This is probably the most important thing we can do as an administration to make IDL better. The changes that were made to the draft and the changes that could be made to team names and the changes that are being made to the IDL map are all less important (though still important) than the way in which we pick captains.<br /><br />It is my belief that there needs to be a similar level of skill for the set of captains we choose. The arguments against this measure are that skill is opinion based and thus an inaccurate measure and that skill isn&#039;t the only necessity one need posses to captain an IDL team.<br /><br />Both of those objections are valid. I don&#039;t really want to argue them anymore. I will say that I don&#039;t think we need to rank players in order to achieve more parity in captain skill, a general tier system would be sufficient. The board already selects captains to our liking by some unpublished or unfortunate metric so I don&#039;t see why we couldn&#039;t just amend that to picking the most qualified captains. The system of just accepting the captains that sign up is stupid. Bad captains will signup along side great ones and the league suffers. <br /><br />Now I admit we probably won&#039;t have 12 Ralphi or 12 Humanbones but we can foster a league where the captains that serve alongside them are viable competition. The draft can compensate for a certain variance in skill without becoming lopsidedly unfair toward great players. I would say that variance lies somewhere between two adjacent tiers. Something like:<br /><br />Elite/Great<br />Great/Good<br />Good/New<br /><br />This is to say that all of the captains should fall into the same tier or at most one step in the corresponding direction.<br /><br />No draft can fairly compensate for the chasm of skill between Lockwolf and Ralphis with our current player pool nor should it be expected to. To make those teams even Ralph would have to be in a position where he had to draft as a 3rd a Lockwolf level player and our league is slightly deeper than that. It would also necessitate that Lockwolf get a Ralphis caliber player, which are few and far between. The only draft that compensates for skill gaps of that measure is a straight draft and that system promotes (good) captain exodus and unfairly oppresses skilled players and captains. We can avoid both of these things by simply addressing the skill levels of our captains on a season to season basis.<br /><br />The method by which we could do this is a semi-annual captain review. At the end of each season all the captains are, by default, dismissed from their teams. When signups start the IDL board will begin the process of filling the 12 vacant captaincies. This allows for the administration to gather the best possible captain class available on a season to season basis. Many if not most captains will be invited back. The community is small enough that we will probably have very similar captains from season to season. However when new people step up during a season as players they can make a case for receiving a captaincy in the following season, regardless if a sitting captain wants to leave or not. If nothing else this will drive captains who want to work harder, get better and bring their best effort to the league each season rather than being given a season of hopeless failure as the default. <br /><br />I want to say that I think using examples of sitting captains is in poor taste, and I know I&#039;m guilty of that too. I even think that using prior captains as an example can be taken, as it was, out of line. IDL isn&#039;t to make people feel bad, it&#039;s to foster high level CTF play. In particular I think the use of Strangle to represent some &quot;swing case&quot; in the captain voting is silly. The guy had a really awesome first season as captain and had a weird draft the following season. It&#039;s not like he&#039;s done any better or worse than Tai does on perennial basis. Let&#039;s give the kid some slack and if he happens to not be a captain next season recognize him for his contributions. Woo IDL.<br /><br />There is some debate among the board members and commissioner as to whether evenness in teams is something we should strive for [see endless posts about parity]. The idea behind that argument is that the more even teams become the less exciting IDL is, the less upsets we see and the less players strive to better themselves. My personal opinion is that those are inaccurate characterizations of our player base and generally false premises. Even if I were to concede the points none of those things are worth the spirit-breaking seasons you can have on a hopeless team with an under-skilled captain. Furthermore I feel like the under-skilled captains we&#039;ve had would be better served as players, contributing instead of starting from behind. I seriously see nothing but upside.<br /><br />To summarize, I think to even teams up we have to fix the disparity in captains skill league wide and believe that we can do that this season without disrupting the order of IDL. I believe that more even teams makes our league better and I believe that picking the best captains is the best things we can do to make our league more attractive to newer players. Let&#039;s just make it better and not go 40 rounds about why having higher skilled players captains is a positive thing for or how we can determine that. It&#039;s stupid simple and we should do it.