NBL Official Rules
Last updated 04/27/2020
Approvals
Date
Approval (Mark as Y/N)
Daniel X Jones
Nathan Kelly
Louie Green
Chicago Piranhas
Detroit Sharks
San Francisco Stingrays
Atlanta Gorillas
L.A Mambas
Dallas Bulls
N.Y Wolves
Carolina Reapers
Miami Lions
Philly Falcons
Guiding Principles
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The rules should create a league that is exciting to watch and participate in.
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The rules should create a system that inherently rewards skillful team ownership but inherently prevents hacks or attempts at gaming the system.
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The rules should create a system where top teams can fall & bottom teams can improve over time.
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The league should be inclusive to all playing levels.
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The rules should be kept as simple as possible and any complexity introduced should be warranted by the guiding principles above.
The Draft
At the beginning of each season there is a draft. For 4 rounds, teams take turns selecting players to fill their rosters. The draft order is determined (TODO: How is the draft order determined?)
Free Agents
Free agents can be used to replace a player from the same tier with the following exceptions…
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The free agent cannot be more than 250 points higher than the dropped player.
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A player that has been added from free agency cannot be dropped until 7 arenas have been completed since their addition.
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All free agent signings can be vetoed by a league vote.
Penalty
For each free agent move the team makes they are penalized 100 points in bullet and 50 points in blitz against their season total.
Rosters
Teams must have 6 players on their roster at all times. If a player needs to drop out, the team must pick up an available player from the free agent pool.
Rating Tiers
The 6 players on the team are composed of 2 players from each of 3 tiers. A player's tier is determined by the average of their lichess Blitz/Bullet rating at the time of the draft (see table below).
Average Lichess Blitz/Bullet
Tier 1
>2250
Tier 2
>2000
Tier 3
<2000
Offseason
Every season the team owner can decide which two players they would like to keep on the team. (TODO: Do those 2 players include themselves?) The remaining players become eligible for the draft.
Arenas
Each team can field up to 6 players but only the top 5 scores from each team count towards their overall score for that arena. Berserking is allowed.
Seasons
Seasons span a 12 week period. Each week there is a blitz arena and a bullet arena. Bullet and Blitz season standings are calculated separately and are equal to the sum of a team's score in all arena’s minus any penalties.
Playoffs
Qualification
The top 2 teams qualify for the playoffs in both blitz and bullet. The next 4 teams each compete in a wild card round to move forward.
For each playoff (blitz/bullet) the matchups look like this.
Week 1 (Wildcard Round)
Seed 1 - Bye
Seed 2 - Bye
Seed 3 vs Seed 6 (Matchup A)
Seed 4 vs Seed 5 (Matchup B)
Week 2 (Conference Finals)
Seed 1 vs (winner of matchup B) (Matchup C)
Seed 2 vs (winner of matchup A) (Matchup D)
Week 3 (Finals)
Winner of matchup C vs Winner of matchup D
Arena Format
In the playoffs we no longer use the lichess arena format. Instead we have head to head matchups. Each player plays 10 games against their same board opponent from the opposing team based on their lichess average blitz/bullet rating (TODO: Is this based on the current average rating? Or the beginning of the season?). At the end of the match we calculate how many games were won by each team and the winner is the team that won the most games. TODO: Verify all of this
TODO: What happens after a tie?
League Votes
Votes can be taken for various reasons including amendments to these rules. In general they require 7/10 approval from all coaches in the league during the season and a majority vote during the offseason. (TODO: Did we agree on this?)
If you have any suggestions or ideas, The National Blitz League is always open to dialog.
Email us at: NationalBlitzLeague@gmail.com