Leagues · 10 min read
League Modes and Settings: Every Option a Commissioner Can Set
No two StarTrader leagues have to play the same way. When you create a league, you are not just inviting friends, you are picking a format, a scoring system, a payout structure, and a set of rules that shapes the entire competition. This guide walks through every setting a commissioner can configure and what each one actually does.
Format: head-to-head or cumulative
The first decision is how members compete against each other. Default: head-to-head, all-play off.
Head-to-head
Members get a different opponent each week, just like a traditional fantasy league. Win your matchup, take the week. Commissioners can also turn on all-play scoring, which compares every member against the entire league each week instead of just one opponent. All-play is off by default. When enabled, it can run three ways:
- Tiebreaker. Used only to break ties in the standings.
- Primary. All-play results are the main scoring method, head-to-head matchups become secondary.
- Median. Members score a win or loss each week based on whether they beat the league median.
Cumulative
There are no weekly matchups at all. Everyone competes on a single running leaderboard for the whole season, and wherever you land when the season ends is your final result.
Scoring: yield, investment, or total return
The second decision is what actually counts as your score. Default: yield, with a 70% yield / 30% price weight queued up if you switch to total return.
| Scoring mode | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Yield | Yield generated by your players' real-world performance. Default, and the most fantasy-like mode. |
| Investment | Portfolio value alone. Price appreciation is what wins. |
| Total return | A blend of both, with the commissioner setting the exact mix between price gains and yield. |
How yield is actually calculated
Yield isn't a flat number; it's derived from the same fantasy points you already know from fantasy sports, run through two multipliers:
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Fantasy points | The player's real stat line for the game gets converted to fantasy points. |
| 2. Sport factor | Fantasy points are multiplied by a fixed, platform-wide rate per sport: 1.00 for NFL, 0.662 for MLB, 0.153 for NBA. |
| 3. Ownership % | That result is multiplied by your shares held divided by the player's total shares outstanding. |
Season length and sports
Leagues run one of two ways. A single-season league has a defined number of regular-season weeks and an optional playoff bracket (set the number of playoff teams and how many weeks the bracket runs). A continuous league never resets, it just keeps going. Default: single-season, 14 regular-season weeks, playoffs on with 6 teams over 3 weeks.
Commissioners also choose the sport scope: NFL, NBA, MLB, or all three at once. This determines which athletes members can trade in the league. Default: all sports.
Payouts: how the standings pay off
This is the setting that decides what actually happens to everyone's holdings when the league pays out. There is no default here. It's the one setting every commissioner has to actively choose before a league can launch.
| Payout type | How it works |
|---|---|
| Winner takes all | First place receives everything from every other member's account. |
| Winner percentage | First place receives a commissioner-set percentage of the pool, members keep the rest. |
| Top N split | A set number of top finishers split the pool according to rank. |
| Everyone keeps | No transfer happens. The league runs purely for standings and bragging rights. |
| Threshold reset | Payouts trigger automatically whenever a member's balance crosses a set threshold, then the league resets. |
| Manual close | The commissioner picks the payout structure at the moment they close the league. |
When a payout does move holdings between members, it follows the same mechanic every time: player positions transfer first, in-kind and with no forced selling, then any remaining StarCoin balance transfers, and only if the loser needs to clear a threshold does StarTrader liquidate positions, largest unrealized losses first. Transferred positions carry the original owner's cost basis, and your hold-period clock for tax purposes starts fresh the day you receive them.
Roster rules
Commissioners can tighten how members build their lineups. By default, none of these rules are switched on: a brand-new league starts wide open.
- Minimum deployment. A required percentage of a member's balance that must stay invested rather than sitting in StarCoins. Default: 0% (no minimum).
- Contribution cap. A ceiling on how much any single player can contribute to a member's weekly score, so one breakout performance can't carry an entire week. Default: 0% (no cap).
- Max holdings. A limit on the total number of players a member can hold at once, or unlimited. Default: unlimited.
ETF rules
Commissioners decide whether ETFs are part of the league at all, whether index ETFs specifically are allowed, and whether scoring looks through an ETF to count the performance of the individual players inside it rather than just the ETF's price. Default: not configured. ETF rules aren't set during league creation; a commissioner turns them on later from the league's settings if they want ETFs in play.
Visibility settings
How much members can see about each other is configurable too. Default: full visibility on both settings below. A new league starts fully transparent; commissioners dial it back from there.
Activity feed
Set to full detail, values only (trades show but amounts are hidden), or hidden entirely. Within that, commissioners can toggle individual signals on or off: buys, sells, player names, share counts, trade values, yield and yield amounts, transfers, achievements, matchup results, and roster moves.
Portfolio visibility
Set to full (everyone sees holdings and share counts), limited (players are visible but not share counts), or private (members see only totals).
Other commissioner controls
- Tax rate overrides. Custom rates above or below the platform baseline, capped at 50%. Default: the platform baseline rate for the commissioner's tier, no override. See the commissioner playbook below for how this reshapes a league's economy.
- Lock the league. Freeze all trading league-wide whenever needed. Default: unlocked.
- Survivor mode. An optional guillotine-style elimination format. Default: off.
- Trade freeze window. Block trading for a set number of minutes before games start. Default: 0 minutes (no freeze).
- Tiebreaker order. The sequence of rules used to break a tie in the standings. Default order: head-to-head record, then points for, then all-play record, then a coin flip.
Quick reference: every default
If you skip every option in the league creation wizard, here's exactly what you end up with. Two settings, league size and starting StarCoins, aren't covered in their own section above but are worth knowing too.
| Setting | Default |
|---|---|
| Format | Head-to-head, all-play off |
| Scoring mode | Yield |
| Total return mix (if enabled) | 70% yield / 30% price |
| Yield lock mode | Per-game |
| Duration | Single season, 14 regular-season weeks |
| Playoffs | On, 6 teams, 3 weeks |
| Sport scope | All sports |
| League size | 12 (capped by the commissioner's tier) |
| Starting StarCoins | 10,000 per member |
| Rebuys | Not allowed |
| Payout type | None, must be chosen before launch |
| Roster rules (deployment, cap, max holdings) | All off |
| ETF rules | Not configured |
| Activity feed visibility | Full |
| Portfolio visibility | Full |
| Tax rate | Platform baseline for the commissioner's tier |
| League lock | Unlocked |
| Survivor mode | Off |
| Trade freeze window | 0 minutes |
| Tiebreaker order | Head-to-head, points for, all-play, coin flip |
Putting it together
A simple example: a head-to-head, yield-scored, single-season NFL league with a winner-take-all payout, the default setup, plays like classic fantasy football with real stakes attached. Swap in investment scoring, a continuous season, and an everyone-keeps payout, and you get something closer to a long-running stock trading competition with no finish line. Neither is more correct. Pick the settings that match how your league actually wants to play.