Week 4 Basing Recap

[Holy Ship]

Curse
0-2
When I said I wanted to see cripple and Best together, I guess I should have been more specific. Best made it into the basing arena, and at the right time, but he didn't make it into a ship. Why stop when you got that far? Curse lost their two games of the week, this time against Power and Blind, and their playoff dreams are now officially dead. While drafting is not easy, and drafting at the sixth place is even harder, there were some mistakes made along the way also. For example first round pick Mikkiz was picked too early in my opinion. Other than that I have no new insight. Did they just have too few TWL/TWDT champion veterans, is that it?


Power [guaranteed #1 seed]
1-1
First I'll mention that Power was missing mcvicar. While you don't want your results to be affected this much by a no-show, Power's basing line is reliable enough most of the time. So while Power peaked at the beginning of the season, they aren't in an outright downfall now. Thanks to said peak Power is also the first, and so far only team to advance into the play-offs. They can relax for a bit, and set their eyes on their future opponent, the 4th seed. Whoever ends up being the 4th seed may end up exerting themselves in the fifth week in the fight for their survival, and leave their weaknesses exposed, which could leave Power with the upper hand come play-offs.
Heaven did not impress as terrier that much this week as he almost died to a mine that was launched snail speed towards the cram. Power will probably warm him up, but it's not totally outside the realm of possibility that they would go with another 8-star instead. Henry Saari has been playing well, and if Power spiders him, they could terr Jessup, who remains an elusive and underrated terrier. Playing Jessup would allow Power to place high stars in two shark slots and three spider slots. This composition has worked well previously this season. Irregardless, I expect to see more of Heaven.


Legio XI
2-0
Team Legio keeps improving mightily. They are peaking in the end of the season and we can only hope that the peak lasts until the finals. Let there not be another fall of Rome. Team Blind remains Legio XI's only blind spot so far, but perhaps the roman legion can invent something to take care of them. The romans invented the newspaper and the aqueducts. I don't think Steadman has ever read a newspaper, and I'm not sure if beam has ever taken a shower, so there's some ways to go yet. :-/


Terrorist
0-2
Terrorist's performances are as unstable as an arab on ice skates, which was evident as they fumbled again in the fourth week. Let's take a look at who detonated themselves before the mullah dreamwin's orders this time. Helios went 0-10. While there was a shooting in Florida on sunday, I think we can safely remove Helios from the list of suspects, because this guy can't hit anything. Wicket666 made his basing debut with an interesting 41-72. Can staff run an IP check? I think he let one of his chickens play. That's not allowed Wicket my man. Finally, maybe dreamwin should reconsider playing Sakke. He isn't doing terribly well and is there currently only as a dudgeon loyality pick pretty much. If you want to win games you need to do more. To give a some credit, Zizu was playing well and flew a 44-6 and a 49-6. Solid round 2 pick right there, delivering week after week he is.


Nasty
1-1
Finally this team utilizes their top spiders. Nasty lost a close game against Legio XI, then switched turban into spider, and won the next game handily. First game that he has spidered by the way, which is shocking. With an aggressive/good terrier like thix two good spiders can be more effective than two good sharks. The terrier can protect himself and move, instead of holding the whole team up fortifying a single position. You play a risky pushing game to control the flagroom and use the gained space to protect the terrier, not just sharks. This strategy may not work against all teams, but since turban is a great spider, I would play him in that ship for that reason alone. Mean Gene is a solid shark for Nasty, and WillBy and Singer are not far behind.


Blind
2-0
Blind continues to thrive. 24 is an underrated shark, in draft setting especially, and he can be a real pest if you let him run unchecked. Markmrw complements him nicely I think, bringing in a more grounded play. This week Markmrw was repping mines from halfway across the flagroom to bully Zizu (pretty sure) out into the open, and Lupin broke the TeK record for a single game with six terrier takedowns.



HOT Team of the Week: Legio XI. The romans invented numerals, except for the numeral "2-0", that was invented by Mythril.


NOT Team of the Week: Curse. You were in a must-win situation and couldn't convince an 8-star player who's right there in the arena to play with you. Not good.


HOT Players of the Week:
JAMAL. I was running spider rotation analysis on 3 PCs at once, but I still can't figure out how this guy is so good. About to break 1000 kills if you check the stats thread.
Markmrw. Did you ever wonder what the W stands for in his name? Win.
Lupin. Most TeKs in a game (6) this draft season, congrats!

[Soldier13]

Power has 9 Spiders, 3 Terriers and 4 Sharks. In game is 16 out of 27 which means 11 are not active yet.

A real good read, its a strange instance Power seems to want to let up on some of the squadrons and stuff. Cool write up anyhow. Some of us are moderate.

[ogron]

Curse

For example first round pick Mikkiz was picked too early in my opinion. Other than that I have no new insight. Did they just have too few TWL/TWDT champion veterans, is that it?

That pick was definitely a death sentence. Taking 1-ship terr that early, especially when you're not a multi-league superstar, has proven a mistake for almost every cap that has done it. Mikkiz has been reached for in the first 2 rounds the past like 5 seasons, and I'm pretty sure every single one of those teams failed to make the playoffs. And that is despite him being one of the best terrs of all-time (1x TWLB Champion, 3x TWDT-B Champion) and showing.

Multi-league players and even other basing positions are more valuable. You can win TWDT-B without an elite terr, but you can't win without elite sharks/spiders.

Not only are you losing a crucial draft pick that could get you wins in multiple leagues, but elite terrs take up a 9-10 Star spot, meaning even if you manage to fill out your line, you're playing at a spider/shark deficit, meaning your elite terr has to play amazing to compensate for the lesser firepower in your lineup.

Elite terrs are the most overrated pick in TWDT.

I don't think a single terr should be coming off the board until Round 4, maybe the end of Round 3 if you want to reach.

[Holy Ship]

Spot on analysis, Ogron. In fact if you look at who are the bottom three teams currently, all of them used a pick in rounds 1-3 for a terrier (Mikkiz, Zizu and thix).

[Unlimited]

Would be cool if you had the low rated players who have performed as part of all these reviews.. I feel like 6* players also play a big role and should also be mentioned.

[skyforger]

Obviously there were some mistakes made drafting. But I don't think it was Mikkiz. See, we were last to pick. When our turn came, the guys who are multi league beasts and active were gone. What was left from sort of high level 2 leaguers were Turban and Vys and maybe if we stretch it - Geio. The first two had been clear they would not be showing up much, Turban even giving estimate of 5% showrate?! Risking completely wasting a first round pick was not something neither me nor Attacks were prepared to do. Also since neither me nor Attacks can jav at close to top level and Ease + Zidane was a thing with first pick, it made focusing on javs with early picks less appealing. We wouldn't be able win the title in jav no matter what with the remaining picks available. So going for guys who are the best at what they do, but not multidimensional made sense with Mikkiz and Cripple. Both great guys with close to 100% showrate and good personalities. In retrospect it did not work out, but a bunch of games we had were close calls but we weren't able to close ever. I'd say the quality of games we put out often were at least slightly better than our points rec suggests.

Like I think the plan was decent in theory and we had fun in a bunch good games, which is what matters most. The rec and being out of playoff contention a week early is frustrating though. What would you have done different with the 1st picks taking into account who remained unpicked and ppls claimed showrates? I think it's more a case of messing up with mid-early picks where we picked Havok who did not show a single time and being too late/risky to pick up Markmrw and WillBy both of whom were in our shortlist.

[zidane]

Agreed with skyforger, the havok pick was probably the worst pick in the entire draft. Considering he's overrated at 9* and has never shown up to games since he works at the Gap on Sundays it was a huge blunder.

I like Ricko a lot but he should not have been picked as early as he was given how he told everyone he can't show for about half the games 5 mins before the draft. Still props to sky for being willing to cap as many pussied out and had a tough draft position

[ogron]

I mean obviously those mid-round picks like Havok and Ricko were poison, but the 7th overall pick is just the last chance to get a truly impactful multi-league star (I'm not going to get into Turban's stated showrate or who was on the board, as I don't remember who was available.)

I'm just speaking from personal experience, as someone who had the last pick in a draft, was the weakest cap (against Ease/Zidane/Dreamwin/Hulk/etc.), and took Cranium #8 and Mikkiz #9 in 2013.

We finished 6th and made the playoffs by one win. Cranium copied my blueprint in 2014 and took Mikkiz #4, and finished 6th and made the playoffs by one win.

And we had the advantage of there being way less low-star slots. In 2013 when we won TWDT-B, K A N E ran the league and the only requirement was one 5-Star. I ran the league in 2014 and the requirement was a 5-Star and a 6-Star, so an elite terr is at way less of a disadvantage in terms of shark/spider depth in front of them.

It was a barely viable strategy back then, and it's less so now. Those teams could have easily missed the playoffs. There's a graveyard of people who did the exact same thing as us. It typically does not work. I remember in 2011, I think TJ Hazuki or something had like the most stacked basing team the world has ever known, everyone thought they were going to win TWDT-B, and... they didn't make the playoffs.

Of course, if you make the playoffs, Mikkiz is a beast. He aced the Quarter-Finals and Finals for us, and went like 55-4 in a Semi-Final we got heavily outkilled in, he was easily our MVP. There was no way we win that without him; he was a monster. But in terms of making the playoffs, he lagged out in a bunch of games in terr, had no impact in wb or jav, and it took a bunch of miracles from Marge/Eelam in jav and Cranium, me, Rasaq and Geio in WB to scrounge up enough wins to eke into the playoffs.

The evidence on taking an elite terr early is very conclusive, IMO:

[Rab]

I also made that mistake in the Basing Cup. It's just one league but still picking terr before sharks was wrong.

I think Mikkiz hasn't been playing as well as he used to. Defo worthy of a star reduction IMO. It's kinda funny that the above picture makes it look like if you pick Mikkiz you lose.

I'll put my name in the ring for terring in future leagues. Might be the most underrated terr in TW tbh.

[Holy Ship]

Would be cool if you had the low rated players who have performed as part of all these reviews.. I feel like 6* players also play a big role and should also be mentioned.

I think I've done a decent job at least name-dropping 6 and 7 star players. Last week I said I could give any player on Blind a Hot, which was directly aimed at you, since you played that week. But I guess it was a bit unclear. Generally I'm talking about the teams which includes everyone. Maybe I could drop the weekly roster for the team after each review, but it would feel a little clunky, because the reviews are already so short the roster would take up half the space. And the line-ups don't change that much week after week anyway.

Obviously there were some mistakes made drafting. But I don't think it was Mikkiz. See, we were last to pick. When our turn came, the guys who are multi league beasts and active were gone. What was left from sort of high level 2 leaguers were Turban and Vys and maybe if we stretch it - Geio. The first two had been clear they would not be showing up much, Turban even giving estimate of 5% showrate?! Risking completely wasting a first round pick was not something neither me nor Attacks were prepared to do. Also since neither me nor Attacks can jav at close to top level and Ease + Zidane was a thing with first pick, it made focusing on javs with early picks less appealing. We wouldn't be able win the title in jav no matter what with the remaining picks available. So going for guys who are the best at what they do, but not multidimensional made sense with Mikkiz and Cripple. Both great guys with close to 100% showrate and good personalities. In retrospect it did not work out, but a bunch of games we had were close calls but we weren't able to close ever. I'd say the quality of games we put out often were at least slightly better than our points rec suggests.

Like I think the plan was decent in theory and we had fun in a bunch good games, which is what matters most. The rec and being out of playoff contention a week early is frustrating though. What would you have done different with the 1st picks taking into account who remained unpicked and ppls claimed showrates? I think it's more a case of messing up with mid-early picks where we picked Havok who did not show a single time and being too late/risky to pick up Markmrw and WillBy both of whom were in our shortlist.

I can tell you that personally I thought cripple and Mikkiz were a bad pick the moment I saw it. For fun's sake, I think I would have picked mcvicar and.. maybe Ra. With full hindsight right now I could pick something like Ro and Ra.

One idea I had for draft is: let newer captains pick first. Drafting well can require considerable knowledge and experience. This could work if we need a few captains to complete six teams, as we do most years, and give it to someone newer. If there's more than a few new captains it won't work though. Too much possibility of lopsidedness. First year courtesy priviledge?

[Major Crisis]

Agreed with skyforger, the havok pick was probably the worst pick in the entire draft. Considering he's overrated at 9* and has never shown up to games since he works at the Gap on Sundays it was a huge blunder.

I like Ricko a lot but he should not have been picked as early as he was given how he told everyone he can't show for about half the games 5 mins before the draft. Still props to sky for being willing to cap as many pussied out and had a tough draft position

Ricko is known for being laggy and inactive.. I dont understand why he goes kinda early every season.. But besides that Sky picked 3 pure basers with his 4 first picks.. Then you know you are limited. Like Ogron also mentioned having a 9+ terr is kinda overrated, you see it with your basing line and Heaven/me have proven that in the past too with being 6-7 stars in base. A high star spid or shark has so much more impact on the game than a terr.

[ogron]

It's kinda funny that the above picture makes it look like if you pick Mikkiz you lose.

Which is ironic, given Mikkiz is the winningest terr in TWDT-B history.

None of this is meant as a knock against him, he just happens to be the terr that is almost always taken first in the draft. In fact,
he's the only TWLB Champion terr since 2010 to be drafted and win.

TWDT-B Terrs in Finals:

2010 - draft (C) defeats Dreamwin (C)
2011 - maketso defeats draft (C)
2011 - Mikkiz defeats Cape
2012 - flared defeats Thix
2013 - Mikkiz defeats Cintra
2014 - Mikkiz defeats Dreamwin (C)
2015 - Heaven defeats Ogron
2016 - Ogron (C) defeats Dreamwin (C)
2016 - Major Crisis defeats Ogron
2017 - Ogron (C) defeats Mikkiz*
2017 - Dreamwin (C) defeats Thix

It's almost all low-star players or captains who didn't have to draft themselves. Cape, Cintra, Thix, Chief Utsav, etc. have never won. I've won but wasn't drafted.

I think there's a huge body of evidence that Captains have drafted elite terrs too early throughout TWDT history, and should be delaying those picks 1-2 rounds.


*Mikkiz wasn't drafted in the 2017 Winter season, he was picked up in FA.

[ogron]

Anyway, it's not a big deal.

Elite terrs are at more of a disadvantage now than they were in the past, since having only 3 max slot spiders/sharks in front of you instead of 4 is fairly significant, but any team in any configuration can win if you play well.

It just alters the percentages a bit. It's not like it's written in stone.

7 of the last 8 terrs in the TWDT-B Finals were all max slot terriers, too, so it's not like Heaven/Major/Vehicle are auto-wins.

If you've got the worst pick in the draft, you're the weakest cap, and you take a terr in the first two rounds, though, it's definitely going to be an uphill battle to make the playoffs.