Tweet
The year was 2008 -- Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States, Michael Phelps went 8 for 8 and won gold in every race at the Beijing Olympics, Heath Ledger died of an apparent overdose, the Global Financial meltdown started, Beyoncé's Single Ladies topped the charts, and Penetrate went on to defeat Pirates in the TWLB Finals for their first title as Dice relinquished their hold on it after back-to-back championships.
This was perhaps one of the most fun seasons to participate in, with a plethora of strong basing squads, including eventual winners Penetrate, runner-up Pirates, former champion Dice, and veteran squads like Thunder, Disoblige, Spastic, Mainliner, and BasingCrew.
TWLB games had a bit more Wild West shoot-out potential and less discipline, with a whopping 17 players averaging over 100 kills per 30 minutes (KP30M), compared TWLB 18, which featured only 5 players hitting 100 KP30M. Not to mention the way lower KDAs back in 2008, with not a single player in the Top 20 having a 2:1 KDA!!! Compare that to today's TWLB, where all of the Top 5 spiders sport well over 2.0+ KDAs.
Royst stood alone atop the mountain, leading Penetrate to a title with a ridiculous 116 KP30M across 10 games, including 14 Teks, with only Disoblige's Nimbostratus notching more spider kills per 30 minutes than him, with an insane 64 SPK30M.
Eelam and Ease led Thunder with monster stats in spider, as Havu led the Pirates to their first and only Finals appearance with a sizzlin' 115 KP30M.
lunch3 played Goose to Royst's maverick, with Deverse almost matching him statistically and completing the fearsome spider trio that won Penetrate the basing crown.
megaman89 was the only player on Dice able to salvage his season statistically, averaging 96 KP30M with 57% of his kills being spiders, while Disoblige's Spikey showed promise of things to come as he would later lead Sage against Dice in the TWLB 15 Finals.
JAMAL finished 15th overall amongst spiders, leading Spastic all year long with 101 KP30M, albeit a shark-stomping 47% Spider Kill percentage, well below the 55% average that year.
Turmio and Renzi, playing for Penetrate and Mainliner respectively, led all spiders with an astounding 61% of their kills coming from spiders, posting big numbers for their squads.
Zung finished first on Mainliner with 104 KP30M and 50% spider kills, narrowly edging out Shayde, who averaged 100 KP30M and 47% spider kills.
Just behind JAMAL on Spastic was Solace, who had a misleading 87 KP30M but a bonkers 59% spider kill percentage, giving him an impressive 52 Spider Kills Per 30 Minutes.
Rounding out the Top 20 were Blasphemy (Thunder), SAL (Disoblige), superstar-prokiller (Disoblige), the still-active Kian (Thunder), poxy (Pirates), and spidering staple Hellkite (Thunder), with an impressive 10 Teks.
Beyond that, among active players, Trasher (Mainliner) finished 23rd with 92 KP30M and 57% spider kills, a rare outside-the-top-10 finish for Cripple (Dice) at #26 with 92 KP30M and 50% spider kills, and the underrated Zeebu (Penetrate) hitting 104 KP30M and 7 Teks in 3 games.
Zizzo finished 2nd on BasingCrew behind Leitz, as the future Dudgeonites ended the season with 84 and 87 KP30M respectively.
Turban was the third most productive spider on Pirates, leading the league in Teks with 15, and accumulating 90 KP30M and 50% spider kills, with fellow teammate Lionheart in tow.
----------------------------------------------
And while we've lost about half of the players on this list, plenty of new talented spids have filled their ranks, and many of the players at the bottom of the list have become some of the top players in basing these last few years. Due to the limited amount of spots in TWL, the amount of players who spidered over 45 minutes during the season (60 in 2008, 63 in 2014) has remained relatively stable.
The best way to judge how strong the depth and quality of the league is, is to compare the bottom 30 players of both those pools of 60 TWLB starters who played over 45 minutes in TWLB 12 and TWLB 18.
After adjusting for era (53% Spider kills in 2014 as opposed to 55% in 2008, and 83 KP30M in 2014 as opposed to 90 KP30M 2008) we can see how strong the overall starting players are using the same Rating formula for both pools of players, and putting them into a single chart:
If we use this assessment to try to ascertain the strength of the leagues 6 years apart, we see that there are exactly 10 players from 2008 and 10 players from 2014 in the top 20 ratings amongst those ranked #31-60 in both seasons.
Most seasons see about 8 basing squads field 7-8 starters in spider, leading to about 56-63 TWLB starters at that position, averaging between 3 to 5 games a season, so to call these players the "bottom" 30 is a bit disingenuous, as they are almost all above-average players, if not great players having an off-season, inactive or maining under.
The output from both pools seems relatively even, although for my money, I'd take 2014's Sarger, Kate Upton, Leitz, Acidbomber, Jack, Skatarius, Hulk, Turban, Renzi, and Diakka over 2008's Usoi, Rucci, Raples, Zhou, Oder, Turban, Lionheart, Anidalife, Evul, and FieryFire. You could make a TWLB finals team fielding the former.
Comment