Feel free to answer any of these questions about the team building process for Round 1 this year.

Apparently no one is worried about the 130M league

Also, last year only 8 people said they would definitely make Round 2. This year we are already at 8.

Of the 8 last year, only 4 actually made Round 2 (one finished as low as the upper 70s)

Combined with the responses to the theme difficulty question, it seems like people are more confident this year. Maybe I made the themes too easy. Last year I felt I made them fairly hard, so maybe I overcorrected.

Posted by ozomatli on 8/8/2018 7:56:00 PM (view original):
Apparently no one is worried about the 130M league

I don't think we can assume that. We only had to answer which worried us the most. It stands to reason that the 130M could even be the 2nd or 3rd biggest worry for even a majority of owners, but there's at least one that's their top concern. Only 15% think it's their best team, so it hardly looks like a confidence zone either.

That was meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but your point is true. However, 15% is fairly close to what could be considered neutral feelings (100 / 6 = 16.7). I guess I find it unlikely that it would be 2nd or 3rd for a majority but not 1st for any, and am generally amused that any theme isn't the biggest worry for anyone

Another interesting thing is that two of the people who answered the first question with "There's a Round 2?" have actually made Round 2... both have done it twice!

I knew you were just sparking some discussion, so I bit. And I do enjoy the analysis a lot. I've got 4 of my 6 team writeups done so far waiting for the launch of that thread after we get started.

Less than 15% are most worried about the 100M-110M-130M, and I think that makes sense because of how many theme leagues out there run in this general range. Aside from the drafts I've done quite a few of, pretty much all the theme leagues fall in there. I've never played a 65M theme, so of course that one is going to worry me more because I have no experience to fall back on. I might have done a lousy job on my 130M roster, but it will still worry me less than the 65M will. (Also, my 70M was my worst finisher in last year's tournament, so there's that.)

A quarter are most worried about the 255M, which I totally get because we are all looking at these monster rosters that look so awesome and yet some of us will lose 90 games with them anyway. You can have pretty much anyone you want, and you can still mess that up. And the also worrisome 90M likely stems from just not knowing how out of control those games might get, and did we fortify well enough for the long haul.

I think the most interesting poll result so far is that at least 10% but not more than 22% have picked one of the themes as their likely best. Most of those are within a margin of error, so you could argue that there's basically an even spread of highest confidence at this point. So you have successfully played to a variety of owner strengths with the themes, I think.

Posted by ozomatli on 8/8/2018 8:04:00 PM (view original):
Also, last year only 8 people said they would definitely make Round 2. This year we are already at 8.

Of the 8 last year, only 4 actually made Round 2 (one finished as low as the upper 70s)

Combined with the responses to the theme difficulty question, it seems like people are more confident this year. Maybe I made the themes too easy. Last year I felt I made them fairly hard, so maybe I overcorrected.

I think it depends on perspective. I found these teams a bit easier to create than last year's, but deciding between the different teams/options I came up with was excruciating in some cases. Lots of good options. I think the owners that choose the most wisely will win. Difficult in a different way than last year's.

redcped: Thanks. Our distribution last year, in terms of confidence, was sort of bi-polar (three over 20%, three under 10%), so the results this year are good in my mind.

As for the team write-ups, I'll kick that thread off this weekend, or once all roster fixes have been made.

I'm more comfortable with below 80m caps, even it's been years since I've played one. I have never played a true 255m league (as opposed to a league, like a progressive, that simply had no cap), so that has me nervous. I'm not familiar with the finer points, so I expect to get killed.