Last week we lost Rydawpark off the Leaderboard. And when I say lost him I don’t mean his ranking fell or his win percentage was too low to rank. He sports a 9-8 won-loss record (.529) and he has the fourth most games played of all Throwdown players. His name however, just disappeared off the Leaderboard after I scored the Week 5 games.

Even I was surprised, and assumed it was a glitch in the matrix. Upon further investigation however, I learned the reason he got bumped was because he didn’t meet a condition of the top-secret formula developed to rank our Fantasy Throwdown players. So top-secret, I even forgot all the parts of the formula. So I am going to spill the beans on how our Leaderboard formula works. Here is what you need to do to get ranked:

1. Must play five or more games

2. Must play against two or more different opponents

3. Must play against X or more different opponents where X = number of games / 4 (rounded up)

Once you’ve met all conditions, then you get a spot on the Leaderboard and the rankings are by win percentage.

Rydawpark hit the first two conditions, but once he got 13 games under his belt, Throwdown no longer gave him a ranking. At 13 games he needed to play against four different opponents (13 / 4 = 3.25, rounded up to 4). So far he’s played against raptors (which as our current #1 player should be worth something), Ravage (reverse effect, right Jay?) and myself, or three different opponents.

The reason for us setting up the Leaderboard ranking formula like this is to promote challenging different people, which helps us get more people to play Throwdown, but also gives more legitimacy to the rankings. If someone is racking up a lot of wins against one or two people, then they shouldn’t be ranked ahead of someone who earned his win percentage against a larger, more diverse group of players.

That was our theory anyway when we developed the ranking methodology, and we’re sticking with it for now. When I told raptors about how this works he asked, “so if I just keep playing the same guys I’ll eventually fall off the Leaderboard too?” “Yes.”

So help these guys, and yourself, by accepting public challenges in the Lobby to increase the number of different opponents each of you has played against. Now I just need to double check the system is counting the different opponents correctly. One more thing for my to-do list.

Welcome New Users

Don’t forget to check the weekly Fantasy Throwdown stats posted in the forum, here. I added a new query to my stats to identify new users who played their first Throwdown game last week.

With that I’d like to send out a welcome to Oman!!, Steve smithpres, steelersrock and rj12. Welcome aboard guys and thanks for playing!

Leaderboard Update

I didn’t have a good week so raptors not only beat me, but I fell a few games behind him on the Leaderboard thanks to losses to newbie steelersrock, tpmathis and Rick (again – Rick is on a roll!). At least I won my $5 / week game against akareckas and I beat Matt by a narrow margin thanks to Santonio Holmes coming through for me on Monday night.

fudbuccaneer pulls up into third spot on the Leaderboard with a .500 record. ThunderMonkey and BuffaloMudwings are a game behind, but it is unlikely both of them jump up the standings at the same time since they tend to beat up on each other.

We have about 30 different users playing Throwdown, but only 8 on the Leaderboard currently. We’ll see who meets all three conditions after Week 7 and where they land in the rankings.

Site Changes

Last thing before I sign off, is I know in prior weeks users have been unable to check their Throwdown games from the Game Manager once the NFL games start on Sunday, to remember what players they drafted and what players are going against them. The games would then re-appear in the Game Manager after they are scored final late Sunday or Monday night.

I believe this issue is now fixed, although we can’t truly test it until this weekend. All games should remain in the Game Manager – Current until they are scored final, at which time they move to Game Manager – History. Keep an eye on that this week and let us know if you notice any issues.

Thanks again for playing Fantasy Throwdown! Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter @FantasyThrowdwn (not a typo; we’re one letter too long for Twitter), and go challenge some friends to a game of Throwdown.

Open Beta is a good way to put it I think. The site still needs some key components – tutorial, expanded contact info, etc. – but for all intents and purposes, we are Live!

It has been a long saga getting Fantasy Throwdown up and running and available for public consumption. I don’t plan on rehashing the whole thing right now, but this is the second time we’ve gone live, and the plan is for Fantasy Throwdown to stick around this time. Hopefully for a good long time.

Give the game a try. Whether you are a hard core fantasy football player, casual player or even just regular football fan who wants to dip their toe into fantasy football, this is the game for you. We think you’ll love the concept, simplicity, challenge and tradition all captured in Fantasy Throwdown.

Thanks for your time.

Kind regards,

Mike MacGregor and Matt Waldman

“Did you receive a challenge to Throwdown?”