TWL-B Week 2: Hot or Not

[Poseidon]

lol dream turns on me. its ok. i knew what had happened when i came back to u a few days later and u said "oh we alrdy found someone else". I mean I cant really blame you. you asked me for a reason. your teammates are oblivious. but you cant argue with em about it. however, it gives me little sympathy for the situation when u had to captain against ur better instincts. its YOUR team. but whatev. i dunno whats going on what going thru ur head, just givink u my perspective.

call me toxic if you want when in reality im simply defending myself against full assault from a whole hoarde of goombas who finda my talent threatening. GJ judging from TWBD in which im generally doing nothing but exploring situations at all time and figuring out what goes right and what goes wrong. Absolutely different from my competitive play. Luckily it was prob the next weekend I was subbing in for 9* and bringing the game 3 finals of basing cup back from 2-11 to 14-15. im sure u logged and missed it after we beat u in the first series... but had u, id imagine ud have felt quite silly if u really believed " ididnt have what it takes"... when in reality this noopi proovd herself as clutch master yet again, as i mentioned in a previous thread

[Poseidon]

I’m with Poseidon on this one. When I used to play I would suicide at least 50 to 60 times a game to help my squad win. Have you guys even watched the video? I haven’t, but I guarantee he’s doing the right thing in it. How else are you supposed to get more repels?

LOL whatddua know. i play vs u and shriek in the link i posted b4 ha!

[Poseidon]

Ok, ending participation with this thread and waving goodbye 2 every1. I would like to end with a response to dreamwin, as clarification seems appropriate.

First, I understand ur being vitriolic towards me as a way to support your teammates who are lashing out at me. I get it. But the implication that I acted sleazily or threw my team Fire under the bus or betrayed them is entirely off base, as Unlimited alluded to in the first few sentences of his post - he notably being on Fire chat. Many people on the team were out to get me, mainly because they were backing up their boy Kado who a few months ago began chirping vs me after i beat him under a few Bd's. Had never talked to the guy. Wasnt interested. However I let him know whats up in a friendly rebuff. From the moment on his inferiority complex grew into a monstrosity, the details of which I will not go into publically atm.

Thus some of the members such as Heaven, Beam, Best, etc. were obviously trying to drive me from the squad. It was very hostile environment for me. Not much in the way of "betrayal" happening at all here.

Cheers every1 and good luck in TWL

[Lupin]

Kado is a good guy and one of the first players who welcomed me to TW. Good luck in TWL every1

[Pressure]

Wow, this blew up. Poseidon, you're a mad lad.

Updated with Rapid vs. Spastic.

[Pressure]

The last couple of weeks have been intense recruiting wars between squads so all of us might not remember things clearly.

This was definitely one of the most exciting pre-seasons in the last decade. Recruiting wars is a great way to describe it.

[Pressure]

Rapid vs. Spastic (5:02 – 15:00) | LINK
Summary: The recording for this one began with Spastic in the lead 4-1. Considering this was a 14 minute video, I already knew it would be a massacre. Spastic chose to throw their big three in Cripple, JAMAL, and (welcome back!) Stayon over flag, who looked dominant and hungry. wbm and JURASSIC under is a new combo to me, and they performed well and clearly had control all game. As far as I knew, Pure_Luck was intent on terring this season, but it seems Oder got stuck in the role for this game against his to-be replacement Zizu. Despite a solid game from Zizu, who was playing well throughout pre-season, Rapid looked cornered in this one. Their spiders just couldn't touch Spastic's over trio. Honestly, which team can? Oder you played well, but that bullet line you ate at 3:58 was pretty bad. Not only were Spastic's spiders all over Rapid, but porkjet single handedly teamferred Rapid multiple times (see big plays below), getting 11 kills and 1 TeK with only 1 TK. The rapid spiders did show some life during a few moments in the flagroom like from 4:48 - 5:22, but overall they could not compete with the seasoned spaS spiders. Since Riverside/morph and Zizu played fine and were not the problem here, Rapid's spiders are cumulatively this week's NOT players of the week. Cripple and JAMAL absolutely worked this Rapid lineup, and after Spastic broke Rapid's only cram, the game was a shutout and there is not much more to say about it.
HOT: cripple (102-31, 1 TeK), JAMAL (99-45, 2 TeK)
NOT: Creature (53-49), FROZEN THRONE (53-50, 1 TeK), hypocrit (73-51), RUCCI (63-54), Banks (65-53)
Plays of the game: porkjet cram bomb (4:30), porkjet bomb TeK (5:52)

[Jack]

Great write up dude, glad you’re doing this, definitely adds to the season.

[beam]

Ok, ending participation with this thread and waving goodbye 2 every1. I would like to end with a response to dreamwin, as clarification seems appropriate.

First, I understand ur being vitriolic towards me as a way to support your teammates who are lashing out at me. I get it. But the implication that I acted sleazily or threw my team Fire under the bus or betrayed them is entirely off base, as Unlimited alluded to in the first few sentences of his post - he notably being on Fire chat. Many people on the team were out to get me, mainly because they were backing up their boy Kado who a few months ago began chirping vs me after i beat him under a few Bd's. Had never talked to the guy. Wasnt interested. However I let him know whats up in a friendly rebuff. From the moment on his inferiority complex grew into a monstrosity, the details of which I will not go into publically atm.

Thus some of the members such as Heaven, Beam, Best, etc. were obviously trying to drive me from the squad. It was very hostile environment for me. Not much in the way of "betrayal" happening at all here.

Cheers every1 and good luck in TWL

heaven is our mascot and hasnt ever said 1 mean thing to anybody in his life, I was nothing but nice to you aside from saying I didn't want to dd with you because you are miserable to play with, and best isn't even on our squad. you had an entire team of players relying on you and you abandoned us. go fuck yourself man

[ogron]

Pressure good write-up, thanks for the content.

TWLB has been interesting, with 5 contenders it's a bloodbath and the short regular season hasn't left a lot of time to figure things out. I usually spend a good month transitioning from TWLB to TWDT-B and vice-versa, in terms of style, port locations, strategy, assignments, etc. before really feeling 100% in terr. I completely blew a game vs. Pandora Week 1 with (in hindsight) bad port placements and some other things that worked well in Basing Cup and TWDT-B but weren't a good fit against them. Playing vs. Gun's spider stackfast also requires some re-tooling.

I feel like that Plade game was the first good game Fire's played this season and looked cohesive as a unit. Ro/Kado in their first game under together looked amazing. With Kess/Bacon, Spezza/Kate, Stayon/?, Renzi/?, Kado/Ro... seems like there is an under renaissance going on. TWLB has been pretty much the same for 10 years, with the exception of under since all the replacement overspiders and sharks have been culled from under, leaving it pretty weak the past few years. Over looks the same as usual, but the pandemic has completely refilled the cupboard Under with the influx of returning basers.

That might be the biggest storyline of this season, how insane under is going to be. If you were to name the 10 best unders of the last 10 years, it might be something like: Stayon, Spezza, Acidbomber, Kess, Mikes, Zung, Kate Upton, Renzi, Mcvicar, Megaman89... and we've got 6 of those players playing, and Ro/Kado have the same talent level, Jurassic or whoever Spastic plays will also be up there, while Pandora has a lot of legendary spiders to throw under, too.

And those players didn't all under in the same seasons. The 2011 TWLB underspider pairs were something like:

Stayon/Megaman89 (Dice)
Acidbomber/Zhou(Penetrate)
Hulk/flared (Thunder)
Henry Saari/Sulla (Spastic)
Producer/Weaver (Real)
Frank The Tank!/Murder (LEGO)
Kess/Renzi (HEIST)
cremation/Endangered (Fierce)

There's really only 5 elite underspiders in that season. I'd say there's at least 8 right now. So should be pretty fun to watch those 2v2 battles this season.

[Dabram]

ThiX thanks for doing this, definitely adds some flavor to the season. Also cool that you're trying to do this by rewatching games, without that, you've nothing to go on but spider scores, sharks rpds and terrs k/d ratios + teks.. Besides the obvious times when someone has >2.7rpd or low kill+neg score it, doesn't really tell much. Especially the close games are often decided on 'big plays'. It's nice that you're taking your time to mention those moments/players.

@The entire discussion going on, I haven't seen the vid, am not gonna analyze or choose any sides. Could say something in the line of what Turban did on spidering in general tho, as someone who has based over 2 decades now (imo in the 8 years I quit and came back nothing noteworthy has changed, except roles became way more specialized, and I've to accept my ceiling is an old version of my former self. :<)
When it comes to this game, esp. spidering, I agree with everything Turban has to say on this subject.


The easiest to become a good spider is to learn 1 role, but to become a great spider, you have to be able to react on the spot. You're not assigned to under, but you attach and immediately spot the danger or opportunity, so you switch to that role for a moment. That can make you great, unless you have bad judgment, which gives switching a high risk, so you could also become the scapegoat of your team for trying to play smart / adaptive. So either you stay average/good/great at one thing, or you become one of the most impactful spiders or the worst spider.

I used to play adaptive, and still try to this in a way more limited way (as role structures have changed and my skill level dropped).
My ground rule still is: The moment you die you have to predict in what kind of situation you'll most likely have your next attach. Will your terr be in danger? Is he being repped out of our cram? There's a ton of scenarios. So you become prepared to what to do, even to staying attached 1 sec longer than normal. Sometimes the best move even is just blocking some incoming bullets / burst / shrap, just so your terr can find a safe spot in those extra few seconds. Sometimes it's finding a safe spot and make an enemy shark rep, while waiting for your own shark, or sometimes it's rushing to get in the streamline of your shark. With every moment there's a bunch of options, each with a different outcome for your team. There's even some small chance/high reward moves, that for instance Turban is excellent at, well... if timed when him dying isn't a great risk. :P There's just a lot of scenarios. And with the game going so quickly, you have to just play a ton and basically develop an instinct for this to make the step up from good to great. This is obviously very difficult (and most don't have the talent+time for this) which is why only a few spiders become legendary all-round spiders.

As there are the obvious 'control' spots in fr (top, under etc) but also in cram defend, cram attack etc., most spiders have specialized in a few things max. The days of 5 spiders rotating to w/e spot is open/most needed seems to be long gone.
Obv most players (especially when you don't have that big reputation yet) will want to get a nice high kill/low death record, so they prefer to have a more campy position on top all game long. To me it's very important to have 1 spider taking that role (either rotating or fixed) because it gives great protection for your terr and you have less risk losing flag control in one instant. In Disoblige protecting Warportal was often my #1 duty, rest came afterwards or was for others. That camping role has the downside of putting zero pressure on the enemy sharks, terr + enemy camping spiders. However it gives you the prettiest rec, which is something people will first notice as a 'good thing'. And when you're new / no reputation, getting a few results like that does help in getting playtime. Getting playtime is a huge challenge these days, look at twdb borrows, twdt benchers, twlb with only 6 teams. So playing for rec has become a huge thing to even get a chance in spider (this was a bit different in my day).
Now if you're new and are forced to play under passively or over aggressively, it's more difficult to get that recognition. It'll be much more noticeable when you do badly, and it's also more difficult to be good at than streaming at incoming targets (sharks+spiders) from safe spots, so it takes more time (chances which you might not get).
To me the only thing all spiders need as a ground level to become good or better is to at least be able to go 1-1 in any 1v1 (even if it means just suiciding vs the great ones), which is why good wbs (or players from dueling zones) have always been decent at their lowest level in spid. Other than that it's just being guided, being willing to listen and watch, concentrating on 1 role at first, and playing that a lot till you get a feel for each/more situations.

I was very lucky to be one of the first pure wbs to go from only playing wb (and a good amount of jav) to joining a pure basing squad. My dueling skills alone made me have an instant impact on the game, so I had a massive ego boost in my first months, till suddenly all the elite twl squads starting picking up basing and it no longer was the 'pub league', and players like Raspi etc took the spidering game to a next level.
So credit where credit is due, Poseidon was one of the elite wbs in those days, so when he took up basing, like many of the elite wbs he was able to put down those 150+ kills in 30 min games.
But also sorry to say, from a personal experience, I know this means shit now, I also broke the 190 mark and was a top 10 spid for years, but I'm def not gonna run around saying I'm anywhere near that level, and others established players are noopies. I tried undering 2 twdt seasons ago, and I was trash at it, so Zid rightfully benched me come playoffs. I had some great games in terr last season, but choked in the finals, the pace suddenly picked up and I played like an old man. Sorry to my team for that. If you're a smart but old spider/baser, you can usually rely on your better judgement, but some days when your pace is just off that judgement will not be enough.

Peace out. This will be a great season with no clear favorite yet.

[Dabram]

Pressure good write-up, thanks for the content.

TWLB has been interesting, with 5 contenders it's a bloodbath and the short regular season hasn't left a lot of time to figure things out. I usually spend a good month transitioning from TWLB to TWDT-B and vice-versa, in terms of style, port locations, strategy, assignments, etc. before really feeling 100% in terr. I completely blew a game vs. Pandora Week 1 with (in hindsight) bad port placements and some other things that worked well in Basing Cup and TWDT-B but weren't a good fit against them. Playing vs. Gun's spider stackfast also requires some re-tooling.

I feel like that Plade game was the first good game Fire's played this season and looked cohesive as a unit. Ro/Kado in their first game under together looked amazing. With Kess/Bacon, Spezza/Kate, Stayon/?, Renzi/?, Kado/Ro... seems like there is an under renaissance going on. TWLB has been pretty much the same for 10 years, with the exception of under since all the replacement overspiders and sharks have been culled from under, leaving it pretty weak the past few years. Over looks the same as usual, but the pandemic has completely refilled the cupboard Under with the influx of returning basers.

That might be the biggest storyline of this season, how insane under is going to be. If you were to name the 10 best unders of the last 10 years, it might be something like: Stayon, Spezza, Acidbomber, Kess, Mikes, Zung, Kate Upton, Renzi, Mcvicar, Megaman89... and we've got 6 of those players playing, and Ro/Kado have the same talent level, Jurassic or whoever Spastic plays will also be up there, while Pandora has a lot of legendary spiders to throw under, too.

And those players didn't all under in the same seasons. The 2011 TWLB underspider pairs were something like:

Stayon/Megaman89 (Dice)
Acidbomber/Zhou(Penetrate)
Hulk/flared (Thunder)
Henry Saari/Sulla (Spastic)
Producer/Weaver (Real)
Frank The Tank!/Murder (LEGO)
Kess/Renzi (HEIST)
cremation/Endangered (Fierce)

There's really only 5 elite underspiders in that season. I'd say there's at least 8 right now. So should be pretty fun to watch those 2v2 battles this season.

Mikes, now there's a good name drop. First player to underspider in my memory, and very important, most annoying (meant in a good way) piece in how Dice became such a powerhouse.

[Pressure]

Mikes, now there's a good name drop. First player to underspider in my memory, and very important, most annoying (meant in a good way) piece in how Dice became such a powerhouse.

Great posts, but just for clarification, I believe Nosey undered long before Mikes did

[Pressure]

Pressure good write-up, thanks for the content.

TWLB has been interesting, with 5 contenders it's a bloodbath and the short regular season hasn't left a lot of time to figure things out. I usually spend a good month transitioning from TWLB to TWDT-B and vice-versa, in terms of style, port locations, strategy, assignments, etc. before really feeling 100% in terr. I completely blew a game vs. Pandora Week 1 with (in hindsight) bad port placements and some other things that worked well in Basing Cup and TWDT-B but weren't a good fit against them. Playing vs. Gun's spider stackfast also requires some re-tooling.

I feel like that Plade game was the first good game Fire's played this season and looked cohesive as a unit. Ro/Kado in their first game under together looked amazing. With Kess/Bacon, Spezza/Kate, Stayon/?, Renzi/?, Kado/Ro... seems like there is an under renaissance going on. TWLB has been pretty much the same for 10 years, with the exception of under since all the replacement overspiders and sharks have been culled from under, leaving it pretty weak the past few years. Over looks the same as usual, but the pandemic has completely refilled the cupboard Under with the influx of returning basers.

That might be the biggest storyline of this season, how insane under is going to be. If you were to name the 10 best unders of the last 10 years, it might be something like: Stayon, Spezza, Acidbomber, Kess, Mikes, Zung, Kate Upton, Renzi, Mcvicar, Megaman89... and we've got 6 of those players playing, and Ro/Kado have the same talent level, Jurassic or whoever Spastic plays will also be up there, while Pandora has a lot of legendary spiders to throw under, too.

And those players didn't all under in the same seasons. The 2011 TWLB underspider pairs were something like:

Stayon/Megaman89 (Dice)
Acidbomber/Zhou(Penetrate)
Hulk/flared (Thunder)
Henry Saari/Sulla (Spastic)
Producer/Weaver (Real)
Frank The Tank!/Murder (LEGO)
Kess/Renzi (HEIST)
cremation/Endangered (Fierce)

There's really only 5 elite underspiders in that season. I'd say there's at least 8 right now. So should be pretty fun to watch those 2v2 battles this season.

Glad you put together this post so certain people can see some of the more prolific prior under pairs. Really nostalgic and you make a great point about the importance of under this season.

Zhou should be bolded, though.

[ogron]

Obv most players (especially when you don't have that big reputation yet) will want to get a nice high kill/low death record, so they prefer to have a more campy position on top all game long. To me it's very important to have 1 spider taking that role (either rotating or fixed) because it gives great protection for your terr and you have less risk losing flag control in one instant. In Disoblige protecting Warportal was often my #1 duty, rest came afterwards or was for others. That camping role has the downside of putting zero pressure on the enemy sharks, terr + enemy camping spiders. However it gives you the prettiest rec, which is something people will first notice as a 'good thing'. And when you're new / no reputation, getting a few results like that does help in getting playtime. Getting playtime is a huge challenge these days, look at twdb borrows, twdt benchers, twlb with only 6 teams. So playing for rec has become a huge thing to even get a chance in spider (this was a bit different in my day).

Not sure I agree, Henry Saari has the best KDA in the zone and got left off Rapid's TWLB roster. Going 120-30 when your team loses by 8 minutes isn't really fooling anyone.

I agree that role can be valuable, and I think Cripple is the greatest spider to ever do it. I won TWDT-B 2017 with him and as a terr it's really nice having someone controlling top and not losing flag in an instant, he just buys you enough time for sharks to re-attach. There are definitely some downsides, as the reduced pressure = reduced Teks... it's hard to know what is better. In the right lineup he's very effective. He won 4 titles on Dice doing that.

But there's a lot of debate at the top level whether Cripple's style is good or great. Some basers don't rate him. My feeling is that that role is worth like +3 minutes, and someone playing like Ease/Solace is worth like +5 minutes. But that's in a vacuum. In the right team composition there can be added synergies and tactics at play, and Solace's style might overlap with another player (D-Wade on the Heat not providing spacing) while Cripple (Klay Thompson on the Warriors) is a perfect fit.

What isn't debatable is that Cripple is a great spider and a clear net positive, and Henry Saari is a negative and the fact he puts up similar stats doesn't cause most basers to equivocate.

I think most basers see past spider stats and look at impact, and you're giving them too little credit. What I would agree on is it's really hard to properly gauge talent in spider, especially when the difference isn't huge. Isolating variables in base is incredibly difficult, and I 100% agree it's very hard for spiders to break through into starting roles in TWLB. I feel for everyone who goes through it, having had to go through the process myself.

I know this means shit now, I also broke the 190 mark and was a top 10 spid for years, but I'm def not gonna run around saying I'm anywhere near that level
Peace out. This will be a great season with no clear favorite yet.

Kess was saying recently that the death timer was much shorter back then, I think that accounts for most of the crazy spider/terr stats.

I have a complete database of all TWLB and TWBD games, and the stats plummet after 2004. For example, there's like a ton of terrs with 80+ kill games from 2003-2004.

From 2005-2020, there's only like 3 terr games with 80+ kills, in 2009, 2010, and 2020. It basically took 5 years for terrs to become skilled enough to drop 80+ after the death timers were increased. You see a similar drop in spider.

I think comparing stats in base between 2000-2004 and 2005-2020 is a complete no-go.

The 2000-2004ish era had shorter death timers, random damage, and was a points race. It's just not comparable in any useful sense.