Pro and Amateur League Playoff News
Unless you live under a rock, you most likely know that playoffs are under way right now for both the Pro and Amateur leagues. What you may not have heard yet is that the teams for the Pro league championship are set. Separate Intelligence and Strictly Business will be squaring off for the mythical league championship card. I don’t believe the games have been scheduled yet, but it will be a best of three series, played on neutral host. Best of luck to both teams.

As for the Amateur league there’s been one big upset win of note. Team India knocked off the favorites to win it all, Hard Liquor Chasers in what was apparently a 6-3 lag fest, thanks to II Diamond II’s crazy host. As you can imagine the game was disputed and the rumor is that it will be replayed. You can see the stats from the game here. Looks like it was indeed an ugly one for HLC.

Summer Pro League News
Though it’s not official yet, chances seem good that the format and set up of the Pro league will be changing this Summer. The following text, written by Adam Pisani, explains the potential changes.

The Pro League as we know it is on its way out. The projected talent pool of the Pro League includes only 5-7 returning Pro Teams with decent or winning records, and only 2 returning teams with decidedly bad records. The vast majority of the league is either disbanding, already disbanded, or moving down to amateur, and a change is necessary.

The most obvious and, I must admit, most enticing idea would be an 8-team all-genuine-pro-quality concentrated Pro League. It’d be be like the Pro playoffs all season long, and the mind boggles at how intense it would be.

Unfortunately, that idea leaves some hundred-odd other teams in one mixed league, with no skill based barrier separating them. It’s a tradeoff, giving 8 teams a fantastic experience and robbing the other, massive group of teams of a good Grifball experience.

Upon further consideration, it has been determined that the more fair, pro-active course of action involves EXPANDING the Pro League to allow for set scheduling, and to expand the talent pool of teams just below the level of the top 8 or so Pro League teams. It has occurred to me that the top teams from Amateur typically want a more competitive experience during the regular season, and it’s also occurred to me that the skill levels of these top Amateur League teams aren’t so far below that of some or even MOST of the Pro League teams. Who’s to say that an HLC or a Green Army couldn’t compete with the That One Teams or the American Dreams of the Pro League, and certainly some of the higher quality teams like TWSS and CAG (who aren’t the tanking powerhouses that some Pro teams are) wouldn’t necessarily crush the top Amateur teams.

This larger Pro League could potentially have 24, 28, 30, 0r 32 teams in it, ranging from 6 divisions of 4 (24 teams) to 8 divisions of 4 (32 teams). Each division would have two set nights that they could play on, and other divisions would overlap by a night, allowing for set days for inter-divisional play. Teams could, of course, choose to play at any time during the season if both teams agreed. This 6-division minimum should spread out the talent enough that the non-top teams should still have a competitive, non-soul-crushing experience.

The hope with this setup is that the non-tip-top teams will be given a competitive, skill-increasing environment to work with, and will, as a result, become more organized, better teams. Back when the top teams and their players were on their way up, they did a whole lot of just playing each other and spending a lot of time practising new moves, new strategies, and flat out learning their timing. I hope that this new setup will encourage the same sorts of improvements for the newer, but talented teams.

I do, of course realize this is essentially a step back, to a Legacy and Rookie League. The differences are few, but significant. The new Pro League will be chosen based on skill, not on experience, and inter-divisional play will be present.