The league night of 8/9 was the 7th meeting of season 16, so it started our final bank rotation. We had a vote to fill in two empty spots in Bank 8 (known as “Zeus”) and the most popular choice ended up being Getaway. In second place there was a tie between Cactus Canyon and Stranger Things, and I did a random drawing to break the tie, landing on Cactus Canyon. Stranger Things was designated to be a backup game if needed.
Our average league night attendance has been dwindling this season, raising the question of whether we should continue using the rotation format or return to having everyone play the same game on the same night. There are some advantages to both formats, but if we continue averaging about 12 people per night, rotating really won’t be necessary. It’s a question we are going to want to consider before the start of Season 17.
We had both a surprising absence and a surprising reappearance this time. Allen let me know that Derik wouldn’t be attending the rest of the season, as he didn’t have a chance of making A division and didn’t want to play in B. I was surprised, and said that I thought he must be wrong about not having a chance to make A. Then I went and looked at the numbers and realized he was probably right. Derik has always been a power player in the league, so he must be having an off season. The reappearance was by Wolff, who I thought might have drifted away from league after we didn’t see him for a few meetings. It was great to have him back. It was also good to be finishing the season with Allen still around. He was originally going to be returning to his home in Texas at the end of July, but it turned out he would be in Lansing a while longer and would be able to complete the league season after all.
I ended up in a group with Allen and Jason. I had just finished a rotation in a group with Jason, so we’ve been playing together a lot lately. There was a time when being in a group with power players like them would have made me feel a little embarrassed about my B-level abilities, but these days it often has the opposite effect and ups my game. This was one of those nights. Although I didn’t always match their scores, I played games that were at least above my usual average on every game.
Whenever Danny isn’t around during league, someone or other always asks me, “No Danny tonight?” People are always very interested in where Danny is in the league standings, for some reason. Danny often plays his games late due to his work schedule and this was one of those times, though he squeaked in right at the 10 pm deadline that I have started enforcing this season. We got done with league so fast tonight that we were starting the Smackdown finals right as Danny walked up.
The Tuesday Night Smackdown random drawing chose Rush, causing me to be surprised it had not been a Smackdown game already. Usually I will make something the Smackdown game if it’s new to the venue, but I never did that with Rush. It may have been forgotten in the frenzy of new games we have gotten in the bar recently. Unfortunately, we only had six people present to play, and only seven put scores in (which means we can’t count qualifying toward IFPA points; qualifying has to halve the field to count). We had the usual four playing in A but just two people, Bryan and Dan N., played off in B. The dice chose Star Trek for the B game, which is funny considering how many times recently Junk Yard has ended up being the B game. It’s like the RNG didn’t realize Junk Yard had moved, because Star Trek is now in the former Junk Yard spot.
Tonight we’ll be finishing the qualifying season, and there is still a lot of possibility for people to move across the A/B cutoff line, considering that we will probably only be having a 7-person A bracket this season, our smallest ever. It should be an exciting final night. See you all soon, I hope!
