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Post by Fleck on Feb 10, 2014 4:03:19 GMT -8
Thank you, thank you. *Takes bow*
Undefeated next season? I doubt it. There were too many close games this season. I think you guys are gonna crack the Loveless code next season and turn those close games into losses and ties for Loveless. I'm fully expecting a mediocre season in League 6. That seems to be the pattern for Loveless. They do really well in odd-numbered seasons and then do okayish in the even ones (except League 1, where their team build was a bit of a mess, so they suffered a bit).
Mostly I'm just hoping that Guests Who don't suck next season. Obviously I've got a lot of work to do with them. After all, what's better than having the #1 team in the league? Having the #1 AND the #2 teams in the league.
Go Guests!
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Post by monsoonexe on Feb 10, 2014 14:29:03 GMT -8
Way to go Fleck.
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Post by countlieberkuhn on Feb 10, 2014 20:44:21 GMT -8
Bugger, I have the dishonour of having the first team to ever fail to make a league. And I have had probably the worst season of anyone so far across both teams XD
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Post by Fleck on Feb 10, 2014 20:58:46 GMT -8
If by "fail to make a league" you mean not make the tournament, then I have good news! Guests Who and World Class Creatures have already beaten you to it in League 1! Rest assured that you are merely the third person to share in the honor!
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Post by countlieberkuhn on Feb 10, 2014 22:48:55 GMT -8
That is what I meant! But that's good to know at least, I forgot that our season 1 roster was pretty big with AJ!
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Post by wyvernxk7 on Feb 11, 2014 19:55:17 GMT -8
Not gonna name names, but I know one team to put all your money against in round 1...
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Post by Bob on Feb 11, 2014 20:33:48 GMT -8
I think I have a fair idea of what you mean. I remember NS vs TME last time...
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Post by Bob on Feb 12, 2014 21:18:54 GMT -8
First round is complete! We'll get the next round up by Saturday, so line-ups before then! **********Tournament Round 2 Stamina********** Grizzly Bears Orlandu=4 Sazh=8 Zangan=10 Auron=2 Duncan=10 Galuf=6 Tellah=0 Dr. Kadowaki=9 Mercenaries Lani=10 Amarant=0 Ba'Gamnan=10 Gafgarion=6 Tseng=8 Elena=8 Rude=4 Worker 8=7 The Mad Experiments Odine=10 Hojo=8 The Mask=6 Kuja=10 Mikoto=4 No. 288=7 Deling=1 Julius=7 Nightshades Blank=2 Illua=6 Fujin=10 Chime=7 Mira=10 Frimelda=7 Reno=8 Cissnei=4 Loveless Lightning=6 Terra=7 Genesis=10 Cecil=10 Sabin=8 Vivi=8 Hope=1 Marche=2 Guests Who Larsa=9 Edea=2 Minwu=10 Alma=7 Leo=4 Olan=10 FuSoYa=5 Lebreau=6 Marlboro Mayhem Brother=4 Tidus=4 Zack=1 Cloud=5 Rufus=8 Shinra=4 Ashe=10 Ritz=10 Sublimely Magnificent 7 Jecht=4 Balthier=6 Seifer=3 Cid Highwind=8 Edge=10 Edgar=6 Laguna=10 Snow=0 SPOILERS: I really wanted both teams that threw the matches to win, and honestly, they came scarily close, especially the Shades. But thrown games bore me, so I skip both those matches and talk about the good ones. GB vs MRC: As the one selfie that DIDN'T rig the system, my teams played a good game. Came down to a one-goal difference, but it was enough for the Mercs to take the win and advance. MAR vs SM7: A great match between father and son, Jecht and Tidus. I think Jecht threw the match though, only scoring a single point. Seifer tried to save the win, but yeah, I think Jecht wanted his boy to take the win. Aww. So sweet. And so, by one goal, the Marlboros advance. Next Round: LO vs MRC: The Mercs take their first attack at the nearly-unbeatable Loveless. In the League, they lost by a single point, but still, Loveless won. Bob's pick: Loveless to win, but Mercs to piss them off. MAR vs TME: Then, the Marlboros take on the Experiments. The Marlboros beat them by a single point in the league, much like the previously mentioned match, but are definitely on a level playing field. Bob's pick: I think the Experiments cheatin' the system will help them in the long run, but it looks like the Marlboros still have a strong few games in them. They're balancing their players wisely. Only problem is their goalie only has 4 games in him. If they stay in the top bracket, they could take this thing, but if they join the loser's bracket, they're in a whole lot of trouble... GW vs GB: Guests "accidentally" put their best shooter in goal and their defense in scoring positions, so they're well rested, but the Grizzlies aren't exactly short on good players. Bob's pick: Grizzlies won last time by a large margin, so mathematically I can't ignore that. Grizzlies to repeat. SM7 vs NS: SubMags and Shades had very similar records in the league, so they seem pretty close on paper. Bob's pick: I'm going for the Subs. The Shades have really tanked this season (two of their three wins were against me, so they must suck! ) and while the Subs weren't far from them in record, it's hard to go against the team that defeated the #2 Goers. Risky defense, but definitely a great offense.
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Post by wyvernxk7 on Feb 12, 2014 21:41:32 GMT -8
Hey, I 'threw' the match, but only in that I gave my players a chance to rest up on both sides - I could have easily made it one-sided like in the past, but each side had just as poor a goalie and just as strong an attacker... this time around When Nightshades hit the first goal, I was excited to see that it could end up being a surprise. Well, the result was expected, but I think both teams put up equally sucky good fights.
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Post by wyvernxk7 on Feb 12, 2014 21:44:18 GMT -8
Also, not to double-post or anything, but just to make sure you see this: Hojo successfully pulled off two buzzer-beaters at the end of the first half. I guess there's a reason why he's TME's version of Lightning...?
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Post by Bob on Feb 12, 2014 21:52:35 GMT -8
Hmm, that feels...glitchy. I could've sworn I put in the buzzer beaters only when it was exactly five minutes. Them Experiments be cheatin'! EDIT: And regarding the "throwing" of matches, I dunno, I guess I just see the game differently. I know you and Fleck would call it "strategy," but I see it as an unfair advantage. I see the stamina system as something that requires balancing/managing and, to me, that's the whole game behind this. I mean, we only level up our guys at the beginning of a league, so the only thing we do after that is stamina balancing. So when two teams of the same player meet up, for one, it's quite OOC in a way, to have both teams suddenly play their worst goalies, and for another, it breaks the stamina balancing system. This is the exact reason that we have our teams play themselves in the first round of the league is so that teams don't get unfair advantages during their masturbation round, so meeting up in a tournament is just that x2. I think the reason it kinda makes me is that it is unfair to people like Rich (and Count, as far as this tournament goes), who only have one team and don't have the option to do this. Especially Rich, who never has this opportunity, but I'm sure would love the chance to rest a couple of key players, especially after his stamina snafu earlier in the league. *shrug* Just two ways to look at the same game, I suppose, and I'm on one side and yous guys are on the other. I prefer to play my teams independently, whereas there be strange alliances in arrrr league. Gar. Pirates. Matey.
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Post by Fleck on Feb 13, 2014 3:26:53 GMT -8
My side of the general argument is this: I don't see how it's an "unfair" advantage. Both of my teams earned their places in the tournament through their victories in the league. The fact that they are facing each other first round is a product of our already established rules of seeding. The reason we changed selfie games in the league is because they were seeded randomly by the computer, so some people would have an unfair advantage because they could have their selfies late enough in the season so that they could rest their goalies safely without having to risk a blowout loss. But the tournament isn't random, and therefore isn't unfair. My teams earned their places.
And my side of the personal argument is this: I don't really get much of an advantage. I was so desperate to get the Guests into the tournament that I never rested Olan (my goalie) at all in the league. He literally had one point of stamina going into the Loveless game. So he was either going to have to rest against me (where I can control the variables) or he was going to have to rest in the elimination round, which would almost guarantee GW's elimination. And for Loveless, Vivi is good to go for the rest of the tournament. He didn't rest that game. Yes, both of my backup players were in the LO/GW game, but they would have been in regardless of who they were playing. Loveless's overall stamina strategy was unaffected by the game. So, long story short, Loveless didn't do anything different (and gains no advantage), and GW needed to rest Olan anyway. The fact that I loaded the front with defenders was A: for funsies, B: to try something new. I figured a selfie game is the best place to experiment, especially since GW was almost guaranteed to lose. And it proved to be an interesting experiment, and it will almost certainly affect how I rebuild GW next season.
So I'm sorry that I went OOC and rigged the game to give my second team (and arguably the worst team in the league) a breather. But I don't think it's unfair or that it breaks the spirit of the game. Honestly, I would have preferred NOT facing myself in the first round. Then I would have had a better chance of taking the tourney with one of my teams. As it stands, I needed to immediately eliminate one of my teams. So I would argue that the "advantage" I got is negated by the fact that I had to immediately lose a team in the first round.
/rant
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Post by countlieberkuhn on Feb 13, 2014 4:13:27 GMT -8
I'm not a big fan of the OOC strategies of meetups vs your own teams either, but I agree that the biggest issue was with the Leagues, and we've fixed that issue as best we can now. I also try and build my characters in a way that would make sense in character, which is why I have some odd and not-entirely optimal builds for some people. Case in point, Seifer is more of a bully than a classic striker. My record in blitzball probably suggests my playstyle isn't great though Close game vs Marlboro Mayhem though for SM7! I tried everything I could to tip the odds in my favour, but I think that my victory was ultimately foiled by the fact that Tidus played in the RF position instead of the LF position for the first time ever, which messed up my defense tactics. Maybe next time!
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Post by Bob on Feb 13, 2014 7:23:30 GMT -8
Fleck: And like I was saying, to each his own. I know text often comes off as ranty and angry, but I'm more disappointed than angry, just because I'm an underdog kinda guy (I think everybody is if they watch enough TV...we're kinda tricked into liking underdogs) and two of the biggest underdogs in the tournament are being intentionally rubbed out. And like Count said, it's partly an OOC thing. I build OOC characters, too, even if not totally great builds. Like Tellah. He's a powerhouse for shot, but has crappy END. Because he's an old man. If I wanted a guy with high END, I wouldn't have picked an old man. Or Lani, who will not allow me to give her anything but perfect ATK. I like the names to match the skill set, at least somewhat.
But that's straying from the topic--sorry. But yeah, they may not get much of an advantage, but it is an advantage. Playing a new style of Guests is awesome, but Larsa as the goalie? That's throwing the match. They could've still competed with a defender in goal, but not their number one forward, who likely has a CA of 5 or less. I benched some critical players in my game, too, but neither threw the match and both were benched due to what's to come, not because I got a freebie. The Grizzlies likely lost because they benched Auron (we always lose when we bench Auron, even though Galuf is a decent defender), and Auron didn't NEED to be benched, but if he didn't now, then he'd have to next round, and if Grizzlies advanced, I wanted them at their best for Loveless: the league dominator.
But yeah, that's just my rant. Not mad, I just like playing teams independently is all, but I know we don't all play that way.
Count: Swapping around RF and LF is always a good strategy. You should consider it in the future because it's predictable for Jecht to be RF--consider that. When you were playing the JECHT formation, it was required to put him in RF (I actually made strategies to counter Jecht being there because he had to), but if you're going to Normal and Center, I'd definitely consider swapping him around a bit.
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Post by monsoonexe on Feb 13, 2014 12:16:03 GMT -8
The whole game is in stamina management and line-ups. So I hope you guys are all happy and snug with your best players fully rested for the first game of the tournament. No round will be as easy for the first. I'm at least happy that it all happened in the same round to everybody. At least that way the rest of the tourny is free from any games being thrown.
With the game between MAR and SM7, there was one play that really sealed the deal. That was when Shinra caught a goal and then the ball was passed with no interruptions between every player on my team right to Tidus who sank it.
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