Dear PlayStrategy Team,

My name is El_Maestro, leader of the 👑 Mancala Legends League (MLL), an international Mancala community with 42 members, an active forum, and regular tournaments.

I would like to respectfully ask whether PlayStrategy would consider creating an official Mancala trophy for the winner of the MLL's main championship:

🏆 Mancala Legends Champion

A permanent trophy would provide meaningful recognition for Mancala champions, encourage participation, and help strengthen the growing Mancala community on PlayStrategy.

If a permanent trophy is not possible, we would also greatly appreciate consideration of a temporary or annual trophy.

Thank you very much for considering our proposal and for supporting the development of Mancala on PlayStrategy.

Kind regards,

El_Maestro
Leader & Organizer
👑 Mancala Legends League

4

Counter suggestion playstrategy.org/tournament/TJLFDVK0

Whoever wins the weekly pool tournament on 18.8. gets:
- Permanent trophy
- Lifetime wings
- PM title (PlayStrategy Master)
- Their name shown in red font size 50 with burning flames effect on front page

2

@El_Maestro
there are already different ways of getting mancala trophies-
shields
medleys
(used to be, now unavailable) introductory arenas

get some trophies from here :)

some reasons why this idea will be discouraged-
1) Mancala given more power- breaks the equality of all variants
2) Backlash- many non-mancala players will ofc see the unfairness
3) Unofficial trophies- this isnt a PlayStrategy team
4) Stacking and backfire- you may not notice, but this will inevitably give less importance to a trophy. Since there is high availability, the trophies will be given MUCH less importance, leading them to become a pointless and overused trophy in the long-run.
5) Chances of improper management- the trophies are given away too fast
6a) Hate on mancala- if not also implemented in other family groups, non-mancala players will not like mancala.
6b) Programming issues and technical instability- PlayStrategy may not be able to keep up with all the new shields, which may make them a burden.
7) Loss of value- the value of trophies go down (see 4)
8) No centralism- PlayStrategy cant run their own events, then there is a high chance they reject it. Everyone can trust the final decisions of the PlayStrategy team (prob much more than another user)
9) Can the leaders be trusted?- for all variants, can they? Uncertainties arise

What you can do,
1) Roll of honour- mention it in the team's front page
2) Gift Wings- a rare sight here
3) User perks- some other rewards
4) Nothing- some people play for the joy of playing, no need rewards :)

consider these, maybe you found your answer here :) .

15

Thank you for taking the time to explain these concerns in detail. I understand the points you raised, especially regarding fairness between game families, preserving the value of trophies, centralized management, and the technical workload for PlayStrategy.

I would like to clarify that my intention is not to give Mancala an unfair advantage or to create an unofficial trophy controlled by the MLL.

Ideally, the recognition would be officially managed and awarded by PlayStrategy, with clear eligibility requirements, a defined championship format, and the same standards that would apply to any other established game family.

Regarding equality between variants, I would be completely open to a broader system where other established game families could also propose official championship recognition under the same criteria. My goal is not to make Mancala an exception, but to explore whether a fair system could exist for major championships across PlayStrategy.

I also agree that permanent trophies should remain rare and meaningful. For this reason, the trophy would not need to be awarded frequently. It could be limited to the winner of a major annual championship, making it a significant achievement rather than an overused reward.

I appreciate the existing Mancala Shields and Medley events, but I see them as somewhat different from a championship trophy. A championship recognition would create a clear long-term record of champions and give players an additional competitive goal.

I also understand the concern about programming and technical workload. If a permanent trophy is not practical, I would be very happy to consider an official annual trophy or Shield as a simpler alternative.

Finally, I appreciate your suggestions regarding a roll of honour, wings, and other rewards. Those are certainly possible alternatives. However, I believe an officially recognized championship could provide meaningful long-term recognition while still respecting PlayStrategy's existing trophy system.

I am not asking PlayStrategy to give Mancala special treatment. I am asking whether there is a fair, sustainable, and centrally managed way to recognize a major Mancala championship, using principles that could also be available to other game families.

Thank you again for the constructive feedback. It has helped me think about how the proposal can be improved and made more compatible with PlayStrategy's overall system.

1

@El_Maestro

We're unlikely to award a special trophy for your tournament series.

The reasons that @LeftCleverGlove are a good starting point as to why, but also their suggestions of what you can do instead are all good ideas - why not do these?

You mention "clear eligibility requirements, a defined championship format" - what is your proposed championship format?

Your group is new, and has not yet established a regular pattern of consistently well attended events. If your group/tournament series had a significant number of players frequently participating only then we might consider something.

There are other unofficial mancala groups that have existed for years on PlayStrategy, have regular tournaments, and haven't asked for a trophy to be awarded. Why should your team be the one to get a special trophy?

Does your Mancala community have a presence outside of PlayStrategy? An official website?

Is there a reason why your community are not interested in playing in the current regular set of PlayStrategy tournaments (e.g. the monthly Shields per variant and the monthly medley shield)?

2

@El_Maestro There are two online MSO GP mancala tournaments that give out in total 6 permanent trophies:
- Oware playstrategy.org/swiss/88J0ZFog
- Togyzqumalaq playstrategy.org/swiss/TSbzQaoG

So these are two annual championships with official recognition from PlayStrategy, having more seems redundant.

There are also 3 other yearly mancala tournaments hosted by PlayStrategy that don't have trophies:
- Oware playstrategy.org/tournament/3RdlatI4
- Togyzqumalaq playstrategy.org/tournament/yeeWZvhr
- Bestemshe playstrategy.org/tournament/sBnAQJu8

Trophy PNGs suck anyway, here are some cooler ones I found in less than a minute on google:

i.ibb.co/PG8Qz8Yz/trophy-with-face-1ax92djf4l4y2gv3.gif

i.ibb.co/d0xLf2zt/kmk.gif

i.ibb.co/Xr3jC3Xf/im-the-best-eric-cartman.gif

hi
@El_Maestro has a point
about an annual system-like trophy
I saw something like a grand prix system for variants, where the winner of many tournaments can be the winner.

It has perks, like:
1) equal accessability: a problem with the MSO tournaments and shields and medleys is that it isnt suitable for all people. By doing some quick research, I found that people in Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, North Korea, Philippines, New Zealand, Russia (far-eastern area, near Vladivostok and Kamchatka Peninsula) and other Australia/Oceanian island countries have both the shield timings falling really inconveniently, and would mess their sleep timings. It falls around 10pm-6am. By doing a gp system, we can make sure each timezone gets only one event, evening the field.
2) many chances- If you miss an event, no problem!, you can always join another one.

Disadvantages:
1) technical instabilities: more code, more the system should handle
2) cluttering: perhaps, prob not (i hope not)

I think this is it?
maybe this is a good idea, and may be addressed to in the future! :)

@LeftCleverGlove I will shed a tear for our Respected Comrade Kim Jong-Un and other North Koreans whose shield timings are inconvenient.

Most people don't care about the shields anyway even on weekends, /tournament/shield-leaderboard/0 (reached max forum links so can't directly link it, see bottom of that site for explanation of point distribution), there are 127 people who during a 2 month period have played atleast one game during shield tournament. There are 45 people (bottom ~35%) who have only 1 point and 77 (bottom ~61%) who have 3 points or less, Only 28 people (top ~22%) have 10 points or more and 13 people (top ~10%) more than 20 points.

To get 10 points you can play 1 game in 10 different shield tournaments, finish 3rd in 5 tournaments, finish 2nd in 3(.33) tournaments, finish 1st in 2 tournaments or any combination of them. In many of them Tom finishes in top 3 and that doesn't include his strong suits like togyzqumalaq or frisian. My point being, that if someone is interested in shields they can easily surpass 10 points and if they are good at some games easily surpass 20 points. Regardless of timezone, they can still catch a tournament early in the morning or late at night and during a whole 2 month period it's still very low.

And the solution is already implemented, many organize their own tournaments in their own timezones or play official weekly tournaments and see if anyone joins. It's not like the shield matters any more than these tournaments except that people know there is a high likelihood for an opponent there.

As for a multi-tournament grandprix system, if you allow someone to play multiple tournaments in different timezones, they increase their chances of winning without additional merit/skill. If you don't allow them or somehow restrict them, then one timezone can be much stronger than another one.

Each week there are 24 hour tournaments and yearly PlayStrategy birthday/end of year medley that don't rely on timezones to be able to play them.

@ll ,
I do not know if anyone is really interested in playing 1 game at 12 am just to get one point on the leaderboard
Regardless if you have 100 points or just one, your rewards from the leaderboard will be the same - nothing.
People play the shields sometimes for opponents, and sometimes for the shield.
And, aprrox. 216.7 million people live in these affected regions,
now even if only 0.00001 play pst, it is still 21 people.
From 127 people who have 1 point on the leaderboard, 21 is about 9%.
And i havent even counted the pacific islands, and russia and philippines and indonesia.
So, a huge no. of people are affected.