The idea
The tournament hands you packs once and plays them to a champion. The challenge hands you a new one every week and asks one question of it: how high can this seven score this Sunday? Nobody advances and nobody is eliminated. Each week is ranked on its own, each week has a winner, and next week everyone starts again.
It runs from week 6 to week 18 — 13 weeks, 13 winners. Your tournament entries are untouched by it: a challenge entry is not a bracket slot, does not add or improve one, and is never drawn against one.
When you can enter
A week opens at 1pm Eastern on the Sunday before it is played — the moment entries close for the week in play — and stays open until 1pm Eastern on its own Sunday, when the next week opens. In that window the Enter button on the challenge page deals your pack. One entry per account per week; pressing again deals nothing more.
Entering late is allowed and simply costs you: a card whose game has already kicked off cannot be started. Entering means accepting the official rules — if you have not entered the tournament yet, your first challenge entry does that too — and is free, like everything else here.
The pack
12 players from the newest committed series, dealt by exactly the procedure every tournament pack is dealt by: your own client seed, the series’ published commitment, and an ordinal of 200 plus the week number so each week’s pack is its own. It appears beside your tournament packs on the fair deal page, and verifies there the same way. Each card carries its value — 6, 7, 8 per touchdown — from the same seed.
The pack plays one week. There are no trades in the challenge, and nothing carries into the next week except the lesson.
Your lineup
You start 7 in one of the two formations the tournament uses:
| Position | Pro | Spread |
|---|---|---|
| QB | 1 | 1 |
| RB | 2 | 1 |
| WR | 2 | 3 |
| TE | 1 | — |
| WR/TE | — | 1 |
| FLEX | 1 | 1 |
Players lock when their own game kicks off, not once for the week — the tournament’s rule, unchanged. Until their club takes the field you can start, bench or swap them; from kickoff they are fixed. A player on a bye does not lock. A pack whose seven were never set is not scored and is not ranked.
Scoring
Your seven play the same simulated game a tournament lineup plays, on the same field and under the same rules — every real play they make, ordered onto one clock and walked through a football game. A simulated touchdown pays the card’s value; a real one adds 3, or 2 to the quarterback who threw it; a simulated touchdown that was also a real one converts for 1 more. The Peffercorn Rulebook has the field, the downs, the ordering and every scoring case in full.
Standings
Each week’s entries are ranked, and the rank is the whole result:
- the higher score;
- failing that, the greater total yardage;
- failing that, the fewer plays used;
- failing that, whoever entered the week first.
That order always leaves exactly one entry on top, which is what a prize needs. The ladder shows the top ten of each week and your own place beneath, and keeps every scored week behind the pager under it.
House entries play too. One joins the week for every person who enters, and never fewer than 10, each dealt a pack and set a lineup by a fixed rule — the same house entrants that fill the tournament’s bracket. They are ranked with you, and a week one of them finishes first in pays no tee: the house wins that one.
The prize
The highest-ranked lineup each week takes home a Custom Peffercorn tee. Up to one per week, 13 across the season if a person tops every one, and the same person can win more than one; a week the house finishes first in awards no tee. The winner is emailed within a week of the results, asked for a size and an address, and the tee follows. The value stated for it, who is eligible, and what happens if a winner cannot be reached are in the Official rules. This page explains the game; that one is the contract.