Best league finals format for 10 people

I am running league finals for our NEPL location next month. We’ve played 7 weeks of play and have standings/rankings up to this point. What I would love to do is run a tournament where everyone gets more than one game (so no single elimination), the play in league matters somehow in finals (either affects matchups or adds a strike or bye or something), and is IFPA compliant, and lasts 4 hrs or less. We only have 10 people.

My initial thought was a knockout style tournament with 4 / 3 / 3 as the groups and 5 strikes for the top 3 players, 4 strikes for the middle 4, and 3 strikes for the bottom 3.

Your choices: NEPL format, or best of 7 as in SCS. That was the result of the vote. Strikes/knockout, or anything other than these two choices are not an option.

I do head to head, best of 3. Double elimination. Should be right at 4 hours if the games aren’t playing super long.

This might be the only time where I would advocate for a ladder elimination tournament (like PAPA Circuit finals).

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Round robin. Have each player play every other player once. Sort by wins once everyone is done.

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Any advantage given to the higher seeds?

Good point, hadn’t thought about that.

Higher seed picks game or position but cannot pick same game twice? Or split the 10 into two groups of 5 to have an A and a B, and then play two games against each other player in your group?

I’d say just let higher seed pick game or position and cannot repeat a game choice unless there isn’t enough games.

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When you say you only have ten players, do you mean 10 total, or ten who made the finals? Remember that you can only take 10-50% of the field into the finals, unless you want none of your 7 weeks of play to count towards TGP. It would be sad if 8 weeks of play didn’t work out to 100% TGP.

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As @LOTR_breath says, it makes a difference whether it’s 10 total or 10 have made it to the final.
If it’s 10 total,
On the night I’d have each player play 4 games league style and then add a 5th “game” based on the final standings in the league leading up to the finals night. Thus meaning the league standings are used and beneficial. After that the top 4 players play 3x4 player games (PAPA scoring) ties sorted by qualifying rank.

If it’s 10 that have made it to the finals:
Is 10 a rigid number?
I run a league of about 35 people.
After the 5 qualifying months, I split everyone into ‘divisions’ of 4.
A Division plays 4 PAPA style games for positions 1st to 4th
B Division plays 4 PAPA style games for positions 5th to 8th
etc. etc.
It works well with everyone playing multiplayer games with people of a similar standard. I also award smaller trophies for winner of each division. It allows everyone, of any standard, at least some chance of winning a trophy, without detracting from the best players fighting it out for the season win.
If numbers not divisible by 4 change lowest divisions to groups of 3.