BuzzerBeater Forums

Playoff-post (here: (327517.7) updated, and semifinal matches on 21st of September added.

For one reason or another, second matchup is incorretly bolded, but it is easy to determine which team is responsible for sending challenge nevertheless, as better ranked team always is responsible for it.

(As for incorrect bolding of text, this has been the case with several other posts as well, and it's not due to incorrect usage of [ b] and [ /b] signs in a post. Examples include these posts, if you don't click into them through link, but scroll down to them when you go to a Scores thread. Example 1: (327517.8) and example 2: (327517.6).

In the most above linked Season 2 Playoff post the problem remains even if you'd click yourself to post through the link.

Tips are appreciated if you guys have a clue if I do something wrong, but I haven't at least spotted (editing) errors in my posts.

Nevertheless, higher ranked teams have once again been able secure wins, so in that sense Second Round on Season 2 Playoffs provided no surprise results.

Now that semifinals are officially announced, Hadár and SventraCanestri as home team managers can start sending semifinal match challenges to Spela and Paul George, respectively.

As usual, Playoffs are played on Sundays, so match day will be 21st of September as you all know.

It's already guaranteed, that at least 2 new countries will receive first ever medal in HGL, as only team left which was also participating to Season 1 semifinals stage is Svätý Jur Snakers from Slovakia!

Last edited by Wagner at 9/14/2025 1:33:44 PM

Playoff-post (here: (327517.7) updated, and semifinal matches on 21st of September added.

[...]

It's already guaranteed, that at least 2 new countries will receive first ever medal in HGL, as only team left which was also participating to Season 1 semifinals stage is Svätý Jur Snakers from Slovakia!

...and the current reigning HGL Champion!

Indeed, and it's never easy to beat a reigning champion, especially as his salaries have gone up 16% (HGL leading $103K) from Season 1!

With current semifinal teams (on Season 2) top8-salaries are quite wide spread among these 4 remaining teams (comparison including Regular Season success on Season 2):

1. Svätý Jur Snakers $742K (Regular Season: 14wins-1loss)
2. Hårdboll $477K (RS: 12W-3L)
3. Virtus Portici $473K (RS: 15W-0L)
4. Rajdersi $342K (RS: 11W-4L)


Both semifinal match links have been provided, so we are good to go.

Good luck for all remaining semifinal teams, and may all 25550 seats be filled in Pala-Fitta in Italy, and 20550 seats in Fatamorgána in Slovakia - home arenas of Virtus Portici and Svätý Jur Snakers, respectively!


Last edited by Wagner at 9/16/2025 5:13:52 AM

+1

As for the salaries and team development, have you made any predictions/projections (with buzzer-manager or by other means) on how your team salaries will develop when we enter HGL Season 3? As we practically know, your young (top 8 players: 25,4 years, 4th lowest value in HGL) team will get a lot stronger in coming years...

And what kind of expectations do you have for a draft? It seems many teams are drafting before you, but only like 3-5 will be human teams (that I guess are the only real opposition in a draft, unless bot teams turn out to be real lucky)... So you might be getting at least one more cornerstone for your future from this draft, if all stars (superstars, perennial all-stars, and all-stars - pun intended) are aligned correctly so to speak... :)

[..]
My 1st team will go from $95k this season to $125k next season if training stays on track for the last few weeks; so, a $30k improvement.
[..]
EDIT: I should note that the following season will see much larger jumps due to the type of skills being trained. It won't be long before both teams are easily $200k+ teams.
[..]
I have now gone 1-position training for both teams. I should have a very decent SF and PF for my first team by the end of next season before switching to guard training in Season 71. My SF, Livingstone, will be ready to adapt to guard training to finish him off. My 7'3" PF prospect, Hunter, will be a $50k+ 22yr old with plenty of training left in him.
[..]
Well, I am a couple weeks away from knowing exactly what draftees I will select for my first team, but there are some guard prospects I really want target as my backcourt is old and almost ready for retirement.

[..]

Importantly, nearly every one of my players on both teams have received some training this season so this has only increased the depth of both teams.
[..]

Interesting and very thorough answer, thank you.. :) So much so, that it's not easy to reply to every aspect of it. But even if I don't, like I said it's interesting to read all this, and I think these kind of replies can give also other managers even more inspiration to keep fighting hard to make their team(s) as strong as possible.

And this reply of yours also underlined the fact that you know what you're doing, and like you said, jump in salaries after you reach that certain level (if you do the training certain way, that you train "expensive" skills bit later on) will usually be quite fast (say, from $125K to $200K level like in your example). And reaching that first victory is not going to be far away... this season you were already pretty close to get it.
And this wasn't said to overemphasize the meaning of winning games as you and I (and I believe most of us) feel BB and HGL is much more than just about winning, but it will be a nice bonus for your hard work nevertheless. :)

Good to hear your training has been very effective this season... I might not be able so say the same for my team with same confidence, as it's been a survival battle in my "regular BB league", which gives me a bridge to another subject: BB and HGL league system (in terms of one/two separate groups).

There were many reasons why a single league table was chosen for HGL instead of two same level groups, one being that it's most fair and equal choice for all. While following example - that underlines the benefit of using single league table - is bit on the extreme side, it's still a real example of "when things go wrong with two same level league tables".
The example mentioned before is actually my teams' BB league's league table, which is as uneven as I've ever experienced/seen.
League table is found from here: https://www.buzzerbeater.com/league/2300/overview.aspx

Teams that are on the other side (my side) of the table are 3rd and 4th on the league table with record 7 wins-12 losses, while if positioned to the other group, would be directly relegated with that record (you would have to have better than 9W-10L +/- minus 20 record to avoid direct relegation in that group).
Also, all teams in that "other side, better group" will in practice win their relegation matches, having pretty much superior rosters (in terms team capability and in most if not all cases, also in top5 salaries), so for teams in my (weaker) group relegation is only avoided by qualifying into the playoffs.

So I won't even get myself started more than this right now (unless someone comments something that I'd then respond), but I wanted to use this example if anyone still thinks it'd be better to have two same level groups/league tables in HGL instead of one same level group that we've been using since the beginning. ;)

Thanks for your responses, Wagner.

As for the 1 v 2 league proposal...

I like the 1 league ladder we have used up until the present. And while it would be great to continue it, I see a couple of obvious problems with this.

This is a long discussion, to which I'm not sure I have enough time currently. But I'll give some reply for now.
This post of mine in fact wasn't 1 vs. 2 different league level-leagues proposal, not at all. I was referring to 2 same level groups within a same league tier. However, many problems/challenges can be considered similar in 2 different level leagues, so for the purpose of this post, I'll use those interchangeably.
No solution will ever be perfect, but I don't see too many problems with current setup to change it.

Firstly, the ladder will continue to grow (if history has shown us anything as more and more teams join the HGL) and we ensure every team who wants to play, can.

Secondly, and perhaps as a result of this, a larger ladder/league will require more games. This in turn will require a lot more PU tokens from players. Now, although some of you have large caches of PU tokens (still?), even those players will, if the league continues to grow, find it hard to keep up with that many tokens.

As you mentioned, we'll have to see how many teams would be interested in joining HGL, and how "participation rights" would be given to teams, if there would be limited amount of league positions available for given season. This has been discussed on also earlier, or at least I've given multiple solutions on how to possibly solve this. As a very short recap that might leave some earlier presented options out, we could for instance have "a play-in league or play-in playoffs for participation right to next HGL season" during the current HGL Regular Season or Playoffs. This, of course, only would work until certain extent, if teams wouldn't be stepping out of HGL voluntarily (as has been the case so far, as many teams have left HGL and replacing teams have filled the 16 teams roster - this might or might not be the case also in the future).

As for the number of games per team if team amount is increased, this is a clear problem/challenge.
That's also a reason why it might be preferable to keep this number of teams at a certain maximum level, and have a short play-in series/playoff instead (for participation rights to next season) if many new teams would apply for position in HGL.
On the other hand, we'd have to deal with decisions such as should any of the current HGL teams be forced to enter such play-in series, with a risk of losing their place in HGL should they not play well enough in it - as you know, initially I haven't been a fan of that idea (and I'd prefer to secure a place for teams that want to keep on playing if they keep on following the HGL rules and protocols).

However, while problems of growth are positive problems, I also wish to remind that there is no obligation for HGL to grow/accept new teams more than it sees optimal (in terms of main league, I'm not referring to possible play-in type of league/playoff series), and if decision on significant growth is being made, all aspects (including possibly expanding teams allowed to Playoffs, etc.) need to be considered prior to that.

For both of the reasons stated above, perhaps we all need to start discussing and considering a change to the league/ladder so that:

1. We include as many teams as possible in the HGL; and
2. We ensure that the number of games per season don't out-pace the number of PU tokens teams colelct in the same period of time.

Just some thoughts...

Maximum amount of teams in HGL within current setup is debatable, but I guess it's somewhere between 16-18(-20?) teams(?).
Token usage is one thing to consider, but as long as we don't expand beyond those numbers, it could be possible to adapt requirement if given team is low on tokens.

I will also add here a proposal I may have floated originally when we were setting up the HGL.

As you might recall, I used to be involved (about 35+ seasons ago) in a large Australian PL competition called the Fishbowl. Like the HGL, it started off relatively humble with 16-20 teams and quickly began to grow as more and more teams heard about it and wanted to join.

As a result, we created an upper division and a lower division (the names of these escape me as I write this). The upper division comprised of the top 16 teams and the lower division comprised of the 16 lower teams. I don't recall how we defined which team went into the upper or lower division but I think it was based on salary.

We also had a component that required a team to win or finish in the final of the lower division (for example) to be able to 'promote' to the upper division where the 2 worst performing upper division teams relegated in much the same way we do in the league currently.

Now, I may be not entirely accurate in the number of teams [..] but you get the idea.

Perhaps we might consider something similar for the HGL? In terms of effort on your part as commissioner, it wouldn't be that much more work. More scheduling, however, and perhaps more importantly, will alleviate the PU token pressures that are surely on the horizon if we maintain the current setup.

We could even have a Deputy Commissioner responsible (in the same way you have been for the HGL thus far) for scheduling, maintaining and enforcing rules for the proposed 'lower' division.

These are just musings of course as you have floated the possibility of change and, as we can predict with some accuracy, change will be required at some point in the future if the HGL continues to expand.

I won't edit all parts of your message out that I'm not referring into here, but I'll just respond to some parts of your post.
I remember your Fishbowl experience, however I've forgotten most if not all of it's details.

It is possible that HGL reaches similar kind of interest when time flies by, but as for now, there are still limited number of HG teams, of which limited amount are interested in playin in HGL (both of those numbers we of course hope will increase in the future), so this is clearly not a problem within the same scope as it was with Fishbowl with approximately 36 teams playing in it.

As for considering similar kind of system for HGL, I'm currently not a fan of it. While it does have some positives, and while I haven't 100% ruled out two tier league system somewhere in the distant future, I don't see it being optimal at all at this point. Of course it is necessary to approach this cautiously, as we want to present HGL as inviting option and want to give potentially new HG teams a realistic time scope within which they could achieve a place in HGL (by playing or by accepting team by a Commissioners' decision as has been the case so far), so that their initial experience/feeling of HGL would be as positive as possible.

However, we do need to remain realistic on the amount of HGL related work (remember it is 100% manual league). If team number would grow, league related tasks would grow significantly, and even more so on 2 different level league tiers-setup.
And as long as token usage remains about lower than what can be acquired per season, I don't see that as a major problem.

As for now, dividing some tasks among 100% committed managers that share the same views (on everything, including forcing penalties strictly) could be okay, but I don't think I'd be a fan of giving for instance this "lower level league" total control to someone else. And if I wouldn't, then it would still mean I'd have to verify everything myself (yes, again more work). So as usual, I will consider all you've written and those will possibly alter my opinions (towards your views) in the future, but they didn't change my position/current views at least just yet.