Foundation of League: Advice to Starting your Own
This article is going to be the first in a series of posts about starting a league, plus some other insight into issues you may encounter and concepts to ponder. I am not an expert, but have been running this league for a 6 months and believe it is going well. So this is not advice from an expert, but a novice with direct on the job experience lol. Lets dig in.
Learning the fundamentals
I believe that there is roughly four fundamentals for putting together a league. I do not want this to be exceedingly wordy so let me just dive into it.
1.) Finding a group or using your existing play group
The core components of a league of any sorts is that you need people to participate. The easiest option involves having your own play group and convince/ask them to play in the league. That was the case for this league. We had been playing with all four of us since roughly March of 2020, and I was the newest comer to the group. Our group had a transition from kitchen table 60 card to brawl, and then we went into commander and have yet to leave lol. I pitched the idea and everyone was in. I had an easy route, and I imagine with most groups who have been together a while it will be.
The harder route is finding randoms either through your LGS or something like work. I am not going to give you advice on how to talk to people and convince them to join, but instead touch on the crucial aspect of what you will need out of the league members.
It is key that you find people who are serious about the league. They do not need to be as serious as you truly, but serious enough that they will stick with the league till the end. This is easier with a consistent play group, and much more dodgy with a random or new group. This can be sort of awkward for a lot of people to embrace, but maybe your group has some flaky members, and they can severely ruin or derail a league. I am super grateful that this league has a great group of fellas who are consistent and dedicated, because when people aren’t it can ruin lots of stuff.
2.) Set a consistent date/place
So you found a group of people you think are going to be serious about the league, which is great. Something you need to start putting feelers out for is what days of the week people are open and if one or more people would be okay hosting. Setting a consistent day of week lets people more easily block out their schedule to increase the percentage that they will be there. I myself struggle with being there always, but it has greatly helped the ensure that there are league nights every two weeks. We have played on Tuesdays for a long time, and we ended up just making league every other Tuesday to give us a nice week of casual as a break.
The other part of the equation is location. You can have one or most people host on a schedule, or even meeting at a LGS that is okay with or your local Legion house. There is two key concepts here though. The obvious one is that you should have every week locked in a couple weeks ahead of time. Whether you need to request the space or even just schedule with a member, you need to make sure that you always have a place to play.
The second, and possibly more finnicky issue, is that you need to make sure that the location is relatively central to everyone. Keegan and Sean both bought homes at roughly the same time, and both wanted to host. Issue was that Keegan was just much more central to the group than Sean so he got the weekly play. Luckily enough though we were able to setup Quarter Cups on the weekends, so everyone had time to get to Sean’s house and he could still host (Sean if you are reading this host more weekends lmao).
The last piece of advice I have is that you should have backups incase your host cannot make it on short notice. For us, the backup is our local store Deal Me In Games due to it being relatively central to us. We haven’t had to use it yet, but it is an option at least.
My final words on this subject is that you should always be exceedingly grateful to people or organizations who host. I always thank whoever hosts us each time, and try to show my appreciation. As does everyone else in our league. Hosting can be tiring for people, so opening your house for a couple of hours each week is greatly appreciated. Just wanted to thank both Keegan and Sean for doing so for us.
3. Pick a format or formats to play
If you are creating a league you already have this in mind, but you need to also consider your potential play group. If your pod is made up of friends you play with regularly then this knowledge is probably already there. Maybe everyone is fine with only EDH, but maybe your group transitioned from playing Modern to EDH during the pandemic. Consider making it once a month or every other meeting that you guys play modern to shake things up.
The real issue comes in when you recruit others. They will most likely come from a diversified format background and may be more wanting of a rotation of formats played. You really just want to consider what you want and also be flexible. Learning a new format that is much cheaper like Pauper or Pioneer may result in you having a blast in a format that you never would have explored before.
4.) Outline the league and get feedback from the members
So once you have a pod, a consistent meeting time, and solidified format(s) that you will play, you should draft up rules and guidelines for the league. If the league is an EDH league will you play with random commanders? Will there be “props” for points? How will turn order happen? Concepts like this need to begin to be fleshed out.
This is also a piece that needs to be agreed upon by everyone in the league. When I crafted the rules and regs document for the league, I met with everyone and went over it and got feedback on the concepts and made changes where necessary. But everyone okay’d the final draft and it solidified.
One major point I want to make is that this is a living document. You shouldn’t see this as the bible, but as what the theoretical constitution is. Make changes where needed, god knows I have. It makes life easier for everyone and shapes the league into how the pod wants it.
League Manager theories to consider
I have four very quick (I know this is dragging) points to consider as a league manager when you are making the league. I will keep these short for you I promise.
1.) Plan to modify your initial vision
This may sound conceptually simple, but I think that people tend to get a vision in mind and stick the vision rather rigidly. I would recommend to keep an open mind and actually actively seek feedback from members. You need to keep in mind that you are not a dictator, you are a commissioner. Getting perspectives other than yours will help make the league run much more smooth and make everyone feel involved by almost accident.
2.) As you organize, mentally map
As you are organizing people, formats, etc. for the league, continually make sure that you are beginning to draft out guidelines/rules. Continually thinking about this will force you to take new concepts and input them to challenge previous ideas or concepts. Some may change, some may not. I thought long and hard about how to limit proxies, and got feedback and formulated concepts from multiple theories and perspectives before presenting the guidelines. Keep them evolving after they are solidified, I know I am for mine.
3.) Set a rigid money policy
Losing friends/playgroups to money issues is a true risk when you make a league. I recommend setting a very rigid money policy and refusing to budge. I have failed to communicate well often, so deadlines have been blurred for many. But I have not had an issue one time thankfully, but made my view on it very clear early on. I recommend anyone to do this, it will make it clear to everyone where you stand as well as everyone to understand the importance of the issue.
4.) Google Drive is your Bible
I would recommend housing the league rules, payment tracking, and anything else in a folder on the Google Drive. Give everyone access to view, and leave yourself as the only one who can write on the files. It will keep it clean, but you can still operate as needed. Honestly, people do not ever look on the drive for this league, and that may be the website cannibalizing it. But I recommend that you still build one so there is thorough transparency.
Again, this is not a perfect guide, just someone who has been doing it for ~ 7 months now. Sorry for the long windedness, but I want to encourage any grass roots growth for this.