The most exciting part of the season is finally here, the Championship! Last season, we asked the current players their thoughts on who would win the Championship and why. We are continuing that this season, and we hope to continue it for the future seasons.

How the Championship works

In the Leagueopoly Championships, the best two players by points in each conference are allowed to be in the Championship. This is, so far, the only way that the players from other conferences can officially play against each other. This year’s Championship contenders are Hydrogen and Samuel from the Chance Conference and Triforce and Scion from the Community Chest Conference. After six games, the player who receives the most points is the official champion of that season of play. Last season’s champion was cstro from the Chance Conference. In the prior seasons, there were 5 Championship games, but after discussions during the preseason, one additional game for the Championship was added.

Predictions

In a poll that was given to all eight players, all of the players voted. The results are the following:

• 4 votes for Triforce (US)
• 4 votes for Hydrogen (AL)
• 0 vote for Scion (US)
• 0 votes for Samuel (AU)

When we did this poll last season, there was a clear winner. This time around, there is a tie for who people believe will win the Championship between Hydrogen and Triforce. This is understandable as they both played key parts and showed dominance in their respective conferences.

The first person to reach back to me about the poll is the point and win leader this season, Hydrogen. He believed that the matchup is a “complete toss up” but when asked who would win, Hydrogen said himself. Tom in a similar short response believed that Triforce would win by simply saying “he’ll end up with (the) USA and Brazil corner in every game.” Rose simply responded by saying she believed either Samuel or Triforce would win due to their performances, but she ultimately chose Triforce to win. Josephine responded saying Hydrogen would win due to past performances, but believes it is up to anyone.

Reaching out to Leagueopoly commissioner, Michael Webb, he believed that Triforce would win saying he has been “impressed by how Triforce has played all season” and he believes that “his unique strategies will ultimately give him an edge in the Championships.” Another player who took note of Triforce’s play style was Scion as Scion believes Triforce “has the best decision-making in the league.” But Scion ultimately believes it will be a very close Championship.

Rookie, Championship contender, and leader of the Community Chest conference, Triforce, said that it could be a toss-up between him and Hydrogen, but Triforce ultimately chose Hydrogen as Hydrogen has a “really solid aggressive gameplan,” “good game sense,” and has the ability to create “valuable trades for himself.” Samuel also chose Hydrogen as “he was always way ahead of everyone else in (the Chance) conference” but he also believed it is a toss-up between everyone else.

Both Scion and Samuel got no votes in the Championship, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a chance or didn’t have people believe in them. In last season’s poll, cstro received no votes for themselves, but they were the winner of the season 2 Championship.

Also, many players believed that all players have a chance to win the Championship. Scion when asked for his opinion on who would win wanted to emphasize that the question of who would win is “extremely close” as he acknowledged each players game by saying “Hydrogen is an opportunist that makes more frequent trades, Samuel optimizes for high net worth to keep himself in the game for longer, and I sometimes optimize for higher potential reward instead of higher likelihood of reward” in addition to his analysis of Triforce’s ability of decision-making and statistics. Samuel also gave some anecdotes from his past experience from being in the Championship, as he has gotten into the Championship three times. He said “it can’t be ignored that people who’ve had outstanding winning streaks have ended up coming last in the Championships. I think a lot of it comes down to the opposing conferences. People on different [sic] conferences are less likely to trade or bail others out from what I’ve seen, which makes sense; you’re playing against, essentially, a random. And sometimes the first few turns dictate the outcome of a game for a player (i.e., landing on nothing) regardless of their other skills. I think it’ll be close, everyone has a good chance of winning.”

I would completely agree with Samuel, which is why I decided to include that quote in its entirety. Past stats and analysis of the player’s plays might be able to give us an indication of how a player will do in the Championship, but it won’t give the full picture as they are, as Samuel put it, “playing against a random.” The Championship will come down to the very close six games, which are scheduled to play tonight (8/13) at 8:15 PM EDT.

Make sure to tune into the Championship as anything could happen in one of the most exciting parts of the season.

References/Links

• TheRandomMelon’s Twitch Channel
• Leagueopoly Handbook - Season 2
• Discord Server
• Twitter/”X”
• Mastodon