Hi all, turns out there is the ability of extending the life of a ladder so I've done so, you can use the link to the old, still current ladder here: http://www.challengeboards.net/boards/standings/2167

So I meant to do this on the 1st but here it is. I've reset the Vassal ELO ladder (it has a max lifespan of 1 year anyway). So it's now ready for a fresh start in 2016.

If you're unfamiliar with the ladder it's meant as a way to find slightly more meaningful competitive games on Vassal while we're in between tournaments and whatnot. It's not at all mandatory that all games you play are ELO games once you sign up, but both players must agree to it before the squads are revealed (preferably while the chat log is running).

This is a continuation of the ELO league for tracking X-wing matches on Vassal for 2016!

This league is meant to be pretty casual and self governed. That said each player should keep their own set of logs for being able to settle disputes. Please record from the start and have each player say in chat that the game is meant to be considered a rated game.

Also for squad selection only released content will be available for official matches. When revealing lists, both have a link to your squad ready and then count down from 3 in chat and link at the same time. This will keep anyone from having an advantage. Also please have a load file for your squad ready as well.

Once the game is completed the winner must report the match by going to the "Report a Match" tab and then their opponent can verify the game by going to Match Activity and confirming the game, please do this after the match.

Aside from that, have fun, fly casual and feel free to send me any questions you might have or post in the discussion tab!

Thanks for participating

PS: if you want to help identify yourself as an ELO contender put your ELO rating in your vassal profile personal info (ie "Xwing ELO: 1500)

If you have any questions or suggestions for the ELO league this year let me know. All for any ideas that can help with the longevity a bit as we saw a pretty big drop off of people using it after a few months into the year. I'm going to try and stick to doing monthly updates of progress on the forums throughout the year to help keep people in the loop and bring in fresh players.

This is a great time to try and climb the ranks as you prepare for store championship season and beyond. That said let's take a quick look at last year's finish.

2015 Review:

First off, congrats to the overall winner of the ladder (by a fair margin), going 28-2 with a rating of 1742 was Matt-Shadowlord!

Runner-up, edging out Matt with the most games played (by one) with a 26-5 record and rating of 1689 was blairbunke!

And rounding out the top 5 we have Phildo (1628), Mr Sunol (1628) and Morgan (1618). Special shout-out to Khyros who was the only player with at least 5 wins to go undefeated (with a streak of 7), would have been interesting to see how long he could've kept that up.

We ended up with 167 registered participants though only 118 ever played a match, not bad.

Hmm so it's been pointed out to me that you can extend the lifetime of a ladder. I didn't realize that was something you could do so instead of starting a fresh ELO ladder it's been suggested we continue with the current one. As such I've updated the end date and you can access the ladder here: http://www.challengeboards.net/boards/standings/2167

If there was a way separate seasons vs all-time, that would be ideal. Since it's competitive, people mainly will start if they think they have a chance to win. Anyone starting off will see that all they have to do is play 30 games and only lose 1, to overtake Matt Shadowlord (seriously, that's incredible!). Combine that with the fact that there isn't many people playing ELO on vassal and it's no surprise that there is not much excitement compared to the beginning. If everyone started over, that would create excitement again.

At the same time, Matt and Blair's record shouldn't be thrown away, so there should be an all-time score as well. You could even just add it up at the end of each season.

Also, the top 4 need to play for the championship ; )

I guess one option would be to have two ladders (overall and seasonal) but then you'd have to report every match in two places, unless I contact the guy who runs the site and see if he's interested in created some kind of child ladder that reports into the parent one.

I had actually emailed him to see if he had thought about implementing some type of ELO decay, ie you would lose 10% or 10pts minimum from your rating (if you're above 1500) for every 30 days you haven't played a game.

That said though I like Sozin and Earthworm's plan to report tournament results into the ELO ladder. If that was done it would be much more active and there'd be the volume of games for people to challenge the current leaders.

Either way I'm down for whatever the majority of players want and whatever will get the most people interested in playing X-wing on Vassal.

I don't get many vassal games in, but I like the idea of continuing the old one for as long as possible. While it is impossible for me (and others who don't play as much) to catch the leaders, in my opinion, by merit it should be led by the more active players - and a longer league makes the "legends" stand out.

I haven't played in awhile, but I know Phild0 and I have another game scheduled at some point (I can't let him stay ranked ahead of me after all!). So we'll see how long I can go undefeated. The problem is that I don't have much time to play anymore, and there's so much new content that I want to try out, and I don't want to do a ranked game with a new list. I'm sad to see that I fell out of the top 5. I was 4th for awhile, and I knew Phil past me, dropping me to 5th. I was unaware I fell to 6th .