ELF Playoffs
All ELF seasons culminate in playoff games (or simply playoffs) that follow the regular season and determine season's champion team. This is the traditional structure of an American football season.
The primary reason is that regular season includes far fewer games than necessary for a double round-robin tournament, customary to European sports. This means that it is not feasible to establish "the best" team with any degree of fairness, since many candidates won't even play each other. Beside that, some teams can have objectively easier schedules (a lot of games against far weaker opponents), so even metrics like win percentage have limited value.
Following examples of American leagues, all ELF teams are divided into a number of divisions (between 2022 and 2024 called conferences). During regular seasons teams within each division participate in the usual double round-robin tournament, i.e. every team plays each other twice: at home and on the road (away). In addition, there are interdivision games so that the regular season consists of 12 (10 in 2021) games for each team.
As the regular season concludes, the winner of each division advances to playoffs. Each season there are predetermined number of playoff places. To fill the remaining slots, a number of teams that failed to win their division, but had the best overall record (of nonwinners) is added to to the draw. These teams are called wildcards. All the teams are seeded, with the division winners always having higher (smaller numbers, better) seeds than wildcards and teams within each of these two groups ordered by their overall records.
Playoffs themselves are a single-elimination tournament. If the total number of teams is not a power of two, the highest seeds (i.e. division winners with the best records) receive a bye in the first round and automatically advance to the second. In general, possible opponents are not fixed from the start. Instead, in each round the highest seed plays the lowest that has survived the previous round. For example, the team with seed 1, the team with the best results in the regular season, will play the lowest remaining seed in each playoff round it has to play at all.
The final of the playoffs is called the Championship Game and the winner of the final is crowned ELF Champion of the season.
2021 Playoffs[edit | edit source]
In its first season, ELF had only 8 teams divided into two divisions. That season there were, strictly speaking, no wildcard teams. Instead, second-placed team in each division played its division winner for a place in the Championship Game.
| Away | Score | Home |
|---|---|---|
| Semifinals | ||
| Cologne Centurions (South 2) | 6-36 | Frankfurt Galaxy (South 1) |
| Panthers Wroclaw (North 2) | 27-30 | Hamburg Sea Devils (North 1) |
| Championship Game | ||
| Hamburg Sea Devils (North 1) | 30-32 | Frankfurt Galaxy (South 1) |
2022 Playoffs[edit | edit source]
In its second season, ELF got expanded to 12 teams and restructured to three conferences. One wildcard team would join the conference winners to participate in 4-team playoffs.
| Away | Score | Home |
|---|---|---|
| Semifinals | ||
| Raiders Tirol [4] (Central 2) | 7-19 | Hamburg Sea Devils [1] (Northern 1) |
| Barcelona Dragons [3] (Southern 1) | 12-39 | Vienna Vikings [2] (Central 1) |
| Championship Game | ||
| Vienna Vikings [2] (Central 1) | 27-15 | Hamburg Sea Devils [1] (Northern 1) |
Number in square brackets is the team's seed.
2023 Playoffs[edit | edit source]
As ELF grew to 17 teams, number of playoff spots had been increased to six, meaning that the three conference winners would be joined by three wildcard teams. This added one more round to playoffs, for which the two conference winners with the best record would get a bye.
| Away | Score | Home |
|---|---|---|
| Wildcard Round | ||
| Berlin Thunder [5] (Eastern 2) | 3-20 | Frankfurt Galaxy [4] (Western 2) |
| Panthers Wroclaw [6] (Eastern 3) | 14-37 | Stuttgart Surge [3] (Central 1) |
| Semifinals | ||
| Frankfurt Galaxy [4] (Western 2) | 23-42 | Rhein Fire [1] (Western 1) |
| Stuttgart Surge [3] (Central 1) | 40-33 | Vienna Vikings [2] (Eastern 1) |
| Championship Game | ||
| Stuttgart Surge [3] (Central 1) | 34-53 | Rhein Fire [1] (Western 1) |
Number in square brackets is the team's seed.
2024 Playoffs[edit | edit source]
The playoffs in 2024 had exactly the same structure as in 2023, with six participants in total. The three highest seeds, i.e. the conference winners, were exactly the same as the previous season. However, all three wildcard teams changed and actually reached the playoffs for the first time.
| Away | Score | Home |
|---|---|---|
| Wildcard Round | ||
| Munich Ravens [5] (Central 2) | 37-40 | Paris Musketeers [4] (Western 2) |
| Madrid Bravos [6] (Western 3) | 10-40 | Rhein Fire [3] (Western 1) |
| Semifinals | ||
| Paris Musketeers [4] (Western 2) | 31-47 | Vienna Vikings [1] (Eastern 1) |
| Rhein Fire [3] (Western 1) | 29-23 | Stuttgart Surge [2] (Central 1) |
| Championship Game | ||
| Rhein Fire [3] (Western 1) | 51-20 | Vienna Vikings [1] (Eastern 1) |
Number in square brackets is the team's seed.
Random facts[edit | edit source]
- No wildcard team has managed to win a playoff game against a higher seed yet, in particular against a conference/division winner.
- In the first three seasons with three conferences, seeds 1, 2 and 3 have all won the league once.
