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@Club Trouville (Chucarro/nowadays Yayo), important, please read::

Your team has caused a most serious rule violation that is possible to make in HGL, as you have purchased non-HGL eligible player (Michel Karslian, June 22nd, 2026) during HGL Season (note: including Playoffs, even if you are not playing in Playoffs; this has been clearly stated in rules, just as mentioned below).

This will trigger level 5 penalty, which will mean you will be immediately disqualified from this and from full next HGL Season (Season 6).

This decision (and occurred rule violation) is very clear and therefore easy (yet unfortunate) to make.


In rules it says about Level 5 penalty:
"Level 5: Immediate disqualification from the current and for the full forthcoming Season; match in where violation occurred, and all the future scores for the current Season will become 0-50 forfeit losses."


In other rules post, it says like this:
"You can not become non-homegrown team (by buying HGL-ineligible players) on any part of the season, including whole duration of HGL Playoffs , if you wish to participate in HGL on the next Season. Becoming non-HG team will cause an immediate Level 5 penalty. (Certain exceptions that would only take effect after Regular Season has ended, and would only be meant for teams not reaching Playoffs at all could be considered for further Seasons of HGL, but such rules won't be in effect at Season 5 of HGL)."

It is unfortunate that our ways departed this way, especially as you've been loyal manager since the very beginning. It's hard to believe it would leave good taste to anyone's mouth so to speak, but it is what it is..

Last edited by Wagner at 6/23/2026 5:05:18 AM

@all HGL managers:
If you still haven't filled match scores to your box score post on Regular Season 5 matches, now is time to do it!


@all HGL managers who finished to top12 on the Season 5 league table:

******
Note: this post has also been published on Scores-Thread, so you don't need to read it again there if you read it here, I just sent it there as well so that everyone surely sees this.
*******


It is Playoff time, so it's time to take all your extra cunning strategies from the drawer and see if they could cause some upsets on this Season's Playoffs! Maybe proving me wrong provides an extra motivation for underdogs, so maybe I'll make a guess, that home teams will win on this Season as well... ;)

You all know the drill, but as a quick reminder:

- Teams on top4 positions rest the first week (next Sunday) - congratulations for your free ticket to Second Round!

- All playoff matches are played on home/away court only !)

- Organize Season 5 Playoff matches at the same time that all your other HGL matches seem to have been played when you take at look your BB schedule!

- Note: Publish your Playoff match links as soon as match has been organized!


Here below are the matchups for First Round of Season 5 Playoffs;

please let me know if you find any faults/mistakes in ORSR-rankings, or Playoff matchups - I have done as careful work as I can, yet we are all human, so I appreciate if some eyes in our community occasionally do some double checking/scanning to spot any possible errors (before they'd cause any harm/inconvenience).
As I said, I've tried to do as careful work as possible, so I'd almost promise to eat my hat if you'd spot any critical errors from these First Round matchups, but better safe than sorry, yes? :)

PO Round 1 (teams ranked 5th-12th; 8 teams play): Sunday, June 28th, 2026
Rank #5 EOS vs. #12 HB *Waiting for match link!* (Update on June 27th 04.30PM EET DST: HB still hasn't logged in after 21st of June)
Rank #6 LMS vs. #11 MAD (139701203)
Rank #7 ED vs. #10 VDT (139702502) *@ED: *Add match link to box score post!*
Rank #8 WMO vs. #9 LGM (139701277)

Last edited by Wagner at 6/27/2026 10:00:21 AM

@LA-LennuK.:
HB (Spela) has been sent another reminder (this time warning) for a forfeit loss risk if he fails to organize the match.

As I wrote elsewhere (to LA-LennuK.), technically I guess the forfeit limit could be interpreted as Friday at game time, but I don't think we've quite enforced that rule to the max (with matches of which match time have not yet passed) so far, even though there have occasionally been problems with match organizing process (such as correct match links being available later than that on some matches, and I guess if my memory serves me HB also had this similar situation few Seasons ago, saved by the bell at that time?).

In rules-post it states like this:

Remember: last Regular Season match will take place on Monday at 14.30, or 02.30PM EET Normal Time, OR 15.30, or 03.30PM EET DST, Daylight Savings Time, a.k.a. Summer Time, so after that match:
A) during rest of season there will be 3 days time to send the Playoff match challenge (normally Mon->Thu; during Playoffs Sun->Wed)
B) there´s (about) 2 days time to accept match challenge (if it's been sent at the latest possible time, on Wednesday, it needs to be accepted on Friday at the latest, before your designated HGL match time).
However, the sooner you send a challenge (or accept it) the better, as it allows more time to set the lineups/tactics.

While it's super inconvenient from many points of view (that someone would need to keep on checking and checking whether or not match is organized or not - I'm looking at myself here), to discourage such behavior it's possible to start enforcing harder penalties with such occasions of neglect on most critical times of the Season.

However, I'd also like to hear from you LA-LennuK., what's your tolerance and limit in this situation - are you feeling extra lenient or not, as you're the one who is also being affected in a major way?

(Of course, just as before, if HB doesn't log in before match is supposed to take place, it's then 100% easy decision, as that'd be a similar situation what happened with SUM if my memory serves me. But let's use this as an example once again - everyone, let's keep on organizing Playoff-matches as soon as possible, thank you).


Last edited by Wagner at 6/25/2026 8:28:54 PM

I don't have a problem waiting some more in this case. Today is the training day and tomorrow the league games take place, so perhaps Spela would log in for one or both of these occasions to check on the team. I have a default lineup set, so I would be somewhat prepared. So, from my side, we can wait until Saturday evening/Sunday morning. I have sent them a BB-mail too, so should they log in in the next days, the they would at least be aware that there is a challenge waiting.

For the future, just to avoid any really inconvenient situations, it might make sense to set a more definitive timeframe for organizing PO matches and really enforcing it, but I really hope that we don't have to resort to such measures.

I don't have a problem waiting some more in this case. Today is the training day and tomorrow the league games take place, so perhaps Spela would log in for one or both of these occasions to check on the team. I have a default lineup set, so I would be somewhat prepared. So, from my side, we can wait until Saturday evening/Sunday morning. I have sent them a BB-mail too, so should they log in in the next days, the they would at least be aware that there is a challenge waiting.

For the future, just to avoid any really inconvenient situations, it might make sense to set a more definitive timeframe for organizing PO matches and really enforcing it, but I really hope that we don't have to resort to such measures.

Yes, it could be beneficial to set more strict/firm timeline (although Friday at HGL game time in itself is quite clear, but it remains lot of assumptions in the air, such as that the correct challenge has been sent in time - which I have no doubt it in this case has, but on some other occasions there wouldn't necessarily be as strong case to back that up - or that a proof of a sent challenge might not exist at all or would be inconvenient to provide, should the away team in Playoffs deny their mistake).

Also, while you're most affected here in such situation, like I mentioned, I also try to avoid situations where I have to jump in and out of BB every day at given times to see if some delayed (or in a risk of being late-) duty has been taken care of.

But again, the most difficult thing, as we want to be fair to all, is that in situations where there have been recent logings from both managers involved (not in this case at least for now), we're practically having to rely on words of 2 different managers, which can in worst case scenario provide "2 different truths" of the situation. I hope that'll never be the case though, but I'm just saying it's perfectly possible.

Thanks for letting me know you're willing to wait in this case - let's then wait for bit longer in this case to see if Spela would log in soon.

Nevertheless, such situations are very inconvenient for all teams involved and for me, so everybody, please always arrange Playoff matches as soon as possible.

I don't have a problem waiting some more in this case. Today is the training day and tomorrow the league games take place, so perhaps Spela would log in for one or both of these occasions to check on the team. I have a default lineup set, so I would be somewhat prepared. So, from my side, we can wait until Saturday evening/Sunday morning.[...]

Hello again LA-LennuK.,
We seem to be out of "luck" in terms of HB logging in for training/Saturdays' "regular BB match" lineup setting.

We are already past the "forfeit deadline" so to speak as we're more than 24h in for the definition of ("on Friday, at HGL match time"), so while this isn't a practice that we would've used so far in HGL (or isn't guaranteed to be used later for similar situations) if my memory serves me, I'd like you to ask to give your exact view (exact time in EET, DST) what you're still willing to accept as a match organizing deadline on HB's behalf (so that you feel you have been given enough time to set lineups in this exact case - it doesn't mean you'd have to accept such short notices every Round, of course not)?

If this deadline would then be exceeded, it would be automatic forfeit loss for HB on First Round of Season 5 Playoffs (of which Penalties seem very lenient to me, if and as one gets away with forfeit loss, but that's the current interpretation of HGL rules anyway. It's most important time of the HGL Season in one way, and if one doesn't care to proceed even with a simple match organizing task, which means two 'clicks' worth of work in BB, it doesn't seem nor feel good to me).

This is of course problematic also in that sense, that I can't guarantee being in "HGL main office" tomorrow to check out how this has progressed (but I'll try to do that) in terms of HB logging in before some exact timeline (hopefully given/announced by you now) or not.

Last edited by Wagner at 6/27/2026 10:15:57 AM

Update on HGL-PL situation:

We still have same situation: 2 teams haven't responded to my BBMails (our of 8), and we have 4 teams announced their willingness to participate, as you can see here: (331392.117).

We are not going to keep the 'interest announcement window' to HGL-PL open for very much longer, so whether you're a manager that I've contacted earlier by BBMail, or a manager that still hasn't been contacted but you'd be interested in participating to Home-Grown League (HGL) on next Seasons, please let me know as soon as possible, thank you.

As mentioned, as a general rule you need to have participated to HGL-PL to be among the first teams offered a place in HGL for the next Season.

Example:
even if manager would show up with $500K top8-salaries, who'd be interested in participating to HGL next Season, but they wouldn't have participated to HGL-PL now, then they would be 5th on the queue of interested teams, only after teams with current top8-salaries of $111K and 108K. This should give you an idea how important it is to participate to HGL-PL.



In this case if we have "only" 4 teams participating to HGL-PL, I think it'd be wisest and most fair to play HGL-PL with Round Robin-format (all teams face each other once).

Unless there's a failure in my logic, with 4 teams it would produce 3 Rounds of matches, and 2 matches per Round would be played, therefore totaling 6 matches during the whole HGL-PL, after which we would be able to create "a pecking order" among HGL-PL teams with the similar manner with HGL's ORSR (Official Regular Season Rankings)-rankings.
(You can get an idea of ORSR by checking out HGL Playoff-post, here: (331391.9) and HGL league table post, here: (331391.5), if you're not familiar with what ORSR is/how it is created).

Most likely these HGL-PL Round Robin matches would be played on "HGL game days", meaning Monday, Friday and possibly Sunday. With this arrangement we'd be able to complete the whole HGL-PL within 1 calendar week if so chosen.

Last edited by Wagner at 6/27/2026 10:57:24 AM

Hei Wagner, as my weekend is not too busy, I would be willing to wait until tomorrow around midday, I would say. But if he hasn't logged in by then, then the chances of that happening before 15:30 are quote slim anyway. So I would check situation around midday tomorrow, I've done preliminary scouting, so setting a lineup would be quickly done if my challenge is accepted.

Hei Wagner, as my weekend is not too busy, I would be willing to wait until tomorrow around midday, I would say. But if he hasn't logged in by then, then the chances of that happening before 15:30 are quote slim anyway. So I would check situation around midday tomorrow, I've done preliminary scouting, so setting a lineup would be quickly done if my challenge is accepted.

Tere and thanks for your reply, LennuK.
If this had to happen with someone, I'm "glad" it happened with a very communicative (and quickly replying) manager such as yourself. (It could also be the case that I couldn't reach either one, and that deadlines would've been passed, yet match still wouldn't have started - another problematic scenario, which we haven't truly gotten ourselves into yet).

Yes, we are so much past the typically accepted match acceptance window (stated in HGL rules), that midday on Sunday (EET, DST) sounds more than decent to me and in fact also very fair towards HB, so as per your request/suggestion, let's keep that as a forfeit deadline for this EOS-HB Season 5 First Round Playoff match.

I don't know if I can visit BB at midday or not, so yes, it would be ideal if you happen to be able to login around those times and report about situation with HB's PU match acceptance.

I have already warned Spela (HB) earlier, that he ought to accept that match (also partly due to remembering there has been almost similar situation in one of the earlier Seasons, but then he was able to dodge the forfeit-bullet), so absolutely no point of sending another warning, as he hasn't even read the first one.

I also asked him (once again) to vote (when first time reminding of need to organize First Round Playoff match), and after doing both those to correct his teams' box score post which is also missing 2 opponents altogether and all the scores of the Season 5, but on his login at 21st of June he didn't do any of those two tasks. If my memory serves me, Playoff First Round schedule had not yet been published at June 21st anyway.

He might be busy or something (we never know what's happening in one's life - there could be much more important things going on causing this), but as mentioned, forfeiting especially Playoff matches is very awkward and lame from the "inside perspective", as it initially gives a message outside, that reaching a place in Playoffs is worth nothing, not even worth login and four "cliks" in Buzzerbeater (that it takes to accept a PU match invitation)...

EDIT June 28th at 2PM EET DST:
Hårdboll (HB) has been handed a forfeit loss on this Season 5 First Round Playoff match vs. BC Eos (EOS), due to not accepting match invitation within a required time window (so that their opponent would also have enough time to set up their lineups for the match).

Last edited by Wagner at 6/28/2026 7:12:15 AM

[...]
Wagner wrote:
Yes, we are so much past the typically accepted match acceptance window (stated in HGL rules), that midday on Sunday (EET, DST) sounds more than decent to me and in fact also very fair towards HB, so as per your request/suggestion, let's keep that as a forfeit deadline for this EOS-HB Season 5 First Round Playoff match.
[...]

Hårdboll (HB; Spela) has not still logged in, as everyone can see for themselves if they so wish to (here: (26577)), and we've gone past the previously mentioned match forfeit deadline.

Therefore, First Round Playoff match EOS vs. HB on Season 5 will become a 50-0 forfeit win to BC Eos (EOS), and 0-50 forfeit loss to Hårdboll (HB).