-At the conclusion of the 'regular' season, the top 4 teams have earned the right to play in the 'Gold' and 'Bronze' matches.
-The Top 4 teams, unlike the regular season, have Home Court Advantage (HCA) depending on their finishing place.
Thank you also for your considerable effort. :)
I actually meant, that (if we keep on talking about "pre-playoffs"/play-in games which mean the same thing for this purpose) top 4 teams secure place for playoffs, and opponents for those top 4 teams are decided in this "pre-playoff" round. For instance team ranked 5 plays home against team ranked 12, team rank 6 plays team 11, and so on, and winners of these matches (8 teams play pre-playoff games, so there will be 4 pre-playoff matches played with single elimination format as usual) will face best 4 or regular season, so there will be normal quarterfinal stage (of 8 participating teams, as it's quarterfinal after all) after the pre-playoff stage.
So I also meant that top four or regular season are guaranteed a place in playoffs, nothing else (not automatic bronze or gold medal match - they have to win their first quarterfinal, and if they win it they are in the semis and then, and only then they of course have secured a medal game).
In terms of home court advantage, in playoffs I think better team (team with better regular season record; if record was tied, perhaps the one who has won the regular season meeting between those two teams this same season) should always receive home court advantage.
Especially with pre-playoff stage (and I think mostly also later on in the playoffs), as for example regular season 5th and 12th will play pre-playoff game against each other (in which regular season 12th has a shot to send league 5th to "a summer holiday" in one match even though they've had a lot worse regular season than regular season 5th!), I think it is necessary to award better regular season record even somehow (even though team ranked 5th is of course likely somewhat big favorite to win the match to begin with, but still). I don't know if bronze and final matches should be played on neutral court (what do you guys think?), but I think at least in all other playoff matches (including semis) should award home court advantage to a better regular season record.
-How this system would work for 2 divisions in future seasons is still to be determined.
Yes, we can discuss about it. But in short, this system is somewhat flexible though, and if in a league of 7 or 8 participants only 2 best of regular season would receive guaranteed playoff place (and teams ranked from 3rd to 6th would play pre-playoff matches to decide which teams would face those teams ranked 1 and 2 in semis), then 6 of 7 (or 6 of 8, if there are 8 teams in top league) would get to participate to postseason play.
Also, like I mentioned earlier, it is possible to use pre-playoff matches as a form of league relegation simultaneously ((if we have 8 teams ranked 5th to 12th participating to pre-playoffs, we could agree that winners will secure a place in playoffs (in 8 team quarterfinals), and rest, the losers of pre-playoffs will drop to the Division 1 for the next season.
In the forthcoming seasons (pre-playoffs for teams 3th to 6th) I presented earlier a functioning model (in message 324689.242 , "Cons")
A quick question, Wagner. Does the winner or loser of the 'Pre-Season' mean anything? Or is it just for maximum participation?
Umm.. do you mean these "pre-playoff"-matches for teams ranked 5th-12th in the league table?
If so, from those 4 matches we would find opposition from regular season 4 best teams (so that worst ranked pre-playoff match winner would face team with best regular season record, second worst faces second best, etc. like most often in real world; in my previous messages I called that "re-seeding", where after each round teams are re-arranged so that worst always faces best, and so on.