How the game is built

Game methodology

27-0 is an editorial roster-building game. Its ratings and match engine are designed to make draft choices consequential and repeatable; they are not an official NRL ranking, a reconstruction of historical seasons, a prediction, or betting advice.

Player-card dataset

The current pool contains 544 cards across 17 clubs and four decade bands. A card records a player name, assigned club and era, peak-year reference, eligible positions, a 78–99 game rating, a short highlight, and selected role-based indicators. One player may have several cards when separate peaks are represented.

The project records that the initial list was assembled from public Wikipedia club-history pages through an automated research pass, followed by manual spot checks of selected spine players. It did not retain an item-level citation or verification date for every field. Some indicator values are estimated; the dataset does not label exactly which values or preserve their original source. Ratings are editorial values, not calculated official statistics. The data register publishes every club record and player card with either a revision-specific Wikipedia profile link or a contextual search. This provenance trail helps identify a reference page; it does not verify the peak year, highlight, rating, or statistic on that card.

Positions and drafting

Each run fills the standard thirteen slots in order: fullback; two wings; two centres; five-eighth; halfback; two props; hooker; two second-rowers; and lock. A spin draws a club and era that has an eligible player for the current slot. The sequence is reproducible from its seed and avoids repeating a recent club-era draw when another valid option is available. A player can only be placed in a compatible position. Classic mode shows the card indicators; Footy IQ conceals ratings and indicators; Daily uses a shared date-specific sequence and does not allow rerolls.

How the lineup rating is formed

The selected player ratings are averaged separately for backs and forwards. In this game model, five-eighth, halfback, and hooker are the spine slots and receive a 1.5 weighting. The fullback is not given that extra weight. Each side's weighted average is then used as its lineup rating; empty slots use a replacement baseline of 50. The match engine gives backs and forwards equal weight when it calculates the team's overall match rating.

These weights are game-design choices. They do not represent a validated performance model, account for every tactical factor, or prove that one position or player is objectively more valuable.

Twenty-seven simulated matches

Every roster plays all 27 rounds, regardless of earlier results. Rounds 1–23 are regular-season matches. Rounds 24–27 are four fictional finals checkpoints with progressively stronger opponents; round 27 is labelled the Grand Final. This is a fixed challenge structure, not a reproduction of an NRL season or finals qualification rules. Opponent names are fictional.

For each round the engine compares the lineup rating with a generated opponent rating. The regular opponent baseline is 82, varied by up to 8 points; the four finals checkpoints add 4, 8, 12, and 18 points to that baseline. Win chance is a logistic curve of the rating difference: 1 / (1 + exp(-difference / 6)). A seeded random sequence chooses the outcome and generated scoreline. The seed makes the same lineup and seed reproducible; it does not make the simulated score a historical fact.

The in-draft projected record is estimated from 160 deterministic preview seasons. The displayed 27-0 chance is a rough approximation calculated as (mean wins ÷ 27)27. It treats all rounds as if they shared one average win rate, so it is not the exact probability obtained by multiplying the separate win chances for all 27 opponents.

The overall score is wins × 40 + backs rating × 1.2 + forwards rating × 1.2, rounded to a whole number. Wins dominate; roster ratings break close records. Grade bands are based only on wins: S is 27; A+ is 25–26; A is 23–24; B+ is 21–22; B is 18–20; C is 14–17; D is 9–13; and F is 0–8. Leaderboards order by total score, then earlier completion time.

Season story and individual performances

Season MVP and round-performance panels are generated for the game result. The engine distributes a player's card indicators across 27 rounds using seeded weights, applies position-specific fantasy weights, and selects the highest values. These are illustrative game statistics. They are not match-by-match NRL records, and the MVP label is not an official award.

Daily date and reproducibility

Daily challenges derive their seed from the date and a fixed game key. The current date calculation uses UTC+10 year-round and does not adjust for daylight saving. Scores are stored without a public nickname and can link to a shareable lineup/result page. See the privacy page for storage details.

Limits, sources, and corrections

Historical coverage, club-era assignments, highlights, and indicator values may contain gaps or errors. The external links in the data register are reference lookups, not a substitute for item-level citations or a statement of permission. Public pages can change, and third-party names, marks, and material remain subject to their owners' rights.

To suggest a correction, email [email protected]with the card ID, page URL, proposed change, and supporting reference. We can review factual corrections but do not promise that every proposed rating or selection will be adopted.