Currently trying to wrap my head around a possible card based league. Maybe it will be better to just go for a best game format, but I like to create new experiences for my players to break up the repetition of our monthly group match play tournaments. We have done Flip Frenzy (RIP), Max Matchplay, and Pin-Golf leagues multiple times.
In general my idea for the league is to have card based qualifying for 6 weeks and group elimination for the 7th. We love our WPPRs, so I have decided on needing at least 40 meaningful games for qualifying and the remaining (most likely more than) 10 games in finals.
Each week of qualifying players will play 2 cards consisting of 5 games each. Want to break up qualifying into two 3 week halves in which a player’s top 4 cards are totalled. Then total both for determining who qualifies for finals. Think it would be nice to make people have to cash out after three weeks for a variety of reasons, but possibly chief among them would be to change up available games.
Would this format excite you or drive you insane?
What kind of changes to the basic outline would you make?
I’ve played in leagues like this and didn’t find it particularly fun or social. It felt very grindy to try putting up big scores every game and led to lots of waiting around to get on a machine if someone was blowing it up. Ultimately the most important strategic aspect was just avoiding a total dud score that would immediately sink an otherwise solid card.
Some form of head to head group play is always my preferred format for leagues since they’re more social gatherings than serious competition. You know your player base best though. Do they actually want the format to be constantly changing or are you just trying to be creative for the sake of switching it up?
I do definitely prefer group games. However I also know that our group is pretty polarized on Pin-Golf. I use a mix of score and objectives, but maybe I need to try a score only one. Have a lot of players say that they love learning the games based on objectives and nearly the same number say they hate being told how to play. Maybe card scoring would polarize even more people, but I know there would be some interest in people competing in games that they were able to select themselves.
Thanks for your input. Wonder if I could set up a blind game selection and map out groups before league starts, so that people are not playing solo? Seems slightly farfetched though.
Card based qualifying for league? Not fun. Same for Pin-Golf. Those formats are OK for a one off tournament. But for league I find the best format is group matchplay. Head to head would be another choice. League is all about the social aspect, but can still rake in the WPPR’s. Our most recent league will come in at 200%.
We play in groups for Pin-Golf, so it is still pretty social despite there not being direct competition during qualifying weeks. But I think there could be some push back or general technical difficulties about playing card attempts in groups even if I could figure out how to queue players for that to work.
Probably going to mull over a card league a bit longer and try some other group or head to head format for the next league.
We have also had all of our leagues (2 max Matchplay and 1 Pin-Golf) max out at 200%
We still use best game for our leagues. Maybe we will move, but I am sad it is less favoured these days. We play in groups, but I find it way more social. Since you are not directly competing against your group, people tend to be super friendly and cheering on their group. Some even call it their team. I also really like that I still need to play my strongest even when my score is a runaway compared to the others in my group because I am playing against the field.