Rules: FAAB Free Agent Auction Bidding

What is dead may never die! After failing to pass as a rule change in 2011, FAAB is back and passed by a strong majority. I think we are all more familiar with the concept of FAAB now but if you have questions about how FAAB works, see the explainer linked below.

Here are the specifics for our FAAB:

• Free Agent Auction Budding - Continuous
• Runs daily Monday through Sunday @ 5AM EST
• Team budget: $100
• Minimum bid: $0
• Tiebreaker: Reset Each Week to Inverse Order of Standings

In short, our FAAB means every free agent will be on waivers, it'll run daily (we can adjust the time if need be), there are still zero dollar bids for lots of picking up guys if needed. While FAAB may hamper some of our more aggressive streaming teams, I hope it won't dissuade them from engaging in that strategy.

• How to use ESPN's new FAAB feature (2010)

As a reminder, we do have a new-ish trade deadline, which is the last day of the regular season, aka WK20. [ See numbers 6 and 7 here: Conferences, Re-Seeding, No Roster Lock ]

Rules: Postseason Mini-Explainer

As we head into our revamped postseason, I just wanted to take the opportunity to remind and clarify the upcoming postseason changes. Please review these two posts too, but this should serve as a mini-explainer: New Postseason 2.0 and Conferences, Re-Seeding, No Roster Lock.

Postseason Setup
• We establish Power Rankings according to regular season finish and then the top eight seeds, #1-8, are slotted into the playoffs while #9-16 are headed to the Toilet Bowl. Note that seeds are assigned irrespective of conferences.

• Every team plays three postseason games, as we will be playing for exact RD1 draft order -- aka "draft slots" -- next season. Thus all sixteen teams will be playing all the way through to consolation games in both playoffs and Toilet Bowl.

• After each postseason round, we reseed matchups accordingly. So if #4 upsets #1 seed, they will face #2 seed in next round.

• The trade deadline goes into effect at the conclusion of the regular season, but free agents and waivers remain available throughout the postseason. Roster lock is now dead!


How Will Next Year's Draft Work?
• Round 1: We play for all draft slots, with Toilet Bowl teams playing for picks *1-8 and the playoff teams playing for *9-16. [Take a look at the bottom of New Postseason 2.0 for round one draft slots image and explainer.]

• Round 2-6: After establishing Power Rankings, starting with RD2, we draft in high to low Power Ranking order, meaning #1-16 teams draft *1-16 picks. After RD2, we start snaking, starting with RD3 and continuing through to RD6.

• #9/10 seeds: Remember that seeds #9 and 10 cannot receive the *1 or *2 overall pick. So even if seeds #9 or 10 win the Toilet Bowl, they will draft *3 at best. Should this happen, the next Toilet Bowl finisher would slide up a slot (or two).

We’ll dub this the “Swamp Rule” after our esteemed Swamp Dragons' back-to-back Toilet Bowl wins with winning records both times.

2019: Re-Alignment

Due to moving over to two conferences and no divisions, we're gonna do a slight re-align too, to balance out the conferences. I looked at keeper core scores, and top keepers, and then decided to switch So Buckets and Spade over to Chamberlain while Fat Jubas and Fob Stars slide over to Russell to take their place. We kept an eye toward preserving historical rivalries and making sure each conference still had some ex-champs to boast about.

Strangely our new auto-generated ESPN schedule is a mix of +5 out-of-conference games. So the schedule seems to do this no matter how many times I reset it:

• One game each versus every other team (15/20 games)
• Repeat five out-of-conference opponents for the last five weeks of the regular season (5/20 games)

Which means that if we have unbalanced conferences, one conference will just pound on the other. Thus, the slight-re-alignment. Thanks to Josh, Randall, Eric, and Jimmy for suffering the indignity, enjoy your new homes!

And a look at the would-be All-Star teams by conference (all seventeen gold players plus best player from Buffy, Fat Jubas, Fob Stars):

Rules: New Postseason 2.0

Our new goal is it incentivize winning, and so while the draft is a way for losing teams to shore up their teams, we also don’t want to encourage any losing on purpose aka tanking, or owner inactivity.

The simple explanation is that each draft slot is now competed for, and you have to earn a higher pick. It’s easiest to think about the new system as a mini-tournament that happens as you win or lose each postseason matchup. Win and you advance, lose and you face off with your fellow losers in a consolation bracket for a draft slot.

Note: This goes into effect for next season's draft, 2020, not this one obviously.

1) Draft Slots in RD1
The new draft order for RD1 will not be determined by overall record, and will not reward regular season losing. Instead each position will be earned and played for throughout the postseason, via postseason results and then consolation brackets. [See image and explainer below]

2) Playoffs
Top eight teams in the Power Rankings are re-seeded, irrespective of conference. Each playoff round and consolation round will be re-seeded as well. [ Conferences, Re-Seeding, No Roster Lock ] and [ Postseason Mini-Explainer ]

3) Toilet Bowl
The bottom eight teams are thrown into the Toilet Bowl. Draft slots for RD1 are awarded in order of Toilet Bowl finish, #1-8 for picks *1-8.

4) Consolation Brackets
In the past, once you were eliminated from the three-week playoff period, you were gone. We changed it so that every team will now have a reason to play until the end of the postseason in consolation brackets. Everyone plays all three weeks of the postseason

5) Drafting RD2-6
Also a change, RD2-6 of the draft will be in Power Ranking order, meaning we go #1-16, and then snake at the bottom of RD2 into RD3. This rewards regular season win-loss records starting in RD2.

6) Incentivizing Making the Playoffs
It's tough to pass up a shot at the Toilet Bowl crown if you are a bubble team (#8 or #9), so we're toying with the idea that if you win the Toile Bowl as a #9 or #10 seed, you have to give up your RD2 pick to #7 and #8 seed next season.

Edit: Instead we're going to implement a rule that the #9 and #10 seeds can only get up to the *3 draft slot, even if they win the Toilet Bowl. (The next team would just slide up a draft slot.) This is the newly dubbed "Swamp Rule."


First Round Draft Slots: Image

First Round Draft Slots: Text
• Picks *1-8: Toilet Bowl participants, in order of finish (8)
• Pick *9: Finals Runner-Up (1)
• Picks *10-15: Playoff non-Finals participants, in order of finish (6)
• Pick *16: Finals Winner, aka Champ (1)

Note: #9 and #10 seeds cannot win *1 or *2 RD1 draft slots, only up to *3

Glossary

• Postseason= Combined term for playoffs and Toilet Bowl
• Playoffs = Top eight Power Ranked teams
• Toilet Bowl= Bottom eight Power Ranked teams
• Consolation= Postseason bracket for the losers of postseason games
• #= Power Ranking / Seeds
• *= Draft Pick

Rules: Conferences, Re-Seeding, No Roster Lock

#= Power Ranking / Seeds
*= Draft Pick

1) Hello Conferences, Good-bye Divisions
We’re eliminating the old four division setup, and just going with two conferences: Russell vs Chamberlain. The conferences won’t affect postseason play -- postseason seeds are assigned irrespective of conferences -- but will affect schedule, as you tend to play more games in-conference than out. See "Playoff Seeding" below.

Also we won't be using a custom schedule anymore. [ 2019: Re-Alignment ]

2) Power Rankings
At the end of the season, we’ll have a Power Rankings, which will use the same formula as before: (1) overall record (2) H2H record among tied teams (3) most categories won for season (4) coin flip.

3) New Playoff Seeding, and Re-Seeding Each Round
Instead of taking the top four teams from each conference for the playoffs, we’re just taking the top eight teams overall according to Power Ranking, regardless of conference affiliation. That will help mitigate 0.500+ / super-strong teams from making it to the Toilet Bowl.

Also this is the reason we are tossing aside four-team divisions. (Yes, this means we are essentially just one big league. Note: This is something the NBA has considered to even out the imbalance between East and West.)

And with no conferences taken into account, we are now re-seeding each round for playoffs, and Toilet Bowl. This makes it harder for postseason upsets, but also more thrilling when it happens. [ New Postseason 2.0 ] and [ Postseason Mini-Explainer ]

4) Change to Weekly Games Cap
Changing from 22 to 21 soft cap, so that it makes it easier to count. Just make sure you are at 20 for the week before your final big day! Also this change reflects how the NBA has lightened weekly schedules for their teams, thus less games per week for us.

[ Weeky Games Cap explainer ]

5) Changing Fantasy Season End Date
Postseason now starts after WK20 of regular season -- it was WK21 before. This is to accommodate the revised NBA schedule. The rule of thumb is that we''ll end our entire SlamNation season two weeks prior to the end of NBA regular season -- it was one before -- to mitigate the effect of NBA resting players, and to prevent the dreaded one-and-a-half week championship week which we suffered through before. This year our fantasy season ends March 31st, while NBA regular season ends April 10th.

6) No Roster Lock
Farewell roster lock, which was a rule we had that you couldn’t touch free agents (adds / drops / waivers) once postseason started. Instead we will now have a trade deadline that goes into effect at the end of the fantasy regular season, which would be WK20 for 2019.

7) No More Pushing Trades
Once a trade is completed, we can’t push through trades anymore, they need to be processed by ESPN fully—usually 48 hours. The only exception to this rule is for pre-trade deadline trades, and then we can push the transactions so that the traded players are ready for week one of the postseason.

8) Initial Waiver Order
Initial waiver order will be in reverse Power Rankings order from the previous season.

[ Edit 9/27/2019 ] Once we install FAAB in 2020, this rule will be replaced as there will be no waivers. Instead the Free Agent Auction Tiebreaker will be "Reset Each Week to Inverse Order of Standings." See here for details on our FAAB process.

Schedule 2018: Updated Master Schedule

After yet another schedule snafu, our commissioners went back in and fixed the old schedule, giving it a color refresh and making sure the matrix looks correct. So while 2018's WK4-8 matchups are messed up, everything moving forward should be juuuuust right! We added an exciting WK11 "Rivalry Week" this year, so we're waiting for those matchups to come up. Use it as an opportunity to call out your favorite frenemy or maybe to avenge a close loss!

[ Schedule Matrix ]

Here is our schedule explained in as plain English as possible. Note: In past years we ran 19 regular season weeks, but this year it was expanded to 21 by the NBA schedule makers.

Our league’s 16 teams are split into two conferences — Russell and Chamberlain. The 8 teams in each conference are split into two divisions (C: Transformers / Silverhawks and R: Thundercats / Voltron); every division has four teams.

• Division Games (6): Every team plays six games against the other three teams in its division, facing off twice per season
• Intra-Conference Games (4): Every team plays one game against each of the four teams from the other division within its conference
• Out-Of-Conference Games (8): Every team plays one game against each of the eight teams from the other conference
• Strength of Schedule Games (2): Every team plays its remaining two games, aka “extra,” against two intra-conference teams as determined by the previous season’s standings. The #1 finisher from a division will play #1 and #3 from the intra-conference division, while the #4 finisher from the previous season faces the #2 and #4 finishers from the opposing intra-conference division
• Rivalry Games (1): Every team plays one rivalry game, usually WK11, if the schedule allows

Is there strength of schedule involved?
Yes. But very slight. And it’s mostly in the intra-conference games, where the #1 finishers from each division face the opposing inter-conference division #1 and #3 seeds twice — the two extra conference games referenced above — making their overall schedule slightly tougher.

On the flip side, if you’re a lowly #4 seed in your division, you would play the #2 and #4 seeds from the other conference for your extra games, resulting in a slightly different schedule. Make sense?

Every season should unfold like this:
• The regular season opens with two intra-conference games versus the two teams you’ll face again -- in WK17/18 -- these are the two Strength of Schedule games
• There are four out-of-conference games in each of the season’s two halves -- divided between WK 1-10 and WK11-20. There are slightly more intra-conference games in the season’s first half and more division games in the season’s second half.
• Division Games are usually, assuming twenty-one week season: WK3, 8, 14, 19, 20, 21
• Most importantly, the season closes with three straight matchups against your division mates, giving us an exciting end of season race for division champs

Note: We're not using "intra" vs "inter" because it's too confusing. Technically out-of-conference games are "inter-conference games" but we're just gonna say "out-of-conference."

2015 Schedule

I messed up the 2014 schedule a tad, so someone please spot check me. Otherwise we're good to go with our weighted schedule! Good luck to the last place teams aka me!

Scheduling Mixup and Roster Lock Adjustment

A few housekeeping tidbits. First, the schedule for our 2014 season was unfortunately faulty. Somehow, perhaps owing to commissioner error (ahem), it looks like teams didn’t play the allotted matchups correctly. So for example, the usual matchup includes seven out-of-conference games, but instead we got just five this year, and that may even include two matchups from one out-of-conference opponent. For example: Funk Coalition played Half Man Half ImAsian twice while not matching up against Sour Snails, Buffy, or Jedi Knights once. They should have only not played one of those teams.

Obviously, this means our 2014 win-loss records were skewed, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. This never happened in previous years -- I checked -- and we’ll be more diligent moving forward. Also, if you ever see any scheduling errors in the future, speak up! The schedule is carefully calibrated for divisional finishes but manually entering 19+ weeks of games can lead to errors sometimes. Apologies all around.

Also, it was brought to our attention that a player on waivers during/after the roster lock can’t be grabbed. That’s not really fair, as owners could just drop someone pre-deadline and prevent him from getting picked up. Instead, we’re adjusting our roster lock to allow owners to grab a player on waivers if they submit their claims pre-lock. Does that make sense? Please just email the commishes to let them know beforehand, and who you’ll want to drop in exchange. The downside of angling for a waivers player is you likely won't receive them for a day or two.

For the record, we have an instance of this upcoming, likely on Wednesday, so just be aware that it was pre-approved.

2014 Schedule

The new schedule has been adjusted -- and released -- and as always, it's semi-weighted for division finishes. That's what Alvin tells me anyway. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but it's to help parity or something. All I know is that I keep losing, and I don't know why! [Click for archived "schedule" posts]

What we haven't ever looked at is how that weighted schedule plays out. Each 19 week regular season consists of the following:

• 6 Division games
• 6 Conference games
• 7 Out of conference games

For example: Eron, Joven, and Chandler finished 6-13 last year, good for last place in Transformers division. This upcoming season they'll play everyone in their own division twice, and then their fellow Chamberlain Conference foes, the Silverhawks division, for six games. They face off against the Jedi Knights and Fat Jubas twice, while only matching up against Sour Snails and Fob Stars once each. Ideally they'd play everyone in the opposing Russell Conference once, but with only seven out of conference games, EJC skip out on facing 100 Acre Wood Heffalumps this year.

What that means is that if you're in a tough division -- and to a lesser extent, a tough conference -- you're constantly battling against each other year after year, just as it should be. In fact, the last three games of your team's season will always be against fellow division mates, which can make for great head-to-head games for post-season contention. Also, six of the last seven games are against division or conference rivals, which makes the back half of the season very important for determining the two conference wild cards and jostling for division titles. Take a look at how the season schedule plays out each year:

• WK1-10: Two division games, three in-conference games, five out-of-conference games
• WK11-19: Four division games, three in-conference games, two out-of-conference games

Weekly Games Cap: An Explanation

Not naming any names, some people have asked how to maximize our games despite being in the league for three years. See the little "Game Limits (Cur/Max)* --/22 games played" thing during your head-to-head matchups? That's where you can see games played each week. A quick primer for the rest.

Why have a weekly games limit cap?
The idea around having a cap is to prevent streaming free agents and making fantasy basketball just about who gets to play more guys.

What is the soft versus hard cap?
The soft cap is 22, while the hard cap is 29. This is because it's possible to exceed the soft cap by remaining one game under 22 and then putting in up to eight players the next day, to get to 29 total (21+8). The hard cap is the real number of games counted each week, while the soft cap is just what we have to use because ESPN's system is weird like that. [Changed to 21 soft, 28 hard, in 2019]

The reason ESPN doesn't count individual games that last day is because who's to say which games are worth more on that final day so ESPN counts them all. Power tip: As a savvy coach, you're supposed to try to get to 29 games played.

How do I use the soft cap to my advantage?
As long as you are under the 22 game cap, you can throw in all of the next day's games. So ideally you want to hit Saturday night at 21 games, then put in eight players for Sunday's games. That gives you 21+8 to equal 29 games total. You'll see 29/22 games played. Success!

Also, it doesn't have to be Saturday that you try to be one under the cap. If you don't have a lot of games coming up on a Sunday, sometimes you'll go for under the cap on Friday and then jam in all the games on Saturday. Make sense?

What's the easiest way to do this?
Just count each week how many games your top eight are going to play. I like to start on Saturday and count back to twenty one, then jam in everyone I can on Sunday. Figure out whatever method works for you.

In its conception, SlamNation should mirror a NBA team, with eight players in the playing rotation -- five starters and three subs -- and the four bench spots are mostly unused bench players. That's why our game limits cap is so low. 29 games per week works out to about 3.625 games for each of the eight main players, which is about how many games each NBA player averages per week during their regular season. Note: Last year we adjusted the games max cap higher because of the compressed lockout schedule.

In theory you don't have to touch your lineup each week because the bench can just sit there, but injuries, players' ups and downs, and weekly matchups will affect your actual playing rotation.

2013 Schedule

As you know, Alvin makes the schedule each year and it features a custom strength of schedule, tailored to how bad -- or good -- your team did last year. We're all about parity here at SlamNation, even if somehow I never seem to win. Take a look at the scheduling matrix and if it's off, please tell one of the commishes.

Some scheduling and rules notes for this upcoming 2013 season.

• We adjusted the max games per week back to 22, as we had raised it last season due to the compressed lockout schedule.
• The schedule matrix displays Home/Away teams, but the ESPN site is not accurate in that way because we just arbitrarily entered in the home team.
• WK1 is a max of 19 games, as it starts on Tuesday and is only a six day matchup.
• WK16 is a max of 44 games, as it spans All Star weekend and runs from Feb 11-24 for a fourteen day matchup.
• There are 19 regular season games this season, with the last week being March 11-17.

2012 Rules Updates

1. Waiver wire order post-draft: Waiver wire starts the season as #16-1, or reverse draft order. Setting is still "Move to Last After Claim, Never Reset Order."

2. Draft order for yearly draft: First two rounds are #1-16 and then snake thereafter. #1-16, 1-16, 16-1, 1-16, etc.

3. Scheduling: The regular season is whatever ESPN throws up, so it's not weighted by how well teams did last year. [Edit:] Nevermind, it is weighted as Alvin got it all set up. The regular season is twelve weeks, playoffs start in WK13.

4. Weekly Max Games: Raising max games per week because of compressed NBA schedule, from 22 last year to 26 this year for the soft cap. I'm gauging for 4 games per starter slot, versus a usual season's 3.5 average.

5. Lineup changes: Changing to "Daily - Lock Individually at Scheduled Gametime."

Schedule Template 2011 (Original)

Did you know that your fine commissioner Alvin does a schedule template each and every year that accounts for strength of schedule, conference and divisional games, and needs to be updated manually? Wowza! Yes, this league is so pro that the commissioners are offering their best work to make sure everything is fair and equitable. So please, if you have a spare point guard or big man needing a cheap way to exit your roster, consider your fine commishes as trade targets first.

And if you have League Manager powers, do not adjust the schedule settings or reset them, otherwise Alvin will be very upset.

Gearing up for 2011

Welcome to the new season! It's a dark dark world as the Lakers are the two time champs but our league champion, Trieu, is loving both his and the Lakers' big wins. So, are we ready for the 2011 season? Everyone is in right?

Keepers declared by Oct 7th-ish, we draft asap after that. It should only be a six round draft this time around. A little rules refresher if needed as well as links to final standings from last year and rosters:

2010 Rules | 2010 Final Standings | 2010 Rosters

Possible rules changes:
1. Lineup Changes: Last year it was "Daily - Lock at First Game of the Day," I'm changing it to "Daily - Lock Individually at Scheduled Gametime." I doubt there's much argument here and we only didn't change it last year because the setting was locked.

2. Games Played Limits: This is the big one. Last year it was 32 and we voted it down to 22 after our WK2 games. However ESPN would only allow it to go as low as 25 for a seven game week. This year ESPN changed that and we can move it to any number we want. So can we do 22 again now that it's available? Or go even lower? Remember, if you are one below the cap number, the entire next day's slate counts, so you can go over the soft cap of 22, making the hard cap about +7 of our set number.

3. Waiver Wire: Currently waivers is "Move to Last After Claim, Never Reset Order." Free Agents are exacty that, free for the taking I believe.

I've been wanting to try ESPN's Free Agent Auction which gives each team $100 to use throughout the season to do blind auctions for free agents. "Simply put, FAAB is an in-season salary cap that covers all your free-agent needs." I love the concept but am only using it in one league this season for football. I'd want to try it but don't know if anyone else would be up for it. How FAAB works.

4. Anything else? Payouts for next year's winner, additional rule changes, administrative details?

[Update 10.12.2010] #1 and #2 were instituted, meaning lineup changes are now daily and the soft cap for games played limit per week is now 22 games, assuming a normal seven day matchup.

Rule Addendums

To clarify issues, some additional rules:

• Roster locks occur before the first game of the playoffs, and then trades re-open post-Finals and up to the following year's draft. You own your entire roster until it's time to announce keepers (date to be determined).
• No waiver wire transactions can occur after the roster lock date, even though technically you could submit that transaction before the date. Waivers need to be fully processed before the lock day.
• If a player is on Injured Reserve when the roster lock happens, you cannot use him for the rest of the playoffs and Toilet Bowl.
• Playoff seeding goes like this: Division winners are #1 and #2 and for both the playoffs and Toilet Bowl, teams compete in their own conference first before the big Russell vs Chamberlain face off in the last week.
• Next year's Waiver Order will be reconsidered. In 2010 we did it #1-12 by initial draft order but it should be rediscussed again.
• Any post-game scoring changes will be adjusted and upheld by the ESPN system.

Playoff Tie-Breaker System

Power Rankings are basically rankings off of win-loss record. Tie-breakers differ depending on what you're trying to break (division rank, wildcard, overall, etc). If three or more teams are tied, H2H winning %'s among tied teams are used to break ONE team out of the tie. Then the tiebreaks reset for the remaining tied teams.

Overall Power Rankings (determine next season base Draft order)
1. Overall Record
2. H2H Record among tied teams. If more than 2 teams are tied, H2H winning % among all tied teams is used
3. Most Categories won for season. If H2H records are the same, the team with the most categories won among our scoring system for the year wins the tiebreak. This is similar to a weekly H2H matchup, except using category totals for the season.
4. Coin flip. If teams are still tied with number of categories won, a coin flip will be used. Specifics of the coin flip (depending on # of teams involved) will be decided at that time.

Division Rankings (to rank teams in a division to determine division champion)
1. Overall Record
2. H2H Record. If more than 2 teams are tied, H2H winning % among all tied teams is used
3. Division Record (record against divisional opponents)
4. Conference Record (record against conference opponents)
5. Most Categories won for season. If H2H, Division, Conference records are the same, the team with the most categories won among our scoring system for the year wins the tiebreak. This is similar to a weekly H2H matchup, except using category totals for the season.
6. Coin flip
[Changed to no divisons in 2019]

Conference Rankings (to determine Wildcard participants. Excludes Division Champions from the equation)
1. Overall Record
2. H2H Record. If more than 2 teams are tied, H2H winning % among all tied teams is used.
3. Conference Record (record against conference opponents)
4. Most Categories won for season. If H2H and Conference records are the same, the team with the most categories won among our scoring system for the year wins the tiebreak. This is similar to a weekly H2H matchup, except using category totals for the season.
5. Coin flip

Playoff Tiebreaks (to determine winner of playoff matchup should a tie occur)
This can be controversial, but in the playoffs, I've always gone with ties going to the higher seed. You've earned that right over the course of the regular season. [Update 3/18/24: We are officially going with "higher seed" wins a postseason tied matchup.]

Rules 1.0

This is a head-to-head most categories won dynasty league. Seasons will be denoted by which year the NBA Finals is played. For example, a fantasy season may start November 2009 but the NBA Finals will be in June 2010 so this is the 2010 fantasy year.

SETUP
Two conferences, each consisting of two divisions of four teams each

Conference 1
(Silverhawks) Trieu, Jimmy, Chris, Eric-L
(Transformers) Oliver, Steve, Roger, Brian

Conference 2
(Thundercats) Evan, Jose, Jon, Mikey
(Voltron) Thien, Eric-A, Alvin, Pierre

SCORING

• 9 Non-weighted categories: PTS, AST, REB, STL, BLK, 3PM, FG%, FT%, TO
• Head-to-head Most Categories won each week 
• A matchup win is 1 W/L, not a win or loss per category

ROSTERS

• Starting lineup requirements: 1 PG, 1 SG, 1 SF, 1 PF, 1 C, and 1 G, 1 PF/C, 1 Util
• 8 Starters, 4 Bench, 1 IR
• All positional and injured reserve eligibility determined by ESPN

KEEPERS

• Keep 6 players from each season, declared one week before the yearly draft

LINEUP

• Lineup Change: Daily - Lock Individually at Scheduled Gametime.  (updated 12/2011)
• Games Played Limits: Matchup limit is 22 games, assuming seven day matchup week. (26 during 2012 lock out season.)

TRANSACTIONS

• Waiver Period: 1 day
• Waiver System: Move to Last After Claim, Never Reset Order
• Trade Review Period: 24 hours
• Votes Required to Veto Trade: 10 "nay" votes (2/3 majority), excluding two teams involved in trade

PLAYOFFS

• Lock rosters heading into playoffs (no add/drops)
• Division winners get into playoffs, plus two wildcards from each conference
• Toilet Bowl of the non-playoff teams for next year's draft order
• Playoff tie-breaker system is linked to here.

FUTURE DRAFTS

• Toilet Bowl winner and runner-up get picks #1 and #2 overall picks, then it's reverse order of standings, no snake.
• Champion and runner-up get last and next-to-last picks respectively.