Season 4 Weekly Update 38 - League A

Please fill out the returning manager form if you are returning for Season 5! And please send the new manager form to any prospective new managers! If we could get enough people for a League C that would be awesome :eyes:

Hello everyone and welcome to our final (:() gameweek, gameweek 38! This penultimate weekly update is coming to you from a bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo (+from maybe a plane, my home in Seattle, etc. who knows). Either way, all games this week are at 8am PDT / 11am EDT on Sunday, which means our final waivers are due on Saturday at (I think) 6:30am PDT / 9:30am EDT! And some huge results this week, with Zach defeating Darryan 72-50 to be crowned champion of Game of Stones Season 4! Congratulations Zach, we didn't think you had it in you after your first couple of seasons but it was a very solid season beginning to end, with (surely) 1700+ PF, that puts you firmly at 2nd highest PF in a season of all time. Even if you win this week, you'll have the lowest points total of any 1st place finisher, though. Sorry. Anyway, that's just the 2nd most interesting result of the week, as Gavin has won his 4th match of the season!!!! He defeated Coop in a nailbiter, 33-31 heading into the final week. Elsewhere, Jesse beat Kevin 41-27 and MatthewR put on a clinic against Luke 49-25. Also, Arsenal won the Premier League let's gooooooooooo. Full results are as follows:

  • Matthew 40-25 Matt
  • MatthewR 49-25 Luke
  • Scott 32-49 Dylan
  • Kevin 27-41 Jesse
  • Zach 72-50 Darryan
  • Coop 31-33 Gavin

League Table

Weekly Matchups


As mentioned earlier, congratulations to Zach! His win against Darryan this week mathematically secured his 1st place finish this season with an 8 point with 1 week to go! However, Darryan's spot is not so safe, with Jesse now just a single point behind him. Jesse confirmed his top 3 finish as well, defeating Kevin and increasing the gap to 5 points. Just behind Kevin sits MatthewR only 1 point back, leapfrogging Luke by 2 points this week. Dylan and I keep pace just 1 behind Luke. Behind me, Gavin's win secured Matt's spot in League A as he goes into the final week 4 ahead of Coop. Gavin goes up to 13 points hell yeah

Game Changers! Still just gonna list them, we'll see if I come back to it (probably not)

  • Matthew: Enzo Le Fee - 13 pts
  • MatthewR: Ollie Watkins - 15 pts
  • Dylan: Dango Ouattara - 15 pts
  • Jesse: Virgil Van Dijk - 14 pts
  • Zach: William Osula - 13 pts
  • Gavin: Joe Rodon - 6 pts

With one week left in May our league winner Zach is the only undefeated manager remaining!

Manager of the Month


And of course, he tops the form table as well with 15/15 points earned! Kevin and Jesse both sit on 12/15!

Form Table


And in the final week, we'll see some fun ones, including nothing-to-play-for Zach vs Luke, Kevin facing off against Matt in a must-win match if he wants to hang onto 4th, and Darryan with his own must-win match for 2nd (only must-win if Gavin can't pull off the win against Jesse(unlikely)). Full matchups are as follows:

  • Matthew (8) vs Darryan (2) (all-time: 6-0-5, 415-512)
  • Jesse (3) vs Gavin (12) (all-time: 5-0-5, 323-324)
  • Dylan (7) vs Coop (10) (all-time: 3-0-2, 151-142)
  • Luke (6) vs Zach (1) (all-time: 3-0-6, 355-426)
  • Matt (9) vs Kevin (4) (all-time: 2-0-4, 264-285)
  • MatthewR (5) vs Scott (11) (all-time: 5-0-7, 343-392)

Shoutout this week to Zach for his 7 winstreak! And to me and MatthewR for our back to back wins!

Stats

Copium Tables

Performance Table

Luck Table

xP Table (manager vs average)

All Manager Table

Statistical Breakdowns

Gameweek Breakdown

Manager Breakdown

Timelines

Position Timeline

Points Timeline

Points For Timeline

Champions Cup

Hello and welcome to the final week of the Champions Cup, where we will see the 2nd leg between Zach and Mack. And it'll be an uphill battle for the latter, as she is heading into the second leg at a 55 point deficit. So you're telling me there's a chance?

  • Zach 72-17 Mack

Good luck to Zach!

Knockout Stage


The Run In

League A

Going into the final week, we have a couple interesting battles. Starting at the top, Darryan has to beat me to hang onto a 2nd place finish, considering you have to think Jesse will defeat Gavin (unless…). Kevin's 4th place spot is also at jeopardy if he loses to Matt, as MatthewR is just 1 point behind and is going up against Scott (unless…). Luke pulling off the upset against Zach sees him in contention for 5th, if MatthewR loses. Kevin should be fine on PF against Luke. Where it gets interesting is in the 5th-8th range where Dylan and I both have the PF advantage against MatthewR, and could go outright above Luke on points if he were to lose to Zach.

League A - Top 8


And with Coop's surprise loss to Gavin, he enters the playoff. More on that below!

League A - Relegation Race


League B

And John has done it! With his 58-51 win, he just needs to win 1 more to take home the League B title! That match will be against Cara, while I still have to defeat Travis to give myself a shot at first place!

League B - Title Race


The promotion spots however are very nearly done and dusted as Alex's win against ZachA and Chris's victory over Mack secures them top 4 spots. However, automatic qualification is still up for grabs as Alex can secure his 3rd place finish with a win against Mack this week! Chris can take 3rd if he wins and Mack defeats Alex! Another interesting tidbit about the 5th-7th spots is that only 2 points separate the 3 managers, meaning the table could see some big changes come Sunday!

League B - Promotion Playoff Race


Promotion Playoff

Since we now know that Coop is the League A contender in the promotion playoff and either Chris or Alex will be his League B opponent, the first leg could have finished with either outcome (depending on how GW38 goes):

  • Coop 31-43 Alex
  • Coop 31-49 Chris

So it's not looking great for Coop, but anything could happen on the final matchday!

Power Rankings

On the bubble (in no order): Dylan, Morgs, Matthew, ZachA, MatthewR Fell off: None

10 - Luke (-4) - League A - Last 5: 63 (W), 48 (L), 45 (W), 40 (W), 25 (L) - A rough one for Luke as he put up a rough 25 points off the back of Senesi and Mainoo both barely hitting defcon. Plus he benched Woltemade for his first goal in 21 gameweeks and lost the head to head against MatthewR to drop out of 5th, so just a tough week all around for Luke.

9 - Chris (+1) - League B - Last 5: 63 (W), 32 (W), 37 (L), 62 (W), 49 (W) - Chris followed up his huge double gameweek score with an equally solid 49 pointer and more importantly a win against Mack to secure his top 4 spot in League B this season. His score this week was led by the greatest to ever do it Ollie Watkins' 15 pointer as Villa just decimated Liverpool, Saliba's title-winning clean sheet (and 8 points) against Burnley, Shaw somehow scoring his like 3rd goal ever, and Rice and Scott hitting defcon. As usual. And maybe next week we'll get one more Wilson return for old times' sake?

8 - Jesse (+1) - League A - Last 5: 66 (W), 31 (W), 28 (W), 52 (L), 41 (W) - A huge win for Jesse against Kevin this week keeps him in the running for 2nd as Van Dijk's odd 14 pointer off of 2 goals, 4 goals conceded, 10 defensive contributions, and 0 bonus points led a squad of mostly 1 pointers to a 40+ point week. Apart from Virgil, Sarr contributed with a goal against Brentford, and Pope, Truffert, and Botman all found their own fun and unique ways of reaching 4 points. Jesse also left 11 points from Wharton on the bench, because his place in the league does not at all rely on PF, so who needs em.

7 - Kevin (-3) - League A - Last 5: 66 (W), 34 (W), 60 (W), 54 (W), 27 (L) - On the other hand, Kevin's team of ~2 pointers + DCL and Keane was not enough to beat aforementioned Jesse's 41 points, which did knock him out of the running for 3rd. And also puts him at danger of dropping further down the table next week if he loses against Matt. It's okay though he only has mostly players who are playing for nothing, and they are precisely the players who will do something this week, I guarantee it.

6 - Darryan (+2) - League A - Last 5: 73 (W), 24 (L), 36 (W), 47 (W), 50 (L) - A rough loss to Zach this week for Darryan as he proves he is the 2nd best team in the league by putting up the 2nd best score this week… and losing to the highest. Even still, a 50 pointer heading into the final week is pretty good and he just needs one more win to join me in owning a "1 1st place finish and 1 2nd place finish" trophy. Anyway, this week's score came from, again, Shaw + Saliba and as everyone expected, double Leeds defense picking up clean sheets vs Brighton. And also Haaland scored a really nice goal (too late) to somehow secure all 3 bonus points in his match. Oh right, FWD.

5 - Alex (+2) - League B - Last 5: 51 (L), 31 (L), 58 (W), 51 (L), 43 (W) - On a similar track to Jesse, weirdly enough, Alex also won this week with a low 40s score to secure his spot in the top 4 (okay, okay, Jesse secured top 3 but the recent weeks are similar). And, like Jesse, Alex also made the wrong benching decisions, as he played the wrong 1 of his 3 Bournemouth players and left Kroupi's 8 and Truffert's 4 on the bench. It's a good thing ZachA also benched his 8 pointer. Anyway, this week was the Dango and Szoboszlai show as the duo combined for 24 points, leaving the rest of Alex's team to do, well, not much. I guess Bruno G hit defcon so that's cool.

4 - Mack (-3) - League B - Last 5: 50 (W), 62 (W), 46 (W), 46 (L), 17 (L) - Not really sure what happened here but all of Mack's players just kinda seemed to die? And/or give up? Literally 0 returns other than Woltemade, who sat 3rd on the bench. It's rough out there sometimes.

3 - Matthew2 (-) - League B - Last 5: 74 (W), 40 (W), 40 (W), 40 (W), 51 (L) - The monkey's paw curls as I score more than 40 and lose to John. Still, a solid 51 pointer this week including double 12 pointers from Rogers and Anderson plus Munoz and Mosquera finding completely different methods of achieving 6 points. Just wasn't enough though even after adding Harry Maguire to the team. I thought he would be the key smh

2 - John (+3) - League B - Last 5: 73 (W), 31 (L), 36 (L), 59 (W), 58 (W) - You gotta hand it to him, he won when it mattered and back to back high weeks in the high 50s may just be enough to see him grasp a trophy at the end of next week. Anyway, huge performances from Enzo Le Fee, Enzo Le Fee impersonator Bruno Fernandes, DCL, Gabriel, and Justin who all returned 6+. Also, somehow Gross got 1 bonus point despite his team losing 1-0 and him not hitting defcon or anything. What an interesting 3 pointer.

1 - Zach (+1) - League A - Last 5: 80 (W), 37 (W), 43 (W), 61 (W), 72 (W) - An enormous week to secure the league title for Zach as his league(s) high 72 pointer contained 5 double digit hauls. Yep, that's right, Darlow had 11 (cs + 7 saves + 2 bonus), Robinson 12 (penalty scored??? + 2 bonus + defcon), Rogers 12 (goal + assist + 2 bonus), Saka 10 (assist + cs + 2 bonus + defcon), and Osula had 13 (2 goals + 3 bonus). Hey wait maybe Harry Maguire was the key to all this.

Good luck all!