I’m curious whether there’s interest in a ladder league competition in 2015. This would complement, not replace, Gamer’s ranking system.
What I have in mind is this. Anyone who wants to participate makes it known. All of the participants are then divided into groups of 4, based on Gamer’s PPG ranking. The highest ranked group is the “champion’s division” and whoever wins that, for the cycle, is the current champion. This allows some more competitive action in addition to the yearly playoff and an opportunity for those with bad luck in the playoffs to win some glory.
Each player would have 2 months (or perhaps 3 months) to play the other 3 players in their division. For extra long games, we can form a committee responsible for deciding who has won or is winning a particular game, for the purposes of the ladder.
At the end of the 2 (or 3) month period, the top player in the division moves up the ladder to the next division, and the bottom player moves down. The middle 2 stay in the division. Tiebreakers are decided by head-to-head matchups. With divisions of 4, tie-breakers shouldn’t be too much of a problem, because if 2 players go 2-1 then whoever won the head to head matchup wins the division.
I think this would help make Gamer’s PPG ratings more accurate as players with similar PPG would have incentive to play each other competitively.
The downside to ladder league systems (imho) is if one drops out, one is usually expected to start at or near the bottom when re-entering, and this can be a problem if alot of people are participating (meaning it could take several cycles before one gets to the top). However, with the advantage of having the PPG ratings, perhaps we could forget about moving up and down in terms of divisions based on the cycle results, and instead simply redraw the divisions every cycle based on the latest PPG of those wanting to participate in the cycle. This would allow people to participate, not participate, and then come back and participate again.
This is one way to go. Another way is to go is to introduce some round-robins or tournaments into the Spring/Summer play time, so competitive minded players can participate then instead of waiting for the Fall/Winter.