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Well here we are, the last match day of the year looms. The championships awaits. Here are a few pieces of trivia and interesting storylines going into the championship weekend:
Top5Squad (although with all new starters) is trying to complete its bid to repeat in Dueling. If Ruby wins the Basing title, it will have beaten the top 3 squads in the league (in Basing and Overall standings) to do so. Ruby, the last team to qualify for the playoffs, has the only chance to win multiple league Championships, a feat which was not accomplished last year (despite Revenge's domination of the league). If you were to look at a bracket of the standings, Ez or Wut, Blood Choke, and Underground were all on one side of the bracket, and so only one of the three of them could make it to the Championship in each league; they have all made it to the title game in one league. Neither of the teams who earned byes advanced in the Dueling or Javelin leagues, and none of the teams who have advanced in those leagues did so without requiring at least one 3rd round. However, Blood Choke is the only squad to advance who needed 3rd rounds in both weeks. The closest Basing result in the playoffs was a margin of 5:14. If you convert that to games of the standard 15 minute winning length, it would give you a margin of 3:56. There were only 4 games of the 21 non-Emofucks total regular season games closer than that margin; this season was blowout central in Basing. The average margin of Basing victory in the playoffs (converted) is about 1 minute less than for the regular season. Less, but not substantially so (although obviously the sample size is very small).
Hopefully I have you all a bit more interested in the Championship games after those nuggets. And so, let me now take you through the actual match-ups that will be played.
*all team stats and records are in the specific league, ignore games against Emofucks, and include playoff games*
Key:
Squadname (W-L in specific league, Avg number of opponent wins for wins/losses, +/-)
TWDT-D
Top5Squad (6-2, 3.0/4.0, 64) vs. Blood Choke (5-3, 3.6/3.3, 11)
Previous meeting: Week 4 - Blood Choke won 50-44.
This is going to bug me. The scorebox from the previous meeting was one of the ones that were never posted, AND I did not watch this game personally...so I have no idea who showed up, played well, or anything. I was told that Riverside did not show for Top5Squad (but Mythril did); that is literally everything I know about the game. Perhaps someone can enlighten me and everyone in the comments of the article about the lineups and who played well/poorly.
Probable lineups:
Top5Squad- Mythril* (1.49), B4sERmaN94_X (1.24), Vys (1.31), Riverside (1.29), Sir Spider (1.16), Money (1.16), Rasaq (0.76), Jaa (0.70)
Blood Choke- Vicarious (1.32), Burg (1.27), CrimsonX (1.17), Lofty (1.11), Saetep (1.09), Yakuza (1.02), Thrill (0.73), Misled (0.67)
*Mythril says he might not be able to make the 3PM game because he has plans with his fiance. C'mon man, what's she gonna do, call off the wedding?
Past playoff results:
Top5Squad- Defeated Ruby 2-1 (50-44, 41-50, 50-41). Defeated Candy King 2-0 (50-29, 50-40)
Blood Choke- Defeated Underground 2-1 (50-48, 49-50, 50-40). Defeated Ez or Wut 2-1 (46-50, 50-44, 50-36)
Blood Choke defeated two of the tougher Dueling teams in the league to get to this point. As I mentioned earlier, both wins were in 3 rounds and had fairly close margins throughout (14 points was the largest margin of victory and the average was about 6). They also showed much better lines during the last 2 week's than in any other time of the season (which is unusual because attendance usually starts strong and then dips until it plateau's with a slight spike for the playoffs). Top5Squad, on the other hand, won the first game with some difficulty and the last game with none (average margin of victory exactly 11). Their attendance has been fairly solid all year long, with not many weeks of missing more than 2 of their top 8.
Key Player:
Top5Squad- Mythril. He's been an MVP candidate all year for Top5Squad. If he can't show this weekend because of a prior commitment, it will shift the entire line up a spot and force someone else to step up big. He plays very intelligently, is hard to hit, and can rush and mid-range equally well.
Blood Choke- Burg. He only played one round before the playoffs, and it was negative (8-10). However, he has been +19 in 6 playoff rounds so far (roughly a 12-9 average) and singlehandedly won about 2 rounds (almost 3) in these playoffs so far. His radar and mid-range accuracy has been excellent, and he has stayed alive long enough to rack up high numbers of kills.
Analysis:
Blood Choke finished the year in the middle of the pack of Dueling teams, while Top5Squad was at the top. Still, it is hard to say that this is a David vs. Goliath matchup considering that Blood Choke won the lone meeting between these two teams in the regular season. Top5Squad should show a good lineup, but Mythril is the big question mark. On the other side, Blood Choke will need to show their best line (or at least 5 of their top 6 as they have the past 2 weeks), because otherwise you start to see a pretty big talent gulf between these two teams. Top5Squad usually plays a high pressure style, which can lead them to easy wins, but can also get them in trouble if their teaming is worse than their opponents'. Blood Choke's wins tend to be on the opposite side of the style spectrum, featuring sniping wars and an emphasis on dodging. The key will need to be Blood Choke's teaming. Can they avoid being nibbled away while backpedaling and then devoured once they are outnumbered? Or can they instead pick off the approaching enemy and keep their distance. The most recent best example of this style clash would be Thunder beating Quicksand in last year's TWL Final. Unfortunately for Blood Choke, I think that Thunder (and in this game Top5Squad) had the talent edge.
Prediction: Top5Squad wins 2-1.
Top5Squad (although with all new starters) is trying to complete its bid to repeat in Dueling. If Ruby wins the Basing title, it will have beaten the top 3 squads in the league (in Basing and Overall standings) to do so. Ruby, the last team to qualify for the playoffs, has the only chance to win multiple league Championships, a feat which was not accomplished last year (despite Revenge's domination of the league). If you were to look at a bracket of the standings, Ez or Wut, Blood Choke, and Underground were all on one side of the bracket, and so only one of the three of them could make it to the Championship in each league; they have all made it to the title game in one league. Neither of the teams who earned byes advanced in the Dueling or Javelin leagues, and none of the teams who have advanced in those leagues did so without requiring at least one 3rd round. However, Blood Choke is the only squad to advance who needed 3rd rounds in both weeks. The closest Basing result in the playoffs was a margin of 5:14. If you convert that to games of the standard 15 minute winning length, it would give you a margin of 3:56. There were only 4 games of the 21 non-Emofucks total regular season games closer than that margin; this season was blowout central in Basing. The average margin of Basing victory in the playoffs (converted) is about 1 minute less than for the regular season. Less, but not substantially so (although obviously the sample size is very small).
Hopefully I have you all a bit more interested in the Championship games after those nuggets. And so, let me now take you through the actual match-ups that will be played.
*all team stats and records are in the specific league, ignore games against Emofucks, and include playoff games*
Key:
Squadname (W-L in specific league, Avg number of opponent wins for wins/losses, +/-)
TWDT-D
Top5Squad (6-2, 3.0/4.0, 64) vs. Blood Choke (5-3, 3.6/3.3, 11)
Previous meeting: Week 4 - Blood Choke won 50-44.
This is going to bug me. The scorebox from the previous meeting was one of the ones that were never posted, AND I did not watch this game personally...so I have no idea who showed up, played well, or anything. I was told that Riverside did not show for Top5Squad (but Mythril did); that is literally everything I know about the game. Perhaps someone can enlighten me and everyone in the comments of the article about the lineups and who played well/poorly.
Probable lineups:
Top5Squad- Mythril* (1.49), B4sERmaN94_X (1.24), Vys (1.31), Riverside (1.29), Sir Spider (1.16), Money (1.16), Rasaq (0.76), Jaa (0.70)
Blood Choke- Vicarious (1.32), Burg (1.27), CrimsonX (1.17), Lofty (1.11), Saetep (1.09), Yakuza (1.02), Thrill (0.73), Misled (0.67)
*Mythril says he might not be able to make the 3PM game because he has plans with his fiance. C'mon man, what's she gonna do, call off the wedding?
Past playoff results:
Top5Squad- Defeated Ruby 2-1 (50-44, 41-50, 50-41). Defeated Candy King 2-0 (50-29, 50-40)
Blood Choke- Defeated Underground 2-1 (50-48, 49-50, 50-40). Defeated Ez or Wut 2-1 (46-50, 50-44, 50-36)
Blood Choke defeated two of the tougher Dueling teams in the league to get to this point. As I mentioned earlier, both wins were in 3 rounds and had fairly close margins throughout (14 points was the largest margin of victory and the average was about 6). They also showed much better lines during the last 2 week's than in any other time of the season (which is unusual because attendance usually starts strong and then dips until it plateau's with a slight spike for the playoffs). Top5Squad, on the other hand, won the first game with some difficulty and the last game with none (average margin of victory exactly 11). Their attendance has been fairly solid all year long, with not many weeks of missing more than 2 of their top 8.
Key Player:
Top5Squad- Mythril. He's been an MVP candidate all year for Top5Squad. If he can't show this weekend because of a prior commitment, it will shift the entire line up a spot and force someone else to step up big. He plays very intelligently, is hard to hit, and can rush and mid-range equally well.
Blood Choke- Burg. He only played one round before the playoffs, and it was negative (8-10). However, he has been +19 in 6 playoff rounds so far (roughly a 12-9 average) and singlehandedly won about 2 rounds (almost 3) in these playoffs so far. His radar and mid-range accuracy has been excellent, and he has stayed alive long enough to rack up high numbers of kills.
Analysis:
Blood Choke finished the year in the middle of the pack of Dueling teams, while Top5Squad was at the top. Still, it is hard to say that this is a David vs. Goliath matchup considering that Blood Choke won the lone meeting between these two teams in the regular season. Top5Squad should show a good lineup, but Mythril is the big question mark. On the other side, Blood Choke will need to show their best line (or at least 5 of their top 6 as they have the past 2 weeks), because otherwise you start to see a pretty big talent gulf between these two teams. Top5Squad usually plays a high pressure style, which can lead them to easy wins, but can also get them in trouble if their teaming is worse than their opponents'. Blood Choke's wins tend to be on the opposite side of the style spectrum, featuring sniping wars and an emphasis on dodging. The key will need to be Blood Choke's teaming. Can they avoid being nibbled away while backpedaling and then devoured once they are outnumbered? Or can they instead pick off the approaching enemy and keep their distance. The most recent best example of this style clash would be Thunder beating Quicksand in last year's TWL Final. Unfortunately for Blood Choke, I think that Thunder (and in this game Top5Squad) had the talent edge.
Prediction: Top5Squad wins 2-1.
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