News Releases 
Fourth edition of the increasingly followed Livinmantra, the largest online fantasy football Mantra the and most fun in Italy, without the danger of being denied, even the most innovative!
Our goal has always been to create new formats that have as common denominator the break of traditional rules and that are able to give a unique experience and full of fun to the participants. We want to involve you in everything that is behind our decisions, with the utmost transparency. We also need your point of view: only the limitless passion of real fantasy managers can help us to bring the bar always further.
Past Season 2020/21
The third edition saw huge participation, with sold-out registrations and the number of teams doubled (from 128 to 256 teams) compared to the previous edition.
The territorial distribution has been quite varied with 18 Italian regions involved, and several foreign countries, the average age is 29 years.
Last season there were many novelties, with different aims: from changes to the structure of the tournaments to the inclusion of new bonuses and new competitions, up to the news about the transfer market, we can say that it worked (almost) everything. Let’s start with order:
Number of players ok. Credits? Even less!
The increase in the number of players in the squad (from 23 to 28) has had an influence on increasing the differentiation between squads, one of our long-standing aims, as well as the players’ first demand. For the next season, we confirm the guidelines by reducing the initial budget from 280 to 270 credits: with fewer credits available, in fact, you need to bet on players with lower price value. With a lower price value you need to bet on lower price value football players so you can expand your choice, greater differences, therefore, there will be the squads.
Always open market and DRAFT mode confirmed. Return windows
The continuous open transfer market encourages the proliferation of different strategies. The old market transfer windows, concentrated in a single time frame, tended to make purchases more similar between the various teams, too often victims of the “players of the moment”.
On the big numbers, however, we have noticed an excessive tendency of some mantramanager to finish the available changes before the time, thus risking to find themselves too penalized in case of accidents. Having this kind of imbalance increases the luck factor – you play against 4 opponents and pecking one in 10 becomes an excessive advantage – which we always tend to reduce as much as possible. We do not like to use the “default reserve rating”, because it would be exploited by the most experienced players, for this reason, we staggered the available trade transfermarket in five transfer windows applying, therefore, an additional strategic lever due to the possibility of possible module change with less available changes together (it may be necessary to use more market windows). Confirmed the DRAFT mode, with more changes available for the lower-ranked teams.
“Surrounding” goal ranges: news appreciated by all
Appreciated by all our mantramanager, the surrounding between goal ranges is confirmed in this season: draws slightly increase, the importance of direct confrontation in the Matrix increases, which otherwise was very oriented by reaching or not the gap, increases the fun related to direct confrontation, more like a single match. To add even more fun we added extra time and penalty kicks in case of a draw.
Performance modifier made easier, added fair play
Confirmed the modifier captain that increases the strategic lines usable by mantramanager, we have also simplified the modifier performance, using only two bands: 3 points with 11 suffices, 1 point with 10. To create further strategic lines to our mantramanager, we added the modifier Fair Play: a point to all formations that do not have any cautions among the players getting ratings.
Play-off and Finals
The great news of last season was represented by the play-offs planned to determine the winner of the group and the winner of the Final8 championship. Compared to the previous season we wanted to give more balance to the best-ranked teams at the end of the regular season. We opted for two out of three results for the best-ranked team, thus giving a big advantage to the first teams in the standings.
The advantage was far too clear, not making any difference between a “first vs sixth” confrontation compared to a “first vs second” confrontation, in both cases the first had two out of three results. In particular, one team won four of the eight championships.
In hindsight it would have been possible to “mitigate” the effect, giving, for example, bonuses/malus (from + 3 to – 3) to the first six teams classified, thus reducing the advantage of the best-ranked team based on its position in the standings. This year the mode will be completely different, the 8 championships are now divided into two “worlds”: Woody and Dado. Each team participates in only one of the two “worlds”, where it plays 4 simultaneous championships. At the end of the regular season, the two worlds join for the Finals (divided into 4 different boards), where half of the teams of the regular season will participate.
Current season, 2021/22
The Livinmantra members, as you know, double every year, for this reason the mantramanager Olympus becomes more and more competitive, and only the best will manage to climb it. We want to encourage our mantramanger and make them entertain as much as possible, for this reason we have conceived new competitions with new game modes:
One-way Trophy and Return Trophy
Trophies open to all participating teams, with direct confrontations in round-trip mode, absolutely the maximum strategy for a real mantramanager!
Elimination Cup
You never win but you never finish? This competition is exactly for you! Each day, the 32 teams with the worst day score are eliminated, remaining 32 are eliminated from time to time by half. Only one will remain! It develops into two distinct cups, a first leg and a second leg.
Woody and Dado Cup
These cups are the only competitions reserved for the individual worlds of the game, always in round Robin head-to-head competition, developed throughout the entire season.
Matrix Cup
The Matrix Cup doubles this year, from 4 become 8, and the mode will be Formula One! We wanted to use a way that guaranteed an extra competition to each mantramanager until the end of the season and we felt this was the best possible solution!
Manager of month
Every month, we award the manager who scored the most in the Ranking. This competition seems trivial but it will surprise you a lot, last season this award would have been won every month by a different team, and 6 times out of 9 were teams that would not have won other prizes!
AWARDS
The competitions and the prize pool expected in the last edition have rewarded 36% of players: 92 out of 256 players have brought home at least one prize. The Best Score Week awarded 34 different teams out of 38 available gameweeks, thus giving the idea of how much the entire competition was fought Here, the complete golden book of the third edition.
Matrix League: the evolution of the Project
In the analysis of last season we explained in detail the operation of the Matrix mode, its reason to exist, and its characteristics. Our goal is always the same: to create a highly meritocratic but at the same time ultra-fun mode. We know that the highest merit is obtained with the general points ranking… but what boredom!
The head-to-head matches are the true salt of the game, the ability to snatch 3 points on the first in the standings scoring just 66 while he loses his match scoring 77 is a pleasure that only a true fantasy manager knows. Funny yes, but also distressing, as when the luck of having good fixtures counts on everything else. How many times have you heard: “Fantasy football is just luck, it all depends on the fixtures?!
The mechanism is very simple, you participate in several championships simultaneously, grouped in groups with different teams, you add up the points collected in each league, day by day, in this way you break down the variance of a single calendar, on several calendars. In the past seasons we have analyzed in depth the mathematical aspects of the Matrix mode, now let’s see what happened last season.
Exactly as for the previous season is repeated, incredibly, the same figure: among the top 10 classified in the Matrix League 7 were in the top 10 of the Livinranking points classification. It’s a fact that makes us realize how much closer the Matrix mode is in terms of points ranking than the calendar mode. Last season we also decided to give higher priority to the first in the standings, giving two out of three results to the best-ranked teams, maybe we exaggerated… The winner of the Matrix, A.S. Intomatico, participated in 6 Final8 winning at the end 4 out of 8 championships!
The mode chosen this year, with 4 championships instead of 8, will imply a slight increase in the luck factor, given the reduction in the number of championships: it will be easier to follow their games – they will be 4 per day and no longer 8 – but above all, we will place the Matrix mode exactly in the middle between the points classification (merit) and the calendar (luck), whereas until the last season, we were maybe too close to the scored points general ranking.
Battle Royale news: Is it like Matrix Mode?
In this regard, this year’s analysis is exactly among all the methods available today on fantacalcio.it. As it is easy to notice the fun is directly proportional to the number of head-to-head matches, with the Matrix mode is therefore maximum, given the number of championships simultaneously played. The merit instead could be considered maximum in the competition mode “All against all” (or ranking points), but we do not give 5 stars because this way does not take into account the constancy, but the only final points sum.
Formula One and the new Battle Royale are in fact almost identical modes: while in the first case the teams are ranked in order of points achieved and based on this order is awarded a score, In the second case the teams compete among each other and all the points of all the results are added together. Compared to Formula One, the Battle Royale increases variance as the draw is not the result of the same score but of the same goal range. So a “formula one” competition with more luck effect.
The Matrix Mode is completely different, is very close to the general points ranking as merit, managing to give even more importance to constancy, expresses a lot of fun having 4 head to head matches every day. Compared to the Battle Royale it is more fun because it is 4 “real” head-to-head matches, where you face 4 teams at random on the 512 available, the clash has a “logic”. In the Battle Royale instead, everybody playing against all the other teams, you lose the beauty of following the head-to-head match and you think only to make more points than everyone else, just like Formula One. To better understand this analysis, you just have to try our Matrix League!
Take the field now and play on livinmantra.it !
By Giovanni Maggio
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