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When a team is faced with unforeseen issues, wildcards allow postponing a match with no penalty, with a reasonable window to resolve any issues and find a date you can play with your optimal roster. This allows a match to be played with both teams at the top of their game, when it would otherwise be diluted by using mercs or defaulted.

However, while they do serve as an effective safety net, they make it frustrating to schedule your practice games.

This week in ETF2L, everyone is playing badlands and granary, and finding practice for these maps is not an issue. In two weeks, both granary and badlands will be out of rotation and you will find it difficult to practice one of these maps, let alone both.

It’s also worth noting that this throws league pacing out of the window, with no fault of your own. You can end up having to play two or more league matches in the same week, which can mess up your team’s schedule and force you to play matches in poor form.

In lower divisions this may be a mild inconvenience, but in higher divisions it can completely mess up the league experience.

Do you think wildcards are a necessary evil? Would it be better to enforce harsh scheduling and default matches that would otherwise be fun to watch and play in? Can wildcards be improved, or replaced with something better?

Wildcards are fine. Maybe change them for the top couple of divisions only, if they have a problem.

Quoted from Just1s

I think it is useful, but there should a be time till when you can use them. For example you could wildcard only if theres 24hrs left till the match, after that mark wildcarding isn’t allowed.

that defeats the purpose of a wildcard.

Quoted from Linus

[…]

that defeats the purpose of a wildcard.

Not quite if you think about it. It would still let you reschedule the game if something more important pops up and, should an emergency occur, an alternative to a last minute pullout would be having a backup player on the roster. Sure it’s sub-par to some extent, but on the other hand you would have a guarantee that the match will actually happen within 24 hours. I missed quite a lot of lectures last season due to matches being wildcarded on the last possible second.

Quoted from droso

Please don’t remove wildcards.

That’s some nice reasoning.

you should maybe reduce it to only 1wildcard instead of 2.

but all in all wildcards are useful imo!

Quoted from freshmeatt

[…]

That’s some nice reasoning.

Why would I waste my time arguing over a non-issue?
First post clearly insinuates that they want higher div players’ opinion on the matter so here is mine : wilcards are perfect and we should keep them.

I would use a wildcard when A some technical issues appear or B someone has real life stuff to do, and you cant always know about these problems 24h in advance. Allthough some system to remove “we need to practise the map more” wildcards would be nice but nearly impossible to make a solid system for it

2 per season is too many, 1 is enough. It’s amazing how many get used frivolously at the start of the season just cause teams can rest easy in the knowledge that they still have one to spare in the event of a real problem.

Also I’d really prefere if wildcards had to be used an hour before the game. It’s super annoying when a team tells you they will 90% wildcard their match tonight, but will wait till the last minute to do so. It means you have to waste your evening preparing for the match on the off chance it still goes ahead. It’s also very rare that games get wildcarded for a sudden emergency, it’s normally something that is forseen far in advance but rescheduling has ceased to be an option.