League Playoffs and Club Championship
Every competitive team has a postseason following their last regular season game. At the end of the regular season, the top eight teams in the league standings play in the Championship Bracket to determine the league champion. The other six teams will continue to play as well, in their own bracketed playoff called the Biter Bracket.
This league playoffs take 3 weeks. At the end of those three weeks, the eleven league champions will have been determined. Those eleven will be joined by five other wildcards to play in the Club Championship, a 16-team tournament. The wildcards will all come from the pool of runners-up in the league playoffs. That is, they will be teams that made it all the way to their league championship game, but lost that game. Among those teams, the five teams with the best overall record (via win-percentage) throughout the year will be chosen as wildcards.
The winners of each Biter Bracket (one from each league) will also be invited to participate in a separate event called King of the Lily Pad, to be held on the Saturday of the Club Championship.
Examples:
- Your team finished the regular season undefeated and atop your league after the regular season. In our league playoffs, you win your first two weeks but lose in the league championship final. You finished second, and your record makes it almost certain that you will be chosen as a wildcard and will participate in the club championship.
- Your team finished with a great regular season record. But you lose your first game in the league playoffs and end up finishing in 7th place. Since you were not a league playoff runner-up, you will not be considered for a wildcard spot regardless of your record.
How Opting Out Works
If you know in advance that you’ll have to miss games in your League Playoffs or the Club Championship, we request that you opt out by immediately notifying the manager of the dates you cannot make. This will allow us to adjust the games in the fairest manner possible, and to avoid forfeits when possible.
Examples:
- A team finishes in the top 8 in the standings but knows they cannot make one or more of the League Playoff games. When they opt out, we’ll move them into the Biter Bracket in order to give the 9th place team an opportunity to move up to the Championship Bracket. This also avoids forfeits in the Championship Bracket. For the opting-out team moving into the Biter Bracket, what seed they’ll move into depends upon what date(s) they’ll have to miss. If they’ll only miss the first week of League Playoffs, they’ll move into the 9th spot (which has a bye on the first week of playoffs). Again, this will avoid any forfeits. However, if they’ll miss other playoff games (week 2 and/or week 3), they’ll be moved to the 14th spot and will have to forfeit a game.
- A team finishes in the bottom 6 in the standings but must miss a League Playoff game. They’ll be moved to the bottom seed and will have to forfeit a game.
- A team wins all of the League Playoff games, including their League Championship game, but cannot make the Club Championship weekend. In that case, the 2nd place finisher (i.e. loser of the League Playoff Championship game) will advance to the Club Championship to represent the league. They’ll be seeded in the top 11, by record.
- A team wins the League Biter Bracket, but cannot make the King of the Lily Pad event. In that case, the 2nd place finisher (i.e. loser of the Biter Bracket Championship game) will advance to the King of the Lily Pad event.
