[MKU-DX] Important Season 15 Update

[Jack]

Hey everyone, as most of you know by now, we ran a poll to decide what format we will be running for Season 15. We asked if teams would prefer the 8-team conference format we've been running or a proposal that community member @Félix came up with, which is effectively the 16-team format we were planning on Division 1, except it applies to the entire league. We've decided to make a thread explaining these changes officially, including some other important things to note for Season 15. Without further ado, let's go over the format.

Week 1 (Group Stage)

Teams will be playing at 2/3/4 PM ET, and 20/21/22 CEST. Every match in the group stage will be 12 races. The tiebreaker for the group stage will be Record, H2H, +/-. It's important to note that teams will be seeded in tiers. Tier 1 will be teams seeded 1-4, Tier 2 will be teams seeded 5-8. The groups will be randomized with each group having one team from each tier.

Weeks 2-4 (Bracket Stage)

Next, there are 2 8-team double elimination brackets. The top 2 teams in each group will be placed in the Premier Bracket, while the bottom 2 teams in each group will be placed in the Consolation Bracket. The fixtures for the first round of the bracket will be as follows: A1 (1st in Group A) vs B2 (2nd in group B), C1 vs D2, B1 vs C2, and D1 vs A2. The same applies to the Consolation Bracket; A3 vs B4, C3 vs D4, etc. Here's an example of an Premier Bracket:

Another important thing to note is the top 3 and bottom 3 teams will be promoted/demoted for the second half of the season, which is what we'll be going over now.

Week 5 (Group Stage #2)

We'll run another group stage, with the new divisions set in stone.

Week 6-8 (Bracket Stage #2)

The bracket stage is run again, and this one will determine final placements in the tournament, where the other was for trying to get into a higher division for the chance at a higher placement.
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Naturally, with a new format, concerns arise. One of these has been regarding rescheduling, especially for the Eastern teams in our league (or to be more precise, teams that belong to a JPN/AUS timezone). Generally, reschedules will be permitted, but will need to be approved by your DA(s), and be done in advance. This mainly applies to each team's first match, and should it need to be rescheduled, it should be done well before the next matches are played. All of that being said, we'd like to make it clear that we will not be catering to Eastern teams, as it causes too many issues for scheduling. We gladly welcome them to play if they are able to make it work despite the inconvenience posed, but as of right now we won't be making any exceptions for Season 15.

 

[Jack]

Hey everyone, we're posting this as a follow-up. We've gone over some things and wanted to keep everyone up-to-date on what we're planning for this season. It isn't a lot, but we'd like to get the information out there.

Before we get into all of that, we'd like to formally welcome our new staff members, @Colchoneta, @Elisa, @LooPer, @Myles, and @Ulvind. We're glad to have you all and hope you'll do great!

No Individuals Sheets

At least for Season 15, we'll be removing the individual stats. In case it's unclear, these were the player stats that would be located at the bottom of each division standings thread. Simply put, we would like to focus on running the season to the best of our ability, and while individuals can make for interesting statistics, they're certainly not necessary to have. Besides this, there are some other issues that come with this format, such as teams not playing the same number of matches and schedules looking extremely different from other teams.

First Half Results & Banners

For the first half of the season, we'll have a separate results ranking on the registry, and we'll also likely be handing out banners for the first half of the season. We believe this is a good thing because it provides a little more incentive for teams to want to win in the first half, which was a major complaint people had with this format initially. Final placements will be done the same as previous seasons, where the division winner will place over the bottom two teams in the division above them.

That's the major updates we have for now. In the coming days we'll also be making a few changes to the MKU-specific ruleset, which will go into more detail about how the season will play out as well as what teams should expect. Translations will be available as well.

We hope everyone is looking forward to this new chapter in MKU, and feel free to reach out to any MKU Staff if you have any questions.