, 11:15:33 pm »
                                                                Full Rules Meeting Minutes:
                                                                • Returning Form Questions
                                                                  • Suggested Schedules
                                                                    • Poll: Which divisions should get suggested schedules? (Approval voting.)
                                                                      • (0) All divisions.
                                                                      • (5) All with at least one new player.
                                                                      • (4) All with at least two new players.
                                                                      • (7) All in E and F.
                                                                      • (3) All in D, E and F.
                                                                      • (3) No divisions.
                                                                    • Consensus was that they were helpful for new players and lower-tier divisions, but useless for experienced and higher-tier divisions. Both factors seemed important, and tier-based conditions are simpler to execute.
                                                                    • New Player Seeding
                                                                      • Motion to seed New players ahead of Staying players.
                                                                        • Result: YES (1 dissenting)
                                                                      • Player opinion was pretty muted on this topic. Moderators went with the category with a better track record to reduce the chance of many good players ending up in the same division.
                                                                    • Town Hall
                                                                      • New Tier Structure
                                                                        • Motion to transition to the proposed tier system from the town hall (https://tinyurl.com/dl-tier-sizes) with the proposed transition scheme applying between any seasons <= 38 to >= 39.
                                                                          • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                        • Player opinion, as expressed in the town hall, was abundantly clear. It will take time to adjust to the new system, but it should increase competitiveness.
                                                                          • Motion not to worry about seeding comparisons for players with different season breaks across the boundary.
                                                                            • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                          • There will be issues comparing the recent League histories of players who take a break and then return. We will postpone discussion of how to handle the seeding for any such players until after the majority transition.
                                                                        • Suggestions from Discord
                                                                          • Championship match should affect seeding/display order
                                                                            • Should the championship winner be (somehow) listed first in the A1 division standings (with super minor seeding consequences)?
                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                            • The only seeding effect is if both players demote with the same record the following season (or after any number of seasons in which they tie). The main ease is that it will mean the player listed first is the winner.
                                                                              • If there is a tie for 2nd place (including a 3-3 head-to-head) in the A1 division, should we (1) apply the second tiebreaker to break the tie, or (2) have another tiebreaker match to determine who gets to play in the championship?
                                                                                • Result: Option 1 (1 dissenting)
                                                                              • An extra prerequisite match to add before the championship match would just add needless hassle to the end of the season. It also doesn't affect promotion or demotion, following our previous trend.
                                                                                • Dissent (singletee): I'm generally opposed to the use of the second tiebreaker. I feel that the championship match and qualification for it are comparable in importance to promotion/demotion. This applies to A tier only, so the involved players are likely to be able to handle the extra-extra match.
                                                                                  • Should (1) the second tiebreaker break a complete tie (same overall record, 6-6 head-to-head) in the championship, or (2) should we have an armageddon game?
                                                                                    • Result: Option 2 (1 dissenting)
                                                                                  • Following the same rules as other ties atop divisions would require a 2-3 game match, but since they're already playing, tacking one game onto the end is more appropriate.
                                                                                    • In the Armageddon game, who should start?
                                                                                      • (2) The player who had a better head-to-head in the regular season
                                                                                      • (0) The player who has played better in the match so far is P1
                                                                                      • (7) Random start.
                                                                                    • This treats the regular-season and championship match equally, and also handles the case when both matches are 3-3.
                                                                                      • Dissent (nottoobad): In all other divisions, regular season head-to-head decides the winner when 1st and 2nd are otherwise tied. In the A division, it should still have some benefit regardless of championship match game 1-6 performance.
                                                                                    • Player Suggestions
                                                                                      • Match Announcements
                                                                                        • Motion not to make match announcements "mandatory" but to encourage them across the board.
                                                                                          • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                        • One player suggested making them mandatory, but we decided that we didn't like any possible enforcement mechanisms. Instead, we will be providing instructions in the opening Discord posts to encourage announcements.
                                                                                        • Undo Policy
                                                                                          • Motion not to change the undo policy.
                                                                                            • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • One player wanted to outlaw undo's across the board. Undo's are important for players to play at a reasonable pace, which is why our default policy is fairly generous towards them.

                                                                                        15
                                                                                        Dominion League / Season 38 - Newsletter: The Last Six-Tier Season
                                                                                        « on: January 20, 2020, 11:26:56 pm »
                                                                                        Hello everyone!

                                                                                        At Season 37's Town Hall, we hammered out the details of a major overhaul of the League's tier system, and then the winning option was overwhelmingly favored over the status quo. Here's a quick synopsis if you missed it: We're adding two new tiers between the current D and E tiers, and E and F tiers, composed of equally many players from each of those neighboring tiers. Instead of calling these tiers "D/E" or "F+", we're just going to relabel all of the tiers A through H (just think of F and H as the old E and F, with the new E and G being those hybrid divisions).

                                                                                        With Season 38 as the last season on the old system, there will be special one-time rules for which positions will end up in which tiers in Season 39:


                                                                                        Other Changes
                                                                                        See the minutes which will be posted below for full details.
                                                                                        • Suggested schedules are back for divisions in E and below (both this season and in the future).
                                                                                        • New players will now be seeded above players returning to the same tier.
                                                                                        • We clarified some rules around the championship match.

                                                                                        Moderator Churn
                                                                                        For the second straight season, all ten moderators will be continuing on. Hooray for a consistent team!

                                                                                        Suggestions?
                                                                                        As a reminder, you can reply to this forum post with any reasonably-complete suggestions you would like the moderators to discuss at their next rules meeting, tentatively scheduled for the weekend of March 14-15, and we guarantee we will discuss and vote on your suggestion. (You can also still give feedback in the Returning Forms and through Town Halls as usual.)

                                                                                        16
                                                                                        Commentary from myself and drsteelhammer:



                                                                                        Congratulations to               RTT              !

                                                                                        17
                                                                                        Link for streaming?

                                                                                        Tune in by friending one of the players on the client (or looking for the game by sorting tables by number of spectators) and listen to our commentary in the Moderated Stream Chat channel on the Dominion Discord.

                                                                                        18
                                                                                        Dominion League / Season 37 - Newsletter: Changes Afoot
                                                                                        « on: November 25, 2019, 10:43:57 pm »
                                                                                        Hello everyone!

                                                                                        We've now had three town halls, and at the latest, we discussed the biggest changes yet. While most of those changes were not particularly popular, it is still helpful to know where people stand. And in a couple cases, the moderators decided to buck that unpopularity and experiment with the alternative!

                                                                                        Summary of (Rules) Changes
                                                                                        See the Rules and Regulations Changelog (once it's updated) and/or the minutes below for the full details.
                                                                                        • The strength-of-wins second tiebreaker is now removed for Season 37 on an experimental basis for promotion/demotion determination only. This means that if you and one opponent finish with the same number of wins and a 3-3 result in your head-to-head match, and your position matters for promotion or demotion, you will be invited to play a 2-3 game match to break the tie. (Unlike your regular League matches, you are allowed to forfeit.) We expect this to happen to 1-5 pairs of players this season, and hope it will make the end of the season more exciting.
                                                                                        • Starting in Season 37, if there are more players seeking to return to a tier than there are positions, we will create one or more 7-player divisions. These flexible division sizes will hopefully make it very rare to be unable to return to the tier that you earned should you take a break of up to 5 seasons.
                                                                                        • Returning players will have the opportunity to express your degree of time zone flexibility to better assist moderators in balancing division sizes. There will be a post in #announcements in Discord for you to express this flexibility for Season 37; in the future, it will be added via the Returning Form.
                                                                                        • We will remove the suggested schedules from the opening Discord posts for Season 37 to reduce their bloat.
                                                                                        • We have spelled out the rules for eligibility and processes for play-in matches for free promotions, which will still prioritize strong 2nd place finishers from the tier below.
                                                                                        • Dominion League Champions, both current and former, now have their own dedicated Discord roles.
                                                                                        • Starting in the signups for Season 38, a forum.dominionstrategy.com account will be optional for entering the League, which will be handled via a Google form going directly to the moderators.
                                                                                        • We are strongly considering the possibility of expanding the number of tiers (adding a G tier and maybe more) by reducing the doubling rate of expansion of the tier sizes. This will hopefully yield more competitive divisions in the lower tiers at the expense of some time zone specificity. We need to work out the details of this proposal and run it by everyone, so we invite you to the next Town Hall, tentatively scheduled for the weekend of January 12th-13th, to do so.

                                                                                        Moderator Churn
                                                                                        None! We are lucky to have the same set of ten moderators for two seasons in a row: alibby1152, Apostolosoruler, crlundy, Gazbag, Lemonspawn, nottoobad, SamE, singletee, volfied and wharf_rat.

                                                                                        Moderator Rules Meeting Minutes
                                                                                        • Returning Form Questions
                                                                                          • Top Candidates for Free Promotions
                                                                                            • Plurality (43%) favored giving free promotions to 2nd place finishers; only 25% favored 5th place finishers. Moderator discretion was advocated for, but we are uninterested in that kind of power, preferring to make good rules and stick to them.      
                                                                                            • Motion to retain the preference for 2nd place from the lower tier over 5th place from the higher tier when deciding play-in matches (A-C) and free promotions (D-E)
                                                                                              • Result: YES (1 dissenting)
                                                                                            • Dissenting opinion (alibby1152): When considering players for free promotion, choosing 5th place demoters over 2nd place finishers from a lower tier falls directly in line with the new seeding rules. In particular, we determine seeding within a tier by the tier a player played in the previous season. A 5th place demoter would be ahead of the 2nd place finisher in that case. Furthermore, the 5th place demoter would be likely to have had a better most recent performance (1st) at the lower tier than any 2nd place finisher being considered.      
                                                                                            • Motion to rewrite the rules of Section IV in accordance with our policies on play-in matches and time zone divisions.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Match Points Before Game Points
                                                                                            • This was not a popular change, with a majority (57%) favoring the current total wins-based standings compared to only 21% in favor of match points. The League is not an elimination tournament.      
                                                                                            • Motion to retain the total wins-based standings (not switching to match points).
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Time Zone-Based Divisions in the D Tier
                                                                                            • This was the clearest of the polls, albeit with a smaller sample. 30 of the 39 players with a preference favored keeping the time zone regions. However, from reading the comments, we realized that some players might be super flexible and therefore helpful in making the division counts work out, so we will be asking players if this fits them on the Returning Form going forward.      
                                                                                            • Motion to keep the time zone regions (AM/EU) in D.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to add a question to the returning form asking whether players are super flexible and could play with any time zone division.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                        • Structure Town Hall
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #1: 6- vs 7- person divisions
                                                                                            • 47% preferred 6-player divisions, while 34% preferred 7-player divisions. Given how much this would change the league, we decided it was not worth pursuing given that lack of public support.      
                                                                                            • Motion to keep a default of 6-player divisions.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #2: Removing Tiebreakers for Promotion/Demotion
                                                                                            • A 43% plurality preferred keeping both tiebreakers, with 29% of votes for removing the second tiebreaker. This was a surprising result to the moderators. The moderator team expressed a weariness with explaining the second tiebreaker over and over. We tried to simplify the formula to make it more intuitive, to no avail. Its justiification is rather arbitrary as all players have the same schedule. However, we are uncertain whether the tiebreaking matches resulting from its removal will cause too many extra matches which players will have difficulty finding the time to play. Previous seasons suggest this could happen up to 2-3 times a season, but we wanted to see how that would play out before making a permanent change.      
                                                                                            • Motion to remove the second tiebreaker for Season 37 on an experimental basis and re-evaluate at next season's rules meeting.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (3 dissenting)
                                                                                            • Dissenting opinion (crlundy): Removing the second tiebreaker means more ties will now need to be broken by playing a best-of-3 match. Scheduling an additional match during the season may be difficult for players, especially in tiers E and F. This moderator vote also opposes the results of Poll #2 from the League Structure Town Hall.      
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #3: Tiebreakers for Seeding Purposes
                                                                                            • A 48% plurality favored keeping the second tiebreaker around for breaking ties that only affect seeding, essentially elevating the play-in match when promotion or demotion is on the line. We discussed how both of these options would be implemented and determined that both were about equally feasible, so we proceeded to a vote between the two options. However, first, we realized that we needed to handle the seeding of players who were completely tied after all tiebreakers appropriately in the standings, and averaging those positions seemed best.      
                                                                                            • Motion to seed players who are tied through all tiebreakers (and whose positions didn't affect promotion/demotion) with the average of the positions they would have received (independent of removing 2nd tiebreaker).
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Should we include the second tiebreaker to break ties for seeding purposes?
                                                                                              • (4) Keep the second tiebreaker (technically make it a hidden column, after the result of a play-off match if applicable)
                                                                                              • (3) Remove the second tiebreaker (average their finishes for seeding purposes).
                                                                                            • Majority opinion (): [to be added]      
                                                                                            • Dissenting opinion (SamE): If we're going to remove the second tiebreaker, let's get rid of it entirely. Also, the seeding outcome of breaking or not breaking the tie is pretty small, so it would be playing an even more diminished role out of proportion with its complexity.      
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #4: Opting Out of Discord Tags
                                                                                            • Allowing players who fall behind to opt out of being tagged by the moderators' minions was not a popular idea. A full 48% preferred no one to have the ability to opt out. Given that players who are sticking to the ideal pace of matches will avoid being tagged, and how many difficulties we've had with players disappearing, we were not very sympathetic to their plight.      
                                                                                            • Motion to not allow anyone to opt out of being tagged if they are behind on their matches.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #5: Seasons Per Year
                                                                                            • This poll produced one of the clearest majorities, with 67% of players supporting six seasons per year. This didn't require much discussion among us to agree.      
                                                                                            • Motion to keep the current 6-seasons-per-year schedule.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #6: Tier Sizes
                                                                                            • And now, we come to the biggest poll of them all, which sparked lots of discussion later in the town hall. Fortunately, we were pretty unified on our perspective, that this should be a much longer discussion taking place in its own dedicated town hall, complete with many more charts and figures to understand the extent of the problem.      
                                                                                            • Motion to make the January Town Hall (tentatively January 11th-12th) all about the topic of Emoji Poll #6, i.e. adding more tiers and decreasing the rate at which tier size grows. The expectation is that something will change, but the status quo will be polled against the leading alternative(s). Any changes would not take place until Season 39.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #7: Two promoters / demoters between consecutive tiers of a similar size.
                                                                                            • This question will naturally be discussed again as part of the next town hall, but we still discussed its applicability to the current E and F tiers. Given that the F tier sometimes features small divisions, we were wary about promoting second place finishers across the board. However, this decision seemed similar to that of Poll #1, and if 2nd place finishers of the lower tier are preferred, that would suggest promoting and demoting two candidates. In the end, we decided that a change for just one season wasn't worth the work.      
                                                                                            • Motion to retain the 1 promoter / 1 demoter rule for E/F for Season 37, but re-evaluate at the town hall for any future pairs of similarly-sized divisions.-
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #8: Ordering of additional 2nd place candidates for promotion.
                                                                                            • Another clear poll, with 48% in favor of prioritizing runners-up by winning percentage compared to 13% preferring comparing to how many wins short they were. This is intended as a leveling mechanism to account for the noise in terms of the distribution of opponent performances across divisions.      
                                                                                            • Motion to maintain the priority of runners-up by winning percentage.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #9: Length of break before the earned tier expires.
                                                                                            • It seemed that no clear alternative emerged to the default maximum break length of 5 seasons, with 2 seasons getting the most votes at 17% still paling in comparison with the 38% that the status quo received. Given the 6 seasons per year, this means that every player must play at least once per 12-month cycle to stay active, which has some attraction for players who have a seasonal schedule. However, it doesn't much matter as not that many players return after 3-5 seasons of break.      
                                                                                            • Motion to keep the tier expiration at a 5-season break.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Emoji Poll #10: Champion perks.
                                                                                            • Giving the current champion a role was nearly unanimous. The channel was more controversial with a plurality opposed to it. We decided that it would mostly invite unnecessary drama.      
                                                                                            • Motion to give the current League Champion a role with a slightly lighter green color.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to give former Champions a non-colored role.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to not give former champions their own private channel.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                        • Feedback from the Returning Form
                                                                                          • Add leaderboard level back into standings
                                                                                            • A suggestion of Fircoal was to add level information back into the standings as this gave a general sense of the ability of those players. However, this had been a pain to implement successfully, with IMPORTRANGE issues and the leaderboard being as large as it is. We figured it was too much of a hassle.      
                                                                                            • Motion to keep the level information out of the standings (too technically "expensive").
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                        • Moderator Suggestions
                                                                                          • Remove the suggested schedule
                                                                                            • In implementing seven-player divisions, we realized that there is no possible 6-week suggested schedule for a seven-player division with one match per week per player (can't have 3.5 matches each week). Rather than coming up with a more hackneyed schedule, we decided to do away with it for any seven-player divisions. In the process, we looked into whether we could remove it for everyone, as those opening Discord posts are getting quite long.      
                                                                                            • Should we remove the suggested schedules (you can vote for more than one)?
                                                                                              • (0) Yes, remove it permanently.
                                                                                              • (9) Try removing it for a season and see how it goes.
                                                                                              • (1) Keep it.
                                                                                            • Majority opinion (SamE): We'll see if people have trouble and ask about who they should play first, particularly newcomers.      
                                                                                            • Dissenting opinion (Apostolosoruler): [to be added]      
                                                                                        • Leftover from last season
                                                                                          • Remove forum requirement
                                                                                            • A recurring discussion among the moderators. The forum is still used rarely to get in touch with players who go out of contact on Discord; a quick poll of the moderators suggested that half of them had used it in the past season in that way. However, forum communication has become otherwise minimal, and it would be nicer to new players for them to only have to make a Discord account. Given that we've been kicking this can down the road for a long time, we decided to just take care of it now. The proposal is to move to a Google Form signup system starting in Season 38.      
                                                                                            • Should we delete the forum requirement starting with signups for Season 38?
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Flexible division sizes
                                                                                            • Finally, we get back to the original topic that led to the first proto-town hall discussion in #league. In between our last moderator meeting and this one, the mods had implemented an example seven-player division and changed all of the associated League components. That hadn't been that difficult, but we were now confident that we could do it. The original discussion in #league had led to a Returning Form poll with a clear plurality (45% to 18%) in favor of the change. From a theoretical perspective, this change will mean that we need fewer play-in matches, as the only times the number of players with a claim on a tier changes are play-in matches, players leaving and not returning within a year, and players failing to have the opportunity to return to a given tier. By reducing the last of these, we will also be reducing the number of play-in matches, with the players who leave providing an eventual forcing function (in addition to the season-to-season fluctuations back towards six players. In B, this means that a 7-player division might last 2-3 seasons, while in C, it will likely be gone after just one. But we'll have to see how this plays out in practice. Note that if we have any 7-player divisions, that means no play-in matches into that tier, so we will be able to announce the divisions as soon as signups close, giving those divisions almost an extra week before the season starts.      
                                                                                            • Motion to announce that we will implement flexible division sizes if necessary starting in Season 37.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (2 dissenting)
                                                                                            • Dissenting opinion (alibby1152): I believe that there are still a few issues that need to be fully addressed before implementing the flexible divisions. First, without a forcing back towards six player divisions (i.e., an additional demotion), I feel like we are on our way to making 7 player divisions the norm. Seven player divisions is a topic with mixed opinions within the community. Second, forcing players to play an additional match in the same amount of time as those in six player divisions poses potential scheduling difficulties. Lastly, imbalanced divisions within a tier puts players on unequal footing when it comes to promotion and demotion.               

                                                                                        19
                                                                                        Dominion League / Re: Season 37 - Signups
                                                                                        « on: November 15, 2019, 09:18:27 pm »
                                                                                        Can you request to be in group with someone in the same division?

                                                                                        I believe the answer to the question you're trying to ask is no. If the two of you are in the same tier and time zone region, you may or may not end up in the same division. Unless you're in the A tier or the Asia/Australia divisions in E/F, in which case there's only one division.

                                                                                        20
                                                                                        Dominion League / Season 36 - End of Season Deadlines
                                                                                        « on: November 11, 2019, 10:43:10 am »
                                                                                        Season 36 officially ends on Sunday, November 24. To account for the westernmost timezones, the deadline for reporting matches is Monday, November 25, at 15:00 UTC.

                                                                                        If you need extra time to finish, you must contact your group moderator to request an extension of up to one week. All late finish matches must be reported by Monday, December 2, at 15:00 UTC.

                                                                                        If you fail to request an extension or complete the match by the late deadline, the responsible player(s) will be considered to have dropped mid-season. This means that they are banned for the next two seasons, and automatically demoted when they return. If they played at least 18 games (three matches), those are kept for the other players' standings and their remaining matches are "simulated" (see the full rules for how), but if they did not complete that many, their results are removed.

                                                                                        In addition to finishing your matches, all players must fill out the returning form to tell us whether they will be back for next season. This form was sent to you in a private message; you can also find it in the pinned post in your Discord division channel. The deadline for filling out the returning form is Monday, December 2, at 15:00 UTC (the Season 37 signup deadline). Any players who have not told us whether they will be back by then will be assumed to be not returning.

                                                                                        21
                                                                                        Dominion League / Re: Season 36 - Newsletter: Responding to Your Feedback
                                                                                        « on: October 13, 2019, 02:51:19 pm »
                                                                                        And the season has now officially begun! Head on over to Discord, greet your opponents, and start to schedule your matches! I know it's been a while (the longest break the League has ever taken), so you're probably eager to jump right in!

                                                                                        Waiting list folks: Some of you will hear from one of us today about a spot. For the rest, we'll be waiting to see if there are any early-season dropouts or players who do not check in. Late Signups are now open for another week so if anyone wants to join (particularly F-level players in Europe or Asia), please feel free to sign up!

                                                                                        As you can see from the meeting minutes below, we've decided to add three more questions to the returning form. We'll be drafting the language for these questions today and tomorrow and will hopefully be able to get that released shortly. Meanwhile, our November Town Hall will be on big picture questions like League size, scale, length, and coordination of breaks with other tournaments. Stay tuned for more details come November!

                                                                                        More minutes from our setup mod meeting today:
                                                                                        • Setup Meeting
                                                                                          • Returning Form Questions
                                                                                            • Motion to add "match points before game points" to the Returning Form polls.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to add "preference to 5th place demoters for additional slots over 2nd place finishers" to the Returning Form polls.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to add question about splitting D by time zone to the returning form, open to only players who have played in D in the last year.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Town Halls
                                                                                            • Motion to tentatively plan on the next town hall to address the big picture questions about the League size, scale, length, and coordination of breaks with other major tournaments.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Messaging
                                                                                            • Motion to add something to the opening Discord posts about using !match and other Bot commands.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)

                                                                                        22
                                                                                        Dominion League / Season 36 - Standings
                                                                                        « on: October 13, 2019, 02:10:01 pm »

                                                                                        23
                                                                                        Dominion League / Season 36 - Newsletter: Responding to Your Feedback
                                                                                        « on: October 04, 2019, 02:08:35 am »
                                                                                        Hello everyone!

                                                                                        I hope you all enjoyed the long break! Best of luck to the players still alive in the championship; there will continue to be plenty of exciting championship matches to watch over the first half of the League season.

                                                                                        We are releasing this newsletter a bit earlier than usual in order to announce any changes to the rules prior to the signup deadline, in case these rules affect whether you would like to play. This will be the pattern going forward: Newsletters will now go out during the first week of the usual League breaks, along with announcements of any rules changes for the following season.

                                                                                        The other notable change is that we've held two very successful Town Halls, on the important topics of Cardlists and Seeding. These Town Halls have introduced a number of rules changes starting in the upcoming season. Going forward, we will aim to hold about one town hall per season, likely around the middle of the season. While they're obviously very worthwhile for gathering community feedback, they also tend to be very long and not something we can afford to do more frequently than that.

                                                                                        Summary of Rules Changes
                                                                                        See the Rules and Regulations Changelog and the minutes below for the full details.
                                                                                        • The cardlists defaults are: banned on, disliked on, liked off (same settings as tables in Automatch).
                                                                                        • Cardlists can only be changed between games if there is a break of 24 hrs or more between those games.
                                                                                        • Seeding to determine divisions now depends entirely on previous League performance for returning players.
                                                                                        • Games should be unrated by default.
                                                                                        • We encourage that spec chat be off.
                                                                                        • We clarified that dropped players demote regardless of when during the season they drop.

                                                                                        Moderator Churn
                                                                                        We say goodbye for now to IrrationalE, our longest-tenured moderator, who is expecting his first child soon -- congratulations! We also welcome back volfied, who took the last three seasons off for health reasons and is also moderating the championship. Glad to have you back, volfied!

                                                                                        Moderator Rules Meeting Full Minutes
                                                                                        • Cardlists Town Hall (August)
                                                                                          • Cardlists
                                                                                            • Motion to declare that Ban and Dislike Lists will be default enabled for League matches starting next season.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to add a question (replacing the current Banlist question) on the Returning form about the Like list, offering both complete possibilities and the pros and cons (like other Returning form questions).
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to declare that Cardlists changes may only occur between sufficiently spread-apart sessions of play within a League match.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to postpone the decision about putting rerolling procedures in the rules to the next Moderators' Meeting (after which we will know the result of the Returning form question).
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                        • Returning Form Questions
                                                                                          • Tiebreakers
                                                                                            • Motion to retain the Final Tiebreaker (2-3 game playoff) for all subsequent seasons.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to not add the third-order tiebreaker.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • The Returning Form vote broke down as follows: 9% strongly in favor, 24% weakly in favor, 45% with no preference, 11% weakly against, 9% weakly against. Given this meager interest in the third tiebreaker, the moderators decided that it was not worth the additional hassle.
                                                                                          • Cardlists
                                                                                            • Motion to make the Cardlists defaults the following: Ban and Dislike lists are on, but the Like list is off.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Motion to not bother specifying rerolling procedures in the rules.
                                                                                              • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Should we define "playing sessions" explicitly (e.g. "breaks longer than an hour")?
                                                                                              • Result: YES (2 dissenting)
                                                                                            • Poll: What should the maximum time between two matches considered to be in the same session be?
                                                                                              • (0) 6 hours
                                                                                              • (0) 12 hours
                                                                                              • (8) 24 hours
                                                                                          • Flexible Divisions
                                                                                            • Motion to announce that Flexible Division Sizes will take effect starting with Season 37 (to give moderators time to work out the implementation details).
                                                                                              • Result: NO (3 dissenting)
                                                                                              • Majority opinion: Flexibly-sized divisions could produce divisions of unequal size within a tier, resulting in players in the smaller division having a better chance to promote (but also to demote). In addition, it does not eliminate the problem of not having enough space for returning players, but only makes it less likely. I feel that the benefits would not outweigh the added complexity as well as the aforementioned potential for unbalanced divisions - singletee
                                                                                              • Minority opinion: The players came out clearly in favor of this, with 54% in favor and only 19% opposed. It would not be very difficult logistically. - SamE
                                                                                            • Motion to revisit Flexible Division Sizes at the next moderator meeting after spending some time working out the implementation details (with the potential to implement it starting in Season 37 but more likely Season 38).
                                                                                              • Result: YES (1 dissenting)
                                                                                        • Seeding Town Hall
                                                                                          • Seeding
                                                                                            • With no strong preferences across the moderator team, we decided to go with all of the most popular options as voted upon at the Seeding Town Hall.
                                                                                              • Motion to switch to primarily using League results for seeding.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to first (lexicographically) order by previous season's tier: Demoting > Staying > New > Promoting.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (1 dissenting)
                                                                                              • Motion to, for Demoting/Staying/Promoting players (including those returning from a short break), next look at position in the previous season, followed by Win% as a tiebreaker. If still tied, look at seeding in the previous season.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to sort New Players within the tier by ladder rank.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to maintain this rules-based system rather than investigating a statistical model for the foreseeable future.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                          • Forum Posts
                                                                                            • when2meets
                                                                                              • Motion not to introduce season-long when2meets (too unwieldy).
                                                                                                • Result: YES (1 dissenting)
                                                                                          • Discord Discussion
                                                                                            • D Tier Divisions
                                                                                              • Motion to keep the time zone divisions as they currently are (D is split EU/AM, E+F are split EU/AMW/AME/AS, if possible).
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                            • Feedback Channel
                                                                                              • Motion not to introduce a Discord channel dedicated to feedback.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (1 dissenting)
                                                                                                • Players seem to be happy with the current methods we introduced for giving feedback, most notably the town halls.
                                                                                          • Suggestions
                                                                                            • Suggestions from moderators
                                                                                              • Motion to extend Late Signups until the Monday of Week 2 (so they are open for two weeks).
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to add two Q/As about spectator behavior to the FAQ.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to add sentence to Section IX of the rules to state that dropped players automatically demote (not a change, just a rules clarification).
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to switch our schedule to posting the Newsletter and Rules Meeting Minutes during Week -1 (about a week and a half before the season starts).
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to remove the "level" column from the standings sheets.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (1 dissenting)
                                                                                                • It isn't functional anymore.
                                                                                            • Suggestions from players
                                                                                              • Motion to add a reminder of the expansion rules to the opening Discord post.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to add a reminder of the Cardlist defaults to the opening Discord post.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to tell the Moderator Minions not to tag anyone who has played a match but not checked in.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to include "How long should I expect a Dominion League match to take?" in the FAQ.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Add the "match points before game points" suggestion to a future town hall.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (1 dissenting)
                                                                                              • Motion to add "unrated" to the Rules in the Match Structures and Policies, under "The League standard", and update the corresponding FAQ entry.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to add extra promotions / demotions between E and F (e.g. 2 from each division) to a future town hall.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Motion to open the a1-division channel a week early and allow them to play and report matches during that week.
                                                                                                • Result: YES (unanimous)
                                                                                              • Poll: Should we consider dropping the forum account requirement?
                                                                                                • (2) Starting this season
                                                                                                • (6) Revisit another time
                                                                                                • (1) Not for the foreseeable future

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                                                                                          Dominion League / Re: Season 35 - Newsletter: Seeking Feedback
                                                                                          « on: July 27, 2019, 05:45:28 pm »
                                                                                          Currently, a When2Meet schedule is posted in the division channel only late into the season (I don't know the exact mechanics.) I don't see why it shouldn't be there the whole season. It's easier to write the times I'm free on a spreadsheet-type thing than it is to describe it with just text.

                                                                                          Here is an example of what that would look like. Does that look like something you think you would use?

                                                                                          I have also looked into the idea of doing a days-of-the-week when2meet, but those do not support different time zones.

                                                                                          25
                                                                                          Dominion League / Season 35 - Standings
                                                                                          « on: July 21, 2019, 06:20:05 pm »

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