The Wildcard Is Drawn—the Playoffs Begin
Matchday 46 is filed. The regular season is over. The standings are certified in both conferences, and the Season 03 postseason opens today.
It opens differently from the last one. Season 01 and Season 02 sent eight teams into a single bracket. Season 03 sends sixteen into two. Each conference now runs its own bracket—Wildcard, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Conference Final—and the two winners meet in a single Final. Le Council has been asked whether this is larger than before. It is larger than before.
The Fourteen
Seven teams in each conference finished in the top seven and are in. No further result is required of them. No draw applies to them. They wait for the Wildcard to resolve, and then they play.
La Conférence du Verglas
| Seed | Team | Arena |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Winnipeg Wendigos | The Cold Lodge |
| 2 | Medellín Mapaches | La Ladera |
| 3 | Montréal Maples | The Oldest Rink |
| 4 | Tokyo Titans | The Neon Crossing |
| 5 | Phuket Podcasters | The Andaman Pavilion |
| 6 | Busan Blizzards | The Frozen Dock |
| 7 | McMurdo Monoliths | The Remote Range |
Winnipeg and Medellín finished level on 76 points. Le Council notes the tiebreaker was applied and offers no further comment on it.
La Conférence du Givre
| Seed | Team | Arena |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oslo Owls | The Fjord Watch |
| 2 | Nairobi Narwhals | The Ochre Reserve |
| 3 | Atlantis Amonites | The Sunken Hall |
| 4 | Kyiv Kestrels | The Golden Arch |
| 5 | Helsinki Howlers | The Dark Sauna |
| 6 | Amsterdam Aardvarks | The Floating Canal |
| 7 | Dublin Dragons | The Emerald Pitch |
Oslo finished first with 64 points. That is the lowest total to finish first in either conference this season. Le Council files this under the same folder as everything else.
The Wildcard
Every other seat in the bracket was earned by the table. The eighth was not.
In each conference, the team that finished eighth does not advance. It hosts. Its opponent is drawn from every team that finished ninth through twenty-fourth—sixteen teams, one draw, one seat. The draw is weighted. The higher a team finished, the more of the draw it holds: ninth place holds nearly thirty percent, and twenty-fourth place holds less than two. Finishing well is rewarded. Finishing poorly is not disqualifying. Le Council considers both of these principles sound, and considers the second one the more important.
The draw was conducted once per conference. It is not repeated. It is not revisited.
| Conference | Host | Drawn visitor |
|---|---|---|
| Verglas | #8 Perth Pyres · The Red Furnace | #12 Guadalajara Gatos · El Rincón Perdido |
| Givre | #8 Chengdu Cranes · The Panda Reserve | #10 Tehran Tigers |
Neither visitor was the favourite. The Serpents of São Paulo finished ninth in Verglas and held the largest share of the draw. The Samarkand Seagulls held the same position in Givre. Neither was called. The Guadalajara Gatos finished twelfth and held less than eight percent. The Tehran Tigers finished tenth and held less than fifteen. Le Council did not weight the draw toward any outcome beyond the one stated above. The Ice may have.
Each Wildcard is a single game. There is no second game. The winner takes the last seat in its conference bracket. The loser is done, and Le Council records the loss as a Wildcard loss, which is a different thing from failing to qualify, and a better thing to have on the record.
Arena modifiers are in full effect. Melt will be in effect at The Red Furnace. Patience will be in effect at The Panda Reserve. Le Council is not intervening on behalf of or against either building.
The Schedule
| Night | Game | Start (UITC) |
|---|---|---|
| Wildcard | Verglas—Perth Pyres vs Guadalajara Gatos | 20:00 |
| Wildcard | Givre—Chengdu Cranes vs Tehran Tigers | 21:00 |
The Quarterfinals follow on the next matchday. Their pairings are not published today. They are set by the two Wildcard results, and Le Council will not announce a bracket it has not yet been given.
The Markets
Le Council's O.D.D.S. system does not price a bracket that does not exist. The Run Deep markets—win the first series, reach the Final, win it all—open with the Quarterfinals, when the field of sixteen is known and the odds can be calculated instead of estimated. Le Council advises against wagering on the Wildcard in the meantime. There is no market for it. There is only the game.
Standing bets on making the playoffs will settle when the Quarterfinal field is revealed, and not before. A team that finished eighth and loses the Wildcard did not make the playoffs. A team that finished ninth and wins it did. The record is kept by the bracket, not by the table.
What Comes Next
Two games tonight. Two seats. Fourteen teams are already in the field and will spend the evening watching the two that are not yet.
The Quarterfinals and Semifinals and Conference Finals are best-of-3. The Final is a single game, three one-hour periods, decided in one sitting. After the Final: a Rest Day. One day of silence. No games. No announcements.
But that is later. Tonight, in Perth and in Chengdu, one team in each building will stop being a team that finished eighth.
Le Council wishes the Pyres and the Cranes the appropriate hospitality. Le Council wishes the Gatos and the Tigers the appropriate luck. The Ice drew them. The Puck is watching.