Something has been bubbling around inside the ol' braincase. Typically this is just a sign I'm about to make an animal noise, but this time, dear reader, it was something else. And don't get me wrong: I waited for this thought to pass like so many other repetitive thoughts: How is that one whale that can't sing right doing? What if I had an entire lemon pie for dinner? Should I have gone into a different job? Accounting? Land Management?
This one, though. It just...stayed in my mind. So now I'm gonna make it everyone's problem.
WHAT IF THE IATF BULLSEYE WAS THE SAME SIZE AS A CLUTCH?
Okay, hear me out. This is how I could see it working:
IATF Bullseye is the same size as the clutch
ANY touch of the bullseye counts as 5
The 3 and 1 scoring areas work the same as they do now (majority)
The clutches work as they do in PREMIER (touch = 5, premier clutch = 7)
This would combine the premier and standard leagues WITHOUT, necessarily, scaring off new throwers (which is an argument I never honestly bought into, in as much as someone who doesn't know the game can't really have an opinion between something being more difficult - they don't have a basis for knowing what's more or less difficult). It would also create an actual challenge, in theory, for more experienced throwers to get bullseyes (so matches aren't just waiting to see who effs up the clutch attempt).
I CAN HEAR YOUR VERY VALID REASONS AS TO WHY THIS WOULDN'T WORK...
Now, I can hear your arguments a'brewing already. And that's good and cool. But let me be really clear: this is a mental exercise for meself. I don't really think this a solution for anything, but it could be a way to combine the rulesets and still be viable and fun for all skill levels.
I also recognize how this brings us closer to, you know, just a form of darts OR just inches the IATF and WATL closer together. But everything in nature also, eventually, becomes crabs, so maybe in the future we'll all be throwing the same, unified league with the same, unified ruleset.
And we'll have hard carapaces or something.
I've had some similar thoughts, especially about the throwers at the top level, and finding ways to make their games more dramatic for audiences to watch. I feel something like this will be necessary down the track.