Week 7 (And Replays) Preview and Playoff Scenarios

[Black Mage]

I decided against doing a recap this week because I felt there were more interesting/important things I could do like this article (and the tiebreakers), and I had to babysit/host 3 games last week so they were the only things I got to watch. Just know that I am very disappointed in the showing of top5squad’s basers in my “game of the week” that turned into the “blowout of the year”. If someone else wants to write one, be my guest. Moving on…

From the rulebook:

"After week 7 the teams will be organized into 3 standard 6 team tournament brackets, one for each league, based upon their composite standings. The first and second ranked team receive a first round bye. The teams will play until a champion in each league is declared as well as an overall champion. Teams will receive the same rank, which they earned from their composite regular season score, in each of the separate league tournaments."


"In the event that teams have the same records at the end of the regular season, they will be differentiated in rank for the playoffs by +/-. Since this league stresses all around excellence, the with the team having the better +/- in 2 or all 3 leagues advancing. Ex: Team A: +5 in DT-D, -57 in DT-J, +4:50 in DTB; while Team B is -10 in DT-D, +1 in DT-J, and +0:57 in DT-B. Thus Team A will advance."


"In the playoffs, the rule of playing a 6* player or lower as well as the two leagues per week rule will be suspended."


"In the playoff finals TWDT-J and TWDT-D will be 3 rounds and TWDT-B will be a time race to 20 minutes."


--So the top 6 teams from the overall standings make the playoffs. Their finishing order is the seeding for a 6 team (top 2 teams get byes) tournament in each league.

The current standings… (asterisks denote a replay game that will happen this week)

Squads		       WB  	       Jav  	      Base 	     Overall
Candy King		4		3*		5*		12$
top5squad		4		3		4*		11
Underground		4		4		2*		10
Ez or Wut		4		3		3*		10
Blood Choke		4		3		2*		9
Gypsy Humpers		2		3		3*		8
Ruby	      	 	2		4*		1*		7
Emofucks		0		0		0*		0

Now I'm going to throw a chart out at you that lists the teams in order by their range of finish. Teams above a category have achieved that milestone. E.g. nobody has clinched a bye yet, but Candy King is the only team to have definitely clinched a playoff spot. The numbers are the minimum number of wins to the maximum number of wins, and the numbers in parentheses indicate possible standings range:

------- Bye Clinched --------

Candy King 	12 – 17 (1-6)

---- Playoff Clinched (12)----

Top5Squad 	11 – 15 (1-7)
Underground	10 – 14 (1-7)
Ez or Wut 	10 – 14 (1-7)
Blood Choke 	 9 – 13 (1-7)
Ruby 		 7 – 12 (2-7)

-------- Bye Eligible --------

Gypsy Humpers 	 8 – 12 (3-7)

------- Playoff Eligible -------

Emofucks         0 – 4  (8)

[Black Mage]

Team Previews

Now how about a summary, preview, and comments about each team with a chance to make the playoffs heading into the last week of the regular season.

Explanation key:
My Team (Dueling/Javelin/Base/Overall wins)
Dueling / Javelin / Base tiebreakers
Min-Max wins (Range of finish)

Remaining dueling (opponent record)
Remaining javelin (opponent record)
Remaining javelin replay (opponent record) if necessary
Remaining basing (opponent record)
Remaining basing replay (opponent record)

Outlook and thoughts.
Projected finish: x-x

Candy King (4/3/5/12)
32 / -11 / 40.45
12 - 17 (1-6)

Ez or Wut (4-2)
Gypsy Humpers (3-3)
Ruby (4-1)
Blood Choke (2-3)
Ez or Wut (3-2)

The only team to definitively clinch a playoff spot, Candy King is also in the driver’s seat for a first-round bye and the top seed. They have the jav replay with Ruby so they have an extra game this week making their position even better. Fairly tough strength of schedule remaining (16-11).
Projected finish 15-6

Top5Squad (4/3/4/11)
27 / -6 / 15.38
11- 15 (1-7)

Emofucks (0-6)
Ez or Wut (3-3)
Gypsy Humpers (3-2)
Ruby (1-4)

Top5Squad have all but clinched a playoff berth. All they need is 1 win or Ruby loss or Gypsy Humpers loss (besides the Ruby vs. Gypsy Humpers head-to-head matchup) or even just staying ahead on 2 of the tiebreakers with the loser of the Ruby vs. Gypsy Humpers head-to-head match (which are very favorable at the moment). As it stands they would also win tiebreakers with any of the teams challenging them for a bye besides Candy King. A very favorable schedule left also (7-16) virtually guarantees a playoff spot, if not a bye. Jaa was recently banned though, so we will see how that impacts their showing this week.
Projected finish: 14-7

Underground (4/4/2/10)
7 / 61 / -8.93
10 - 14 (1-7)

Blood Choke (4-2)
Emofucks (0-6)
Ez or Wut (3-2)
Gypsy Humpers (3-2)

Underground is in a solid but not overwhelming position to make the playoffs with a decent chance for a first-round bye. Besides an easy win against Emofucks in javelin, they have a fairly difficult schedule in the other 3 games (10-12). On the positive, they own the best javelin tiebreaker in the league and pretty good marks in the other 2 leagues.
Projected finish: 12-9

Ez or Wut (4/3/3/10)
3 / 4 / -9.34
10 - 14 (1-7)

Candy King (4-2)
Top5Squad (3-3)
Underground (2-3)
Candy King (5-0)

Similarly to Underground, Ez or Wut controls its own destiny for the playoffs. They are in the hunt for a first-round bye and could throw that hunt into chaos by beating Candy King twice. Both games against Candy King will be tough, and then matches against overrated Top5Squad in javelin and underrated Underground in base cancel each other out difficulty wise, leaving the schedule fairly tough (14-8). They also need to improve their mediocre tiebreaker numbers to give themselves a real shot
Projected finish: 12-9

Blood Choke (4/3/2/9)
3 / 1 / -18.57
9 - 13 wins (1-7)

Underground (4-2)
Ruby (4-1)
Candy King (5-0)
Emofucks (0-6)

Now we start to get to the teams in more precarious positions. Blood Choke can still finish first overall without anything crazy happening (like Emofucks winning multiple games), but they are not on sure footing in the playoff hunt either. They’ll likely need at least 2 wins to feel comfortable about making the playoffs. Thankfully, Emofucks is one of their games remaining, because the rest of the games are very tough and all feature a team at least tied for that specific league lead (13-9).
Projected finish: 10-11

Ruby (2/4/1/7)
-37 / 7 / -9.54
7 - 12 (2-7)

Gypsy Humpers (2-4)
Blood Choke (3-3)
Candy King (3-2)
Emofucks (0-6)
Top5Squad (4-1)

Currently out of the playoffs but with an extra game to play, Ruby has a huge matchup with Gypsy Humpers in dueling that will not quite decide everything, but come close. If they win that, Ruby just needs to take care of business in javelin (which has been their best league by far) and beat Emofucks to give themselves a good shot at making the playoffs. In fact, if they win their first 2 games they will jump from 7th to 5th place with a game in hand AND a game against Emofucks. The rest of the schedule should be winnable, but not easy (12-16). Besides beating Gypsy Humpers, it would also behoove Ruby to improve their basing tiebreaker by a few minutes to give them the edge over Gypsy Humpers.
Projected finish: 10-11

Gypsy Humpers (2/3/3/8)
-35 / -56 / -8.45
8 - 12 (3-7)

Ruby (2-4)
Candy King (3-2)
Top5Squad (4-1)
Underground (2-3)

See my notes above in the Ruby section on the importance of the dueling game between these two teams. Unfortunately for Gypsy Humpers, their tiebreakers are terrible (with the exception of base, which is just merely mediocre). Due to those poor tiebreakers they cannot earn a bye even if they win all of their games and get some help, but they can finish as high as 3rd. The schedule isn’t easy, but it could be worse and they’ve been playing very well of late (11-10).
Projected finish: 10-11

[Black Mage]

Good luck to all teams in the playoff hunt, especially Ruby, Gypsy Humpers, and Blood Choke (who have the fiercest battles ahead). I double checked my tie-breaker numbers just in case and fixed one small error.

And I've been toying with something, just in case it is needed.