BuzzerBeater Community

The "Utopia" league is a country within BuzzerBeater specifically created to house “second teams”, which are managed by existing users from all around the world. We wanted to give people a chance to participate in an engaging league if they feel they are not being challenged enough in their own league. Other users that feel that they can prove their managerial prowess by having another team and building it from the ground up also may find this feature interesting.

The Utopia league indeed provides a very competitive environment, as it's filled with proactive managers with experience and ambition which purchased the Second Team Option for the privilege. The “Utopia” league will be the same as any other country, except for some specifics mentioned below. This means it will have its own flag and players.

Here are some of the most important specifics of the new feature:

Organization

All teams start in Division IV. The leagues are be filled in order, making sure each one is filled with human teams before going to the next one. A special promotion procedure is in effect for the first 3 seasons; enough teams will be promoted from each league to make sure the next division up is completely filled with human teams. Human teams remaining in a lower division will be consolidated and moved laterally to make sure that as many leagues as possible are filled with 16 human-controlled teams. After three seasons, once the best teams promote to Division I, the country’s promotion and demotion will happen as in a normal country, though we will still keeping the lateral consolidation rule. New teams will join the lowest division occupied by human teams.

Payment

The feature is available to both Supporters and non-Supporters for $10 per year. The decision to charge for entry into this league was not a simple one, and it was done to serve two primary purposes. First, the biggest goal of the Utopian league is to create a highly-competitive country in which every manager has a strong incentive to remain very active. We believe that adding a payment structure will guarantee that only those players who are serious about their second team will join and ensure the entire country is as healthy and competitive as the higher divisions in the largest countries in BuzzerBeater. The country is be somewhat exclusive, but in order to continue showing our appreciation to our current Supporters, if a Supporter signs up for the Utopia league, both the regular and the Utopia league teams will have the Supporter features. In truth, the second reason pertains to generating revenue. More so than many other features, the creation and management of the Utopian league require considerable developer and community resources. This is a commitment that we’re happy to make in exchange for a larger advertising and feature development budget.

National Team

The Utopia league does not, at the moment, have its own National Team, as the country is composed of managerial talent from all over the world.

B3 Participation

The top league champion will participate in the BuzzerBeater Best competition after the first three seasons, once a Utopia Division I winner has been crowned. Winners of the Utopia national cup tournament will participate in B3 from the start. If a manager has both their regular team and their Utopian team qualify for the B3, they will have to choose which team participates in the B3.

Transfer Market and Draft

The Utopia league has its own players drafted each season. These players will be able to be sold and bought by all teams in BuzzerBeater without restrictions. Likewise, the “Utopia” teams will be free to buy and sell players from all other teams (except their original teams, including players previously owned by them, and vice versa).

Visibility and the Forums

Original teams have their second teams clearly visible on their team overview page and forum posts. Posts by either team are marked as if made by the original team.

Scrimmages

Utopian teams can engage in scrimmages as normal. However, managers are allowed to arrange only one scrimmage per season between their original and Utopian teams.

Cheating

If a manager is banned from the game for violating BuzzerBeater’s rules of conduct, BOTH the original and the Utopian team will be locked, regardless of which team violated the rules.

New Manager Checklist and Bonus

Utopia teams are considered already experienced and do not receive the new manager bonus, nor do they participate in the new-manager checklist.

Game Times

Each Utopian team has its own game start time, based on the game start time from the country it originated in or the time its manager chooses when creating the Utopian team. This means that teams play their home matches at their usual (or preferred) times, but need to be careful to remember that the timing of their away matches are less predictable. We believe the proactive managers of Utopia league won’t have any problems handling this.

Promotion and Demotion

The Utopian league promotion system functions as if on steroids for the first three seasons for the highest human filled division (lower divisions promotion will function normally). Rather than the customary one team per league promoting (league champion), each Utopian league will promote a minimum of two (conference champions) and an average of three or even four teams in order to fill up the higher, bot filled division for the following season. Along with the conference champions, the rest of the promoting teams will be determined using the usual bot promotion ranking system (ordered by conference rank, wins, forfeits, point difference and finally points made). This trend will continue until the first three divisions are completely filled with human-controlled teams. At that point, the promotion system will revert to the usual promotion/demotion system used in other parts of BuzzerBeater with one difference - instead of just 8th place, both 7th and 8th placed teams are demoted, which means that 5th and 6th place teams battle it out and the loser is demoted too (who is replaced using bot promotion rules).