MLQ is immensely happy with last season’s additions and implementation of the reset rule, hard cap on game time and expansion of swatting rules. This season, we are announcing several new rules that we hope will enhance the changes made in previous years, as well as improve the quality of overall gameplay in the league. The wording of those specific rules can be found in the MLQ-Specific Rules Packet but you can find a brief explanation of each rule and the rationale behind it here.

Change 1: Timeouts are allowed to be called by an uncontested keeper (expanded from only a protected keeper) in their zone, and the penalty for incorrectly calling a timeout has been downgraded from a yellow to a blue card.
Rationale: This expansion allows a team to reset immediately at the beginning of a play and still be allowed to call a timeout. The penalty change brings the card more in line with other procedural penalties.

Change 2: Teams may reset the ball immediately on a drive without it counting as a reset.
Rationale: This was a policy we saw well-implemented in US Quidditch’s reset rule, that we believe would improve the MLQ reset rule as written.

Change 3: The snitch value will be worth 40 points from 30-35 minutes of regulation time, and 50 points from 35-40 minutes of regulation time.
Rationale: One of the unforeseen downsides of the 40-minute game-time cap was that on occasion, it led to teams reducing the effort they put into the snitch. We believe that this can be balanced by gradually increasing the value of the snitch throughout regulation time.

Change 4: The pitch boundary (soft boundary) has been squared off to create a rectangle measuring 60 x 36 yards. The starting line for brooms up has been moved to the keeper zone line.
Rationale: We believe that both of these changes will help make gameplay more dynamic while in turn simplifying the structure of the field for MLQ volunteers and partners that must measure them.

Change 5: Balls that are live when play stops and have not contacted another player will be returned to the player that threw them.
Rationale: We believe this change is more fair for beaters who throw their bludgers before a whistle, but have a beat negated because it did not happen during play.

Change 6: Fouls that occur during the last 10 seconds of time will reset the clock to have 10 seconds remaining in the period.
Rationale: Our current rule that allows a live quaffle in flight to score after game time expires promotes the behavior of flagrantly fouling to stop this score. This change mitigates the amount that situations like this and other delayed penalties from benefiting the fouling team.