TWDT Season 31: Important Format and Draft Changes

[Turban]

This season brings several important changes to the TWDT format that may not have been fully communicated to captains and the community. Stayon will continue to run the league this season together with RaCka and Riverside.

The original plan was to keep the format simple, with no lineup caps other than requiring one 7★ or below in the last slot, and using a standard randomized pick order with a snake draft. After taking a closer look, it became clear that this format had a few problems, so we've made adjustments to improve the system.

Please review the following changes to the format carefully.



Lineup Restrictions

• TWDT-D & TWDT-J: Teams must field at least one 7★ or lower player.
• TWDT-B: Teams must field at least one 7.5★ or lower player and one 7★ or lower player.
• These requirements apply in both the regular season and playoffs.
• No other lineup restrictions are in place.

Draft Format

This season introduces a new soft cap system for the first 7 rounds of the draft, applied across all three leagues. The goal of this change is to prevent teams from stacking one league too early and thus as a result it should create a more balanced and competitive draft, especially since there are close to no lineup restrictions this time around. After Round 7, no further restrictions apply and teams can draft freely as every roster should by then have a solid core of players.

During the first 7 rounds, the combined value of your strongest players in each league cannot exceed:

• TWDT-D: Top 4 players can equal but not exceed 36.5★
• TWDT-J: Top 4 players can equal but not exceed 36★
• TWDT-B: Top 5 players can equal but not exceed 46.5★
  (Captains are included in these calculations.)

The draft sheet will track these limits automatically on a per-team basis and display the maximum star value available for your next pick in real time. This helps captains stay within the rules and adds an extra layer of strategy. As a word of caution, stacking multiple high-star players early in one league might restrict your flexibility in later rounds. We highly recommend captains to do some mock drafts to be more prepared for this format change.

Draft order goes from the team with the lowest total star value to the one with the highest for each round. Ties are handled automatically by a randomizer (RANDARRAY) with the lowest roll winning. The draft sheet takes care of generating and tracking the order so it’s easy to follow.



Special Weekends for Mid-Rated Players

We want to make sure mid-tier players also see more action as rosters are going to be larger than usual. To achieve this, certain weekends will feature stricter lineup requirements designed around mid-rated players. These matches will still count toward the standings, but at a reduced value and will not be included in tie-breaker calculations. The full season schedule will be released by early next week.



Removal of Free Agency Draft

The free agency draft will not be used this season. In past seasons it has created imbalance, with some players intentionally signing up late to secure a spot on a more favorable team.



Explaining the Draft Sheet

The draft sheet has been designed and balanced around 8 teams. It is almost completely automated—the only manual input needed is assigning players to teams in the correct order.

Key features include:

• Live pick tracking which automatically displays the current pick, the next pick, and up to the fourth-in-line. When waiting for a next rounds pick order to generate it shows “waiting for order.”
• A dynamic player list where remaining players are removed automatically from the list once drafted by a team. The list is sorted by highest overall rating.
• Team strength totals are displayed below team names. This shows each team’s current total value based on drafted players and is used for pick order purposes.
• Maximum pick which displays the maximum star rating a team can select in each league under soft cap rules. If a team tries to exceed the limit, the field turns red with the text OVER to alert the host.
• Automated pick order. Teams with the lowest overall strength pick first each round. If there’s a tie when a round ends, the built-in system randomizes the order.
• Pick history: At the end of each round, the sheet takes a snapshot and updates draft order history for review.

We highly recommend captains to familiarize themselves with the draft sheet. You can find it here - simply create a copy and play around with it. This sheet already has the finalized ratings for all players, pending some last minute sign ups.



If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to TWDT operators and all complaints can be sent to PriitK.

[zidane]

seems like some interesting changes. DT hype

[RageRitual]

-<3 the no FA rule, that shit always brakes DT.

-soft cap is an interesting change, also * slots instead of star cap, I am curious how these will play out.

-can we get more information on the mid level weekend thing?

[Turban]

Stayon will work on the schedule after draft, but long story short we were thinking to plug in an extra weekend or two for dueling leagues where you need to field more 8-stars and below in a lineup to allow more playtime and chances to prove oneself. I doubt this can be extended to basing, and to be honest it would probably be a frustrating experience.

[zidane]

the mid-tier weekend stuff might not be a great idea, i feel like a lot of the high star players just won't log on. which will create gaps in play and create pseudo-bye weeks. whenever there were byes in the past the league would suffer and activity would drop. unless there will be normal games and these mid-tier games the same weekend then my point is irrelevant.

really like some of the new ideas though.

[Beast]

instead of having a mid tier weekend event , a better idea would be to just have mandatory weekend subs during games, of 8 star to 8.5 star players, where they can rotate out. Turban

[Turban]

sure, we can probably figure out something better. I guess we can scrap the extra weekends for the time being as there's not resources or much interest for it.

[Spezza]

I don't really understand the point of the changes - they seem to just make roster construction more complicated, hose 7.5 stars, and make weeks when you don't have ideal shows less even and less competitive. What am I missing?

What is the goal?

[Turban]

Ultimately the plan was to have a no star cap season with a rule where every team had to add at least one 7-star or lower player to their lineup. This baseline is something that was more or less agreed upon to be the format about a month ago, but it had its issues as in the draft phase there was no way to even try to make teams balanced. Weaker captains would have suffered even more than usual.

We wanted to have more teams, but no one stepped up to captain and we struggled to even get 8 teams. This is ultimately our biggest problem, there are no good ways to solve it.

It is technically not too late to add one extra requirement for dueling leagues (one 8-star or below, and one 7-star and below) to get more star brackets to play throughout the season. In the end, no matter what is done, someone will suffer by the rules given the roster sizes.

We might scrap the extra matches as it doesn't have enough interest.

I will try to see if there can be a last minute update/change to the lineup requirements.

[bike]

Technically viop managed to win the league (multiple times?) with being crappy ass wb and jav. Granted he was also brilliant enough to coin his own language but aside from that seems like anyone can do it.