Ladder Leagues — How It Works

What Is a Ladder League?

A ladder league is a structured, multi-division competitive league. Players or teams are placed into tiered divisions — Div A at the top, then Div B, Div C, and so on. You compete against others in your own division, and at the end of each cycle the top performers move up while the bottom move down.

The result: every division stays competitive, and there's always something to play for — whether you're chasing a promotion or fighting to hold your spot.

Divisions & Ratings

Each division is its own separate rating pool — your Div A rating and your Div B rating are completely independent. Ratings are calculated using an Elo system — similar to chess rankings — based on your actual game scores, not just wins and losses. Beat a higher-rated opponent and you'll gain more points; lose to a lower-rated one and you'll drop further.

Ladder leagues support two modes:

• Individual mode — each player carries their own rating and moves between divisions independently.
• Team mode — fixed partnerships are rated as a unit. The team's combined performance determines standing and movement. Split up and form a new partnership? That's a brand-new team with a fresh rating — your old team's rating doesn't transfer.

How a Cycle Works

A "cycle" is a round of play between promotions and relegations. It could be a single session per division, or several — however much play makes sense before processing the next cycle. Here's what happens:

1. Standings are calculated — divisions are ranked by visible rating (your rating adjusted for any inactivity decay).
2. Movers are identified — the bottom players/teams in each higher division are marked for relegation. The top players/teams in each lower division are marked for promotion.
3. Start ratings are set — promoted players get a start rating based on the lower end of their new division. Relegated players get one based on the upper end of theirs. This lands you in a competitive position — not starting from scratch, not parachuting in at the top.
4. Transfers execute — players move into their new divisions and the next cycle begins.

The number of promotion and relegation slots is configurable — usually 1 or 2 per division boundary. Cycles are triggered manually from the ladder management page whenever the time is right.

What If I Miss a Few Weeks?

Life happens. The ladder has a built-in system to handle inactivity fairly.

How decay works

If you don't play during a cycle, your visible rating starts to drop. This prevents inactive players from permanently holding top spots. But here's the important part: your real rating is never lost. The system tracks a "hidden" rating that stays exactly where you earned it.

The longer you're away, the more your visible rating drops — it accelerates over time. After enough inactivity, your visible rating may drop low enough that you get relegated to a lower division at the next cycle.

Coming back

The moment you play a game, your full rating is instantly restored — no grinding back up required. The game is then scored normally against your restored rating.

The catch: if your decay was bad enough to get you relegated, you'll need to play your way back up from the lower division. Your rating is restored, but you're still in the division you were dropped to — at least until the next cycle promotes you out.

Protection from double-drops

If you were relegated due to inactivity, you're protected from being dropped again in the very next cycle — you won't bounce down two divisions without ever playing. But this protection is one-time: once you play a game in your new division, normal rules apply again. If you then disappear a second time, you can be relegated again.

Promotion & Relegation Details

How start ratings work

When you move to a new division, you don't start at some arbitrary number. Your start rating is calculated from the existing players in that division:

• Promoted up? You start near the bottom of your new division — specifically, the average rating of the bottom third of players already there.
• Relegated down? You start near the top of your new division — the average rating of the top third.

This means you enter at a realistic competitive position. You're not sandbagging and you're not way over your head.

Returning to a previous division

If you've played in a division before — say you were in Div B last year and get relegated back — your old rating and game history from that division are restored. You pick up where you left off instead of starting fresh.

Minimum games requirement

To be eligible for promotion or relegation, you typically need to have played at least one game in the current cycle. Players who haven't played at all are generally excluded from movement — with one exception: if you've accumulated enough inactivity decay, you can still be relegated without playing.

Playing as a Spare in Another Division

Short a player for tonight's Div A event? Someone from Div B can fill in as a spare. Here's how it works:

• The spare gets a temporary rating in the host division (defaulting to the standard starting rating).
• Their home-division standing is unaffected — playing up in Div A doesn't change your Div B rating.
• If you spare in the same division again later, your previous temporary rating is restored — you don't reset each time.
• Spare direction is configurable — higher divisions, lower divisions, or both.

Spares aren't formally part of the division they're filling in for, so their temporary presence doesn't count toward promotion/relegation standings or affect start-rating calculations for movers.

Team Partnerships (Team Mode)

In team mode, fixed partnerships are the competitive unit. Some things to know:

• Each partnership has its own rating — "Alice & Bob" is a separate entity from "Alice & Carol." Switching partners means starting fresh with a new team rating.
• Reuniting restores history — if Alice & Bob split and later re-pair, their old team rating and record come back. Nothing is lost.
• Individual ratings are tracked too — each player has a personal rating as a secondary stat, but the team rating is what determines standings, matchups, and movement.
• Custom team names — partnerships can set a custom team name that displays in standings. Otherwise, it shows as "Player 1 & Player 2."

Public Standings

Each ladder has a shareable public link for standings — no login required. The standings page shows:

• Each division's leaderboard with rank, rating, and win/loss record
• Promotion zone (green) and relegation zone (red) indicators
• After a cycle completes, who actually moved where
• Recent game results and rating changes