In an upset that was less of a surprise and more of a coming of age, The Boys swept through the knockout stage to take down defending champion Sorry Guys and earning their first season championship! Invidia has also found their way back into contention, getting their first third place finish ever. Meanwhile, Just Another Team came back from vacation and rolled through the Best of the Rest II tournament, taking the final set 3-0 over Old Man Gaming. Congratulations to all teams involved!

Season 11 rolls on, with the Mid-Season Invitational scheduled to start April 14th at 5 PM Pacific. Teams will want to maintain activity between now and then by playing as many different teams at least 3 times as possible. We look forward to seeing teams back in the spring!

Season 11 begins with the new year, and for the new year we will be unveiling a website with an updated back end early on in the year, followed by some updates to streamline some technical issues that have cropped up over the past year. On a personal note, although I've been pretty quiet with updates and interacting with the league in general, I still want to thank everyone for continuing to play here. This game is now more than 5 years old, and a lot of games like this would have had its competitive side wound down long before now, but the OTL is still going, and I wouldn't be here if there weren't still people playing games. You're all awesome. Here's to the next five!

The Overload Teams League has wraped up its FIFTH YEAR of operation, spanning ten seasons of incredible action. Let's take a quick look back at the happenings of the last year:

In the Season 8 Championships, Sorry Guys were absolutely unstoppable, sweeping their way to their sixth OTL Championship and an unprecedented third in a row, defeating The Boys in the finals. Also, DynaCore Enterprises made history as only the second team ever to win the 3rd place in the Championships, breaking the hold The Three Queens had on it for three and a half years. Just Another Team swept the Best of the Rest II tournament as well, 3-0 over Post Terran Mining Corp, adding to their mid-season Best of the Rest win.

The Season 9 Best of the Rest tournament was a little wonky, seeing some top teams not qualifying for the top 6. That didn't stop Sorry Guys from claiming another Mid-Season Invitational title, winning 3-0 over DynaCore Enterprises. The Boys took care of business in the Best of the Rest, sweeping Invidia in the semifinals (!!), and SpaceCowboys in tthe finals.

The Season 9 Championships saw some of the most dramatic Overload action in some time as Sorry Guys put down an attempted reverse sweep by DynaCore Enterprises, winning 3-2 to capture their their fourth consecutive OTL Championship, and seventh overall! The Boys would stay in the top 3, capturing the third place title. Finally, Post Terran Mining Corp squeaked by Old Man Gaming in dramatic fashion in the finals of the Best of the Rest II, 3-2, with the final game on Augite decided in double overtime!

Finally, the Season 10 Mid-Season Invitational saw more great action as Sorry Guys prevailed yet again, winning 3-1 over DynaCore Enterprises. In the Best of the Rest, Argus Industrial Moons swept their way through Post Terran Mining Corp to capture their first title since Season 6!

I want to point out some important changes that have been made to the league from a statistics perspective. Previously, we have allowed any game to be considered for statistics, but that was before we had teams that would score 10 or more times an opponent's score in a game. You wouldn't want the Golden State Warriors to rewrite the record book by playing games over a random high school basketball team, and the OTL shouldn't be any different.

The OTL has been divided into two leagues, upper league and lower league. From the team perspective, nothing changes. Upper league teams still play lower league teams, and team ratings are still counted as they do now. What does change is that individual player stats and records are only counted for games where a player played against an upper league team, regardless what league they are in.

Upper league teams are defined as the six teams that made the knockout stage of the previous season championships, and also the two teams that were in the Best of the Rest II finals. In the seasons that didn't have such a tournament, we simply took the top 2 that didn't make the knockout tournament by their most recently completed season's rating. Edge cases exist and are addressed in the new #leagues channel under the Rules section. Note that this is a retroactive change. Individual season stats and records have been updated under the players and records pages accordingly. You can also still see your stats against all teams on your individual player page.

This change may not be permanent, and could be altered or removed at any time based on feedback. Feel free to discuss the changes in #ideas!

You can read up on the reasons behind this change at https://roncli.com/blogger/4346341627055792095/a-two-tiered-untiered-otl, but the TL;DR is that the OTL should still be accessible to teams of all skill while acknowledging that we would like our individual player stats and records to mean something.

It's been a while since we've had an announcement post. Let's take a look back at the major tournaments of 2022:

Sorry Guys took the Season 6 Championships in February with a thrilling 3-2 win over Invidia, with The Three Queens winning the 3rd place match for the 6th consecutive season, and SpaceCowboys took the Best of the Rest II finals over Argus Industrial Moons, reversing the result from the Season 6 Best of the Rest tournament.

Invidia defeated Sorry Guys 3-1 in the Season 7 Mid-Season Invitational in April, while Disoriented in Mines turned their season around by winning the Best of the Rest tournament 3-1 over DynaCore Enterprises.

Sorry Guys would go back to back for the first time since seasons 1 and 2 by taking the Season 7 Championships in August with another 3-2 win over Invidia. And despite giving up their first overtime loss, The Three Queens kept up their perfect run of 3rd place finishes for the 7th consecutive season. Argus Industrial Moons took out SpaceCowboys 3-0 in the Best of the Rest II tournament.

Finally, Sorry Guys took the Season 8 Mid-Season Invitational in November with a clean 3-0 sweep over The Three Queens, while Just Another Team take their first Best of the Rest tournament 3-0 over SpaceCowboys.