You can read Ryan’s post about it on Facebook and join the discussion there.
For those of you with short attention spans, here’s the gist:
A team is comprised of 6 players and each team has a home venue (public bar or arcade). Half of your team’s games will be played on your home turf, half traveling to another team’s venue. The season will start on July 31st, meeting every Tuesday at 7:30pm. The season will run 7-11 weeks depending upon on many teams are formed. It is up to each individual player to form or join a team. There are “salary caps” for each team so as to avoid having 1-2 overpowered teams. Teams will enroll in either the A-Division ($40 per player to join) or B-Division ($10 per player to join). If you need help forming or joining a team – email Ryan Wanger and he’ll help you out.
For those of you not on Facebook, here’s Ryan’s entire post in full detail:
Back by popular demand: Front Range Turf Wars (ie: Team League, which is what we all refer to it as anyway. Open to better naming suggestions)!
This post serves as nothing more than an announcement of the league, and the ensuing discussion, and is not a comprehensive set of rules.
When:
Games will be held Tuesdays at 7:30pm. Each team will play half of their games at their chosen home venue, and half on the road…traveling to another venue. Many will be in/around the Denver area, but you may have a few road games that require a 45 minute drive (Fort Collins, Boulder, Conifer, etc).
The season will start on July 31st, and will run for 7-11 weeks. As in the past, the exact length of the season (and finals format) will depend on the number of teams registered, so it may not be finalized until a few days before the season starts.
If you are interested in captaining a team or having one at your location, please reach out immediately. If you are interested in playing but don’t have a team, ask around, post in this thread, or message me directly: ryanwanger@gmail.com
Although the core concept is the same, are a few substantial changes for this season, so please read carefully. If you have questions after reading this, ask away!
What’s new:
The two biggest changes are: teams will now be 6 players (instead of 10), and rosters will be bound by a salary cap. The salary cap will use IPR, a metric developed for the Seattle Team League. Each player is rated on a scale of 1 to 6. You can find the rating of any player here: http://pinballstats.info/search/
The combined IPR of a six person roster for this league may not exceed 19. Add up the IPR of each of the 6 players, and that’s your total. If you’ve got more than 19, you’ll need a different mix of players. 🙂 If this sounds complicated and too intense, then have no fear – there will be a B Division!
You might not get to play with people you played with in the past. You may not get to play with your five bestest friends. We have a large enough, and friendly enough community to pull this off. The changes are designed to help this league to grow and thrive over many seasons.
My hope is that with smaller and more balanced teams, we will have enough interest to form an A and a B division. I would love to have teams from venues we haven’t seen before, like Tilt, Flipside, Arapahoe Bowling, Stumpys, Wonderland, etc. The B division will be more casual, have a lower buy in, and no need to worry about salary (though an overly strong B team is subject to be restricted to the A Division). The B Division is contingent on sufficient interest, and I want it to be as approachable as possible. Got a few friends who like pinball somewhere? Great: you can be in the pinball league.
Dues are $40 per player for A Division, and $10 per player for B Division. No WPPR points will be awarded for either division.
Another change from last year is that all players will play in each round. The rounds will be the same as last year, but accommodating for the smaller team sizes.
– Round 1: 3 doubles matches (away team picks machines)
– Round 2: 6 singles matches (home team picks machines)
– Round 3: 6 singles matches (away team picks machines)
– Round 4: 3 doubles matches (home team picks machines)
Since this is just a league announcement, I didn’t want to get into the details of the rounds and scoring. That’s TMI right now.
Substitutions:
Anyone not on another roster may be used as a sub. There are no restrictions on how many times someone can sub. The catch is that the team you field on any given night can never exceed the 19 point salary cap, even when subs are involved. Example: If your total roster salary is 19, and someone with an IPR of 3 is absent, your sub must be at or below 3. However, if your total roster salary is only 18, then you have 2 in extra cap space…and thus if someone who costs 3 is absent, your substitute player can be as high as 5.
If you don’t have 6 players show up for a match, you can still play, but you’ll be automatically losing some matches, and would be better off finding a random person at the venue to sub for the missing player. (There won’t be bonus points for attendance/roster usage like last season…you’ll just lose matches that you can’t field players for).
You may make changes to your roster in the middle of the season, but once a player leaves your roster, they may not play for your team again that season, not even as a sub.
Venues:
A venue should have at least 7 games to be eligible. The singles rounds feature 6 matches, so 7 machines would allow for one game to malfunction. If you are considering a home venue with less than 7 machines, please reach out to me. Exceptions can probably be made (particularly for B Division venues).
All venues may have two different home teams. If a third or fourth team wants to use that same venue, considerations will be handled by me on a case by case basis. The more we can spread out around different venues, the better.
About fluctuating IPR:
Each time an event gets entered into the IFPA database, the the IPR of all players in the event get recalculated and thus the percentages will move up or down. This moving target might make it tricky with regards to the salary cap. Because of that, the IPR for each player in the league will be locked in at the time their name is submitted for a roster. This means that you can submit players names for your roster at any time (starting…now), even if the roster isn’t complete. If their number goes up before the season begins, they will stay locked at their previous value. If their number goes down, that would free up cap space that you can utilize. All values are locked once the season begins.