The attached blueprint explains where the cutoffs were anticipated to happen. From what I can tell, a lot of other people did their math on divisions too and shot for that cutoff. After some clans decided not to participate, it resulted in a cutoff that, based on last war's 18-division layout, is a full division lower (12½) than anticipated (11½). With exactly the same teams and layouts as last war, the cutoff would have been around level 36-37 instead of around 32-33.
Barring a few last minute participation confirmations, the CHOP Immortals strategy was fairly simple - bring together everyone we've got in our little group, and maybe get a couple extra to make sure we bring a full squad. It happened to work out pretty well, with a conservative average of 30 while the top contender in the division had a 32.6. This way we have all our members along in one place, and that is usually more fun when many of you can be sitting in the same room during the event.
We're going into this event with 8 players considerably above the average level, and 8 way below it. Many teams brought a full 16 players ready to rumble, so technically they have twice as many points available to them. A guild that gets 16 silver medals (128 points) will stomp the pants off a guild that gets 8 golds (80 points).
I like this new format. It's a nice change of pace and ought to be fun, even if the "grab everyone and go in together" approach isn't that great for it.
Submitted by James Waddington#714295