MessiahFoos

General PlayWeek 1

Rules and rating

One number carries your standing, and it does not simply count wins. It reads the share of points you took and compares that to the share your rating predicted.

A game
5 points
A series
Best of 3
Everyone starts at
1200
Rating floor
300
Rating ceiling
None

How the rating moves

Every game is rated on the share of points you took, not simply on whether you won. Beat the share your rating predicted and you go up. Fall short of it and you go down.

Which means a 4–5 loss to the top of the chart is often worth more than a 5–0 win over the bottom of it. Three consequences follow, and all three are intended:

  • A player who loses a close game can still gain rating.
  • A heavy favourite who wins narrowly can still lose rating.
  • It stays exactly zero-sum. Whatever one player gains, the other loses — nothing enters or leaves the league's total.

Margin of victory is already inside that share. There is no separate bonus for running up a score, and adding one would count the same thing twice.

Why two players in one game can move by different amounts

The multiplier that turns a prediction into points is worked out per player, per game. It reads that player's own placement status, the week of the season, and a dampener above 2000. It is normal for the two players in a single game to be on different multipliers.

Placement

Your first 10 career games are placement games. The rating swings roughly twice as hard during them, so it can find your level quickly instead of grinding there over a season. Players still in placement are marked as such on the standings.

The season

The season runs in three phases, and the current phase is General Play.

  • General play. Open season. Anyone may play anyone, and every game feeds the rating.
  • Mid-season structured play. The field splits into thirds by current rating. Each player must play at least one match against someone from each tier they are not in.
  • Postseason bracket. Single elimination, seeded by final rating at the cutoff — best seed against worst, working inward, March Madness style.

Activity points

Activity points count turnout, not skill. They are not a second ranking and they never affect your rating or your position on the chart.

Still to be decided

These are open questions, not omissions. They get answered by the league rather than guessed at here:

  • Whether win-by-two applies to games to 5.
  • The exact tier cut-offs and deadline for structured play, and what happens to a player who does not complete their cross-tier matches.
  • The postseason field size and format, which cannot be fixed until standings are real.
Rules and rating · Messiah Foos