OP
The Stain
Soccer Manager's Highwayman
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2013
- Messages
- 12,520

- All-Time pool subject to constraints placed by round question.
- There will be no order of picking unless otherwise indicated.
- Once a pick is made, it is final.
- Before every round, we, the mods, will post a new criteria, and every manager has to PM us their pick that meets the criteria. More on that in the following points.
- Every manager will be allowed three picks (attempts) in every round to pick a player in every round. If you manage to sign a player successfully in the first pick (attempt), you will not participate in the next two attempts for that round, obviously.
- At the end of every picking round we will announce which managers successfully signed their players, but we will NOT announce the name of the players, so that the managers who failed in that attempt would have to make their second/third attempt without the knowledge of which players were picked in the same round earlier.
- How does a manager get his pick? You get your pick if and only if you were the only one who chose that player. There are FOUR ways in which your pick will be blocked:
1. In the same round and same attempt there were other managers who chose the same player and bid the same or more for him.
2. The player you chose was already successfully signed by someone in the same round in the previous attempt.
3. Your pick doesn't match the criteria.
4. Some geezer activated a POWER CARD
Before we go further, here's a simple example.
Let's say A, B, C, D and E are playing the draft.
We announce the criteria - Round 1 - pick a player who was a World Cup winner.
All 5 managers PM me their picks as follows :
Pick 1 :
A : Pele
B : Pele
C : Ronaldo
D : Maradona
E : Matthaus
According to the rules, A and B don't get any players and their picks are BLOCKED. C, D and E successfully sign their players. So, at the end of the deadline we will post something like this:
Results of Round 1, Pick 1:
A : Blocked (Pele)
B : Blocked (Pele)
C : Pass
D : Pass
E : Pass
Blocked List : Pele.
Important : We will NOT announce the names of successfully drafted players till the end of the round. So the managers going into the second/third attempt will not be knowing which players apart from the ones that were blocked due to duplicate entries are not available.
Now, A and B have to submit again for the same criteria as their second attempt. Let's say :
A : Maradona
B : Beckenbauer
And we announce after deadline:
Results Round 1, Pick 2 :
A : Fail (player already drafted)
B : Pass
B gets his pick as it was not picked by another manager in the same attempt while also not being drafter earlier. A misses his pick again even though it was not picked by another manager in the same round, it was drafted by someone else earlier.
Now, A has to go for a third and last attempt. Let's say :
A : Beckenbauer.
And we announce :
Round 1, Pick 3 results :
A : Fail (player already drafted).
Full round results :
A : Sheep
B : Beckenbauer
C : Ronaldo
D : Maradona
E : Matthaus
A again fails, as B had already successfully drafted Beckenbauer which A wasn't aware of.
So, A ends the round without any player and will be assigned a sheep.
End of example.
We announce the criteria - Round 1 - pick a player who was a World Cup winner.
All 5 managers PM me their picks as follows :
Pick 1 :
A : Pele
B : Pele
C : Ronaldo
D : Maradona
E : Matthaus
According to the rules, A and B don't get any players and their picks are BLOCKED. C, D and E successfully sign their players. So, at the end of the deadline we will post something like this:
Results of Round 1, Pick 1:
A : Blocked (Pele)
B : Blocked (Pele)
C : Pass
D : Pass
E : Pass
Blocked List : Pele.
Important : We will NOT announce the names of successfully drafted players till the end of the round. So the managers going into the second/third attempt will not be knowing which players apart from the ones that were blocked due to duplicate entries are not available.
Now, A and B have to submit again for the same criteria as their second attempt. Let's say :
A : Maradona
B : Beckenbauer
And we announce after deadline:
Results Round 1, Pick 2 :
A : Fail (player already drafted)
B : Pass
B gets his pick as it was not picked by another manager in the same attempt while also not being drafter earlier. A misses his pick again even though it was not picked by another manager in the same round, it was drafted by someone else earlier.
Now, A has to go for a third and last attempt. Let's say :
A : Beckenbauer.
And we announce :
Round 1, Pick 3 results :
A : Fail (player already drafted).
Full round results :
A : Sheep
B : Beckenbauer
C : Ronaldo
D : Maradona
E : Matthaus
A again fails, as B had already successfully drafted Beckenbauer which A wasn't aware of.
So, A ends the round without any player and will be assigned a sheep.
End of example.
Sheep will be nominated by other managers at the end of the round. A sheep pick is a rubbish player, and one who will be a clear weakness for any team. This is a way to punish the manager who failed in all his 3 attempts in a round. No other rules apply, just throw names in there and argue about their relative merits at will.
The sheep pick for a round must meet the criteria of the round and the final allocation will be done by the Evil Sheep Committee.
- There will be 12 rounds and squads will have a maximum of 14 players (there might be rounds which allow you to pick more than one player).
- Every round will have a new criterion, so the number of total criteria would be equal to the number of rounds. The new criteria will be posted only at the end of the current round. So, you won't be knowing what kind of players will fall into the next criteria, hence you should cover the difficult positions (Keeper and defense) as early as possible. There could be rounds based on scoring records, for example. So be prepared for all scenarios.
- Important : In the view of the previous point, every manager MUST have a goalkeeper by the end of round 10.
- NO NAMING of unpicked players. Even though there is no order in this, this rule still applies.
STALINIST DEADLINES :
1 Round per day
Questions will be posted at 10PM GMT (except R1 because you are a bunch of junkies that won’t even let us finish the rules)
11AM GMT is the deadline for Pick 1 and results will be posted soon after
6PM GMT is the deadline for Pick 2 and results will be posted soon after
10PM GMT is the deadline for Pick 3 and results and the question for the next round will be posted soon after
If you miss a round completely (3 deadlines in total), we will kick you out of the draft. If deadlines suck for you then get an AM.
The Tournament
Once we have drafted all teams managers will post their Best XI. All managers will submit a numbered inverse ranking of the other 15 teams (i.e. best team is 15. Manager, to make our tallying easier). The 16 teams with the highest score go through to play matches. In the event of level scores, the one with the lowest individual score will go through. If there’s still a tie the Evil Committee will accept bribes before making a call.
After that, there will be straight knockouts till we reach the final. The Round of 16 will consist of two gamethreads with 4 matchups each and 8 voting options with a maximum of 4. Managers will be allowed a 250 word pitch for their side inc. link to profile posts.
A deadline will be set which all managers must meet. Those who don’t will enter a blank teamsheet.
No posting of humongous player profiles or gifs is allowed thereafter, just plain text discussion to specifically address points raised by others about their teams. Managers not complying with this will be alerted and potentially disqualified if they keep at it.
Usual matchthreads and rules apply for QF and onwards.
Reinforcements
There will be 2 reinforcements after the R16 and QF, 1 after the semi. Details will be revealed when the time comes, but be prepared to have unorthodox rules in place.
We hope that was clear. Now for the fun part…
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