Every season you can count teams that get restricted into death whereas these theoretical teams that quit because the 1st place team is now 3rd is completely fictional (now if were talking about complaining instead of quitting that's a different story)

I took a 5ish year break from TF2 and I was always an objectively bad player and like 6 months ago I was thinking about playing TF2 again and the RGL player restrictions made it really hard to find a team to play with. I really used to enjoy playing TF2 and if I have free time a few nights a week I'd honestly like to play some low level non serious competitive TF2 and have fun and chill.

I'm not even allowed to play Roamer on a no scrim IM team or some goofy stupid class like Heavy or Engineer or Pyro in low level Highlander. I haven't played since RGL season 3 or 4 and I played on some Main teams as a backup and roster rode and I played on a no scrim friend team in the first season of RGL. I played some pugs a few months ago and I was dogshit and did like 150 dpm cuz I'm even worse than I used to be. I just wanna play the funny hat game and shoot rockets and try to hit cool airshots etc. with other bad and like minded players and I feel like RGL doesn't want me to :(

That's a funny way to say teams that disbanded because they were too afraid of not getting a podium placement. So what is your solution? Just let them do whatever they want?

Another nerd essay incoming. Consider these my TFTV magnum opus.

Out of curiosity I went and found how many teams have competed in RGL per season and the numbers are quite telling. The picture is more specific than just "the league is dying."
For our purposes, I've classified all played seasons of 6s into three eras:

Founding & Covid-era boom (S1-S6)
Post-Covid stabilization (S7-S13)
Decline (S14-S19)

What I found, looking at individual divisions:
IM peaked at 39 in S3. Historical average is 24. Last season was 12. IM should be the stepping stone from AM to Main, but instead players aren't making the jump from one div to the next. Some of that is going to be due to AM being free and IM being the first paid division (changing this season) but it's still worth noting. My first season of 6s in IM (S8) we had ~25.
Main peaked at 36, averaged 21, last season was 12. It's more than halved. It was historically the largest division outside of AM and now it's smaller than NC.
Advanced averaged 12 historically, last season was 9. From S5-S12 the average was roughly 17. Now it's 9. Half the division has evaporated.
Invite has hovered between 6-10 for most of the league's history. Last season was 6. The amount of teams is relatively stable, but you'd be hard pressed to call Invite strong, at least historically.

The upper divisions' share of the league is shrinking. In S3, 54% of the league was IM+. In S8 it was 52%. S14 it was 47%. In S19 it was 39%. The league is becoming progressively bottom-heavy and not enough players are making the jump from the bottom. IM lost 37% of its teams since S14 alone (there's going to be attrition from going free -> paid, but I don't think that tells the whole story). And the league is artificially stopping players who would otherwise be competitive within the IM+ divisions from playing their main or playing at all.

That said, let's look at the lower divisions. Both AM and NC in terms of team count are remarkably stable. AM+NC have averaged 60 teams per season for thirteen seasons straight. NC has kept itself consistent as well, averaging between 13-24 teams per season for the last 10 seasons. AM in S19 sat at 40 teams. That was within 4 teams of where S1 was (44) nineteen seasons ago. The lower divisions are doing fine in terms of player count.

The league isn't "dying" per se. The bottom of the league is fine. New players are still showing up. The league isn't losing new players, it's losing developed ones and failing to develop and promote the next generation. The league is stopping players who would provide developmental pressure from being engaged with the league.
At this point in the league's history, each restriction, each killed team, each player who chucks it because they're restricted from playing the class they want to play in a div they would be competitive in is making up a larger percentage of the overall playerbase. The league structurally cannot afford to limit the amount of experienced players in the league lest they risk the overall league itself.

At 200 teams you can afford to optimize for fairness. At 100 teams you have to start optimizing for participation, because there's not enough margin left to sacrifice players for competitive integrity. The current restrictions policy is applying assumptions of a healthier league to a smaller one. The tradeoff has shifted. The policy hasn't.

Every Millie that doesn't return, or team that dies in signup because they can't roster who they want/need, is a self-inflicted loss on a pipeline that's already starving for population.

The league has a demographics problem and a development problem that feed into each other. Fewer players in the upper divisions means less competitive divisions. Less competitive divisions means slower development. Slower development means fewer players moving up. Fewer moveups means the upper divisions keep shrinking. Smaller upper divisions make the game look less appealing to anyone grinding to get there. Restrictions don't cause all of this, but they accelerate it at every step. RGL needs every player it can get, not fewer.

Now, to respond to some of the points Cornsauce brought up.
On the selfishness point: I think this is a non-starter. A team wanting to stay in a lower division is "selfish" only if you assume they owe their absence to other teams in that division. They don't. If that's our framing, moralizers are equally selfish for wanting an easier path without the challenge of playing a theoretical stronger team. Nobody is owed anything, you have to play the team in front of you. There are numerous examples throughout TF2's rich competitive history of an OP team for a div getting toppled because of the developmental pressure put on the division itself.
The actual questions worth asking aren't about who's selfish. They are:

• What is best for player development within the division and within the league?
  
• If restrictions are a necessary evil (my position), what's the minimum amount needed to minimize attrition while still preventing divisions from being too top-heavy?
  
• Doesn't the presence of stronger players/teams give other teams a concrete target to aim for, and don't they improve from aiming at it even if they don't hit it?

These are the questions a healthy restriction policy answers.

On the "just scrim" point: Developmentally, league play isn't just an organized scrim. It's a fundamentally different competitive environment. Matches have stakes: results are recorded, your season is on the line, you have to show up prepared and actually execute. That pressure itself is an overload that drives a player's adaptation in ways a scrim can't. If "just scrim" was a real answer, then why have a league at all? Why not everyone just scrim?

The answer, of course, is that the league experience is doing something scrims can't. Telling people they shouldn't have access to that because of placements from years ago or whatever other excuse isn't a solution. RGL is actively excluding players from the thing that makes league play compelling in the first place.

at least they're real

i remember after 4 years of not really playing tf2 my friend group and i signed up for rgl and they placed us in Advanced. we scrimmed 1 Main team and lost 5-0 in like 20 minutes and then none of us wanted to pay money to play in Advanced so we didnt end up playing. i think my experience is not super common but honestly i dont think it would kill the game to let specific players sandbag a little bit. a few core players from the same team that were in a higher div previously could be forced to move up to the higher div but when its just a group of players that have never been on a team together before, one high Advanced player cant really carry a bunch of low Amateur players through Main or Advanced lol.

Would just like to say that this thread's title kinda smears m17's name, in my experience, he follows the policy of the League and actually does a really good job being available for league issues, researching whether his ruling follows league guidelines/rulebook, and also actually genuinely giving a fuck. Ultimately, we are discussing the league's policy, and calling him out specifically wasn't called for.

Just pointing it out because specifically negatively targeting admins who care more and take on more decision-making by calling into question their character for league-specific issues has been a trend in the past. That trend is bad for this community and has stopped potential people from deciding to apply to be admins, which is bad for everyone regardless of whether you favor restrictions or not.

m17 is a very good admin and does not deserve any slander

m17 is probably the best admin in terms of the amount of time he put into his divisions (whether you agree or not). while some decisions could be called into question the parity of divisions and seasons he has been head admin in have been very good in comparison to other divs. at least from how i've seen it, he tries his best to rationalize and justify his viewpoints as objectively as possible

what if there were no divisions, you just played or didnt' play. you only played people who had similar records to you, so in the global laddder you only play your rung pretty much. This would remove medals/playoffs for all divisions besides invite, but would solve the sandbagging problems.

seems like there must be an obvious downside to this system (besides lack of medals for lower divs)

like maybe #1 invite would get bored of only playing #2 invite for every match? the matchmaker algo could weigh recent matches or something...

I don't wanna make a thread but would like to say etf2l definitely have this problem too. Last year my team wanted to play a season of mid and play two nights a week. I hadn't played an official (the game itself too really) in about three years, neither had our pocket scout, yet we got forced up a division and had an awful time and I stopped playing again.

We had 3 people that had played div 1/prem but two were medics that would be offclassing (lucky and piggles), the third being agen (tf2 addict). We lost 3 of 5 officials, drew 1, and won 1. Between it being the summer season with people being on holiday, and being in a division we were not cut out for, we had a pretty miserable season that killed any potential desire to play the next.

I guess sometimes you need to be the punching bag of a division, it happens to a prem team pretty much every season.

hey man, if you got 1 win and 1 draw, I don't think it was totally unfair to bump you up. at the end of the day, someone has to make some kind of call about what div you play in.

i appreciate that you didn't enjoy that season, but I think that kind of has to do with the players you played with. teams with a big spread in player skill make placements tricky - and this punishes the non-sandbagging players on the roster. do you think you would've won mid?

been laughing all day thinking about the scenario of a guy getting carried to playoffs, being cut from his team in the post-season and then getting true comboed into being unable to play because nobody in the division above will pick him up.

bro i dont fear anything i literally got annihilated 1-15 on a dying team in one of the last invite seasons with any semblance of real competition, just to try and improve. I just want to be given the same chance to play my favorite game as everyone else, and the current rules make it literally impossible for me to play. please stop making a fool out of yourself.

bro your own claim is that there's teams dying because a sandbagging team would deny them a podium placement, how is that any different?

Nah you guys are actually ragebaiting the fuck out of me with these replies. I LITERALLY AGREE THAT THERE NEEDS TO BE CHANGE. Yes the current system is killing teams! But the just fully cranking the dial in the other direction is not the answer! The refusal to acknowledge that there have been sandbagging issues in the past shows you're not being good faith!

I disagree with mustard but at least he actually said his opinion on what should be done. 90% of the discussion from yall is just not constructive in any way! But yes just go ahead and add your anecdotal story to the pile and eventually Daddy RGL will fix it smile!!!!!!

rgl should pay JohnMilter to play IM

I have a lot more general thoughts on this conversation as it's progressed that I'll share at a later date, but I can't let this stand as it is right now: Yes, they literally do. That is the premise of skill-divisions. That good teams move up in order to provide less skilled teams with a meaningfully competitive environment for them to compete, develop, and have fun in. The opposite case (that lower level teams are somehow acting selfishly entitled to "an easier path without the challenge") is not equivalent because we all signed up for a league with skill-based divisions. It's not unreasonable as a lower-level team to expect that that is the outcome. Which I would frankly have a hard time believing that you disagree with, so it's obvious that we're not talking about absolute moral truth here, we're having a nuanced discussion about the degree to which a team is being selfish at the expense of the rest of the league's experience, and when it becomes worthwhile for the league to intervene.

If you believe that a sandbagging team should never have to move up, or even offclass, as long as they never win the division, then I can get where you're coming from. I disagree, but I can see the argument. We're letting a few players stagnate for the good of the rest of the league. I would personally worry about the competitive integrity of any playoffs matches that those teams make it to, but as long as the rest of the game is in a good state and the top level of the scene isn't getting choked out of existence by thinning competition at higher divisions, I don't really have a problem with letting teams sandbag within reason. If that were the case though, I would probably support efforts to reduce sandbagging, and lament any growing pains that happen as a result of these new policies as unfortunate but fixable.

Except that, obviously, that is what's happening, that is what RGL's doing, and that's what we're talking about. I think that the game is struggling for a lot more reasons that just sandbagging, obviously, but I just find this question of 'moralizing' outcomes to be a little silly when all that's happening is people expecting the outcomes they were promised. Maybe they get a little overzealous, which is something to talk about, but this should be a conversation about nuanced solutions, rather than categorical dismissals based on faulty logic. Food for thought.

And on this point more quickly:

This is a fantastic point if we're talking about teams that are trying to grow and improve, but we're not, we're talking about sandbagging teams that are playing artificially below their skill level. They are explicitly, definitionally, avoiding being overloaded and forced to adapt to new challenges by playing in a div below what they're capable of. The point of saying that they can just scrim, is that if they want to play artificially below a level they're capable of competing at, for whatever reason, they can do that in scrims just fine, and actually even still provide the overload that forces less skilled players to adapt & improve. Perhaps to a lesser degree than in an official match, but any less skilled team with a serious improvement mindset is going to be able to get a lot, sometimes just as much if not more, out of merely scrimming better teams (speaking from personal experience).

--

And finally to be clear: I am explicitly NOT talking about the millie team/situation here. They are literally not sandbagging, by definition. They are NOT trying to play at a level artificially below what they're capable of. They ARE trying to play at a level appropriate for them and being caught in an unfortunate loophole in the rules that should be fixed. Absolutely no shade to millie & tree, you guys are both excellent members of the community, losing your participation would be a loss to us all, and I hope this decision is changed so that you can play. BUT I don't think that centering this discussion about sandbagging on a team that is obviously not sandbagging is fruitful at this point. I honestly think that a big part of why this discussion has been so frustrating is because the 'pro-sandbagging' side keeps pointing to a team that is obviously not even sandbagging as a confounding point that is unaddressed by arguments meant to address actual sandbagging. Which is by design because, again, millie & tree are not sandbagging.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. These will not be my final words on this matter.

The "competitive environment" is barely changed at all with sandbagging teams involved outside of what number is in the standings or who wins in playoffs (usually).

What's being discussed is subjective and if someone for example thinks that low invite is advanced and top advanced is low invite then this post offers absolutely nothing because its taking for granted the premise that these are teams that do not belong and that the top of one div ought to be worse than the bottom of the next div.

In contrast while more sandbag-friendly posts obviously also have their biases about where to "draw the line" so to speak, when we talk about the benefits conferred on a div by having stronger opponents, easier transitions upwards with a more overlapping skill gradient between divs, less friction for returning to the game or making teams in general we're making arguments that hold true regardless of where you subjectively draw the line.

I'd care a lot less about the topic if the outcomes of what kind of sandbag action were taken was also subjective but they're not. On one side you have rules actively killing teams whereas the other side has what exactly? The boogeyman of some god team dropping two divs as an analogy for a mid-invite player dropping a div to mainclass on a friend team? Am I supposed to care?

Pedantic point I'm about to make, but according to the sheet with restriction rules somebody linked earlier, restrictions after getting top 4 can be lifted via admin discretion depending on strength of season/player. I would argue then the millie/tree fiasco cannot be a "player(s) become(s) victim of blindly applying previously established rules" type situation (rather common in RGL's history) if it's already acknowledged that admin discretion can, and I assume has in the past based on the asterisk, override these types of blind restrictions. Thus it's not a loophole at all but evidence of the current sandbagging policy working as RGL intended. There is nothing here to "fix"; if anything, the fix already exists. It was a deliberate decision to mark millie and tree as too strong for the division.

FWIW I agree with you that most ppl are talking past each other a bit and maybe a bit too willing to hit the nuclear option button. But you can't really imply that the 'pro-sandbagging' side is making some sort of specious argument when they do the following:

when, in the eyes of the only people who quite frankly actually matter, they are literally sandbagging, by definition, and this sandbagging label isn't some freak happenstance but rather entirely intentional in nature.

I understand that theory and practice are separate insofar as one can be anti-sandbagging in principle but acknowledge that it's mostly pointless if the ones enforcing the rules are braindead when it comes to the restrictions, but even in a fully hypothetical situation a philosophical advantage of the 'pro-sandbagging' side (acknowledging that the delineation is mostly arbitrary) is that you by construction avoid stupid shit like the millie/tree situation. Of course a simple counterargument would be to state that for these extreme cases like millie/tree it is obvious that the anti-sandbagging policies, whatever they may be, would not apply, and thus any particular realizations of that fact are simply instances of poor practice and not an indictment of the theoretical merit of the anti-sandbagging position.

But is it actually that obvious? After all, RGL is not some malicious entity that likes to kill teams for no reason. They clearly agree with many of the points brought up in this thread about the benefits of appropriate skill divisions, the substantial negative impacts of sandbagging teams, etc. etc. and clearly restricting a player that is in no way too strong for the division runs counter to those ideals. Individual admins I'm sure also ascribe to these ideals; people have brought up M17 and sung his graces, and I'm sure (or at the very least desperately hope) he isn't like "yeah fuck those players serves them right"; rather, he probably laments having to kill a team but genuinely believes that it would be better for the health of the division if they were not allowed to play without restriction.

Despite all this, somehow it keeps coming up that a team that is "obviously not even sandbagging" gets shot dead. A repeating phenomenon, no matter who the admin is or who the players in question are. So while in theory it seems blatantly obvious that, at the very least, extreme "non-sandbaggers" shouldn't be victim of anti-sandbagging policies (let alone people more borderline), the 'anti-sandbagging' side does actually need to argue in principle that the this is genuinely the case, that the loss of players caught in the crossfire are either 1. a necessary evil and/or, more ideally, 2. fully preventable. Because empirically speaking, there is basically no existing evidence that that is actually possible. Despite it being blatantly obvious it still manages to be a reoccurring issue; thus, to simply abstract the issue away by saying that it is pointless to discuss teams that are "obviously not sandbagging" is dishonest at best.

experiencing waves of mental anguish as i see people still mention a grands i lost to a team running pyro on bagel several years after the fact

also us having scarfs on scout was the most egregious thing about that team

ALSO, to stay on topic for this thread; sandbagging is incredibly overrated as a concern. The best advanced team having a few low-mid invite players is GOOD for the division. it makes things much more exciting, and makes it much easier for up and coming players to get recognized.

Like when I played on milkies (team of move ups), we got so much more clout, respect, better scrim opportunities and the chance to get picked up on invite teams the following season, BECAUSE we were playing well against "sandbaggers", proven players that could act as benchmarks to measure ourselves against.

#freejustjazz

Apologies in advance for a multi-part post. For permanency's sake thought it would be better to have it all posted in the actual thread as opposed to a pastebin or a google doc. Here is the full text from my own drafts:

I would like to thank RGL for their decision in restricting me off medic on an AM team of NC moveups, one division below what I’ve played most of my RGL career (highest placement 7th place) saying that I would be “too strong” for the division requested. I look forward to taking someone else’s developmental spot on pocket soldier. However, congrats to Danmar33, Millie, Tree, and others who were unrestricted for this season in other divisions.

I’ve been working on this framework since my last post ITT. After my appearance on the Overtime Podcast (shout out Bethnicz, Rumpus, Warped, and Witness for the great discussion) I thought I’d spend part of my Saturday and Sunday cleaning it up. My hope is that it will serve as a starting point for a more relaxed restrictions policy that would allow for greater participation and player development, and that it sparks discussion internally and externally.

If there are any RGL admins who are actually serious about player development and retention, how restrictions kill both, my DMs are, and have been open. I look forward to hearing from you.

An Updated Policy Framework for RGL 6s Restrictions. Highlander, you’re on your own.

Optimizing for Participation
The central question that should drive every restriction decision: will this player's presence in this division, on this team, make games less competitive or more competitive?
This framework isn't arguing for the elimination of restrictions. It's arguing for a restriction policy that actually answers that question and that follows from RGL's own existing rulebook.

Foundational Principles
These principles should be stated explicitly in the rulebook so that admins, players, and the community share a common understanding of what restrictions are for.
1. Participation is the first priority. A player who doesn't play because of a restriction is a worse outcome than a player playing in a division slightly below their theoretical ceiling. The cost of overrestriction is invisible (teams that don't form, players who don't sign up) but it is real, and at the league's current size it is the dominant cost.
2. Restrictions exist to prevent dominance, not skill differentials. The presence of stronger players in a division is a feature of competitive play, not a bug. Divisions need a ceiling that pulls everyone in them upward. The threshold for restriction should be "this player will dominate this division" not "this player has more experience than the median player in this division."
3. The unit of evaluation is the team, not the individual. A player's competitive impact is determined by who else is on their roster. The same player can be unrestricted on a roster of newer players (where they elevate the team's level without dominating) and restricted on a roster of fellow vets (where the combined team strength is too high for the division).
4. Recency over history. Skill is current. A placement from years ago is weak evidence of present-day ability. The rulebook already acknowledges this principle; the policy should enforce it.
5. Divisions are developmental tiers, not skill checkpoints. RGL's own division descriptions describe each tier as a place where players are becoming better: "developing," "refining," "learning," "strengthening." (see rule 1006.2.2) A player can be in development within a division for multiple seasons without having "completed" it. The policy should not treat a single placement as proof that a player has graduated.
6. Second, third, and fourth place is not first place. A team that didn't win a division was, by definition, beatable in that division. Restrictions should not be issued for placements that represent losses. The line is winning, not placing.

Aligning Policy With the Existing Rulebook
Several of the issues in the current restriction practice stem from the rulebook's existing rules not being consistently applied. The first set of changes is enforcement, not reform.

Skill decay should be automatic, not discretionary. The rulebook already states that "consideration of skill decay may be given after one to two full years of no competitive experience." In practice this is rarely applied. Players with 3+ years of inactivity are still restricted on the basis of placements from before their break.
The proposed change: skill decay activates automatically after 12 months of inactivity, with admin discretion only to deny it in unusual cases (e.g., the player has been grinding at a high level in pugs or other leagues). After 24 months of inactivity, all restrictions are removed. After 36 months, the player is treated as an Amateur Player for restriction purposes.
Preferred division should be a real co-equal factor. The rulebook lists "preferred division" alongside skill level "in no particular order" as placement criteria. Currently preferred division is functionally a tiebreaker at best, and is regularly overridden.
The proposed change: a team's stated preference cannot be overridden purely on the basis of individual player history. Overrides require an explicit competitive-balance justification grounded in team composition, not aggregated player records.

Weighted experience should actually be weighted. The rulebook says all seasonal experience "will be weighted" including roster-rider experience.
The proposed change:
Starting seasons count fully
Substitute seasons count partially, proportional to games actually played
Roster rides count as zero. A player who rosters on a team but never plays a game in the season hasn't competed at that level. They've appeared on a roster. Treating that as equivalent experience to a starter is the rulebook's most consequential failure of its own weighting principle.

Implementation can mirror the RGL Pugs system, where players self-report each season's role (starter / sub / roster ride) when registering. The data already exists for verification through logs; defaulting to player input scales the system without overloading admins. Starting medic seasons specifically should be evaluated against playoff series wins rather than aggregate placement, since medics carry less and have less individual impact on whether a team wins than fragging classes do.

Concrete Restriction Rules
These rules replace the current "top 3 same-division / playoffs in the division above / demonstrably better than everyone else" framework. The "top 3" and "top 4" thresholds are deleted entirely.

Restriction Trigger 1: Division Domination
A player is eligible for restriction in a division if either:
They have won a division on the class in question while playing as a starter
They were on a team that demonstrably stomped a division (near-perfect regular season combined with a dominant playoff run)
By definition, anything short of winning means the team was beatable. A 2nd place finish means losing the grand final. A 3rd or 4th place finish means losing earlier. A non-winning team did not demonstrate it could not be beaten in its own division it demonstrated the opposite.
This is the cleanest line the policy can draw. "Top 3" and "top 4" thresholds are policy fictions. They have no developmental or competitive logic. They're arbitrary cutoffs that produce the absurd outcomes the thread has cataloged. If you didn't win the division, you don't get restricted in it.

Restriction Trigger 2: Recent Higher-Division Success
A player is eligible for restriction in a division if they have won the division two tiers above on the same class, within the last 12 months, as a starter.
Same principle applied across divisions. Making playoffs in the division above isn't evidence of dominance, it's evidence of being a competitive participant. The threshold for triggering a restriction is the same regardless of which division the placement came from: you won, or you stomped.
The two-tier gap (rather than the current one-tier gap) preserves the developmental flow described in the rulebook. A Main winner can play Main again. An Advanced winner cannot play Main on their main class. This means a player can drop one division without automatic restriction, which protects the natural cycle of players stepping back from one tier of commitment to a lower one without leaving the league.

Restriction Trigger 3: Demonstrated Current Skill
The "demonstrably better on a class than everyone else in a division" criterion is retained but defined concretely. Evidence is weighted in the following hierarchy:
Recent match results in the requested division or above.
Recent log-based evidence from matches.
Recent scrim results against teams in the requested division or above.
Direct admin observation across multiple matches.
Scrim results alone are not sufficient grounds for restriction when the player has a documented match record that contradicts them. Scrims have no stakes, no consequences, and teams routinely throw, test, or run experimental lineups. A returning player whose recent scrims look strong is often a player warming up against unprepared opposition. The match record is what counts.
Subjective vibes-based assessment is excluded. If admins want to invoke this criterion, they need cited evidence at the level of specificity a player would use to appeal a restriction.

Division-Size-Relative Stomping Threshold
The "stomping" criterion needs concrete definition that scales with division size:
"Winning the division" means 1st place outright
"Stomping the division" requires a near-perfect regular season (one loss or fewer across the season) combined with a dominant playoff run (no series went the full distance, with strong round differential throughout)
This prevents the absurdity of restricting someone for a strong-but-not-dominant performance. A team that goes 12-2 in regular season and wins a closely-contested grand final has won the division. They have not necessarily stomped it. A team that goes 14-0 with a 60-point round differential and wins playoffs 5-1, 5-2, 5-0? That team stomped, and the players on that team carrying the stomp on a high-impact class merit restriction consideration.
The bar for stomping is intentionally high. The default outcome of "winning a division" is "you might play again, unless you also stomped it." The exception is meant to catch genuinely dominant teams, not strong teams that won a competitive playoff bracket.

Team-Context Evaluation
Restrictions are issued to a player on a specific roster, not to the player in general. When a player joins a new roster, restrictions are re-evaluated based on the new team's overall composition.
A team-strength assessment combines the experience levels of all six rostered players. The current rule of "maximum 3 restricted players on a 6v6 roster" is retained as a backstop, but the more important standard is qualitative:
A roster where the strongest player is meaningfully above the division while the rest are below or at division level: that player may not require restriction, because their presence elevates without dominating.
A roster where multiple players are above the division, even if individually each player would be borderline: stronger restrictions apply, because the combined team strength is what determines competitive impact.
This codifies the principle that the question is "what does this team do to the division" rather than "what does this player do."

Adv <-> Invite as a Special Case
The Adv <-> Invite transition has historically been treated as a special case for restrictions. Earlier versions of this framework tried to apply the same logic but on reflection, the developmental principle that drives the rest of this proposal has to apply at most levels of the pyramid, including this one with one important caveat. Removing Invite-caliber players from Advanced to feed Invite is the same dynamic that hollows out IM and Main when it's applied at lower transitions. Advanced needs its overload too. Rumpus's Dynasty example earlier in the thread is exactly this: Dynasty became a successful Invite moveup because they played against sandbagging Invite cores in Advanced. Restricting those cores out of Advanced would have prevented the development that made Dynasty's run possible.
So most of the Adv <-> Invite line gets the same restriction logic as everywhere else: prevent dominance, not skill differentials. The standard triggers (winning, stomping, demonstrated current skill) apply unchanged.
The exception is top Invite. These are the actual best players in the game, and their carry potential on their main class is high enough that they can dominate Advanced rather than challenge it. A player who has won Invite on their main class is in this category. The "raises the ceiling without dominating" principle that justifies allowing experienced players in lower divisions doesn't apply when the experience in question is "won the top division of the game."
So: Players who have won Invite on their main class are restricted from playing that class in Advanced. They can offclass or play Invite. This is a hard rule. The dominance threshold is met by definition.
Low-to-mid Invite players (Invite playoff appearances, lower Invite finishes) are evaluated against the standard framework. Decay applies. Recency applies. Team context applies. Their presence in Advanced provides the gatekeeping that develops future Invite teams, not a guaranteed division-warping effect.
The structural problem my earlier draft was trying to address: "Invite isn't filling at 8 teams" is real but it's a different problem than restrictions can solve. It's a population problem, and the answer is structural: size Invite to the population of teams actively committing to top-level play, with qualifiers determining marginal seeds. In the current era, that's probably a 5-6 team Invite. As the league grows, Invite grows with it. The goal isn't to brute-force an 8-team Invite by forcing teams upward; it's to preserve the integrity of the top division at whatever size the committed population supports.

Restriction Decay
Restrictions decay over time and with division movement.
Full restriction in the season immediately following the qualifying placement
Half restriction (admin discretion to lift) after one full year of inactivity or one completed season at the higher division
Full restriction lifted after two years of inactivity or two completed seasons at the higher division
Three-plus years of inactivity returns the player to Amateur status for restriction purposes
This codifies what the rulebook already permits in a way that is automatic rather than discretionary, and predictable rather than opaque.

Transparency
The current system is opaque. Players don't know what restrictions they're carrying until they get hit. This is one of the most consistently raised complaints across the entire thread.
Proposed: each player's profile shows their current restriction status, which classes in which divisions, with timestamps of the placements that contributed and the dates at which decay would activate. Players can self-evaluate before signing up rather than discovering their restrictions in the appeal process.
The published spreadsheet RGL has begun providing is a meaningful first step. Building this into player profiles directly would be the natural extension.

Admin Discretion
Admin discretion is preserved for genuine edge cases but the goal is to narrow the scope of discretion, not eliminate it. The current system relies heavily on admin discretion across nearly every dimension of every decision, which produces both the inconsistency complaints (different admins making different calls in similar cases) and the appeal exhaustion (every restriction is a unique negotiation).
Discretion should apply to:
Edge cases that don't fit the objective rules cleanly
Identification of genuine sandbag intent that the rules don't catch
Granting of decay in cases of unusual non-league activity (high-level pugs, MGE grinding, etc.)
Application of the "demonstrated current skill" criterion when supported by concrete evidence
Discretion should not apply to:
The base rules of who is eligible for restriction
The thresholds for what constitutes a restrictable placement
The decay schedule
Team-context evaluation framework
The goal is that 90% of restriction decisions can be made mechanically from the rules, with discretion reserved for the genuinely hard 10%. Right now closer to 90% involves discretion, and that's the source of most of the inconsistency complaints.

What This Framework Doesn't Change
The reformed policy retains:
Restrictions for genuine sandbag scenarios (e.g., recent invite-caliber play dropping to AM)
The 3-restricted-player roster cap on 6v6 teams
The Adv <-> Invite special-case treatment, in a refined form
Admin discretion for edge cases
The principle that competitive integrity matters
What it changes is the default. The current default is "restrict if any criterion is met." The proposed default is "evaluate whether this player on this team meets the threshold for actual competitive impact, with restrictions applying only when the answer is yes."

The Underlying Bet
The framework bets that what looks like a tradeoff between competitive integrity and participation is actually a false choice. Aggressive restrictions don't produce competitive integrity at the league's current size, they produce smaller divisions, less developmental pressure, and worse top-end play over time. Trading those costs for restored participation isn't sacrificing the league's competitive identity. It's restoring it.

The questions every decision should answer remains: will this player’s presence in this division, on this team, make games less competitive or more competitive? If the answer is “more competitive”, through developmental pressure, gatekeeping, or simply through the team being viable enough to exist, the player should play. If the answer is “less competitive”, through dominance, sandbag intent, or genuine division skipping, the restriction is justified.

/end

#freejustjazz

#freejustjazz

great write up. i heavily agree with you, especially with the idea that contesting for podiums doesn't indicate that you're too strong for a division. making restrictions about strength of team instead of the individual is also 100% on the money. there are a couple parts of your proposal i think you could shore up though.

• alting is an unfortunate reality, particularly at lower levels. i don't mean that as a boogeyman, an AM team got banned last season for it. so i like having automatic skill decay, but i would maybe scale back how far it goes. it wouldn't be appropriate to let arekk play AM by default, for instance. making it a maximum 2 div drop might work, and then still allow for admin discretion for weird situations.
  
• you didn't address it, but HL-based restrictions could relax quite a bit. the most common restriction i see in AM is like "cannot play heavy" which on one hand, great we don't have to fight a perma-heavy. but also who cares, let them play heavy. i have a friend who can't play AM medic because she had IM HL experience. let's ease up on those restrictions quite a ways.
  
• you're right that team strength should guide restrictions. my team would dissolve if our players were individually sorted into skill divs, even though as a team we're consistently 4-4 in AM. i don't know how you can allow for this team-based evaluation while also letting players see their individual restrictions before signing up. those seem at odds with each other. maybe if you had elo for every player at every class and then allow people to calculate if their team would meet elo thresholds? that might might work but would be a big undertaking. speaking of which,
  
• my only fundamental concern with the proposal is how much work it might take. all the other small policy stuff can be ironed out and squabbled over. volunteer time is already at a premium, like it hasn't really been possible to schedule NC/AM matches on mondays, since schedules rarely get posted early enough. the more admin-intensive the solution, the more i'd worry about feasibility. specifically, i think the stuff in Restriction Trigger 3 is the most likely to be time-intensive if you get into cross referencing logs, direct observation, etc. as i understand it, the proposal is to say "no restrictions unless the admins prove out a case." if this only happens once or twice a season i think that's fine, but if 10 teams require attention then it seems less feasible.

all those criticism aside, i do 99% agree with you and would prefer your proposal over the current system. i would love to see you strengthen the proposal in the few ways i mentioned, but even if you didn't, i think it's good enough to try. there's a limit to how unrestricted you should make the league (AM simultaneously has too many player restrictions while have too big of a skill differential between the top and bottom teams), but i don't think you would approach here. thanks for writing it up

also if i'm looking deep in my heart and being SO forreal, if you request an admin look at your gameplay to prove you can play in a lower div, you should have to pay 5-10 bucks, i'm sorry

#freejustjazz