How does gsc differ? Looks pretty in line and oras is more accurate right?
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Smogon Premier League XVI - Commencement Thread
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Not sure I'm interpreting your question right, when i say gsc differs i mean that the two methods result in percentages that differ quite a bit, 52.78% vs 60% for gsc and very close results for oras yea
Week 6. Family portrait? Eternalize this moment. And don't tell me RBY OU is about luck.
Comebacks, double switches, predictions, colourful teams, good variety of movesets. I feel like this week was the best of the tournament so far - and not only this one. I think this can hardly get any better. Very high level? I'd say a milestone: countering counters at its finest.
Some think Serpi is picking up the torch from Troller, at this point it seems that he's looking for an even bigger target. German juggernauts don't lose on Sunday (and they usually win on Saturday).
Shiloh needed to do some seriously good things out there in order to stop one of the hottest player in this SPL - Vasco da Gama would be proud anyway.
With Sing Chansey falling out of favor, we are back to Alakazam vs Starmie interactions; back sleepers thrive and they are the only things that can eat away some usage from Zapdos, Rhydon, Cloyster and Starmie.
Eulogies are back for the first time in years. The first eliminated team of the tournament is the Cryonicles, which isn't really surprising. Of course the delusional copers would tell you that they are technically not eliminated, but let's be real. This team had the least believers out of any squad post-draft, with only one non-Cryonicles user in the Smogtours Discord picking them to make them the playoffs. The public sentiment stemmed from the Cryonicles' rather unique draft strategy, where they seemed to purposefully pick up multiple users whose last sheet game was played over 3 years ago. To sum it up: Sceptross's last sheet game before this SPL was 2020, Lady Bug's was in 2016, Sacri's was in 2021, PDCs was in 2019, and gorgie's was also in 2021. That is genuinely ABSURD and I am convinced it had to have been done on purpose to some extent because there is no way you could amass this many players that fit in this category otherwise. Axel did play last World Cup, but before that, his last sheet game was in 2020, so I would honestly throw him into this too. I mean, I don't think it takes a genius to tell you that picking people like this is risky, and that picking 6 of them is lunacy. They also did something pretty insane in the auction to acquire one of these players which makes things a bit worse:
I am really not sure what made them think that Floppy was a super hot commodity in 2025...These actions really leave me with no choice but to call into question the drafting capabilities of the team's captains. Personally, I do not think the TDs should give them a team next year unless one of the manager trio is replaced by a capable drafter. The funniest part of this is that the best of these users this tour, PDC, did not end up getting put into the lineup until the team was already on the brink of elimination. Sceptross is performing, while players such as Sacri and Lady Bug have both been serviceable. However, gorgie + Axel have gone 1-9 combined and that has really sunk the team; it certainly isn't surprising that two out of the aforementioned 6 people would get washed, so you can't even really say they are underperforming, to be honest. If you buy 6 people that fit the aforementioned criteria, the odds that 2 of them get turbo washed is probably pretty high, and the odds that some of them perform well enough to offset the failures of the others is pretty low...A failure of this nature has become second-nature for the Cryonicles' franchise, as they have firmly established themselves as one of the worst in SPL history. If the Tigers make the playoffs, the Cryonicles will officially become the second-worst franchise, which is truly impressive.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the team's failure is the disaster that was their high-end OU buys; the team spent a total of 34k on ACR1 + Pais and they currently sit at 1-9 combined. ACR1's price in particular seemed to be a bit insane; he had been pretty good so far in his Official Team Tournament career, but he had not played enough tours for me to label him as a true "sheet warrior" who deserved to be priced this high. And, as the sheet expert, I know better than anyone when someone has earned that coveted designation. If someone reaches it, I will hype them for eons...the newest member of the "sheet warrior" club is Kenix, who is currently probably either the best or second best player in the whole tournament. Anyway, I and most sane people did not think that the duo of ACR1 + Pais would perform anywhere near as badly as this, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes. This should serve as a reminder that investing a great deal of funds into players with lower sample sizes can certainly be a risky proposition. The team was certainly unlucky in some sense to get this performance out of this duo, but I would also say that Sceptross is certainly overachieving based on his past track record and low price, so that at least "cancels" the poor performance of one of Pais / ACR1. The team's ace player, Finchinator, is performing about as expected, although 21k for him still feels like a bit much to me. That being said, I am sure he is a great presence and adds more to a team than just his record; he is one of the only real shining lights on this team.
crying has wound up being a good pick for the team, which is not really surprising; the managers were intelligent to buy the dip on crying stock. zs is currently performing well, and for now, Triangles has been a good pick. I wrote in the PRs that I thought he was an overpay relative to the other ADV prices...a lot of people with similar skill levels were pretty cheap. robjr (who is currently not playing ADV) and baddummy (who is currently tearing up the tournament) were both 3k. However, depending on how the last 3 weeks go, Triangles certainly wind up being a solid selection for the team. ima has performed as expected; there is not much else to say about him. The aforementioned PDC has been the bright spot of the team lately, as he has turned back to clock to notch two wins in the past 2 weeks. Unfortunately, the team's ship is so far under the water that PDC's heroics cannot possibly rescue them. In terms of the team's other players, TPP, vivalospride, and Vileman sit at 0-3 combined. Genuinely, that is the least surprising statistic I have read in a while. I'm pretty sure any time a team has had to break the emergency glass and sub in Vileman, that team has missed the playoffs; it did almost work last season, though.
The Cryonicles' season started off poorly, suffering a loss to the Wolfpack. They somehow managed to tie the best team in the tournament in Week 2, a feat which seems nigh unthinkable now. They beat the BIGs in Week 3 to get their season back on track, but the wheels have really fallen off since then. It would not be shocking at all to see the Cryonicles end the season with 3 points, but perhaps they can pull off a miraculous upset to derail another team's season. Knocking other team's out of the playoffs after elimination is honestly the only real thing the Cryonicles' franchise has been known for for a while; they have not managed to contend for the title in most seasons thus far.
To sum it up, the reasons for the team's failure can basically be attributed to two things:
1. Spending a lot of money on quasi-sheet warriors instead of designated sheet warriors
2. BUYING 6 PEOPLE WHOSE LAST SHEET GAME WAS OVER 3 YEARS AGO...HOW?
See you next week for the next eulogy, which will feature the loser of the Wolfpack / Raiders series and maybe the BIGs.
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Usually I wouldn't do such a thing in the middle of w7 but we're already being given the swan song apparently, and after reading this I couldn't possibly not give public support to our trio of managers, because I know they're gonna be on the receiving end of the "blame". They have done an absolutely amazing job ever since the season started, giving a ton of support, both in prep and in the motivational aspect and don't deserve any of it.
I have only good things to say of them really, so I'm gonna say the exact opposite: TDs, if they want to run it back, please give them a team next year. It's been an absolute delight to be managed by them. Despite the results not going how we wanted so far, this has been a great team to be in, and they are certainly a key part of why that is. If they are given the chance to run it back, then I wouldn't want anyone else to be my manager.
Y'all have truly been awesome to team up with really, I love our team (as I've said a handful of times already at our server), but I really wanted to address this in particular.
GO CRYOS
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We are back with another eulogy. The Team Raiders were once on top of SPL, having won both SPL 13 and 14. Since then, though, the wheels have fallen off the Raiders bandwagon. The team finished 9th last year despite having an absolutely loaded roster, and now finds themselves eliminated after Week 7 of SPL 16. This year's roster was certainly worse on paper than last year's squad, but that is to be expected given the lack of retains the team possessed this year. compared to the year prior. The Official Power Rankings hated the Raiders, ranking them last; they had 8 less points total than the 9th place BIGs. This makes sense given the composition of the roster and the way in which those PRs are created. The Raiders this year were a "stars and scrubs" type of team. The team spent a lot of money on three cornerstones of the lineup in Serpi, Skypenguin, and Michaelderbeste, and then hoped that the remainder of their team could perform admirably enough to lift them into a playoff spot. I put the Raiders 4th in my PR due to the fact that I had a lot of faith in their three ace players; they had a lot of people I rated low, but because I had low amounts of confidence in countless people on other rosters, the sheet strength of their top 3 players was enough to vault them into 4th in my rankings. Looking at what ended up happening, you certainly can't say that this was a bad strategy, as many of the team's cheap players ended up doing decently. One of them, Monai, even had an exceptional season, defying my regression predictions and putting up a 6-1 record. The Raiders BW slot does always seem to do well, a fact which has been pointed out by 16bit approximately 90 times in the past month in the Smogtours Discord. That being said, Monai was terrible in his last SPL outing and BW had perhaps the strongest pool in the whole tournament to me, so I personally did not think he would succeed against the likes of dice, Finch, SoulWind, GaryTheGengar, and elodin. If you told me preseason that Monai would be 6-1 heading into Week 8, I would have told you that the Raiders were a LOCK to make the playoffs. So what went wrong?
Well the obvious problem that arose here is that two of the team's three cornerstones flopped. Serpi is the only one of the pack who has met expectations, having won 6 matches in a row and firmly establishing himself as the best non-Troller RBY player on the website. Skype, meanwhile, has uncharacteristically struggled. After having gone 22-8 in SM over the past 3 seasons, he finds himself sitting at 3-4 heading into Week 8. He could still end positive, but this performance is definitely not close to what the team was expecting. If this was the only problem with the team, though, they would honestly probably still be fine. After all, Monai is smashing the competition, which cancels Skype's mediocre record out. If I told the Raiders' management that heading into Week 8, Skype would be 6-1 and Monai would be 3-4, they certainly would have been very satisfied. However, unfortunately, Skype was not the biggest problem with this team...
That honor belongs to Michael, who sits at 1-4 and, for some reason, did not play the past 2 weeks. In Week 6, he was apparently playing an important VGC tournament and thus chose to not play SPL, but I have no idea why he did not play last week. This performance is certainly shocking, as, prior to the start of Week 1, the Raiders' pickup of Michael for 16k certainly seemed to be one of the best in the whole tour. However, as pointed out by ABR's Glazer on Smogtours, Michael's performance in non-SS OU has actually been pretty suspect compared to his performance in other tiers. Counting this tournament, Michael is now 18-22 in non-SS OU and 35-16 in SS OU. While that is not quite a Tace-level split, it is certainly significant. Michael did only go 4-4 in SS last year, but his track record is still so excellent that I find it very hard to believe he would not have succeeded if he played SS OU. If nothing else, he sure as hell would not have been 1-4 heading into Week 8. I think that the team definitely should have started him in SS OU to begin the year, or at the very least, bench SpookyZ at some point to really unlock Michael's potential. Spooky himself has had two pretty bad throws this season, so benching him certainly would not be unwarranted. If Michael had a good tour in SS, the team could have definitely made the playoffs. After all, they play the worst team in the tournament this week and play the already-eliminated BIGs in Week 9. Of course, part of it also depends on how well PaprikaFlow would have held up in ORAS. However, this combination almost certainly would have led to better results than what the team has experienced thus far.
One other thing I have now noticed is that Mimikyu Stardust + Skarpherim was 19.5k combined. This feels a bit absurd; I would have guessed these two cost 10k combined or something of the sort. Mimikyu has underperformed, but it's not exactly that crazy of a result. He had never gone above .500 in any tour thus far. 11.5k for him definitely feels bad. 8k for Skarpherim also feels terrible when both baddummy and rob were 3k; I don't really get the necessity for this pick either. This combined with the Michael mistake pretty much spelled doom for the team. The team also lost their "X Factor" in NoName6293, an absurdly-hyped rookie who was supposed to set the world on fire this SPL. In the words of a former Smogtours Discord mainer who also used to be on the Raiders:
"AMW the rate he is improving & playing every tour on the site bc young
Id see noname as an investment ad well ngl
I think hed be worth retaining next year if u get him for 10-15 now"
Well, that train was derailed very quickly. It is worth pointing out that the Raiders original plan, at least according to the lineup they submitted to the Power Rankings, was to have NoName play ORAS and Michael play SV. The team still did not plan on having Michael play SS, as far as I know, so it is hard to say how much this ban hurt the team. NoName's replacement, Yovan, did manage to do 3-4, which is at least a serviceable record for a 3k player; if NoName lived up to his high potential and just started washing everyone, perhaps his ban could have had some real ramifications. However, given that Yovan still did decently, I am hesitant to say that this was really a monumental "make-or-break" type of event for the team.
The last real notable performance I did not mention so far was Gama, whose 5-2 showing certainly helped keep the Raiders in the playoff mix. He won some pretty crucial games in the process, although his unfortunate loss to pdt in Week 6 was a big blow to the team. Laurel has performed admirably in the madhouse thus far for 3k, which is not really surprising. Other people on the team such as Hiko have also been serviceable, and Endill has gone 1-1 after subbing in for the aforementioned Skarpherim; one of his wins was added by a timely crit on Pak's Zapdos. I have not been particularly impressed thus far, and his poor track record in previous SPLs makes me more dubious of his ability to succeed. Anyway, that's some analysis for a later time.
The Raiders started the season with a loss, but managed to stabilize a bit heading into Week 5. If they had beaten the Wolfpack last week, they certainly could have made the playoffs, but Yovan's decision to switch Dragonite into Clefable at the end of his game basically ended their season.
Overall, the team's failures can be attributed to two main causes:
1. Skype and Michael are currently 4-8 combined. The team also should have definitely tried putting Michael in SS OU at some point, as SpookyZ has not really wowed anyone thus far.
2. The team overpaid for Mimikyu Stardust and Skarpherim, and also essentially lost 3k due to the noname ban. Between all three of these, I would say they wasted around 10k, which can definitely hurt a "stars and scrubs" type of roster.
See you tomorrow for the BIGs eulogy.
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"For the first time in what feels like an eternity, hope has returned to the Ever Grande BIGs's franchise, entirely due to the entrance of this manager trio." Little did I know, this team would be eliminated before Week 8. The statistics that come about as a result of this are a bit insane. ABR is now 0/3 making the playoffs in SPL with Tony, while Tony is now 3/6 making the playoffs in SPL. In other words, Tony has made the playoffs every year he has managed in SPL without ABR. What a strange statistic. After all, having ABR as support should, in theory, be one of the biggest advantages you can have. This is a man who routinely goes for 40k, in large part because of his ability to build for and support a plethora of tiers. As someone who has teamed with him on multiple occasions, I have witnessed the positive ramifications of this support first-hand. This makes this statistic even more bewildering. Perhaps the most dire statistic of all, though, is that Excal, if the season ended today, would end with an 8.67 average placement across three SPLs, which is unfathomably bad. The craziest part of this is that he has won two SCLs; he really sold his soul to win that tournament, I guess. 8.67 is ABSURDLY bad...there is really nothing more that needs to be said. So, why did this season go so awry for the BIGs?
Well the most obvious reason is that the lax + emi core did not deliver. The BIGs decided to spend a ridiculous 45k on this combination of players, in part because of fun atmosphere they create for the team. lax was slightly overpriced, but this makes sense given his general level of clout. If he wins the next 2 weeks, he may be able to salvage his tour a bit. The emi pick I definitely feel deserves more scrutiny. He does not really have many notable sheet results outside of Doubles, which is obviously a vastly different format than SV OU. His best non-Doubles performance came in SPL 14, where he went 6-3 in SM OU. He was only 4k back then, but his stock has clearly climbed through the roof since then. The weirdest part of this is that he was awful last SCL, only managing to pick up a measly three wins. This pick always felt like a big overpay and while him being 2-4 is certainly slightly surprising, it is not that crazy to believe either. This gamble not working out is a massive reason why the BIGs are already eliminated from the tournament. I would go as far as to say that emi for 20k is probably the biggest overpay of the entire tournament given his lack of sheet results; genuinely, I probably would not have bid over 11k for him.
All of that being said, despite me thinking that both lax and emi were overpays, I still put the BIGs third in my PRs. So, they clearly did some other things right, at least I thought they did. Based on what I wrote in the PRs, I thought lax + emi would combine for 11 wins; even if they go 4-0 the next 2 weeks, they will only hit 10. So as previously mentioned, this core is slightly underperforming my expectations. Unfortunately for the BIGs, though, this core is not the only problem. The BIGs have gone 2-5 in the madhouse thus far, which I would say is certainly pretty unlucky. I will attribute this more to poor madhouse variance than anything else, although the team probably did waste a couple thousand extra buying Lasse instead of a cheaper option. The more pressing issue is that Charmflash is 2-5. I don't really think anyone saw this coming. He was genuinely exceptional last year and was ranked 3rd in the PRs coming into the tournament. I didn't think he would go 8-2 in SM again, but I certainly thought he would positive. The SM pool was better than last year, so some regression could have definitely been expected. That being said, an underperformance of this level was nigh impossible to predict, so I cannot really fault the BIGs's management for this one; sometimes, players just have bad tours.
The rest of the roster has honestly performed mostly as expected. Santu was the team's ace player, and if he wins at least 1 of the next two games, he will have been a solid pick. For the record, emi being more expensive than Santu in any universe is genuine lunacy. Anyway, ArcticBreeze was getting dominated early in the season, primarily due to getting highly difficult matchups, but he has rebounded in recent weeks to salvage his tournament [note: it is still his fault for losing]. bhkg was originally labeled as a clear overpay, as his price rose because he was nommed near the end of the auction. However, he is somehow 4-3, so I guess this ended up being a fine pick. JustFranco has saved the team's BW slot, so that picked also worked out for the team. Hayburner and MrSoup have performed roughly as expected, and tko has surprisingly been okay. chuva has underperformed a bit relative to expectations, and he plays Serpi Week 9, so it is likely he ends with only 4 or 5 wins, which would certainly be slightly disappointing. Overall, nothing here is really surprising, and the records of these players should have been enough to secure the team a playoff spot if the players mentioned in the previous paragraphs had performed better.
The BIGs started the season with a loss, but managed to rebound with a much-needed win in Week 2 against the Wolfpack. However, they lost to the worst team in the tournament, the Cryonicles, in Week 3, which, with hindsight, we can say probably ended their season in some capacity. You cannot lose to the team that is giving away free points to everyone else and expect to make the playoffs. The BIGs did manage to hurt the Tyrants's playoff hopes and also sabotaged the Tigers a bit, but ultimately, they failed to save their season. The reasons for their failures can be attributed to 4 causes:
1. emi overpay. This one is indefensible.
2. Charm underperformance. I think this price for Charm was fine; sometimes, players just do badly. Can't really do much about it.
3. Madhouse variance
4. lax clout overpay. In a vacuum, I don't particularly hate this and think you can definitely make the playoffs with 25k lax. After all, it is important to not be weak in SV and having an anchor SV player that is one of the best tiebreak players of all time is certainly a viable strategy. If he ends the season strong, this certainly cannot be labeled as a bad decision. But for now, I will say it is a small cause and put it 4th.
See you next week.
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With the recent defeat of Ruiners' ace player ChrisPBacon, I have decided to go ahead and label the Ruiners as 'eliminated.' Welcome back to yet another eulogy!
I was definitely not a fan of the Ruiners' draft originally, as I put them in 10th place in my Power Rankings, even lower than the Cryonicles. Their draft felt pretty sketchy to me, as most of their roster was pretty pedestrian and they didn't have any true SPL sheet demons who could carry the load. The new group of managers was blessed with the oldspicemike retain, and based off of the other ridiculous SV prices in the tour he would have probably been around 25k if he was not retained; this meant that the team saved probably around 7k just from this retain, putting them in a good position to succeed. The team decided to make Punny their other star player, spending a whopping 26k on him. Punny is certainly good, but as I wrote in the PRs, he has historically been much better in SCL than SPL, with his best SPL being a rather average 6-5 showing in SPL XIII. I fundamentally do not agree with the idea of spending 26k on him in this tournament. As of now, though, he is 5-3, so with a win this week, he could at least get to 6-3 and be an okay pick at that price point. I also thought that both Pak and Siatam were overpays; they both ended 5-4, which is at least okay for the price, although spending over 10k on Pak when both baddummy and robjr were incredibly cheap and also deciding to pick Siatam over Kenix were both pretty indefensible decisions at the time for me.
Well, we have to get to the elephant in the room at some point. In pure defiance of the sheet, the Ruiners decided to start erz in ORAS for the first 4 week of the season. Prior to the season, erz had gone 2-19 in his last 21 sheet games. That is such an absurd number that it genuinely HAS to mean something. Starting him was legitimately baffling; some people are just not destined to win. You have to accept it. Whether it be Giannis in World Cup or Sergio Aguero in team tours, some people are just not going to win. And, to no one's surprise erz lost all 4 of his games, bringing his record to 2-23 in his last 25 sheet games. That is incomprehensibly bad...I don't think more needs to be said. What was surprising, though, is that the team kept winning in spite of erz's failures. The Ruiners started off the tournament white hot, winning three straight weeks in a row with an 8-4 score each time. Punny, Pak, Fogbound Lake, and watashi all went 3-0 in this stretch to help carry the load. However, unsurprisingly, this run was not sustainable. All of these players heavily regressed, which is not surprising given their past team tour performances. This led to the team getting demolished in the next 4 weeks, as they went 0-3-1 to end up with only 7 points heading into Week 8. Some would say this was due to the team benching erz, but I genuinely refuse to believe that a team could be punished for benching a 2-23 player. The first signs of trouble came in Week 4, where the Ruiners would face off against the almost-eliminated 0-2-1 Tigers. However, the Tigers would emerge victorious. This was not that big of a deal, though, as the Ruiners still had 6 points after 4 weeks of play. The next week, though, seemed to be the turning point of the team's season. The Ruiners were up 5-4 against the Sharks with three games to play, those being Punny vs. Drach / Pak vs. river / Fog vs. Ahy. If they won even one of these, they could have secured another point and been in a pretty good spot with 4 weeks left to go. Punny was team's most expensive player, Pak was playing someone who had struggled mightily in the tournament up to that point, and Fog was playing a 3k sub. However, the Ruiners lost all 3 games and got 0 points that week. This was certainly not ideal. The fact that river would go on to use a Slaking in the following week and deal 0% damage with it honestly just rubbed salt in the wound.
Perhaps no one understood how dire the Ruiners' situation was more than 3-time SPL champion watashi, who could sense that trouble was brewing in paradise. The Ruiners were still in a decent spot, having amassed 6 points in 5 weeks, but FLCL felt that the situation at the time was much more pressing than it appeared:
While this certainly was a bit of an exaggeration, it does capture the harrowing nature of the Ruiners' situation. After all, the team had gained 0 points after being up 5-4 with three games left that they were favored to win on paper. The team would face the Raiders sans Michael in Week 6, though, which was certainly a good spot for them to get their mojo back. Unfortunately, things would not be that simple, as the Ruiners were nearly beaten once again. However, with all of the marbles in the palm of his hand, Siatam pulled out an absolutely miraculous win against Blazing Dark to keep the Ruiners' dreams alive. pdt would take down Gama to give the Ruiners a tie against the Raiders and give them their first points since Week 3. Unfortunately, Week 7 would not be as kind to the team, as they fell 7-5 to the #1 seed, the Classiest. Luckily for the Ruiners, though, their schedule was favorable, as they faced the Wolfpack and Cryonicles in Weeks 8 and 9. The Cryonicles especially appeared to be nothing short of a donation, meaning that the Ruiners would very likely make the playoffs if they just managed to beat the Wolfpack.
ChrisPBacon tried his hardest to make the Ruiners' dreams come true, playing an almost 800-turn SS OU game against Gtcha which eventually ended in a tie. Like a true warrior, he chose to use stall in the rematch, knowing that Gtcha would be more tired than him due to timezones. He would go on to secure a much-needed win for the team in what could only be a described as a nonsensical game. However, the rest of the team could not follow their ace player's lead, as most of them got smashed. DriDri got swept by a Jirachi and oldspicemike got swept by a Zamazenta. At the end of it all, the Ruiners lost the series 8-4, derailing their playoff hopes. They still had a chance heading into Week 9 if some things broke their way, but they currently find themselves down 2-4 to the worst team in the tournament and 2 losses from being 100% eliminated, so the marbles appear to have been dropped.
In terms of individual performances, nothing here is particularly shocking. Crispy Bacon showed that his Masters run may just be the start of a storied career, as he performed well in a relatively tough pool. Most of the other players performed roughly as I expected thus far, with the exception of DriDri, who I suppose got madhoused this season. That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Everyone else pretty much performed in line with their past team tour showings; the team generally just did not feel like it had that much upside to me.
Overall, the team's failure can be attributed to the following causes:
1. Disrespecting the sheet
2. Madhouse variance
2.5 Conspiracy Option: Benching erz karma. I will choose not to believe this, but you can feel free to believe what you want.
See you next week for the next two eulogies.
I was definitely not a fan of the Ruiners' draft originally, as I put them in 10th place in my Power Rankings, even lower than the Cryonicles. Their draft felt pretty sketchy to me, as most of their roster was pretty pedestrian and they didn't have any true SPL sheet demons who could carry the load. The new group of managers was blessed with the oldspicemike retain, and based off of the other ridiculous SV prices in the tour he would have probably been around 25k if he was not retained; this meant that the team saved probably around 7k just from this retain, putting them in a good position to succeed. The team decided to make Punny their other star player, spending a whopping 26k on him. Punny is certainly good, but as I wrote in the PRs, he has historically been much better in SCL than SPL, with his best SPL being a rather average 6-5 showing in SPL XIII. I fundamentally do not agree with the idea of spending 26k on him in this tournament. As of now, though, he is 5-3, so with a win this week, he could at least get to 6-3 and be an okay pick at that price point. I also thought that both Pak and Siatam were overpays; they both ended 5-4, which is at least okay for the price, although spending over 10k on Pak when both baddummy and robjr were incredibly cheap and also deciding to pick Siatam over Kenix were both pretty indefensible decisions at the time for me.
Well, we have to get to the elephant in the room at some point. In pure defiance of the sheet, the Ruiners decided to start erz in ORAS for the first 4 week of the season. Prior to the season, erz had gone 2-19 in his last 21 sheet games. That is such an absurd number that it genuinely HAS to mean something. Starting him was legitimately baffling; some people are just not destined to win. You have to accept it. Whether it be Giannis in World Cup or Sergio Aguero in team tours, some people are just not going to win. And, to no one's surprise erz lost all 4 of his games, bringing his record to 2-23 in his last 25 sheet games. That is incomprehensibly bad...I don't think more needs to be said. What was surprising, though, is that the team kept winning in spite of erz's failures. The Ruiners started off the tournament white hot, winning three straight weeks in a row with an 8-4 score each time. Punny, Pak, Fogbound Lake, and watashi all went 3-0 in this stretch to help carry the load. However, unsurprisingly, this run was not sustainable. All of these players heavily regressed, which is not surprising given their past team tour performances. This led to the team getting demolished in the next 4 weeks, as they went 0-3-1 to end up with only 7 points heading into Week 8. Some would say this was due to the team benching erz, but I genuinely refuse to believe that a team could be punished for benching a 2-23 player. The first signs of trouble came in Week 4, where the Ruiners would face off against the almost-eliminated 0-2-1 Tigers. However, the Tigers would emerge victorious. This was not that big of a deal, though, as the Ruiners still had 6 points after 4 weeks of play. The next week, though, seemed to be the turning point of the team's season. The Ruiners were up 5-4 against the Sharks with three games to play, those being Punny vs. Drach / Pak vs. river / Fog vs. Ahy. If they won even one of these, they could have secured another point and been in a pretty good spot with 4 weeks left to go. Punny was team's most expensive player, Pak was playing someone who had struggled mightily in the tournament up to that point, and Fog was playing a 3k sub. However, the Ruiners lost all 3 games and got 0 points that week. This was certainly not ideal. The fact that river would go on to use a Slaking in the following week and deal 0% damage with it honestly just rubbed salt in the wound.
Perhaps no one understood how dire the Ruiners' situation was more than 3-time SPL champion watashi, who could sense that trouble was brewing in paradise. The Ruiners were still in a decent spot, having amassed 6 points in 5 weeks, but FLCL felt that the situation at the time was much more pressing than it appeared:
While this certainly was a bit of an exaggeration, it does capture the harrowing nature of the Ruiners' situation. After all, the team had gained 0 points after being up 5-4 with three games left that they were favored to win on paper. The team would face the Raiders sans Michael in Week 6, though, which was certainly a good spot for them to get their mojo back. Unfortunately, things would not be that simple, as the Ruiners were nearly beaten once again. However, with all of the marbles in the palm of his hand, Siatam pulled out an absolutely miraculous win against Blazing Dark to keep the Ruiners' dreams alive. pdt would take down Gama to give the Ruiners a tie against the Raiders and give them their first points since Week 3. Unfortunately, Week 7 would not be as kind to the team, as they fell 7-5 to the #1 seed, the Classiest. Luckily for the Ruiners, though, their schedule was favorable, as they faced the Wolfpack and Cryonicles in Weeks 8 and 9. The Cryonicles especially appeared to be nothing short of a donation, meaning that the Ruiners would very likely make the playoffs if they just managed to beat the Wolfpack.
ChrisPBacon tried his hardest to make the Ruiners' dreams come true, playing an almost 800-turn SS OU game against Gtcha which eventually ended in a tie. Like a true warrior, he chose to use stall in the rematch, knowing that Gtcha would be more tired than him due to timezones. He would go on to secure a much-needed win for the team in what could only be a described as a nonsensical game. However, the rest of the team could not follow their ace player's lead, as most of them got smashed. DriDri got swept by a Jirachi and oldspicemike got swept by a Zamazenta. At the end of it all, the Ruiners lost the series 8-4, derailing their playoff hopes. They still had a chance heading into Week 9 if some things broke their way, but they currently find themselves down 2-4 to the worst team in the tournament and 2 losses from being 100% eliminated, so the marbles appear to have been dropped.
In terms of individual performances, nothing here is particularly shocking. Crispy Bacon showed that his Masters run may just be the start of a storied career, as he performed well in a relatively tough pool. Most of the other players performed roughly as I expected thus far, with the exception of DriDri, who I suppose got madhoused this season. That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Everyone else pretty much performed in line with their past team tour showings; the team generally just did not feel like it had that much upside to me.
Overall, the team's failure can be attributed to the following causes:
1. Disrespecting the sheet
2. Madhouse variance
2.5 Conspiracy Option: Benching erz karma. I will choose not to believe this, but you can feel free to believe what you want.
See you next week for the next two eulogies.
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Tough, but fun season. Going to keep my shoutout short since I’d prefer to do it internally, just want to shout out one person in particular publicly, Chiharu was an absolute workhorse in our SM slot and I cannot recommend him enough to any future managers. Please give him a shot. He’s amazing.
Hello everyone, we are sadly eliminated and im sorry for all, for myself and everyone that trusted in us. My mates knows at what point im disapointed but there is an other person i want to shoutout.
Savouras is not only the best builder i know or the people behind my games and my bo3 since More than 6 months he is also my friend. And My bro savouras is the proof that everyone isnt recognize has his right value. When Savouras got undrafted he continuated to play the game and building, he helped me every week and i cannot understand how a player of his level can be forgotten.
Im sorry for not qualifying Savouras and even if people dont like you i know how helpfull you are and how much you stay a great and humble person.
Everyone should know your name and i will always be the first to say that im nothing without your help. I really hope to see you in the biggests tours after that Savouras
And go classiests go S1nn0hC0nfirm3d
Savouras is not only the best builder i know or the people behind my games and my bo3 since More than 6 months he is also my friend. And My bro savouras is the proof that everyone isnt recognize has his right value. When Savouras got undrafted he continuated to play the game and building, he helped me every week and i cannot understand how a player of his level can be forgotten.
Im sorry for not qualifying Savouras and even if people dont like you i know how helpfull you are and how much you stay a great and humble person.
Everyone should know your name and i will always be the first to say that im nothing without your help. I really hope to see you in the biggests tours after that Savouras
And go classiests go S1nn0hC0nfirm3d
Welcome back to yet another eulogy! This one will feature the Indie Scooters, who were eliminated after Dugza decided to press Iron Defense for 0 reason whatsoever. It was a sad way to go out.
The Scooters decided to build around two pretty well-respected players in Garay oak and Felix. While these two players have similar levels of skill, their sheet performances thus far have been vastly different. Garay is someone who has historically struggled with translating his high skill level into good results in team tournaments. He only ever really had one amazing tour, in which he helped carry his country to their first World Cup title. Other than that, his results have been pretty underwhelming for a player of this price and caliber:
He is a player you buy for tiebreaks and for his ability to beat the best players on the site, not really someone you buy to help carry your team to the playoffs. Prior to this tour, his overall sheet record was only 59-58. Because of this, I felt that 22k was a steep price, especially for a group of managers with no real relevant results. Felix, meanwhile, had been incredibly consistent up to this point, having never gone negative in any previous tour:
He had amassed a 42-24 record on the sheet, and definitely seemed like a solid pick for that price in a much-weaker RBY pool than years past. I would say that the over/under on regular season wins for these two players combined heading into the season was probably around 11.5. They ended with 12 total, which is solid enough for the price. The way this was achieved was certainly unexpected, though, with Felix having his worst team tour performance ever and Garay having his best. I am not sure what took him so long to have a great performance like this, but perhaps it is a sign that he is turning over a new sheet-leaf. Anyway, all that being said, the combined records of these players was roughly as expected. For 45k, getting 12 wins is okay, but you probably want at least 13 for that cost (without factoring in how much they supported the team in various slots, etc). Because this core did not exactly smash, the rest of the roster would probably have to overperform a bit for the team to excel. This became more of an issue when the team's third ace player, hellom, a budding sheet warrior, had the first poor tournament of his career, only going 4-4. We will return to him later.
Nat and aesf both had solid campaigns, which is not particularly shocking. aesf is now 11-5 on the sheet, which is certainly a good start to his team tour career. Rewer going 6-3 was certainly surprising given how stacked the BW OU pool was; his win over elodin in Week 9 was instrumental in giving the team a fighting chance to make the playoffs heading into the final game of the week. Raizen, Pkel, and vani were all decent enough. The team's weakest slot was ADV, which is not surprising given that they entrusted the slot to a player who was 2-10 on the sheet prior to this season. He is now 4-15...so yeah. I think robjr should have just been starting in ADV from Week 1, but the Scooters' management had much more faith in Sadlysius than I did, I suppose. But to me, Separation SM + robjr ADV just feels a lot better than robjr SM + Sadly ADV.
The Scooter's season progressed in a pretty weird way. They notched a solid win in Week 1 over the Raiders before losing 8-4 in Weeks 2 and 3. They farmed the Cryonices, as did most of the other teams, and also basically eliminated the BIGs by beating them in Week 5. The team was on the verge of beating the top-seeded Classiest in Week 6, but McMeghan defeated Sadlysius in the final game to force a tie. Felix's loss to Kaz, a player he would have been heavily favored to defeat prior to the season, really stung this week. The next two weeks would be a near-death knell for the team, as they lost 7-5 to both the Tyrants and the Tigers, two teams who would later secure playoff spots over the Scooters. The Tyrants' loss especially stung, as the team was up big before their eventual collapse. The main talking point in Week 7, though, was the absence of hellom from the Scooters' lineup. This is genuinely still baffling to me. Considering that TheFranklin and robjr, both of whom could have easily been benched for hellom, lost, one could definitely point to his absence from the lineup that week as being a big factor for the team's downfall. After all, with the way the rest of the season played out, if hellom had won his game that week, the Scooters would in fact be in the playoffs. Allegedly, hellom changed his mind about playing after the lineup was submitted or something of the sort, but regardless, you should obviously sub him in anyway. This is literally someone that would have easily cleared 20k had he not been a retain. It is inexcusable to not play him in what would wind up being the most crucial week of the season for the team.
Week 8 against the Tigers was also arguably lost due to poor lineup decisions. The team chose to start The Franklin in SV, PKel in DPP, and a random person who was formerly known as Charizardsnuts in ADV, all of whom lost. I think the team definitely should have done what they did in Week 9 in Week 8, and started Pkel in SV and SFG in DPP instead. This definitely feels better, as you are upgrading one slot while barely hurting the other slot since the madhouse is a meme anyway. Speaking of Week 9, the team did not use the optimal lineup that week either, even though they at least figured out the Pkel / SFG thing. The team decided to bench Raizen, who was 4-4 at that point; I have never seen a team bench a 4-4 SS OU player for seemingly no reason in Week 9. I am so confused. They did this in order to put robjr in SS and keep mayopockets in ADV. The real problem here is that robjr PLAYS ADV! And I'm pretty sure that from what we have seen so far this season, there is much more evidence that Raizen deserves an SPL spot more than mayopockets does...the guy literally went 4-4 in a pretty competitive player pool. I'm not sure why the team was so determined to just keep putting random people in ADV the whole season. And, even though the team did win 8-4 in Week 9 to keep their season alive, both robjr and mayopockets lost, so you can't even say that the decision to bench Raizen actually worked. Pkel almost certainly should have just been starting in SV much sooner also. SFG was 3-8 on the sheet before this year, but it's still the madhouse. Using him + Pkel was surely better than what they were doing the whole year; after all, they literally had a 10k DPP player for 8 weeks, which is insanity. Even securing one point in Week 8 against the Tigers would have been enough for the team to make the playoffs if Week 9 played out the same. Of course, there is no way of knowing if the combination of Pkel in SV / SFG DPP / robjr ADV would have won one of those games, given that the competition in SV / ADV was Dugza / baddummy, respectively, but personally, I think it would have had a better shot.
Now that I have gone over this, I am convinced that the Scooters deserved to lose. I think their lineup decisions were quite honestly atrocious, unless there is some secret info that I am not privy to which can change my mind [Edit: Raizen was on vacation in Week 9, so sure. I assumed I had to be missing something]. Despite using a nerfed lineup, the team still managed to almost squeak into the playoffs after winning 8-4 against the Sharks, capped by a big win by hellom, but they ultimately fell short. Making the playoffs is difficult, and using suboptimal lineups is often a fast-track to failure. To summarize, the team's inability to get 1 extra point can be summarized by the following:
1. They used suboptimal lineups for the whole season and did not start their ace retain in Week 7.
I really don't think there is anything else to blame here. Garay had a stupendous season to carry a struggling Felix, meaning that the team's expensive star core performed at least okay. The SV OU core was generally solid, besides the last spot which could have been shored up earlier had they put Pkel in SV. Rewer had a very good season, which honestly should have been enough to get the team over the hump. They almost did it, but SPL has a way of punishing teams that mess up. See you later this week for the Sharks' eulogy.
Edit: I forgot to mention Brine. Well, I hope he plays next season so I can see if he is viable or not.
The Scooters decided to build around two pretty well-respected players in Garay oak and Felix. While these two players have similar levels of skill, their sheet performances thus far have been vastly different. Garay is someone who has historically struggled with translating his high skill level into good results in team tournaments. He only ever really had one amazing tour, in which he helped carry his country to their first World Cup title. Other than that, his results have been pretty underwhelming for a player of this price and caliber:
He is a player you buy for tiebreaks and for his ability to beat the best players on the site, not really someone you buy to help carry your team to the playoffs. Prior to this tour, his overall sheet record was only 59-58. Because of this, I felt that 22k was a steep price, especially for a group of managers with no real relevant results. Felix, meanwhile, had been incredibly consistent up to this point, having never gone negative in any previous tour:
He had amassed a 42-24 record on the sheet, and definitely seemed like a solid pick for that price in a much-weaker RBY pool than years past. I would say that the over/under on regular season wins for these two players combined heading into the season was probably around 11.5. They ended with 12 total, which is solid enough for the price. The way this was achieved was certainly unexpected, though, with Felix having his worst team tour performance ever and Garay having his best. I am not sure what took him so long to have a great performance like this, but perhaps it is a sign that he is turning over a new sheet-leaf. Anyway, all that being said, the combined records of these players was roughly as expected. For 45k, getting 12 wins is okay, but you probably want at least 13 for that cost (without factoring in how much they supported the team in various slots, etc). Because this core did not exactly smash, the rest of the roster would probably have to overperform a bit for the team to excel. This became more of an issue when the team's third ace player, hellom, a budding sheet warrior, had the first poor tournament of his career, only going 4-4. We will return to him later.
Nat and aesf both had solid campaigns, which is not particularly shocking. aesf is now 11-5 on the sheet, which is certainly a good start to his team tour career. Rewer going 6-3 was certainly surprising given how stacked the BW OU pool was; his win over elodin in Week 9 was instrumental in giving the team a fighting chance to make the playoffs heading into the final game of the week. Raizen, Pkel, and vani were all decent enough. The team's weakest slot was ADV, which is not surprising given that they entrusted the slot to a player who was 2-10 on the sheet prior to this season. He is now 4-15...so yeah. I think robjr should have just been starting in ADV from Week 1, but the Scooters' management had much more faith in Sadlysius than I did, I suppose. But to me, Separation SM + robjr ADV just feels a lot better than robjr SM + Sadly ADV.
The Scooter's season progressed in a pretty weird way. They notched a solid win in Week 1 over the Raiders before losing 8-4 in Weeks 2 and 3. They farmed the Cryonices, as did most of the other teams, and also basically eliminated the BIGs by beating them in Week 5. The team was on the verge of beating the top-seeded Classiest in Week 6, but McMeghan defeated Sadlysius in the final game to force a tie. Felix's loss to Kaz, a player he would have been heavily favored to defeat prior to the season, really stung this week. The next two weeks would be a near-death knell for the team, as they lost 7-5 to both the Tyrants and the Tigers, two teams who would later secure playoff spots over the Scooters. The Tyrants' loss especially stung, as the team was up big before their eventual collapse. The main talking point in Week 7, though, was the absence of hellom from the Scooters' lineup. This is genuinely still baffling to me. Considering that TheFranklin and robjr, both of whom could have easily been benched for hellom, lost, one could definitely point to his absence from the lineup that week as being a big factor for the team's downfall. After all, with the way the rest of the season played out, if hellom had won his game that week, the Scooters would in fact be in the playoffs. Allegedly, hellom changed his mind about playing after the lineup was submitted or something of the sort, but regardless, you should obviously sub him in anyway. This is literally someone that would have easily cleared 20k had he not been a retain. It is inexcusable to not play him in what would wind up being the most crucial week of the season for the team.
Week 8 against the Tigers was also arguably lost due to poor lineup decisions. The team chose to start The Franklin in SV, PKel in DPP, and a random person who was formerly known as Charizardsnuts in ADV, all of whom lost. I think the team definitely should have done what they did in Week 9 in Week 8, and started Pkel in SV and SFG in DPP instead. This definitely feels better, as you are upgrading one slot while barely hurting the other slot since the madhouse is a meme anyway. Speaking of Week 9, the team did not use the optimal lineup that week either, even though they at least figured out the Pkel / SFG thing. The team decided to bench Raizen, who was 4-4 at that point; I have never seen a team bench a 4-4 SS OU player for seemingly no reason in Week 9. I am so confused. They did this in order to put robjr in SS and keep mayopockets in ADV. The real problem here is that robjr PLAYS ADV! And I'm pretty sure that from what we have seen so far this season, there is much more evidence that Raizen deserves an SPL spot more than mayopockets does...the guy literally went 4-4 in a pretty competitive player pool. I'm not sure why the team was so determined to just keep putting random people in ADV the whole season. And, even though the team did win 8-4 in Week 9 to keep their season alive, both robjr and mayopockets lost, so you can't even say that the decision to bench Raizen actually worked. Pkel almost certainly should have just been starting in SV much sooner also. SFG was 3-8 on the sheet before this year, but it's still the madhouse. Using him + Pkel was surely better than what they were doing the whole year; after all, they literally had a 10k DPP player for 8 weeks, which is insanity. Even securing one point in Week 8 against the Tigers would have been enough for the team to make the playoffs if Week 9 played out the same. Of course, there is no way of knowing if the combination of Pkel in SV / SFG DPP / robjr ADV would have won one of those games, given that the competition in SV / ADV was Dugza / baddummy, respectively, but personally, I think it would have had a better shot.
Now that I have gone over this, I am convinced that the Scooters deserved to lose. I think their lineup decisions were quite honestly atrocious, unless there is some secret info that I am not privy to which can change my mind [Edit: Raizen was on vacation in Week 9, so sure. I assumed I had to be missing something]. Despite using a nerfed lineup, the team still managed to almost squeak into the playoffs after winning 8-4 against the Sharks, capped by a big win by hellom, but they ultimately fell short. Making the playoffs is difficult, and using suboptimal lineups is often a fast-track to failure. To summarize, the team's inability to get 1 extra point can be summarized by the following:
1. They used suboptimal lineups for the whole season and did not start their ace retain in Week 7.
I really don't think there is anything else to blame here. Garay had a stupendous season to carry a struggling Felix, meaning that the team's expensive star core performed at least okay. The SV OU core was generally solid, besides the last spot which could have been shored up earlier had they put Pkel in SV. Rewer had a very good season, which honestly should have been enough to get the team over the hump. They almost did it, but SPL has a way of punishing teams that mess up. See you later this week for the Sharks' eulogy.
Edit: I forgot to mention Brine. Well, I hope he plays next season so I can see if he is viable or not.
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Now we begin our final eulogy of the regular season: my beloved Stark Sharks.
The Jerk took over the Sharks this year after a brief one-year hiatus. The team decided to allot a large chunk of their budget to Sharks-icon Conflict, who as seen as the consensus best GSCer in the pool. Conflict had performed excellently in SPL in recent years, having amassed a 26-11 record over the past 4 editions of the tournament. The GSC pool this year was certainly better than last year's, but pretty much everyone expected Conflict to do well. He underperformed for his lofty 30.5k price tag, which was definitely a bit of an issue for the team considering that every single one of the team's weeks besides the final one was decided by one game. The team's other main investments were Niko and TDNT. Niko was quite obviously an overpay, and while him going 3-6 is surprising, it certainly is not the craziest thing in the world. Niko's stocks seem to ping pong based on his most recent performance, and paying 19k for him certainly seemed like a rather short-sighted decision. He had an excellent SCL, but he was only 3k in that tournament; surely one tour does not justify a 16k price increase for someone that we have a good amount of data on at this point. Part of the price increase was driven by the fact that many good SV players were retained, meaning that teams had to splurge to acquire the few seemingly-elite talents that were left. Nonetheless, this was obviously going to be an overpay. Luckily for the team, they recouped a lot of the value by getting TDNT for only 15k. They were willing to go up to 25k for him, but a combination of his price-fixing attempt coupled with some deals the Sharks orchestrated with other teams dropped The Uncle's price all the way to 15k. At the time, I said this was probably the biggest steal of the auction, and while things did not start out well for him, he managed to notch some much-needed wins in later weeks and end up as a solid pick for the depressed price.
The Sharks' season started out well, with violet river taking down Fruhdazi in a luck-assisted win in the first game of the season. This win was especially big given that the team was facing a nerfed version of the Tyrants in Week, as they would be without one of their ace players in Luthier. Unfortunately, the week would end in heartbreak for the team, as they would lose 7-5 after Mada took down Jyt, a man who many in the Jerk felt was one of the best players on the site following his scintillating SCL performance. The team would rebound in Week 2, as their RBY player Nicole brought home the win against Genesis7 to put the Sharks at 1-1 heading into Week 3. They would unfortunately lose yet another close series against the Classiest that week, putting the team at 1-2. While things were not dire yet, things were certainly not ideal. In Week 4, the team had a chance to snatch a win against the Raiders, but only managed to get a tie after Gama took down Fc in the final game. This dropped the team to 1-2-1 heading into midseason, which was certainly not ideal. The team needed to start getting wins; they clearly had talent, but they were seemingly just unable to get over the hump each week. The main problem at this juncture were the struggles of some of their players. Niko and TDNT were both 1-3, while SCL hero Jyt sat at 0-3 and was put on the bench in Week 4. It became clear at this point that perhaps investing 32.5k on two players that should hav probably been closer to 20k combined was not a good idea. Week 5 appeared to be in dire straits, as the team fell into a 4-5 hole with the following matchups remaining: Punny vs. Drach / Pak vs. River / Fog vs. Ahy. Getting even a tie out of this would be good, given that the team was certainly an underdog in all 3 of these matchups. However, miraculously, all 3 of these players managed to win, pushing the Sharks to 2-2-1 and really turning their season around. Perhaps the most impressive part of this win was that TDNT, one of the team's cornerstones, did not play this week, as his managers felt he needed a break after his rather poor play over the first 4 weeks of the season.
Things were certainly looking up for the Sharks after this win, as their remaining schedule was rather soft as well on paper. They would narrowly win Week 6 after Attribute took down clean in a back-and-forth intense game. In Week 7, they would get a donation victory against the Cryonicles, the worst team in the tour. After dismantling them with ease, they found themselves sitting at 9 points with +8 BD, with bouts against the bottom-feeder BIGs and the playoff-hopeful Scooters in the final 2 weeks of the season. The team was even winning despite Conflict, their most expensive player, only being 4-3 at this juncture. At this point, the jetou simulations gave the the team a whopping 83.795% chance to make the playoffs. The Wolfpack, meanwhile, who would go on to make the playoffs, sat at a measly 11.1%. Also, these odds were calculated with the notion that each matchup was 50/50. Given the talent level of the Sharks and the competition they were playing, their real odds were closer to 90% or probably even 95% in my mind. It would take a catastrophic collapse for the team to lose from here....The team did decide to make one tweak to their lineup in Week 8, finally having decided that violet river was probably not good enough to play in SPL. They put in SPL veteran Zokuru into GSC and swapped Conflict into ADV; I would have started Zokuru from Week 1, but I digress. The Sharks would go 1-1 total between those two tiers that week, which would unfortunately not be enough, as bhkg would upset Niko and give the BIGs the victory. It should also be noted that, up to this point, the Sharks had not won both of GSC and ADV in the same week at any point this season, which is honestly kind of insane. Anyway, this loss was certainly not ideal, but the team still had good odds to make the playoffs, with the aforementioned jetou calculations STILL giving the team a 75% chance to make it due to their high BD and point total.
The team would face off against the Scooters in Week 9, a team which was trying to squeak into the playoffs after collapsing in recent times. One of the most crucial games of the week featured Attribute against Pkel. Attribute was one of the team's best players, and by this point, had established himself as a sheet warrior, having compiled a 26-12 record in his team tournament career. He was in a good position and looked to have a good shot of securing the win. However, he incorrectly predicted Pkel's tera-type and narrowly lost, dealing a big blow to the Sharks' playoff hopes. The team would soon lose the week, as the Scooters would hit 7 wins after their ace player, Garay Oak, dismantled lighthouses in what was mostly a one-sided affair. The team's season was not over yet, though, as other contenders were also struggling. If both Ahy and Conflict managed to win, the Sharks would get in the playoffs if the Tyrants did not manage to win another game in their series, which was decently likely. Conflict seemed to be heavily favored in his matchup, as he was playing a random mainer named mayopockets, but Ahy's game against hellom would certainly prove to be difficult. Unfortunately, Ahy's game went off the rails after turn 1, where he chose not to U-Turn with his Corviknight against hellom's Gholdengo. This allowed hellom to get his Ogerpon-W in against Ahy's Ting Lu and take over the game. Ahy risked a speed tie on turn 5 with his Iron Moth against it, but luck was not in his favor this time. Given how the rest of the game went, this was probably not the correct decision. However, nothing really could be done after that, as hellom dominated the game and took home the win, knocking the Sharks out of the competition. The team can take some solace in knowing that the Tyrants made the playoffs anyway, meaning that the Sharks were 2 wins away from making the playoffs in Week 9 as opposed to 1 win. Still, though, this was nothing short of a massive collapse from a team that close to 90% odds of making the playoffs 2 weeks ago.
The team certainly got a lot right in terms of who they drafted. Lily was an amazing value this SPL, greatly exceeding my expectations, while Attribute was a phenomenal retain. elodin was a solid BW pick, which certainly is not surprising. The team did well in getting both Nicole and Drachenkeule, who provided solid value to the team for their costs. lighthouses also proved to be a solid pickup, notching 4 wins for 3k. crucify struggled some in the madhouse, but that will occasionally happen; elodin won his one game there, so the team did go 4-5 there overall. Ahy also helped save the team's season with his big win over Fog. And, as previously mentioned, TDNT turned his season around and wound up being a solid pick. Conflict's underperformance certainly hurt the team a lot; I'm not really sure anyone could have predicted that he would only get 5 wins after his previous performances, especially his superb showing last year. There is not much you can do about that. Niko + Jyt went 3-10 combined for 31.5k, which was certainly a disaster. I don't think it is particularly surprising that both of these players were overpays; the team put too much stock into one team tour performance for my liking. Both of these players have a large sample of results and, while no one would have predicted them to go 3-10 combined, I would have been surprised if they provided good value at that combined cost. For the record, I don't think the Jyt price was really that bad; he was only a couple thousand overpriced, probably. The Niko price was certainly ridiculous, though. The team's ADV slot was also a disaster for most of the season, as getting violet river for 3k when baddummy was also 3k was probably a bad idea; granted, he obviously would not have been 3k if the Sharks bid on him as well. Personally, as a sheet believer, I would have just started Zokuru from Week 1, as he has consistently proven that he is good enough to play in this tournament and tread water. Given that the team only missed the playoffs by the narrowest of margins, perhaps this could have been the difference between life and death for them.
Overall, the Sharks were definitely a solid team. They just fell flat and failed to capitalize on their opportunity to clinch a playoff spot. I think I would say there are 3 main reasons for the failure:
1. Conflict underperformance. When your 30.5k player goes 5-4, it certainly is not ideal. You cannot blame the Sharks for picking him, though, especially given the overwhelming strength he provides as a tiebreak option.
2. Overvaluing one tournament instead of caring more about the larger sample size, which led to the team vastly overpaying for Niko.
3. Not starting Zokuru from Week 1. This one is more arguable, but as a sheet believer and someone who is inherently skeptical of newer players, I think my thought process is pretty justified.
It is unfortunate that the GOAT franchise will not return to glory this season. This franchise will always be the one I care the most about. Perhaps, one day, they will lift the coveted SPL trophy once again...but it will not be this year. Also, I kind of have to mention it, so...the Giannis team tour curse is real. See you next week.
The Jerk took over the Sharks this year after a brief one-year hiatus. The team decided to allot a large chunk of their budget to Sharks-icon Conflict, who as seen as the consensus best GSCer in the pool. Conflict had performed excellently in SPL in recent years, having amassed a 26-11 record over the past 4 editions of the tournament. The GSC pool this year was certainly better than last year's, but pretty much everyone expected Conflict to do well. He underperformed for his lofty 30.5k price tag, which was definitely a bit of an issue for the team considering that every single one of the team's weeks besides the final one was decided by one game. The team's other main investments were Niko and TDNT. Niko was quite obviously an overpay, and while him going 3-6 is surprising, it certainly is not the craziest thing in the world. Niko's stocks seem to ping pong based on his most recent performance, and paying 19k for him certainly seemed like a rather short-sighted decision. He had an excellent SCL, but he was only 3k in that tournament; surely one tour does not justify a 16k price increase for someone that we have a good amount of data on at this point. Part of the price increase was driven by the fact that many good SV players were retained, meaning that teams had to splurge to acquire the few seemingly-elite talents that were left. Nonetheless, this was obviously going to be an overpay. Luckily for the team, they recouped a lot of the value by getting TDNT for only 15k. They were willing to go up to 25k for him, but a combination of his price-fixing attempt coupled with some deals the Sharks orchestrated with other teams dropped The Uncle's price all the way to 15k. At the time, I said this was probably the biggest steal of the auction, and while things did not start out well for him, he managed to notch some much-needed wins in later weeks and end up as a solid pick for the depressed price.
The Sharks' season started out well, with violet river taking down Fruhdazi in a luck-assisted win in the first game of the season. This win was especially big given that the team was facing a nerfed version of the Tyrants in Week, as they would be without one of their ace players in Luthier. Unfortunately, the week would end in heartbreak for the team, as they would lose 7-5 after Mada took down Jyt, a man who many in the Jerk felt was one of the best players on the site following his scintillating SCL performance. The team would rebound in Week 2, as their RBY player Nicole brought home the win against Genesis7 to put the Sharks at 1-1 heading into Week 3. They would unfortunately lose yet another close series against the Classiest that week, putting the team at 1-2. While things were not dire yet, things were certainly not ideal. In Week 4, the team had a chance to snatch a win against the Raiders, but only managed to get a tie after Gama took down Fc in the final game. This dropped the team to 1-2-1 heading into midseason, which was certainly not ideal. The team needed to start getting wins; they clearly had talent, but they were seemingly just unable to get over the hump each week. The main problem at this juncture were the struggles of some of their players. Niko and TDNT were both 1-3, while SCL hero Jyt sat at 0-3 and was put on the bench in Week 4. It became clear at this point that perhaps investing 32.5k on two players that should hav probably been closer to 20k combined was not a good idea. Week 5 appeared to be in dire straits, as the team fell into a 4-5 hole with the following matchups remaining: Punny vs. Drach / Pak vs. River / Fog vs. Ahy. Getting even a tie out of this would be good, given that the team was certainly an underdog in all 3 of these matchups. However, miraculously, all 3 of these players managed to win, pushing the Sharks to 2-2-1 and really turning their season around. Perhaps the most impressive part of this win was that TDNT, one of the team's cornerstones, did not play this week, as his managers felt he needed a break after his rather poor play over the first 4 weeks of the season.
Things were certainly looking up for the Sharks after this win, as their remaining schedule was rather soft as well on paper. They would narrowly win Week 6 after Attribute took down clean in a back-and-forth intense game. In Week 7, they would get a donation victory against the Cryonicles, the worst team in the tour. After dismantling them with ease, they found themselves sitting at 9 points with +8 BD, with bouts against the bottom-feeder BIGs and the playoff-hopeful Scooters in the final 2 weeks of the season. The team was even winning despite Conflict, their most expensive player, only being 4-3 at this juncture. At this point, the jetou simulations gave the the team a whopping 83.795% chance to make the playoffs. The Wolfpack, meanwhile, who would go on to make the playoffs, sat at a measly 11.1%. Also, these odds were calculated with the notion that each matchup was 50/50. Given the talent level of the Sharks and the competition they were playing, their real odds were closer to 90% or probably even 95% in my mind. It would take a catastrophic collapse for the team to lose from here....The team did decide to make one tweak to their lineup in Week 8, finally having decided that violet river was probably not good enough to play in SPL. They put in SPL veteran Zokuru into GSC and swapped Conflict into ADV; I would have started Zokuru from Week 1, but I digress. The Sharks would go 1-1 total between those two tiers that week, which would unfortunately not be enough, as bhkg would upset Niko and give the BIGs the victory. It should also be noted that, up to this point, the Sharks had not won both of GSC and ADV in the same week at any point this season, which is honestly kind of insane. Anyway, this loss was certainly not ideal, but the team still had good odds to make the playoffs, with the aforementioned jetou calculations STILL giving the team a 75% chance to make it due to their high BD and point total.
The team would face off against the Scooters in Week 9, a team which was trying to squeak into the playoffs after collapsing in recent times. One of the most crucial games of the week featured Attribute against Pkel. Attribute was one of the team's best players, and by this point, had established himself as a sheet warrior, having compiled a 26-12 record in his team tournament career. He was in a good position and looked to have a good shot of securing the win. However, he incorrectly predicted Pkel's tera-type and narrowly lost, dealing a big blow to the Sharks' playoff hopes. The team would soon lose the week, as the Scooters would hit 7 wins after their ace player, Garay Oak, dismantled lighthouses in what was mostly a one-sided affair. The team's season was not over yet, though, as other contenders were also struggling. If both Ahy and Conflict managed to win, the Sharks would get in the playoffs if the Tyrants did not manage to win another game in their series, which was decently likely. Conflict seemed to be heavily favored in his matchup, as he was playing a random mainer named mayopockets, but Ahy's game against hellom would certainly prove to be difficult. Unfortunately, Ahy's game went off the rails after turn 1, where he chose not to U-Turn with his Corviknight against hellom's Gholdengo. This allowed hellom to get his Ogerpon-W in against Ahy's Ting Lu and take over the game. Ahy risked a speed tie on turn 5 with his Iron Moth against it, but luck was not in his favor this time. Given how the rest of the game went, this was probably not the correct decision. However, nothing really could be done after that, as hellom dominated the game and took home the win, knocking the Sharks out of the competition. The team can take some solace in knowing that the Tyrants made the playoffs anyway, meaning that the Sharks were 2 wins away from making the playoffs in Week 9 as opposed to 1 win. Still, though, this was nothing short of a massive collapse from a team that close to 90% odds of making the playoffs 2 weeks ago.
The team certainly got a lot right in terms of who they drafted. Lily was an amazing value this SPL, greatly exceeding my expectations, while Attribute was a phenomenal retain. elodin was a solid BW pick, which certainly is not surprising. The team did well in getting both Nicole and Drachenkeule, who provided solid value to the team for their costs. lighthouses also proved to be a solid pickup, notching 4 wins for 3k. crucify struggled some in the madhouse, but that will occasionally happen; elodin won his one game there, so the team did go 4-5 there overall. Ahy also helped save the team's season with his big win over Fog. And, as previously mentioned, TDNT turned his season around and wound up being a solid pick. Conflict's underperformance certainly hurt the team a lot; I'm not really sure anyone could have predicted that he would only get 5 wins after his previous performances, especially his superb showing last year. There is not much you can do about that. Niko + Jyt went 3-10 combined for 31.5k, which was certainly a disaster. I don't think it is particularly surprising that both of these players were overpays; the team put too much stock into one team tour performance for my liking. Both of these players have a large sample of results and, while no one would have predicted them to go 3-10 combined, I would have been surprised if they provided good value at that combined cost. For the record, I don't think the Jyt price was really that bad; he was only a couple thousand overpriced, probably. The Niko price was certainly ridiculous, though. The team's ADV slot was also a disaster for most of the season, as getting violet river for 3k when baddummy was also 3k was probably a bad idea; granted, he obviously would not have been 3k if the Sharks bid on him as well. Personally, as a sheet believer, I would have just started Zokuru from Week 1, as he has consistently proven that he is good enough to play in this tournament and tread water. Given that the team only missed the playoffs by the narrowest of margins, perhaps this could have been the difference between life and death for them.
Overall, the Sharks were definitely a solid team. They just fell flat and failed to capitalize on their opportunity to clinch a playoff spot. I think I would say there are 3 main reasons for the failure:
1. Conflict underperformance. When your 30.5k player goes 5-4, it certainly is not ideal. You cannot blame the Sharks for picking him, though, especially given the overwhelming strength he provides as a tiebreak option.
2. Overvaluing one tournament instead of caring more about the larger sample size, which led to the team vastly overpaying for Niko.
3. Not starting Zokuru from Week 1. This one is more arguable, but as a sheet believer and someone who is inherently skeptical of newer players, I think my thought process is pretty justified.
It is unfortunate that the GOAT franchise will not return to glory this season. This franchise will always be the one I care the most about. Perhaps, one day, they will lift the coveted SPL trophy once again...but it will not be this year. Also, I kind of have to mention it, so...the Giannis team tour curse is real. See you next week.
Week 9, last day of school. Fatigue got me, and got me good so I focused on the "high tables" of the tournament.
A former version of marcoasd would have answered badly to some inflated takes on my colleagues! Wrinkles on my face suggest that it's just for fun.
They did a great job. That's what I really think about this SPL.
A former version of marcoasd would have answered badly to some inflated takes on my colleagues! Wrinkles on my face suggest that it's just for fun.
They did a great job. That's what I really think about this SPL.
Another close semis this year. If memory serves right its back to back double tiebreakers. Tiebreakers also are becoming a much more common occurence than they were in the past. Congrats to the finalists, being there is not easy especially after these intense series. Also grats to my favorite team the Wolfpack who managed to make the comeback late in the season despite not fielding one of the best sv competitors (i dont know the circumstances regarding mcmt not playing). Spl is always worth following.
Hey everyone - I want to take a moment to get your attention.
The media team and hosting team started preparing for SPL 2-3 months before the draft even happened. We brought forth a lot of new ideas and change, leading to many sleepless nights writing articles, hitting stringent deadlines, coordinating with many different sections, creating videos, interviews, and figuring out how to bring an interactive prediction tournment to life (Ticken Maia deserves endless credit) - All of this to ensure that we finally give SPL the proper hype and attention it deserves.
I can't begin to thank not only the team of users who helped make this entire rollout a possibility, but also the community for coming together and engaging with us in ways that we haven't seen before. It's given us a blueprint to follow and improve on.
That's why I'm asking you all (one last time) to please take the time to help us improve. Let us know what worked well and what could use more fine-tuning.
Please fill out this feedback form below and give us your honest opinions and constructive criticism so that we can continue to improve on what will hopefully be permanent changes to official Smogon tournaments.
I am full of gratitude for each of you that participated and engaged with us.
Thank you
- Dave
SPL FEEDBACK FORM
The media team and hosting team started preparing for SPL 2-3 months before the draft even happened. We brought forth a lot of new ideas and change, leading to many sleepless nights writing articles, hitting stringent deadlines, coordinating with many different sections, creating videos, interviews, and figuring out how to bring an interactive prediction tournment to life (Ticken Maia deserves endless credit) - All of this to ensure that we finally give SPL the proper hype and attention it deserves.
I can't begin to thank not only the team of users who helped make this entire rollout a possibility, but also the community for coming together and engaging with us in ways that we haven't seen before. It's given us a blueprint to follow and improve on.
That's why I'm asking you all (one last time) to please take the time to help us improve. Let us know what worked well and what could use more fine-tuning.
Please fill out this feedback form below and give us your honest opinions and constructive criticism so that we can continue to improve on what will hopefully be permanent changes to official Smogon tournaments.
I am full of gratitude for each of you that participated and engaged with us.
Thank you
- Dave
SPL FEEDBACK FORM