Interesting postseason formats
 

Hey guys, I just picked up OOTP 15 this week thanks to the Humble Bundle and have been enjoying it nonstop. The amount of customization and detail in this game has been racking my brain for days now.

The part I've been having the most fun with so far, though, has easily been coming up with lots of different postseason formats. I've always been a fan of playoff chases and watching a perfectly average team ride a hot streak through the playoffs.

Right now, my first league has evolved the following 5-round playoff. Out of 36 teams in my league, 16 qualify (4 division champions, 12 wild cards). The division champions have byes to the 3rd round and the top 4 wild cards have byes to the 2nd round, while the lowest 8 wild cards start in the first round. The lower seeds are automatically pitted against the higher seeds in later rounds. With this format, the division champions are usually the ones playing for the title, but once every few years, a cinderella team goes all the way.

So that's my ridiculous setup. I want know what interesting postseason formats you guys have come up with.

I've setup double bye scenarios in some leagues, the limitations are kind of tough. But it's getting better slowly and I like that you can revert if there's a mistake.

It does sound like a pretty crazy setup, but also a fun idea to toy with. And certainly helps make it important to win your division when the reward is so high for it in the playoffs.

For my current 4 division, 32 team league (may change based on expansion), I have the top 2 teams in each division qualify, NO wild cards. So 16 teams qualify each year.

So far, after 13 years of that league, only the Expos have yet to make the playoffs. :laugh:

I just realized the flaw in this setup is you can't have a 16-team playoff setup with double byes, because the game doesn't allow that. You'd have to have an odd number and even then, there aren't enough byes to make it work.