There has been quite a bit of discussion regarding just how important divisions and conferences are in an 8-team IDL league. We all agree that it works really well with 12 teams, but not so much with 8 teams. One thing that led the board and myself to believing there needed to be a change was that last season, KGB had homefield advantage over SUC despite having a worse record. Now I don&#039;t believe that it&#039;s the worst thing that can happen, but we all felt there was a more fair way to do things. <br /><br />[size=5][b] Regular Season Structure[/b][/size]<br /><br />What we&#039;ve done is removed divisions as well as conferences. So, what does this mean? This means the IDL is now round robin! All 8 teams will play the other 7 teams once in a shorter 7-week season. Gone are the days of division rivals; each game you play counts that much more towards your chances of making the playoffs.<br /><br />There are many upsides to this change: now, truly the teams that do the best in the regular season will secure a spot in the playoffs. This places much more emphasis on regular season games and teams should be very careful not to drop a crucial match. Additionally, the season is one week shorter, which is a relief for all of us. <br /><br />[size=5][b]Playoff Structure[/b][/size]<br /><br />What does this mean for the playoffs? Well, we toyed with a few different ideas, but we settled on a new 5-team playoff bracket. The teams with the top 5 records will make the playoffs. It works like this: the Wild Card round will consist of the #4 seed playing the #5 seed. The winner of that match will go on to play in the Semifinals against the #1 seed. #2 vs #3 will also be played in the Semifinals week. The winner of #1 vs #4 and #2 vs #3 will meet in the MasterBowl. <br /><br />Having 5 teams instead of 4 was important to me because I believe that there needs to be an incentive for teams that are struggling to keep playing. Not only does the 5th seed encourage teams, it will give us an exciting wild card match to open up the playoffs. <br /><br />Confused? Rust made a nice image that explains things perfectly: http://rust.unidoom.org/5playoff.png