Time is running out for teams to prove their dominance. Anyone not deemed worthy by the end of March will be banished for several months. Days will be numbered. Tears will be shed. Six talented teams will have their seasons ripped from them by Major League Table Tennis (MLTT)’s final arbiter of success.

That arbiter resides in Fremont, Calif. And it’s very picky about who gets to visit.

Championship Weekend is the league’s most exclusive club. Are you one of the two best teams in your conference? If so, come out to Fremont from April 18-19 for a chance to win MLTT’s third championship. If not, consider your seasons over, even though it may feel like yours just started.

The chance to play at Championship Weekend has always been a priority for each of MLTT’s ten teams. Some teams have stumbled on their journey to Fremont this year, but they’ve had plenty of time to nullify their mistakes throughout the season. Until now. The Chicago Wind have already secured a spot in this year’s postseason, leaving the other nine teams scrambling for one of the remaining three. 

How can they secure one of those coveted spots? By performing well during MLTT’s final three weeks of the regular season. That includes Week 13 from March 6-8, where the Princeton Revolution ( ), Carolina Gold Rush ( ), Florida Crocs ( ) and the Los Angeles Spinners ( ) will attempt to appeal to the league’s impartial arbiter in Fremont. Every point from here on out will boost a team’s chance to qualify for Championship Weekend. Every mistake will send each team further down their uphill battle. And by the time each team packs their bags on Sunday, someone will be going home for good.

The road to the postseason starts this weekend, especially for the four teams playing. Here’s what’s at stake during Week 13 of Major League Table Tennis:

‍The First Goodbye

The Los Angeles Spinners are fighting for their postseason lives this weekend. They sit at the bottom of the West Division with a 6-9 record and 146 points, an unenviable scenario for a team still hoping to make Championship Weekend. And if they can’t score at least 39 match points this weekend, those hopes will no longer be possible to see through.

That sounds dire. And that’s because it absolutely is; they don’t have any subsequent matches that could undo a poor showing. But if you prefer to see the Spinners’ table as half-set, you might say that the Spinners only need 39 points to survive another week. If they reach that number, they’ll surpass the Texas Smash, who finished their Week 12 in Pleasanton, Calif., with an 8-10 record and 184 points. 

That scenario would not only keep Los Angeles in contention for the playoffs, it would also make Texas the league’s first team to be eliminated from postseason contention. The Spinners will become the third West Division team to finish their regular season, meaning that the team with the lowest point total of the three will be eliminated from the playoffs. Whether or not that’s the Spinners is entirely in their hands.

If they make it to the end of their regular season with their playoff dreams still intact, they won’t even get a breather. They’re still at the mercy of the Portland Paddlers (10-2, 169 points), who only need to score 53 points in two weeks to secure the West Division’s final open playoff spot. In other words, the league’s most successful team up to this point needs to earn 42% of their remaining points to eliminate the Spinners from Championship Weekend, and that’s without including a potential uprising from the third-place Bay Area Blasters (8-7, 159 points) in Week 14.

The only guarantee right now is that Chicago will make the trip to Fremont. Nothing else is for certain. The odds that Portland misses the postseason are not zero, meaning that the Spinners could snatch that spot from underneath their noses. All they would need is 39 points.

Are the Crocs Underwater?

The Florida Crocs’ season isn’t over yet. They’ve got a maximum point total of 219, which puts them within just five points of New York, who currently sits at the top of the East Division. That’s a number that neither Princeton nor Carolina will be able to surpass this weekend, which means that as of Wednesday, Florida still maintains some control over their postseason destiny. If there were ever a time for Florida to get hot, it would be now. 

Despite this, they’re at the bottom for a reason. They’re the only team yet to surpass 100 points for the season, and all three of their Week 13 opponents have had better seasons. They’re very vulnerable to elimination, and not from Princeton. Nor from Carolina. Their biggest threat to the postseason is perhaps the most dangerous one of all: themselves.

There’s one caveat to putting all of your playoff hopes onto your maximum point total: that number can only decrease. Each lost game this weekend will send Florida further and further down Revolution-infested and Gold Rush-infested waters. Those waters are deep, though. Twenty-one points deep, to be exact. That’s how many points the Crocs need to score if they want to guarantee their survival for another week.

If they don’t, they’re not immediately out of the playoff picture. They’re only in grave danger. Scoring less than 23 points would give Princeton and Carolina a chance to knock them out if both teams perform well this weekend. And as Florida’s maximum point total goes down, so does the number of matches Princeton and Carolina need to win for Florida to face elimination. And with the inevitability of lost games, it’s all but certain that number will continue to decrease as the weekend goes on.

What does that look like in practice? Twenty-three points equates to one win for the weekend with two additional points scored. That means that an undefeated weekend would keep Florida alive no matter how Princeton and Carolina do, as would a 2-1 finish. Those numbers can change as early as Friday, too. If Florida scores anywhere between 15 and 22 points, they’re okay as long as Princeton defeats Carolina on Friday. But if Carolina wins Friday’s match, Florida needs at least 23 points to guarantee another week.

Any number below 15 means that Princeton and Carolina can knock out Florida and Carolina regardless of Friday’s result. And if Florida fails to score a single point this weekend, Princeton and Carolina would only need 31 points (one win and 10 additional points) and 38 (one win and 17 additional points) points respectively to eliminate them from the postseason.

This is, without question, the most important week for the Crocs of the season. Their best possible outcome puts them right alongside Princeton, Carolina and New York as teams vying for a playoff spot. At worst, their Season 3 playoff dreams end on their home turf. At the very least, Florida will lean in one of those directions on Monday morning. Where they lean depends entirely on how well they perform in their final homestand of the season.

A Tiebreaker in the East

The Princeton Revolution, Carolina Gold Rush and New York Slice (9-6, 161 points) currently command a contested race for the East Division’s two open playoff spots. Two of those teams, the Revolution and Gold Rush, will compete this weekend. Neither of those teams will be able to clinch a postseason spot in Hollywood, Fla., given how close the records are for the three teams atop the East. 

But they do have a chance at the next best thing: separating themselves from one another. 

As it stands, Princeton’s 126 points narrowly edge out Carolina’s 119, but that could change if one of those teams dramatically outperforms the other this weekend. It’s possible for Princeton to take a 70-point lead against Carolina by the end of Week 13, or for Carolina to exceed Princeton by 56. That spells a doomsday scenario for the losing team if that’s where the standings lie on Monday morning, when both teams will have just 63 available points to make up for the difference.

That can’t happen if they don’t win their final Season 3 match against one another on Friday. And if recent history is indicative of what’s to come, either team could easily win this match. When they played each other in Week 12, the Revolution turned a two-point deficit heading into the Golden Game into a 13-8 victory. And because of how evenly-matched these teams are, it doesn’t appear likely that either team will pull too far away from the other from this match alone.

And yet, that doesn’t devalue the importance of this match. Whoever wins on Friday will all but secure any potential tiebreaker scenario. Carolina can secure that tiebreaker if they win with at least 14 points. Any less, and Princeton’s got the final say in the standings. And in a division as close as this year’s East is, having any bit of security will certainly go a long way.

The East Division is so tight that not even an immaculate Week 13 would secure either Princeton or Carolina a playoff spot before Monday. That just makes these matches even more important for Princeton and Carolina, as even a single win could shift the standings overnight. Each of the five East Division teams hope those standings will shift in their favor, something Carolina and Princeton have an opportunity to control. 

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