Welcome to season 75 of the Dominion League! We have a few process changes this season to be aware of, so read on.

Moderator Addition

I am thrilled to announce the addition of strumphf to our moderator team. strumphf is a longtime Dominion community member who I am certain many of you have enjoyed getting to meet over the past several years, and hopefully many more of you will soon as she moderates your divisions in the time to come.

Timer Settings and Town Hall

As announced in the middle of last season, there will be a league town hall regarding timer use this season, scheduled for Saturday, May 9th, starting at 16 UTC.

To ensure players enter the town hall informed, we are making a process change regarding timer use this season. By default, you should set the timer table setting to Patient for your matches, though you still may not force your opponent to resign and count it as a loss for them. Either player in a match may request that the timer is deactivated, and their request should be granted. You may not use any faster timer settings.

Please experiment with the timer visibility settings, especially if you find it distracting. You may wish to hide the fast-moving central component (the decision timer), or hide the timer from view altogether. You can change the visibility settings during games by bringing up the settings menu via the gear icon in the lower right.

Our hope is that this default allows players to feel what the current Patient timer would do under the same conditions they play league matches. If you find it uncomfortable, you should request that it is deactivated. Regardless of use, the Adjusted Excess Time enforcement will remain in place.

Check-in Changes

Starting this season, we are changing the check-in form’s availability section to encourage the sharing of information that is most useful for planning your season. Your responses in this section will be processed into an availability message similar in your division channel to what was available in previous seasons, but hopefully with more consistent and useful information. It is okay if you have not planned ahead far enough to to fully fill out some sections, but be sure to keep your division informed as your schedule becomes more clear.

We recognize that some players have irregular schedules that may make answering some of these fields difficult. If you feel that the form is overly restrictive, please consult your moderator and we will work with you to develop the best responses.

Elimination of K tier

Due to changes in the skill distribution of players in league, this season represents the second consecutive season that K tier has fallen below 6 divisions. By rule, we will be collapsing K tier into J tier this season, which requires changes in our promotions and demotions for the upcoming season:

• From I divisions, only the 6th-placed player will demote
• From J divisions, no players will demote
• From K divisions, the 1st-placed player will promote to I tier, and remaining players will move to J tier

Best of luck and we hope you enjoy this upcoming season!