Competitions Lock & Load Cash Comp 2019

[Bermi]

Was thinking that maybe having a minimal amount of trades to use may be a good idea to keep a bit more interest in this comp. Was thinking say 5 trades to use at any time during the season but must keep the trades within the salary cap at the time of the trade. Any thoughts welcomed. Was also trying to think of something to do with regard to the Captain choice. Maybe allow 1 trade to change your Captain order or swap one choice out. Just thought i'd run a few ideas up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.

I agree, something has to be done to keep the interest well into the season.
Since it is a Lock&Load Comp, I am not in favour of trades at any time. But maybe after halfway through the season, allow the 5 trades and allow 1 Capt to swap and the Capt order to change, before the second half of the season starts.
Then have a minor prize for the 1st half of the season leader, and another minor prize for the 2nd half of the season leader and the major prize for the overall winner.

 

[Bermi]

………….I thought about the captain situation last year. Maybe as it is a ‘best of’ comp, each team could have a leadership group of 3 or 4 players and the best score of those players counts as your captain score? ...…...

I like the idea of counting the best score of the 3 Capts selected, because that will make the competition closer, which will make it more exciting.

 

[Darkie]

Some good and interesting ideas above.

Personally I think there shouldn't be too much opportunity to change our sides ... it is supposed to be lock and load!

Equally having a lot of players out of the running half way through reduces the appeal. I do think that we will collectively be better at this this year though, which might help.

Bermi's second half idea is a good simple one that addresse this issue while still rewarding whoever picks the best starting side.

A simple way to ensure some sort of penalty, while keeping the admin side of trading simple, could be to only allow trades of players that have missed a certain number of consecutive games. I would suggest three, but this could be another number. This retains the spirit of rewarding those who pick reliable, durable players, while not penalising bad luck too much.

I like Diabolicals leadership group idea. It also encourages some left field options, which I think helps keep things interesting.

 

[Beg2Differ]

Was thinking that maybe having a minimal amount of trades to use may be a good idea to keep a bit more interest in this comp. Was thinking say 5 trades to use at any time during the season but must keep the trades within the salary cap at the time of the trade. Any thoughts welcomed. Was also trying to think of something to do with regard to the Captain choice. Maybe allow 1 trade to change your Captain order or swap one choice out. Just thought i'd run a few ideas up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.

My ideas FWIW noting that I didn’t participate last year.

I would repeat my suggestion from last year which was to start in round 2 rather than round 1. I know I am focussed on my real SC team for round 1 but trades in round 2 are either nil or obvious and gives people more time to consider. It also gives you one week of exposed form which would help reduce deadwood players (not by much but a little).

What is objective of allowing trades? Is it for strategy or to address injuries/deadwood. If it is the latter then I think you would find people would burn them early to correct negative PODs and not serve that purpose. I am not a fan of trading given it is lock and load comp but if you had to do it then maybe some designated trading rounds where you could swap a certain number of players (maybe even unlimited) and captain 3 or 4 times during the year.

Finally a couple left field ideas.
1] Rather than trading just allow the selection of more players, maybe designated reserves that come into aside in specified circumstances.
2) What about an automatic captain where you highest score just doubles. Not sure what impact that would have.

 

[Darkie]

I like the round two idea as well.

Hard to justify spending time on a second comp (behind SC - and for some, DT and AF as well) when lockout is bearing down and you've spent all off season on here trying to get your SC side just so!

 

[Bermi]

My ideas FWIW noting that I didn’t participate last year.

I would repeat my suggestion from last year which was to start in round 2 rather than round 1. I know I am focussed on my real SC team for round 1 but trades in round 2 are either nil or obvious and gives people more time to consider. It also gives you one week of exposed form which would help reduce deadwood players (not by much but a little).

What is objective of allowing trades? Is it for strategy or to address injuries/deadwood. If it is the latter then I think you would find people would burn them early to correct negative PODs and not serve that purpose. I am not a fan of trading given it is lock and load comp but if you had to do it then maybe some designated trading rounds where you could swap a certain number of players (maybe even unlimited) and captain 3 or 4 times during the year.

Finally a couple left field ideas.
1] Rather than trading just allow the selection of more players, maybe designated reserves that come into aside in specified circumstances.
2) What about an automatic captain where you highest score just doubles. Not sure what impact that would have.

These are the ideas of yours that I like:
1. ……..start in round 2 rather than round 1. I know I am focussed on my real SC team for round 1...…..
2. ......….some designated trading rounds where you could swap a certain number of players...…….
3. ……… Rather than trading just allow the selection of more players, maybe designated reserves that come into aside in specified circumstances...… (for long term injuries).

 

[Diabolical]

+1 for the Round 2 idea. I know last year we got our teams in a couple of days before the season started and had to best guess the rookies who may get named. This could enable a bit more informed choice.

 

[Diabolical]

These are the ideas of yours that I like:
1. ……..start in round 2 rather than round 1. I know I am focussed on my real SC team for round 1...…..
2. ......….some designated trading rounds where you could swap a certain number of players...…….
3. ……… Rather than trading just allow the selection of more players, maybe designated reserves that come into aside in specified circumstances...… (for long term injuries).

I would prefer point 3 over point 2. Maybe we could have a sub in each position that only come into your team once a player has missed X games?

 

[Bermi]

I would prefer point 3 over point 2. Maybe we could have a sub in each position that only come into your team once a player has missed X games?

Actually, I selected those 3 likes to give Doc Ron an idea what I am liking.
I really prefer to keep it simple and less work for the moderator, as I suggested already.

 

[Bermi]

EDIT:

I agree, something has to be done to keep the interest well into the season.
Since it is a Lock & Load Comp, I am not in favour of trades at any time.
But maybe after halfway through the season, allow 5 trades before the second half of the season starts.
Then have a minor prize for the 1st half of the season leader, and another minor prize for the 2nd half of the season leader and the major prize for the overall winner.
And count the best score of the 3 Captains selected, because that will make the competition closer, which will make it more exciting.
Also start the Comp in Rd2, to avoid the last minute rush of Rd1.

 

[doc ron]

It seems like there is alot of love for a Round 2 start so I hereby declare a Round 2 start. I also like the best of Captains score and maybe adding another to the leadership group to encourage some left field choices. The selection of Reserves to replace LTI's maybe as well instead of trades.

 

[The Experiment]

Some great suggestions here gents....

If we were to adopt the reserves idea, we'd need to put some parameters around who can be selected in those positions, as I assume these players would fall outside the salary cap...ie reserves can only be selected from players under 400k (for example)

 

[Tex]

Keep it simple.
Stay as is.

 

[Tails]

Actually I'd prefer a round 3 start ... reason is that is when the first price changes will take affect .... so gives everyone an opportuity change to correct their initial line up and then game on for the rest of the year ...

 

[Beijing_Sting]

I note that no one has been silly enough to post a possible team as yet.

Therefore, here is mine.

D: Short, Witherden, Mills, Roberton, Hanley, Birchall, Hore, Wigg
M: Macre (VC), JKelly (VVC), Zorko, BCrouch, Miles, Hanneberry, Bennell, Bewley, Hayes, Hind, Mosquito.
R: Grundy (C), Goldy, Naimsmith (Or Longer)
F: Danger, Kennedy, Worpel, TWalker, Daniher, Setterfield, Cavarra, Taylor.

Surprised I don't have Libba too...

First team posted two years running. Also, I am in favour of no changes to comp..

 

[Bermi]

It seems like there is alot of love for a Round 2 start so I hereby declare a Round 2 start. I also like the best of Captains score and maybe adding another to the leadership group to encourage some left field choices. The selection of Reserves to replace LTI's maybe as well instead of trades.

The LTIs is a concern because it can knock you out of the Comp early in the season and then the Comp becomes boring ( I had Sloane last year and Capt Dangerfield who played the year with an injury).

To stick with the Lock & Load theme, have no trades, but compensate for LTIs by:
1. Increasing the Salary Cap to say $11,000,000
or
2. Instead of counting the points of the top 18 players, just count the top 16 players.

By increasing the Salary Cap, then each team will have more keepers as back up for the LTI players and less useless Rookies.
By reducing the top scoring players to 16, that compensates for LTIs.

Just a thought for the Captain, why not just double the highest scoring player's score. That way, a team could benefit from a left field player.

 

[IDIG]

My vote would be to keep the changes to a minimum. The beauty and appeal of this is the lock and load aspect and deviating too far from that would go against the spirit of the game.

I think starting the game in rd 2 or 3 is a good idea though and devising a way to protect teams against LTI’s but beyond that I’d try to keep it at a minimum.

Just my 2c though, happy to go with what doc decides.

 

[doc ron]

Thanks for the thoughts guys. Keep them coming.

 

[Diabolical]

The strange things I think about in the middle of the night ...

... what about a supplementary list to our teams? $1M cap and you can choose any number of players you want - eg as few as 2 (a premium + mid pricer) or as many as 9 (rookies). In any round where our team does not allow us field 18 scores the supplementary list comes into play. Maybe like Big Bash, your lowest scoring non 0 suplimentary player score is used. (As it is a back up only we wouldn’t want to see too much reward) Could see some different risk level strategies employed in developing our suplimentary list?

 

[Darkie]

My vote would be to keep the changes to a minimum. The beauty and appeal of this is the lock and load aspect and deviating too far from that would go against the spirit of the game.

I think starting the game in rd 2 or 3 is a good idea though and devising a way to protect teams against LTI’s but beyond that I’d try to keep it at a minimum.

Just my 2c though, happy to go with what doc decides.

This is a good summary of the way I think about it.

In terms of a delayed start, I think round two is best, because there’s almost always nothing meaningful to do for SC that round. Round three is actually quite important, because it’s like another mini-lockout before prices change, so there can be a lot to consider on corrective changes.

Perhaps the simplest way to deal with an LTI, while ensuring there is a level of disadvantage (consistent with the spirit of the comp) is to only allow replacement players once a player has already missed X weeks, and is expected to continue to miss one or more games (so it’s an actual LTI - we can’t just trade out an underperformer with an STI!). After a moderate number of weeks of playing one short, coaches can replace like for like, within the salary cap.