89 teams all together woo

a new record. and they said tf2 is dead

there's going to be more like 94 teams total if you count teams paid but not set as reserved yet.

#4 that's where the 60 number comes from

If playoffs remain as the top 16 teams, then I'd expect the cutline for playoffs to reach as high as 11-5. That could make for a LOT of late season drama.

9-7 won't be good enough in S13 as it was in S12. This could get interesting...

This might be a bad idea, but expanding the field to 24 playoff teams could be possible now that we're on 60 teams in open this season. All you'd do is give the top 8 a first round bye.

The disadvantage would be that you're diluting the playoff field. The advantage would be that you'd have the cut-line back down to 9-7 (or a weak 10-6), and that means that more teams will stay together until the end as they'll have something to play for.

60 is even so we'll have normal schedules yaaaaaaay

#6 s9 had 24 teams in playoffs for 54, but s11 only had 16 for 59. In S11, a couple 10-6 teams missed it while in S9, an 8-8 team made it in. I think 16 is best for emphasizing the fact that you need to be consistently good throughout the regular season.

Does anyone know how this match making with work out with different conferences or will they just be random?

Unless they're going to change something, they always consolidate everybody into central.

That's the good part of only having the top 16 from 60 (that's a mere 26%). Every playoff match has the potential for being an upset. Last season there were only 16 that made it, but all 16 of them (plus about 4-5 open teams that narrowly missed) were competitive.

8-8 should not get you into the postseason.

...also - having 16 playoff teams gives you a nice pool to promote into IM from. Should the #22 team in Open be promoted if they get lucky in the postseason? I don't think so if they got to that seeding with an 8-8 (or weak 9-7) mark.

#11: when the top 24 teams were in playoffs, my team won a playoff match and wasn't promoted. they probably have more strict guidelines if there are more teams

how long before the schedule gets announced for the first match?

http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=forums&d=topic&id=459971

The first match is usually a week later than they say, but if they are going to keep by their schedule the first match will be sunday. I think those will probably be for divisions that have an odd number of teams though.

Really excited for this season! I'm sponsoring and roster riding a new team with a lot of enthusiasm for the coming weeks. Just glad we were able to make that deadline last night by a nipple hair.

I'm really looking forward to playing this season.

Someone told me December 1st but I doubt it will start on a Saturday.

We'll probably get schedules then. Matches won't actually start until Tuesday (one of the default days).

ah yes, the skinniest of hairs.

i don't know, my nipple hairs are pretty thick

The more important number is how many we have left at the end of the season. Don't kill your teams please.

short_team_killer