# Leagues and Team Battles

Two ways teams compete here, often confused with each other.

## Team battle

A single arena tournament between invited teams. Everyone plays everyone; each
team's score is the sum of its top N players. It starts, it runs for its
duration, it ends. See [Team Battles](/page/team-battle-faq).

## League

A **series** of team battles run on a schedule, with results carried across the
season and teams promoted or relegated between divisions.

HungKings does not run leagues centrally. A league here is something a group of
teams organises for themselves: agree the divisions, agree the schedule, and
create one team battle per round. The site provides the tournaments; the standings
between rounds are kept by the organisers.

## Starting one

You will need:

- **Several teams that will actually show up.** A division where two of five teams
  turn up is worse than no division. This is the part that fails, not the software
- **A fixed slot.** Same weekday, same time. Irregular schedules lose people
- **A published table.** A team page or a blog post that shows standings after
  each round, so the season feels like a season

## Running the rounds

Create each round as a team battle from the tournament page, invite the same
teams, and keep the format identical between rounds — changing the time control
mid-season makes the results incomparable.

Announce the round in the team forums a few days ahead, not an hour ahead.

## Prizes

If a league offers prizes, the rules in [Tournament Prizes](/page/prizes) apply,
and they are the organiser's responsibility rather than ours.