RS and NoF have both been dropped from SPL.  Our League President, Bone, gives full details:

Major Announcements:

1. NoF has officially dropped out of SPL this season. Due to x amount of players quitting and their current remaining players activity/interest level, they have determined they can not continue, let alone sustain a full season.

2. RS has officially been removed from SPL. They are currently in a similar situation as NoF. After the past couple days of evaluating their current situation and speaking to xZiLe (current leader), the SPL staff and I have determined to not let them continue. I feel it’s necessary to state RS does not share this opinion and agree with this decision. However, we felt this was the best option available to protect the rest of the league due to the following reasoning. RS suffered some major losses after they originally applied. HunTer (leader) assured SPL this wouldn’t hurt them as a clan and to continue processing the application. RS was accepted into SPL. HunTer soon after quit RS. skriLLa (other RS captain) assured SPL this wouldn’t hurt them as a clan and their status for SPL wasn’t a concern. skriLLa soon after quit RS. xZiLe (current leader), in the conversations I’ve had with him, voiced his concerns that the clan is now discouraged and he was unsure if they could continue on. Today, after evaluating his clan, he told me he felt his clan could continue on. The staff and I don’t agree with that assessment.

Results:

There are no interested and/or available clans to replace either of these clans, so the season will now consist of 10 clans. As this forces me to adjust the divisions a tad bit and also redo the entire schedule, I’m forced to delay SPL by 1 week. The threads that are currently up for clans to discuss scheduling can now be ignored, as I will be soon locking/deleting them anyways.

May 31st was originally supposed to start Week 1. It now will kick off Week 0 (again), when scheduling can begin for the new schedule I will release by this weekend.

The new official date of Week 1 is June 7th.

The season will now naturally be shorter, consisting of 7 regular season weeks instead of 8. Clans will play a total of 13 regular season games, so every clan will have a week where they only play one game and have a “bye”. Playoff structure is not required to change because of any of this. Six clans will still move on to the playoffs. Winner of each division, and the next 4 clans highest in point totals.

To the current clans still in SPL, I will be leaving the “Roster Updates Week 1″ thread open all the way up until 11:59pm Sunday, June 6th (the night before Week 1 officially starts). If you have already posted updates in that thread, they will still be added on your rosters so need not worry.

My Thoughts:

This f’in sucks for so many reasons. I feel my time, my staff’s time, and all the clans/participants time has been wasted. Firstly, I apologize to everyone. Not for what happened with these clans, that’s out of my control. It’s my job though to accurately assess these type of things before they can turn into something like this. My desire to include as many people/clans into a season I’m very excited about though clouded my judgment. Not to mention, it’s an absolute pet peeve of mine when people say something is going to happen by a specific date and then they fail to deliver. Given the situation though, we don’t have a choice in the matter but to push everything back by a week. Ultimately, however, this is a blessing at the same time. Weeding out clans prior to the season starting is on so many levels better than if they died in the middle of the season.

To RS, I’m sorry as well to those of you who still had the desire to play and have been affected by this decision. It wasn’t an easy decision, and the staff and I certainly didn’t relish in making it. Props to xZiLe for sticking by his clan despite his other clanmates/leaders ditching them at the worst time. He’s been great through this whole process, very polite and cooperative.

Editorial

To NoF:  What the fuck?  What in the FUCK?  I seriously hate everything about this clan.  If you guys want to play a CTA, fine.  Why in the world do you sign up for SPL?  I normally don’t talk about how much time the staff has put into this, it’s a responsibility we’ve all assumed.  But this year’s staff has worked feverishly to get everything set up as you see now.  And as far as SPL’s go, this is the most prepared we’ve ever been.  It figures something like this was going to  happen.  I highly doubt you guys will ever be accepted into an SPL again.

To RS:  Just as I predicted.  For the RS members that wanted to continue on, I truly feel sorry for you.  Most of you guys are fairly newish players/untested at the SPL level, and I understand your disappointment.  Let this be a lesson that recruiting mercenaries when you are an unstable clan in the first place is a sign of impending doom for your clan.

To Perspolis:  C’mon man.  Why do you get active and keep the NoF tag?  You could’ve made the decision a long time ago to quit, and instead you fuck over your clanmates and the SPL.  Your actions alone were the catalyst to both SPL being pushed back and a whole new schedule being devised.

To Hunter and skriLLa:  You guys are bitch-made.  Simply put.  skriLLa’s applied to tC and Hunter’s going to sYn.  What the FUCK is the point?  Neither of you will get valuable playing time in a now highly competitive SPL.  You were both captains for your clan, while Hunter, you were a leader.  You, Hunter, assured SPL that regardless of your roster fluctuation, you would be fine for the entirety of the season.  You quit within a month.  skriLLa, you being the little faggot ass follower, followed shortly after.

To the rest of SPL: Well.  You lose a couple stat-padding games.  But you also lose a waste of time.  Playing these clans wouldn’t do anything for you except give you numbers.  Now we look forward to a highly competitive season, with only one ‘easy’ clan on the schedule in iLogic.

For your viewing pleasure, an excerpt from NoF’s application:

Please state, as briefly or otherwise as you think appropriate, why you want to participate in SPL:

I’m not going to lie to you, its purely selfish reasons. PERSONALLY I want to upset clans, and make a name for NoF, and try to be taken seriously. CLANWISE we all want to compete. Whenever leagues come around NoF becomes one of (if not THE) most active clan on spark. NoF is a ‘rock the boat’ clan. Nobody expects anything from us, and probably count it up as an easy win. If we go .500 or get lucky a few games, we can really benefit from the experience and teamwork that we’re going to put into this.

Please state, as briefly or otherwise as you think appropriate, why you deserve to participate in SPL:

There’s really no correct way to answer this. Are we skilled enough? It all depends on the amount of clans etc. PERSONALLLLLLLY, I feel we deserve to be in SPL simply because we have a large amount of members ready, able, and wanting to compete. We deserve to be in SPL because teams like the clippers, NJ nets, Detroit lions.. etc still get to play, compete and get better (even if they sometimes don’t make the playoffs). We fit all the requirements. We’re a no BS, no shit-talking clan. We have the ‘newb’ image I’m sure. But we have respectable members that don’t get out of line, and we follow the rules, we don’t cheat, we don’t even have members that have been ACCUSED of cheating. We’re NoF. We’re ready.

And an excerpt from RS’s applcation:

Please state, as briefly or otherwise as you think appropriate, why you want to participate in SPL: We believe that we have improved about ourselves everything that there is to improve on this game. SPL may be what we need to prove to the spark society that we have what it takes to potentially compete with high-tier clans one day. Both USL seasons were quite a success for a new clan such as us and we have worked hard to accomplish what we have. As I see it, SPL is our one and only next step on the ladder to becoming a dominant clan.

Please state, as briefly or otherwise as you think appropriate, why you deserve to participate in SPL: In my opinion, {RS} is (or is one of) the most active clan on Spark. Everyday we are practicing and competing with the society with the ultimate focus of bettering ourselves. We have a decent crew that is sick of being criticized by the community and we all think that we might now have what it takes to go head-to-head with some of the better clans on this game and really challenge ourselves. I know our goal can only be brought nearer by participating competitively in SPL.