Season 2 - Results Part One (The bad, the worse and the wayhayyyyy)

The pre-warned drop phase has now finished and it was vicious. of the 176 starting players no less than50 proved incapable of playing the required 3 games by the half way point (and a lot of those had difficulty playing any games!). Anyway that does mean that some of the pods have completed and are essentially, bar the odd result, complete.

As pods come to this status I will be posting the results (note: I am calculating the tie breakers myself so they may differ slightly from the actual league. I expect 99% of the time to match). This also gives me a great opportunity to insult pods 14 and 16 again.

Pod Fourteen

Proved difficult to call. Let's see what I noted about the pod in the preview. Hmmm my 'favourite' pod as everyone was broadly in the middle in ability terms so this could have gone in any direction. So bascially a pod of opportunity for everyone in it. No matches heavily out of anyone range.

Let us take a quick look at the results

This may take a while to work out what is happening here.....Hold on I think I have it. 75% of the pod failed to play a single game and those that did managed (obviously) only one against each other. Since neither has dropped you can summize that both players made extensive efforts to contact and play other players and were ignored. 

I have covered the column structure of this report before but just to re-iterate we have 

Player Tag

Player Unique Id

Discord Id if known

Player Strength Rating

Player Clan if known

Player Pod

Win/Loss Graph Red = loss, dark blue = win , light blue = win against dropped player, skin = dropped and auto loss game, light yellow = cant play yourself

End Placement

Win/Loss in actual games (Impacts rating)

Win/Loss including drops (does not impact rating)

So by reason of owning the tie break against Shosuro Kiseki (1519) the pod winner is Argelius (1466). In what actually turned out to be a viscous Scorpion vs Scorpion pod where EVERY match contained much intra-clan nastiness.

Few now that's out of the way let's look at the next completed pod. It surely can't be any worse

Pod Sixteen

Predictions for this pod were that is was actually the second pod of death with a surfeit of elite players. I predicted any of VinceValorn, Zorzo, GravyK, DarkDistroi would be top dog. Let's see what happened..

How wrong can I be? This has the advantage of a hundred percent more games than pod 14 but 87.5 % of players dropped and 75% failed to carry out any games.  At least one of my top dogs acually managed to get through in 1st place with a stylish 1-1 record (6-1 with drops). As before he obviously made excessive efforts to match that went nowhere.

Pod Eighteen

Perhaps the final pod which is (almost) complete can redress the balance and just happens to be my own pod. 18.  My prediction here was just that Erik (Crane version) would go through but was not sure about anything else beyond my own sucking at the game would probably continue.

My eyes! too many games played...

K. At least we have some meat to grind through. Drop Rate was a more reasonable  25% and since both those players were A) new and B) lost their first games I suspect at least one (Ethaon) was of the 'I am the greatest player in the universe and shall join a league to prove my dominance --  oh crap I  suck. Why bother embarrassing myself when I suck) variety. 

Pod winner is humblestmonk (1462) who managed games against all but one opponent and won them all. His rating will rocket up after this. Especially for beating Erik who is considerably higher placed (that on its own will push him 120 points up and Erik down).

In 2nd place and also auto qualifying is Erik who merrily proved that Crane can still be competitive in the right hands. Erik managed to play everyone which shows natural Craneness in feats of persuasive powers unknown outside the political clan..

The two play off positions are actually not quite settled yet. As it currently stands the next three players are

Adam H  - Scorpion (new) 2-3 actual 4-3 plus drops

Etaywah - Crab (1628) 1-2 actual 4-2 plus drops

Steelfur - Phoenix (1382) 1-2 actual 3-3 plus drops

BUT Steelfur still needs to play Etaywah. Should Steelfur win then he increases to 2-2 actual and 4-3 but has the tie breaker over Etaywah. Etaywah would be on the same with the tie breaker over Adam H and Adam H has (you are sensing the picture) the tie breaker over Steelfur.

All is not lost as secondary tie breaker is actual games versus dropped games so Adam H (played 5 would take the first play off place and presumably Steelfur would take the second as he then possess the head to head tie breaker against Steelfur.

Switch it and Adam H and Etaywah go straight through without complications.

The only other point is that the only player who has not dropped and not made it, poor sod, isssss. Oh me. A magnificent 0-5 actual and 2-5 with drops means the levels my currently average rating of 1354 will drop to will be fascinating indeed.

From now on the reports will all involve much more active pods. Thansk for reading.