Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Season 3 of Multiplayer Competitive Matchmaking!

UPDATE: We have just extended this season by one more day to end 2021-02-24 23:00:00 UTC, to better align calendars for future plans.

UPDATE: Remember, you need to complete 10 matches per week, or face a CR penalty due to reduction in the ranking confidence factor. See the FAQ for details.

The competitive seasons just keep on rolling! It was a blast to watch the competitive Season 2 evolve and grow. We saw roughly the same number of players, but thousands more matches played! We also saw many more new players involved, with many new names in the Leaderboard. Overall, the Competitive Matchmaking System saw about 40% more activity every day. What this means is that everyone who participated really worked very hard to earn that final ranking! I'm sure the global pandemic has been a part of how active the community has been in playing, but I do hope that you all have found this a fun season to participate in, and at the very least a helpful distraction during this time.

A big thank you to everyone who participated, and of course a hearty congratulations to our top finishers. In 1st place, we have "iPeg" (up from 5th place in last season). 2nd place is "TC2" (up from 6th) and in 3rd we find "dkatz1877" who is new to the Competitive Matchmaking Leaderboard this season, although active for many years in the game. If you were someone who didn't place this season, keep trying and I'm sure you will find your winning streak! Of course, we always recommend reading through the cribbage strategy tips and the many related blog posts to sharpen up.

I asked "iPeg" (aka Kelly Holt from Wisconsin, USA) to share some perspective on the great game of cribbage. If you want to earn a top spot yourself, it would be hard to disagree with this advice:

"People who are smarter and more eloquent than I have written entire books on detailed cribbage strategies, so I won’t begin to try to cover many of them, but I have a few guidelines that have helped me to win more often. One is to always discard and play your hand based upon statistics, and not hunches.  Another is to play the best players, from which you will learn the most.  A third is to self-critique your own play, and never stop learning and adjusting.  After playing for over twenty five years, I’ve changed the way I lead from certain hands in just the last year or two. And finally, read those cribbage books!"

As with last season, everyone who finished the season in the Top 50 ("Recent" list, not "All Time"), have been awarded both a special in-game "board peg" as well as Cribbage Pro Gold that can be used in the Cribbage Pro Contests system and then redeemed for cold hard cash (awards must be used at least once in a Contest to be cashed out to USDC, see the full terms and conditions for details). The top finisher, iPeg, is awarded the "crown" board peg, and all others in the Top 50 are awarded a "star" board peg. These pegs are shown to everyone when playing in online multiplayer games, so if you see your opponent has one of them you can know that they have earned it by finishing in the Top 50 in competitive play. The Cribbage Pro Gold awards are as follows (not cumulative):

  • 2 Gold for Top 50
  • 4 Gold for Top 25
  • 10 Gold for Top 10
  • 20 Gold for 3rd Place
  • 30 Gold for 2nd Place
  • 50 Gold for 1st Place

New Season 3

For Season 3, we have decided to not make any significant changes to the competitive matchmaking system. We have been pretty happy with the participation, competitive spirit and overall results of how the system performed in Season 2, and in some areas where we are debating making some changes we felt it was best to not do so over the coming holiday time. As always, email us your questions, feedback and suggestions or leave a comment here if you are looking for some community feedback on it (please don't use the comments area for account questions or other issues). We are constantly looking at ways to improve, and your input is the key to that!

Season 2 History:

Here was the final Top 50 for Season 2:

1iPeg26bhills22
2TC227flashmatt
3dkatz187728gmric5
4Luc8829Geofred1
5silentmax30rattle15
6hillchem31MTBiggs
7fisher1732VGKnights
847don33Birddoggy
9enaud5834cribbest
10card5535cyrusg
11jim155136dcpastore
12pepperbp37Neary74
13Domerzag38dph
14pscohen39Br1Guy
15BigD4Life40jwick60
16ThreeG41Kev8888
17Trucha142kpcrib123
18ernie31343MadMax863
19hawkeyewn44ALB5555
20fltxnynzn45ringpress
21yvanobc1246Cmoney421
22cribber9147rocks19
23jmath71448joekayak
24a2zCrib49gsosin
25Moondog4450erniem00

As a reference, the levels in Competitive Matchmaking are as follows:

Bronze - 1 - 1499 CR
Silver - 1500 - 1999 CR
Gold - 2000 - 2499 CR
Platinum - 2500 - 2999 CR
Diamond - 3000 - 3499 CR
Master - 3500 - 3999 CR
Grand-master - 4000+ CR