Talk Fantasy Football

In Mainz, Germany I am about to start a new league. At the moment I`d like to use some rules with wich I had good experience while running a league in Frankfurt. I am open to suggestions for better maintenance of a league or shared experiences. I`d also would like to hear some feedback on the used houserules for league-manegement:

1) Teams play a max. of four games per season. The groups and game schedules will always be structured to meet this criteria or just very few games more.

Intention: Be open for new players who want to join the league or have never played BB before. With four games per season rookie coaches do not have to wait forever to join, since the period of play is rather short. It also helps maintaining a constant schedule while dealing with a fluctuating number of coaches.

2) Up to TV 1.150.000 it is okay to play games outside of the league that count towards the roster.

Intention: New coaches might face to big of a disadvantage joining the league. This way they can train their team a little bit to be a little closer to the field of existing teams. It is also meant to be a restructuring opportunity if a team has had a bad day during the season and is "destroyed". This way coaches can rebuild their teams.

3) Teams are allowed to play a maximum of 20 games. After that the roster has to be restarted at TV1.000 or one can choose to play a different race.

Intention: This is purely to avoid teams drifting to far apart from each other powerwise. Even though some teams do level up quicker than others, the game-cap secures that a team won`t be the team to beat forever and ever.

4) One game per month is mandatory.

Intention: With only four games per season this is also regulating the pace of the league. Leagues can end sooner, but never later than after 4 months. It also gives people that have a small amount of free time due to family business or time-intense jobs the opportunity to participate in a league without getting the feeling of being a liability to the other coaches.

5) Special play cards and the inofficial Khorne-roster are allowed.

Intention: This is simply to encourage coaches to break out of "tournament-habit" and get some fresh impulses for their matches. Especially the Miscellaneous Mayhem deck proved to be greatly entertaining.

This short a season is a "little out of my league". My only concern is that with a four game season, one game can make or break your entire season.

1. How are you handling post season? Is there one? Or do you just take the best record and give them the trophy?
2. How are you doing scheduling? Open format or scheduled matches? If you have 6 teams or more, how do you determine who plays whom? If open format, how are you dealing with imbalances?

Our league maintenance rules don't really deal with rulesets, they deal with how the league is run. So we have the following rules:

2. LEAGUE MANAGEMENT

2.1 League Structure

The LIBBL utilizes a “Premier System” for organizing teams and scheduling games. Coaches would be promoted or relegated based on their performance in the previous season. Schedules would be weighted to be played mostly in their own division (possibly completely). The upper division(s) will receive a higher percentage of invitations to the Montauk Cup tournament due to their more difficult schedule. The number of divisions and amount of teams in the division receiving invitations to the Montauk Cup championship tournament would be communicated at the beginning of the season.

2.1.1 Commissioner Override

It is possible with the addition or subtraction of teams, the commissioner may need to place a coach in a different division than what they would have mathematically qualified for. In addition, coaches that elect to play stunty or underpowered teams may, at the commissioner’s discretion, be placed in a lower division.

2.1.2 Scrimmage Games

Scrimmage games may be played outside the season by coaches either enrolled or not enrolled in the current season. These games allowed to be played anywhere, anytime but must have another game (scrimmage or league) going on at the same time (and if it is being played outside a standard game day, the coaches must notify the commissioner). No league teams, past or present are allowed in scrimmages. New teams may play up to 3 matches maximum in scrimmages. There is no limit on the number of matches that a coach may play as scrimmages.

All games played as scrimmages will have their statistics count and teams may be used in future league play.

2.1.3 Exhibition Games

Any game may be played with any rules at any time with no restrictions on having other games take place at the same time. These games will be referred to as exhibition games. Statistics will not count for these games and these teams may not be used in future league play.

2.2 Team Points and Tie-breakers

Teams will be ranked for playoffs by points. Wins=3pts, ties=2pts, losses=1pt. Forfeits count as standard losses (and wins). Double forfeits will result in a game being deleted from the schedule.

2.2.1 Two-way ties in the division will be broken in order by: 1. Head-to-head play 2. Divisional record 3. Common opponents record 4. TD differential 5. Cas differential 6. Team ELO (on the OBBLM site) 7. Coin flip

2.2.2 Three-way ties (or more) in the division will be broken in order by: 1. Record against teams in the tie 2. Divisional record 3. Common opponents record 4. TD differential 5. Cas differential 6. Team ELO 7. Coin flip

2.2.3 Two-way ties for wild cards or playoff rank will be broken in order by: 1. Head-to-head play 2. Common opponents record 3. TD differential 4. Cas differential 5. Team ELO 6. Coin flip

2.2.4 Three-way ties (or more) for wild cards or playoff rank will be broken in order by: 1. Record against teams in the tie 2. Common opponents record 3. TD differential 4. Cas differential 5. Team ELO 6. Coin flip

2.3 Game Schedule

Each team will average approximately 2 matches per month. These matches are scheduled to be played on the monthly game day, however if a coach cannot make the game day, they can be made up at any time before the next game day. Make up games must be played before the next game day otherwise the commissioner will assign forfeits (see rule 2.4).

2.3.1 Matches may be played out of order within a given month's schedule in order to facilitate scheduling conflicts.

2.3.2 Matches may be played before a game day as long as the previous month's matches are completed by both teams.

2.4 Game Forfeits

Teams must make best effort to get their games in before the next month's game day. Any coach having issues connecting with their opponents should contact the commissioner for assistance. If one team is unable to play their game, it will be marked as a forfeit as per LRB6 rules without the requirement to roll if players leave the team. Only the commissioner can assign a forfeit.

2.4.1 There should be no exceptions to this rule unless the commissioner brings it to the appeals committee for special dispensation

2.4.2 In the rare case where a team shows up on the game day, but can't complete their game in the month following, the commissioner will rule on the outcome based on the efforts of both teams.

2.5 The Dan Nielsen Rule (version 2.1): Restarting and Replacing Teams

A team may be restarted before the season is 50% complete. If this is done, the coach will be able to retain all points earned by the previous instantiation of their team. Any changes to the team after that will require the team to start with no points. Teams that are eligible to replace the existing team must not have played any previous games, scrimmage or season.

2.6 Coach Vacancies

Coaching vacancies will be either filled by a coach waiting to enter the league or the commissioner will assign forfeits for the remainder of the games by the team that vacated the season.

2.7 Team Updates

Game updates must be entered within one week of playing the match or the coach will forfeit any inducements and MVP rolls for at least the next match and any after that until the updates are made.

2.8 Tie Games

Games may end in a tie. No overtime will be played for regular season games.

2.9 Injuries

Injuries to players reset at the beginning of a new season. All "miss next games" are removed from players. Niggling injuries and penalties to stats stay with the player for the rest of their careers.

2.9.1 Teams with a bye-week during the season cannot reset their injuries. They will hold until the next game.

2.10 New Coaches

Coaches that are introduced to the LIBBL will play at least 3 different league members in order to understand where their understanding of the rules is. The commissioner will then determine if they can enter a season. The commissioner can override this requirement for clearly experienced coaches.

one game can make or break your entire season

That is correct, but it also means that every game has importance and is exciting therefore.

How are you handling post season? Is there one? Or do you just take the best record and give them the trophy?

It depends on the number of teams. If there is 8 teams for example, a team from Division A plays every team of Division B, but none of it`s own division.
If there is 6 teams and two divisions, you have two games against every team of your own division, but none against the other.

The size of the groups decide how the postseason is handled. With 8 teams and 4 per division it makes sense to have the two toprankend teams of each division play against each other before entering finals. If there is 6 teams with two groups only the first ranked team of each division is going directly into the final.

Due to the volatility of participating coaches the "sense-check" seems to be the best way so far to determine the postseason mode.

If you have 6 teams or more, how do you determine who plays whom? If open format, how are you dealing with imbalances?

In the first season teams are usually grouped randomly. In the following season we usually group the teams according to their TV.

Imbalances are an issue. When we had 7 coaches we raised the number of league matches to 6, meaning a coach playing once against every other participant and having the two top ranked teams play a final. But when we had 9 people we tried to get another coach into the league or have one coach sit out one season, which really isn`t our intention, but was possible with the short season (with 8 coaches we were back at four games per team and finished within two months).

We`re thinking about regulating that with a "Fill-in-team". We have a constantly stored human team at the store we play our league at. The idea is to have every coach being possible to step in as an opponent for the missing spot. But except for the one time with 9 coaches we actually haven`t had the problem of an uneven number of participants since then. But we have been thinking about it...

How are you doing scheduling? Open format or scheduled matches?

One game per month is mandatory but we do not set times only who has to play against whom in a particular month. The coaches have to be able to manage the gametime themselves. Usually the awayteam is handled like conceding the game, if they are unable to organize three hours one afternoon. That has worked so far.


I read through your league rules and relly liked some points. As we consider our coaches trustworthy, we haven`t had the rule that the games had to be played at the store, but I like the idea of another league match running, when someone plays an out of league match.

For rankings usually the number of wins count, but if there is a tie-breaker the accumulated number of TD`s and Casualties decide.

We also do not play more than two halfs of a match, so tied games are possible as well. Only the playoffs demand a winner, which is decided by sudden death - the first one two score wins the game, the opening drive is decided by the cointoss.

So, any more ideas for imporvement? There has been some good inspiration so far.