Hello everyone! Time for some start of the season announcements. First and most important, our first meeting is Tuesday. We will be switching this season to a SEVEN O’CLOCK start time. That’s right, my work schedule has shifted so I have Tuesdays off this semester, so we can start earlier, which I think is going to be better for as long as we’re able to do it. (It will likely change back next season.)
Other announcements:
2. We will be making a change to the Smackdown tournaments. Paying the IFPA fees on those was draining a lot of the league’s money, as I determined by running the numbers at the end of last season. Further, I do not think people were always remembering to pay for their extra tries, and I don’t really want to have to chase people down about that. So we are going to switch to a new fee structure for those tournaments. It will be $1 to enter*, and everyone gets two attempts. Simple, right? I am asking people to be honest about this. Anytime you play a Smackdown designated game, that counts as one of your attempts. You don’t get to count your best two or decide whether a game you played was a real game or a practice game. If you play it, it counts! The $1 will cover the IFPA fees for the tournament for that night. However, *UNRATED PLAYERS PLAY FREE. One reason we hold these is to get inexperienced tournament players “rated” with the IFPA, which benefits the league in general. So, to encourage this, unrated players will get a freebie. (If you don’t know whether you’re rated yet, ask me. I probably know but can check. Everyone who played in the league last season is rated now.)
3. With the new rules for the Smackdown, I anticipate that we may have excess funds at the end of the season after paying for our trophies. If that turns out to be true, I will refund all fully-paid players based on the surplus. If this happens it will likely be around $2 each based on my projections from last season — but it will depend a lot on how many people join this season. (So get some friends on board!)
4. This season we will be meeting the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month, across the board, through May. This is largely what we did in the past, but we used to have some months that were an exception due to the schedule of the GR league. Since recently the only GR league players also playing in Lansing have been Joseph and I, we decided to just regularize the calendar.
I think that’s it for announcements. See you Tuesday at 7 pm!