The winners and the results from this year's contests.
November 9, 2023 by Keith Raynor in Fantasy with 0 comments
With the 2023 Club Championships in the book, our college fantasy competitions and games are all wrapped up. We picked the winners, guessed the props, and tried to find the upsets and which favorites to target. Hopefully, following along was fun.
But now let’s break down the results and announce the winners of #TheGame and the Beat Charlie Challenge for this year’s club Nationals.
#TheGame
The Winners
Our first place finisher was Aaron A, who amassed 317 points with a lineup of Scandal, Truck Stop, Hybrid, Machine, and Riot. As you can imagine, selecting Hybrid was a prerequisite to topping the table. At just below 20% of entries, that just about eliminated four out of five players. Ryan’s entry also checked another important box: a title team. The rest was a pair of finalists, and Riot left points on the table but did allow Ryan to afford the more successful teams.
Five entries tied for second with 312 points. Of those, Kaden nailed the first tiebreaker, separating that entry from the pack for second place, with a lineup of Brute Squad, PoNY, Hybrid, Fury, and Johnny Bravo. Jeff T was the closest aside from Greg S in both tiebreakers and took third place with a lineup of Brute Squad, Machine, Mixtape, Fury, and Hybrid.
In this new format, about 22% of entries went for the 20 point bonus for the discounted lineup. Two such lineups were in the top 20, so it was a viable strategy, if not optimal this go round.
Aaron A wins a month of All-Access subscription and an Ultiworld prize pack.
Kaden and Jeff T each win a month of Standard subscription.
An earlier version incorrectly assigned winning entries to the wrong people. That has been corrected.
Selection Stats
Top 5 Mixed Teams
- Mixtape (37.9%)
- Mischief (24%)
- NOISE (21.3%)
- Hybrid (19.6%)
- Shine (12.1%)
The big name cachet of Seattle Mixtape, the reigning champions with the #1 ranked player, for just $3 was always going to take the top spot in mixed. Is it surprising so many got to Hybrid and NOISE? After all the fuss about how good their pool was, it could have been risky, and it certainly hurt to take a zero from Madison, but Hybrid rewarded the faithful handsomely. Shine, however, also laid an egg. Lawless (8.2%) and XIST (6.4%) also both outscored their expected points pretty nicely.
Top 5 Men’s Teams
- Rhino Slam! (44.6%)
- PoNY (39.6%)
- Truck Stop (22.5%)
- Johnny Bravo (17.3%)
- Machine (11.6%)
Rhino was another team expected to lead the pack in their division, as a team with pedigree, starpower, and a tempting price at an affordable $2. They did outperform their expected, 30 to 10, but weren’t the tournament winner supporters might have hoped for. For the same price, 17% of entrants got 55 points from Bravo. Ring of Fire was the only other team to crack 10% selection rate, so the men’s division picks were highly concentrated.
Top 5 Women’s Teams
- Brute Squad (23.5%)
- Scandal (21.8%)
- Fury (17.1%)
- Phoenix (15.4%)
- Flipside (11.9%)
The two finalists at the top? Nicely done, folks; it also further eschews “avoid teams in the same pool” idealogy. Of course, Brute Squad cost $3 and earned the most points. Because the women’s division was both mostly chalky from a seeding standpoint and from expectation, there really wasn’t much value to be had. Mostly, it was key for entrants to avoid the Phoenix (and a lesser extent, 6ixers) landmine. I wonder why there was a fade on Molly Brown (4%)?
The Perfect Lineup
- Hybrid (1)
- Brute Squad (3)
- Machine (3)
- Johnny Bravo (2)
- Shame (4)
A total of 385 points.
The Bonuses and Tiebreakers
How many total points (G+A) will the men’s division, women’s division, and mixed division leaders score during the tournament? (11 pts)
Travis Dunn topped all scorers with 43, while Raphy Hayes led the men’s division with 37 points, and multiple players tied for the women’s division’s 26-score top mark. That gives us a total of 106. There were four guesses of 105 and two of 107, but nobody was on the nose to score the big 11-point bonus. Looking at how hard this was, we should have made it worth more points!
What will be the result of the pool play game between AMP and Mixtape, live on Ultiworld? (9 pts)
There were three options: AMP wins by three or more, AMP wins by exactly one or two, or Mixtape wins. AMP pulled out a cover, ending the game before a potential Mixtape run could get them inside the line. Only 17.8% of entrants got this one, with 43.6% picking Mixtape upset and 38.6% picking the close AMP win.
Will the team that begins on defense score the first goal (break) in any final? (7 pts)
The first two offenses came out and took care of business, but in the last final, Machine opened the game with a break against Truck Stop. That awarded the 7 points with 35.9% of entries.
Tiebreaker 1: In how many games will the losing team score fewer than 7 goals?
There were 14 such scores, including a 15-2 and a 15-3.
Tiebreaker 2: How many blocks will be recorded across all three finals?
Led by the women’s division contest, there were 42 blocks on Sunday at Nationals.
Beat Charlie Challenge
Charlie’s Picks
185 of 334 entries outscored Mr. Eisenhood, who finished with 26 points. That puts Charlie at about the 45th percentile, his record worst performance, a far fall from his previous low of 72%. Better luck next year, Chuck.
This run’s top scorers: X Stewart, Spencer Rebman, Nate H, and Alan Field, each with 35.
Women’s Division
- Quarterfinals: Scandal, Phoenix, Fury, Molly Brown, Flipside, BENT, Brute Squad, Traffic
- Semifinals: Scandal, Phoenix, Fury, Molly Brown
- Final: Scandal, Fury
- Champion: Scandal
- Scored: 12
We lead where Charlie led: in the women’s division. This is the lone division where the bossman beat out the average (10.17). A part of that is calling for Traffic to make the quarterfinals, which about 23.9% of entrants went for. Only 5% of entries had Brute Squad in the final and only 1.8% took them to win, so Charlie didn’t lose out much there. He was only a point away from that Scandal-Fury matchup!
Men’s Division
- Quarterfinals: Truck Stop, PoNY, Revolver, Chain Lightning, Machine, DiG, Ring of Fire, Rhino
- Semifinals: Truck Stop, PoNY, Revolver, Chain Lightning
- Final: Truck Stop, PoNY
- Champion: PoNY
- Scored: 9
This is a slightly below average (10.36) result for Charlie. Chain getting knocked out before quarters really hurt him, although they were picked by 42.2% of entries to make semifinals. Revolver was another miss that definitely hurt his overall score, as they were the fifth most popular semifinal pick (beyond Truck and PoNY, both at 97.6%, and Machine and Chain) while quite a few people had Machine. The champion split slightly favored PoNY over Truck Stop, so Charlie also lost out there.
Mixed Division
- Quarterfinals: Shame, Drag’n Thrust, AMP, BFG, Crocs, Mixtape, NOISE, Lawless
- Semifinals: Shame, AMP, Mixtape, Drag’n Thrust
- Final: AMP, Mixtape
- Champion: AMP
- Scored: 5
The bracket got blown up early and Charlie was absolutely routed here. This is perhaps the worst he has done in any division since the contest’s inception. He only got half of the quarterfinalists (though credit for getting Lawless, who only 5.9% of entries picked to make quarters) and a single semifinalist, and that was it for his bracket. Now to be fair to Charlie, most of you all went down with him. The average score was a mere 6.64; his four semifinalists were the four most popular choices. AMP was the favorite to win with 30.4%, followed by Drag’n Thrust (25.4%) and Shame (20.1%).
Just three entrants picked Hybrid to reach the final.
The Winners
By random selection of entrants who outscored Charlie, Alan Field and Lucien Kisch will each receive a free month of All-Access subscription to Ultiworld.
Feedback Welcome!
Did you play? Did you not play? Why or why not? What rules would be fun to play with? What tweaks can be made?
We want #thegame and the Beat Charlie Challenge to be fun and have different strategies be viable without being too complicated for lots of people to enter. You can contact me by emailing [email protected] or on Twitter @FullFieldHammer.
