Announcing the ESOC Premier League Season 2!

[Zutazuta]

I reckon @Victor_swe will go for 8k smashing all records for bidding.

[deleted_user]

I made my first MDS fan art

@Riotcoke fan art pls

[Vinyanyérë]

Country rooads, take me home, to the place, I beloooooong

WEST VIRGINIAAAAAAAAA

[Cometk]

welcome back gentlemen, hope you're cozied up in your coronavirus holes and ready for another riveting tale, this time of

Cometk's UNBIASED EPL2 TEAM power rankings

Technically these rosters could still change as trades are still possible between the managers, but from my impression the managers are happy with their current rosters so these lineups are just about set, until we start rolling with games to see who's actually viable and unviable.

Anyway, let's look at what we've got.



Mandarin Duck Squad:
Slot 1: Mitoe
Slot 2: KINGofOsmane
Slot 3: Pérez
Slot 4: Jerimuno
Slot 5: wookl
Substitute: minimoult21

The Duck Squad is coming into EPL Season 2 after one of the most pitiful tournament performances since goongoon's ass-blasting by Ezad in the NWC Qualifiers followed by a double DQ with mongo10 in the LB. Last season they were effectively out after the first day of matches in Week 2, where they dropped 3 series in the span of 4 hours, including Knusch's infamous 5-0 spanking of Conquerer999. At that point the team's morale had more holes in it than a sandwich made by @bobabu, but they did manage to pull off their best showing the next week against SKG (which is a week they still lost, btw). After some confusion about the tournament start date and whether or not he even wanted to manage this season, duck is back taking the reigns, posted up like a melancholic PI with nothing left to lose on streetlight champion Mitoe.

The first purchase for the Squad was GODSmane for a price tag of 4200. GODSmane is one of the S-Tier players of the auction list alongside Lukas and Knusch, so this is absolutely a fair price tag for someone who is more than capable of going to bat with other team's champions. After years of being a laughingstock with a ladder history only rivaled by Duck_daniels, GODSmane had a standout performance in the Winter 2020 Advanced Division, cleaning house with the bracket before only losing in the Finals after a decently close series with rusty Raphael. He repeated this terrorising in the Empire Cup with solid games and wins up to a Finals showcase, so if ever there was ever a time that Osmane proved he's worth his rank, it's now.

Next up was ¿Pérez? who went for the biggest steal of the auction at 1625. That was after admins informed the managers that Pérez's ability to play is somewhat compromised given he has no PC atm and can't get access to one due to Coronavirus lockdown. Think about it: literally the only thing stopping Pérez from clobbering the EPL2 field is the Spanish government, holding him down like the chains binding Prometheus. Similar to Osmane, Pérez finally got his time to shine in Winter 2020. He had a leading position in his Pro Ro16 series with Knuschelbär but was eventually eked out and vanquished to the Advanced Division, losing the series 3-4. But that's still crazy against a Top 8 player. He might be rusty after 5+ weeks of offline time but he's still a remarkable asset to have for the price he was purchased for. I would've been happy to buy him for 1k more than his current selling price.

Jerimuno was picked up somewhat late in the draft, after a lot of other top nominations had been exhausted. The only team left in contention to purchase him was the BIGs, who vied up until the 2300 price margin before deciding to gambit on getting the rest of the field for default purchase instead of relying on a fair priced Jerimuno. I'd say that was a good play by the BIGs, because while buying Jeri for 2350 is an acceptable price for his skill, it's also a huge risk because Jeri has one of the weakest mental games in the community. I don't think think purchasing Jeri was a mistake for the Ducks though, because Jeri has Austrian compatriot status with Osmane, and good stylistic synergy with both Mitoe and Osmane. Despite his shaky competitive attitude, he should be one of the stronger mid-level players in the field.

minimoult21 was taken for a pittance price of 675. When I was playing with him months ago, shortly after his return to the game, he was like PR28 and I think I was taking like 65% of those matches. I haven't played him since then, but nowadays Minimoult is sitting around PR33 and has some really nice wins on ladder. He's totally a viable slot 5 from what I gather. Another great aspect about him is his cool personality - his placidness makes him one of the best possible anchors, considering the tilt factor of the rest of the team. The last purchase for the Ducks was wookl. It's always the Chinese players that get slept on. Like Forjustice, wookl is another Dark Horse CN player who, when actually active, plays most of his games within the insular Chinese AoE3 community. Wookl hasn't gone that far in ESOC tours but I've always been a believer in him and think he's another unpredictable asset (in a good way).

This team's biggest pitfall is their tilt factor. You have three known tilters in Mitoe, Perez, and Jerimuno, and so if the team starts to fall behind I expect they might be hanging up the season's hat way sooner than it's actually over. They also have to deal with the fact that Perez might not be able to play for the first few weeks, and also that the team's bottom end, while good, is still pretty unproven. I think team has a respectable top end, strong middle players and an equally strong bottom end/substitute position. They have a lot of positive synergies, and one mildly negative one. If Pérez shows up, this team is fielding a gauntlet roster. This team is fire.

Cuirassier Management Co.
Slot 1: Kaiserklein
Slot 2: Lecastete
Slot 3: OPTIMUS__PRIME
Slot 4: KEVINITALIEN
Slot 5: bwinner
Substitute: Riotcoke

What could've been the GOAT franchise returns to EPL2 after barely missing Playoffs last year. Newbie Daniel-san had drafted one of the best post-auction teams there will likely ever be, but due to some bad advice and general bigheartedness, he made a kindly donation in the form of a trade with the Nilla Ninjas, granting them snowww in exchange for SirCallen and Lecastete. The rationale behind this trade was that 1) snowww might be rusty and underperform in his position 2) the team had the power in their lower slots to still perform well where snowww was missing 3) an early Christmas gift to Aizamk . This trade ended up screwing the Cuirs, because Erik still performed at a decent level for the Ninjas while CMC's mid and bottom slots only showed up with mediocre performances. In the final match of EPL1's round robin stage, SKG Somppu only needed to score 1 win in 5 games to eliminate the Cuirs from Playoffs and qualify SKG, something he managed to do in Game 2. Such was the end of CMC's EPL1 run. The team this year is headed by a now more experienced Daniel, with a slightly less active Kaiserklein occupying the Champion role.

CMC started their roster off with OPTIMUS__PRIME who went for 2.5k and I'm not writing any more about that.

KEVINITALIEN was the next purchase at 2.2k. Are people just unaware that this clown has never played an ESOC tournament before? LOOOL I'm not drinking the Kevin Kool-Aid yet, he's mad unproven besides some French discord server league that only a frog-eater has ever heard of. He has good ladder performances so of course everyone and their mother was hyping the shit out of him when he signed up just days before the auction. That influenced his 2.2k buy and while I think that's an overpay, he might have the chops to be worth that price given the dire state of the player pool. It was still kind of a silly dick-swing move for Daniel to immediately jump the price from 1k to 2.2k. I feel 1.9k might've done the trick here. Anyway, there is one thing for certain, and that's that Kevin is the best Italien player, banned or unbanned.

The next pickup occurred immediately after the Kevin purchase, with CMC nominating and drafting bwinner for 1550 coins. Normally I would say that this is an overpay, as I'm somewhat doubtful of bwinner's skills especially in this event where teams will have collective knowledge to defeat the botto, but because the pool is so dire, and because bwinner has good national synergy with the previous draft (and, what was likely planned, the future draft), this price ends up kinda okay. Fortunately for bwinner, and unfortunately for everyone else, EP8 has introduced yet another buff to Ottoman (even me, a fucking otto main, thinks they really don't need any more buffs). So while I'm not too high on bwinner, players seem to struggle hard against the civ that he wields like a bludgeon. He did have an 83% win ratio with Otto last season, but that was also because he played Otto vs Sioux four times against non-main Sioux players who played the MU terribly.

Lecastete was the next catch for 3250, picked up shortly after bwinner. Castete was one of the few remaining top players left to draft, and he was purchased by CMC pretty much solely because of a mistake by the BIGs' n0eL. Without that mistake from the BIGs, CMC would've been sorely missing a viable Slot 2 candidate. They might've been able to pick up Jerimuno/Conquerer as compensation but that's still kinda dicey. Anyway, Castete is a fundamentally great player and worth paying 3250 for, but I think he really needs a complement in the Slot 3 position to shine. I would rate the Kaiser/Castete combo slightly weaker than Mitoe/Osmane, turk/Knusch, and Hazza/Somppu, and slightly stronger than Lukas/Samwise and rouga/SoldieR. But then their team's Slot 3 player is... fucking Optimus. With a completely wildcard slot for the core of the team, that puts them significantly behind MDS, NN, and SKG, who all have viable Slot 3's to boot. That's kinda dire.

Then was Riotcoke for 500, a meme draft. I used to think Riotcoke was fine because he hit PR29 or something and that surprised me. Recently he's either a 1st Lt or Captain and drops games to Master Sergeants on RE patch. I never see him doing anything notable, plus he thinks he sucks, so of course I think he sucks too. Definitely unviable.

CMC overpaid most of their players. They debuted pretty late in the Auction and this season, it seems like Daniel's strategy was to hop up the price on average level players to scare-bid other managers away from challenging his picks. He got what he wanted, but what he ended up with was a team full of frogs and a substitute that sucks ass. I'm not a Kool-Aid drinker and don't understand what the hell everyone else sees in this team. They're mediocre at best. NEXT

Nilla Ninjas
Slot 1: iamturk
Slot 2: Knuschelbär
Slot 3: Forjustice
Slot 4: GiveUAnxiety
Slot 5: hatamoto_samurai
Substitute: Dennis234

The Nilla Ninjas currently sport the EPL Reigning Champs badge, and so are in contention to preserve their status as the overlord team of the league. They took Playoffs last year in a nail-biting 18W-17L victory, quite heavily benefiting from SKG missing a crucial player in the last week of the event, as well as an angel trade from CMC early in the season. This year repeats Aizamk at the helm with loyalist iamturk on standby.

The first draft was Flontier, picked up for 1900 coins in the second round of nominations, also nominated by Aizamk. Flontier is mostly a Slot 4 player and while I think he's pretty consistent in that position, aiming for your Slot 4 player and paying 1900 for him right off the bat seemed a bit sketchy to me. Given the lacking player pool this season though, it was probably fine.

The next pickup was Forjustice for 2100. This seemed pretty good to me, as I anticipated Forjustice to be a reliable Slot 3 player. Last EPL he was mostly fielded as a Slot 5 player, and accordingly got to benefit from lacking competition. He was also super unknown at the time so players had no idea how to counter his playstyle. I think he's a little overhyped, but he's still a respectable Pr34 to Pr35 level player.

By now, NN had spent 4k coins on solid Slot 3 and Slot 4 positions. That's well and good, but they had also passed up a lot of top level drafts. The highest rated players left at auction were Somppu, Castete, then falling down a short cliff, Jerimuno. Aizamk was still missing a viable Slot 2 player, so he needed to go big on one of the two relevant aforementioned players.

But before that, circumventing expectations in typical Aizamk fashion, was a detour to pick up GiveUAnxiety, purchased for 1125 coins. This was a steal imo for GUA who would be poised in the Slot 5 position. That still left Aizamk with 4875 coins to buy a Slot 2 and substitute player.

SomppuKunkku came along at a pretty good time for Aizamk. At that point, NN had the highest maxbid potential of any team, being able to bid 4375 coins on any individual player, while BIGs could only yield 3750 and everyone else a pittance. Aizamk upbid MDS's 2225 bid to 4000, which was a bit more than he needed to spend to guarantee the Somali draft. A bit of poor maths, which actually came to bite Aizamk's ass in a small way, because he ended the Auction with 350 coins. If he spent a little more time thinking about the numbers for this Somppu purchase, he could've gotten one additional substitute player on his team for free.

Still, Aiz's draft to this point was pretty well-rounded. He had a solid top to bottom roster, and only need to pick up a substitute player. He threw out the Dennis234 nomination and got him for 500 coins. I think Dennis has some decent skills, but he's also undistinguished on the big stage. When I look at the rest of the Slot 5 field I can't think of a single favorable matchup for him, so he probably isn't viable atm. Yet still, from what I remember he has a good degree of mechanical talent and so with a bit of team support, might be possible to field in a later week. However, the team is already well enough placed that his utility isn't really needed outside being a practice partner.

So the Nilla Ninjas roster post-auction looked like this:

Slot 1: iamturk
Slot 2: SomppuKunkku
Slot 3: Forjustice
Slot 4: Flontier
Slot 5: GiveUAnxiety
Substitute: Dennis234

I really like this roster. Even though in a linear model they might have the weakest top end, it's a team that I feel is respectable at every position. Somppu isn't as bad a player as his worst moments might make him seem, and although there's the question of if he'd even be motivated to play for any other than SKG, with these mates I think he would feel okay to practice, strategize, and play together with this team.

However, this isn't the end of the story. Shortly after the auction, Aiz was approached by PrinceofKabul of SKG to make a trade. I'm not sure the details, but they came to an agreement to swap Somppu and Flontier for Knuschelbär and hatamoto_samurai.

So here we are. The Ninjas' Slot 2 position was updated with Knuschelbär, GiveUAnxiety was bumped up to the Slot 4 position, and Harcha takes the place as the Slot 5'er with some potential to reach into Slot 4 when needed. I think this roster is slightly weaker than before, but maybe it's less risky than relying on Somppu, who did get ass-blasted in the league stage of last year's EPL. It also reassembles three members from last year's Nilla Ninjas roster in turk, Knusch, and Forjustice, which has to be a positive.

Last year Aizamk was able to assemble the team perfectly suited to his penchants; tenable standalone players who clock in, stolidly put in a days work, and clock out. This year it seems he's done it again, maybe even a little more cohesive than the last time. They have one of the best top ends, a good Slot 3 player, but a somewhat weak combined bottom end. They do have upside potential in Harcha and perhaps Dennis. By my own numbers this team should be weaker than I personally gauge it to be, but I feel as though they have a little bit of magic gluing them together. I think they're decent.

Somali Kabuli Gaming
Slot 1: Hazza54321
Slot 2: SomppuKunkku
Slot 3: India_Bot1999
Slot 4: Flontier
Slot 5: kaister
Substitute: Fard



YES baby, the clique is assembled. The SKG franchise returns this year, reborn from the ashes of their unfortunate defeat at Playoffs in EPL1. This year still sees PrinceofKabul as head honcho, but with previous champion SomppuKunkku subbed out for Winter 2020 Winner Hazza54321.

The team's first draft was the second nomination of the Auction, picking up India_Bot1999 for 2100 coins. Some might say this is a steal, and it's a good price yeah but just an average one. Miggo has been attempting to quit AoE3 for at least half a year now, and sometimes takes short hiatus' so he's not always on top of his game. The difference here is that he's on SKG, in the company of Kabuli and Hazzuli who are people he will absolutely get on with. Miggo has killer mechanics and a high ceiling, which makes him a really lethal Slot 3 player considering he'll have the motivation to perform due to the team obligation aspect, and also because he'll have support from a strong manager and champion.

The team picked up Knuschelbär next for 4300, which is a fair price for one of the three S-Tier players to draft at auction. They would eventually trade him over to the Nilla Ninjas as part of a trade deal.

The third draft was kaister for 1425 coins, which is an overpay for someone who is likely to be your Slot 5 or substitute player. However, kaister is a player who imo has a lot of upswing potential, and attitudinally fits in well with the likely SKG end roster. It wasn't a price gouge either like most of CMC's bids, it was an inch bid above a 1400 claim placed by the Ninjas. So this ends up being a pretty good pickup for SKG.

At this point SKG had assembled their Slot 2, Slot 3, and Slot 5 players, and had 2175 left in the tank to gather 2 more players. This means their max bid was 1675 for their Slot 4 player, which is kinda low. Getting a solid Slot 4 player for 1675 from this position kind of relies on SKG waiting out the competition, and all of the top level drafts and newbies getting nominated first so that SKG can get a default bid on a viable Slot 4 candidate where no other managers can upbid them. That would've been basically an impossible gambit, because the BIGs, Ninjas, and CMC all had upwards of 7500 coins at this point, meaning they would be very conscious not to allow SKG to get the default draft they'd desperately want.

So at this point SKG would likely be getting a subpar Slot 4 player. However, before they could pick up a Slot 4, Prince nominated Fard, who would be quickly be drafted by the team for 850 coins. This is a pretty strange time to have picked up Fard, who, to be fair, I think is a really good draft for the team as Fard is longtime SKG and good friends with Prince. I just think the timing of this nomination was off, because Fard was clearly a player Prince wanted for his team, but by nominating him earlier than his Slot 4 player draft, he risked overpaying for Fard and having more limitations on who he could actually get for his Slot 4. And that's kind of what happened here.

Anyway, Fard is crusty as fuck right now and is pretty unviable. He used to be PR40 or some bullshit so in theory he should have the ceiling. Let's see if he's tall enough to touch the top again (probably not).

The final draft was hatamoto_samurai, who was again a player nominated by Prince. I think Harcha was another player Prince wanted to draft, and fortunately it was the perfect time to draft him because the only other team who could contend was the BIGs, and I doubt n0eL recognizes Harcha's strength. Harcha used to be a Colonel skill level Japan main a few years ago before leaving the game for some time. SKG bought him for all 1325 of their remaining coins, which was coincidentally also the max bid that MDS could place - because SKG were the first team to place that bid, MDS could not upbid them and Harcha's fate was sealed.

So after auction, SKG's roster was this:

Slot 1: Hazza54321
Slot 2: Knuschelbär
Slot 3: India_Bot1999
Slot 4: kaister?
Slot 5: hatamoto_samurai?
Substitute: Fard

Slot 4 and Slot 5 are kind of interchangeable. This team would've definitely had the strongest 1-2-3 pairing, but fallen off a cliff for their bottom end, mostly because of the overpay on kaister. Now, kaister and hatamoto_samurai are players I believe in, don't get me wrong, but fielding one of those in your Slot 4 position means your roster is pretty gimped. They're Slot 5 players atm and that's where they should stay. So this roster, while again, fronting the best top end, was overall... just somewhat better than mediocre. I might've ranked them as the third or fourth strongest overall team.

However, Prince immediately brought up trade negotiations with Aizamk following the auction, mainly vying to get SomppuKunkku back on home turf. The trade ended up being a 2 for 2, with Somppu and Flontier leaving the Ninjas to join SKG, and Knusch and Harcha being handed off to the Ninjas. This ended up being a great trade for SKG. Flontier fills the role of Slot 4 position better than Harcha can, and trading Somppu for Knusch is an acceptable trade because although Knusch is generally regarded to be the stronger player, Somali being in the company of compatriots allows his strategical brain to flow unfettered from conflicts of interest, which is a massive team support bonus that Knusch can't really match.

Every single one of the players on the new SKG roster has an attitude that inclines them towards working well together. I think this team has a motivated top end, a strong middle, a solid slot 5 player and potential upside in their substitute. They benefit from SKG morale and team spirit that exists outside of the league. They have major strategical brains in both Kabuli and Somppuli. You know, I had pegged MDS as my favorite to win this year but bros this power rankings really opened up my eyes. This team is hot.

Hudson Bay BIGs
Slot 1: Lukas_L99
Slot 2: Samwise12
Slot 3: Conquerer999
Slot 4: theonlybaus
Slot 5: Oliveza
Substitute: empireboss
Filler Character: Zutazuta

One of the new teams on the block, the Hudson Bay BIGs are another NA-based presence managed by n0eL. Their champion is Samwise12, who after months of being crusty finally seems to be on the upswing with strong ladder performance and a fair showing in Winter 2020. Impersonally, Samwise is the weakest champion, and personally, I think Sams kind of sucks. He's had a lot of subpar tournament showings since his return but he does have the regard of other top players, in the same vein as a KoenigErik type player. Even still I'm not entirely sure that Samwise is ready to go to bat against other team's champions, which means that the BIGs drafting strategy going into the Auction was already sort of pigeonholed.

The BIGs were the latest to the draft, only picking up their first player on the 11th nomination. That player was Lukas_L99, who sold for 4725 coins. Lukas for 4725 is technically what I'd call an overpay, but in terms of what his pickup meant to the team it was essential. Because of Lukas's late nomination, and because he was the single remaining S-Tier player after Osmane and Knusch had been picked up, the BIGs NEEDED to pick up Lukas so that their roster could have some semblance of star power. If they failed to get Lukas at this point, the next-best player they would be able to draft would be... Somppu or Castete. Ok, not the worst choices, but when your team's two best players are barely on the cusp of being regarded as Top 10 active, you're pretty fucked.

The team's next move is where a big mistake happens. n0eL is listening to the stream and hearing from caster Riotcoke that he can't afford a bid on Castete. Riotcoke, in his infinite knowledge, is doing some flimsy head math and actually speaking misnomers - the BIGs had 5275 coins left in the bank, meaning their max bid on any one player was 3775 coins, which would've left them 3x500 coins to default purchase the minimum roster size. n0eL could've upbid Daniel on Castete at 3275 coins, and because no other team at the time had coins to go higher than that, Castete would've been sold to the BIGs for that price. n0eL would've only had 1875 coins leftover to buy 3 additional players, but he would've assembled the best 1-2-3 core of the league in Lukas/Samwise/Castete. It's hard to know if that would've actually strengthened the BIGs' final roster, considering they would've probably had the weakest 4-5 slots too, but regardless it was a mistake by the manager in the drafting process, and something to account for in understanding where this team's lineup went wrong.

It wouldn't be until much later that the BIGs picked up their next player, Oliveza for 1150 coins. This pickup was pretty terrible for two reasons: 1) because Oliveza sucks, and 2) because Oliveza was about to be drafted by the Ducks for 1125, which would've only left MDS with ~3k coins. At this point, all other teams had exhausted their relevant bankrolls, and most teams only had the cash on hand for a ~500 priced substitute player. If n0eL hadn't drafted Oliveza here, he could've either had both Jerimuno and Conquerer999 on his team, OR his choice of one of those players, theonlybaus, and a bunch of other strong PR30+ players for default bids. But because he purchased Oliveza here, he lost out on the opportunity to get Jerimuno while also preserving his chances of getting a Conq or baus in the same draft.

I'm going pretty hard on n0eL here. It's difficult to gauge these sorts of things in the moment, and so it stands to reason why these small mistakes happen. But this is the unbiased power rankings, and I'm here to explain why things went downhill and why this team blows ass.

Conquerer999 was the next draft for 1350 coins, a default draft that no other team could upbid. As the strongest player left to purchase at auction, this means that the BIGs are forced to field Conquerer999 as the Slot 3 player, which is pretty much a disaster. I mean, Conq was half rusty last EPL season when he got absolutely rolled with a 3W-12L record, but it's not like he's polished up that much since then. Now, Conq has a decent skill palette, I mean he's a mechanical genius and even in his Empire Cup match vs GODSmane you could see the talent dripping from this kid. But he just shouldn't be forced to be the team's backbone when there are stronger players in the Slot 3 position who are more committed to the game who can easily find out how to abuse his weaknesses with team support. I'm aware that the strength of the Slot 3 position this year is somewhat deflated due to fewer top signups and more teams, and also that Conq was mismanaged last season so his EPL1 record isn't entirely his fault. But that doesn't excuse the fact that Conq is likely going to be forced to go up against stiffer competition than he can handle.

The BIGs also got theonlybaus for default purchase of 1325 coins. baus is a pretty good Slot 4 player here, but because of the lack of strength of the BIGs' Slot 3 position, it might honestly be necessary that baus takes the Slot 3 spot some weeks. This is a pretty tall ask for baus, and just makes managing this team all the much harder because there are going to be weeks this middle core gets smashed.

The BIGs also botched some decent substitute pickups. They missed out on minimoult who might've been able to be drafted for 700 coins. They also missed out on Harcha who was picked up by SKG. They ended the draft as the only team left that could place bids, and so they chose to pick up Zutazuta and empireboss for 500 coins each.

More mistakes. Why pick up Zutazuta? He's so rusted over that he makes the Statue of Liberty look naked. He's probably even worse than Riotcoke. He's a Captain and out of touch with the metagame, not viable, and barely worth a practice partner (he's a busy man afterall!) If you wanted the meme pick, you should've gone with Victor_swe, which would've been the honorary Zuta draft anyway. Victor has been playing actively and actually has a ceiling, and potential to be fielded if things were really that dire. But a Zutazuta Slot 5 would make EPL1 GoodSpeed look like fucking iamgrunt.

Anyway, empireboss was the final draft of the team, and the auction at large. empireboss is a player who I'm actually quite high up on. He is another frog ladderer like Kevin but at least has some tournament history. I see him managing wins off really good players on ladder, so that means he's a little bit of a wildcard. Still, I wouldn't place him favorably against any other Slot 5 player, so he's just barely viable. He's a Russia/Brit bot and kind of predictable. He may or may not be better than Oliveza. Probably better.

So all in all this team is pretty dumpster. Their top end would be decent if the rest of the team could also manage a reliable presence. But Conq/baus is one of the weakest middle cores of the season, and the BIGs' bottom slots are also nothing to write home about. They're gonna need a miracle to make playoffs as they need all their slots to consistently overperform to make up for the weeks where this roster will get absolutely ripped to shreds. They also face one of their worst opponents in SKG week 1, which could be a huge hit to their morale since SKG fields the perfect roster to crack this team wide open. I rank this team as trash bin.

The BIGs members after reading this post

Just wait till you see the power rankings.

New World Challengers
Slot 1: diarouga
Slot 2: SoldieR
Slot 3: King_Ownage2nd
Slot 4: Ezad
Slot 5: Stanley_Winston
Substitute: sheckler

NWC Championship 2019 contender WickedCossack assumes the mantle of this debut team's manager position, as a man who very nearly reached the pinnacle of AoE3 eSports excellence last year. His Champion is none other than the NWC 2019 Champion himself, diarouga. Both are somewhat like-minded individuals, being STEM aficionado's, having worked together as the only team to create a statistical model for their drafting plan of action for this year's Auction. WickedCossack was also 2019's best strategy award winner, and diarouga literally wrote the handbook on AoE3 strategy. They're a match made in heaven, or hell if you're an opposing team.

The NWC couple opened up the Auction blazing hot, taking the first nomination with gusto, purchasing SoldieR for 2900. This was a fine price, but immediately sinking their teeth into SoldieR who I'd say is the weakest Slot 2 player in the field made me wary for what direction this team would take in assembling their team together. A diarouga + SoldieR top end is really not the strongest pairing. I mean, just consider the contrast between diarouga and SoldieR's approaches to the game - diarouga is a player who scans recs for hours, uses Maurice of Nassau as a practice partner, and practices optimizing a build order down to the millisecond; SoldieR spins a fucking wheel to decide his civ LOOL

The next draft came almost immediately after, picking up King_Ownage2nd for 2600 coins, only the fourth nomination in the Auction. This is really about the max price I'd have paid for King_Ownage, and this pickup didn't feel like the best order of operations for the team. Ownage is assuredly a Slot 3 player, and maybe has the potential to reach into the Slot 2 position but is not reliable there for too long. Drafting so quickly meant that the NWC duo didn't really get the opportunity to sense out the rest of the manager's bidding strategy, and at the moment their 1-2-3 core was pretty mediocre. At this point, their max bid on another top player was 3.5k, which is probably not sufficient to get another Slot 2-level draft.

Again, at breakneck pace, the team picked up Ezad for 2150 coins, with the Auction having not even having finished the first round of nominations. This draft I was actually a fan of. Now, 2150 is just breaking the max price one should pay for Ezad, but in this instance he would be comfortably fielded in the Slot 4 position, where I expect he could really perform wonders. I personally rank him as a bottom-end Slot 3 draft, so to see him very gracefully taking his team's Slot 4 spot means he's in the heat zone. Ezad has proven he can wash decent level players before, trashing goongoon in NWC 2019, Optimus in Winter 2020, and Aizamk in Mono-Civ 2018. He usually gets wiped out by top level players at the later stages, but Ezad isn't facing Slot 1's or Slot 2's, he's facing Slot 4's and so he poses a much greater threat to the competition than he does at the final rounds of a 1v1 tournament. At this point, while NWC's Slot 2 position was kinda dire, their 3-4 core was rock solid and they still had 2350 coins left to draft two players.

However, again just jumping the gun way too quickly, they picked up Stanley_Winston as the penultimate draft for 1525 coins. I really wasn't feeling this pickup at the time, as I'm not too hot on 2020 Stanley and I felt this team could've drafted a way better player with the coins they had left. However, when I was also looking at GODSmane's tournament history earlier I saw that somehow Stanley beat him, not just once in Championship tournaments, but twice like WTF??? LOOL so Ward HAS to have a decent ceiling. I don't think he's great and he has more room to improve to get back to his old level. His biggest obstacle is playing like a dumbass. But maybe the team atmosphere can straighten him out, especially with no-nonsense teammates like King_Ownage2nd and diarouga. I feel NWC probably could've picked up someone like Conquerer or baus for their Slot 5 had they just cooled the hell down and waited, but Ward is still an acceptable player to put in this position.

NWC had 825 coins left for their last player, and because they had burned out so quickly, they attempted to make a nomination to flood the other teams with overpay substitute positions. Unfortunately, Wicked overstepped the boundary and nominated sheckler, who no other team made a bid on, so sheck went to the Challengers for 500. sheckler really isn't good enough to be fielded as a Slot 5 player, but he makes up for that with unparalleled sportsmanship and team spirit, so this 500 coin draft was still fine as long as sheckler didn't need to be more than a practice partner.

So I'm not super confident in this team's top end, but diarouga and Wossack are strategical work horses and definitely have the competitive attitude necessary to take this team to playoffs. This team will be disproportionately relying on the strength of its middle players Ownage and Ezad to carry the weight and rack up wins. I'll hold my reservations on Stanley and just say he could be a decent asset. sheckler is a great cheerleader. This team is better than I originally took them for.

Final Rankings:

1. Somali Kabuli Gaming
2. Mandarin Duck Squad
3. New World Challengers
4. Nilla Ninjas
5. Cuirassier Management Co.
6. Hudson Bay BIGs

[[Armag] diarouga]

@Cometk Honestly, you shouldn't have allowed Pérez to sign up. If he plays, it's going to be very unfair for the other teams.
Assuming Pérez plays, MDS is probably the best team (not sure why it's 2nd in your rating), if he doesn't play then MDS is one of the worst teams.

I would've been happy to buy him for 1k more than his current selling price.

We all would, but we wouldn't be happy to spend 2k7 on a player who isn't going to play.

[deleted_user]

@Cometk Honestly, you shouldn't have allowed Pérez to sign up. If he plays, it's going to be very unfair for the other teams.
Assuming Pérez plays, MDS is probably the best team (not sure why it's 2nd in your rating), if he doesn't play then MDS is one of the worst teams.

I would've been happy to buy him for 1k more than his current selling price.

We all would, but we wouldn't be happy to spend 2k7 on a player who isn't going to play.

MDS is willing to do what it takes. That's what champions do.

[n0el]

It is part of a strategy to be honest. Everyone knew the risk, your bid you assumption of that risk. It is no different than in a sport signing a player with an injury.

[[Armag] diarouga]

@Cometk Honestly, you shouldn't have allowed Pérez to sign up. If he plays, it's going to be very unfair for the other teams.
Assuming Pérez plays, MDS is probably the best team (not sure why it's 2nd in your rating), if he doesn't play then MDS is one of the worst teams.

I would've been happy to buy him for 1k more than his current selling price.

We all would, but we wouldn't be happy to spend 2k7 on a player who isn't going to play.

MDS is willing to do what it takes. That's what champions do.

That's questionable. This is perez' last post on the EPL sign up thread

I think i wont be in the EPL just couse as i am not sure how long this covid alarma will be, in case i am chosen for one of the teams and they would spend betting coins for me in the auction i dont wanna them to waste these coins, since im not sure when i will be able to go back to my home where i have my pc, so i think i shouldnt be selfish and i shouldnt play the EPL sadly for me. I would love being able to play that league but the situation for me is sad.

If you have no other information, it's right to assume that it's likely perez won't be able to play with such a post.
Now if MDS has information the other teams don't have about perez (they probably don't), that's cheating (that could be compared to insider trading). If perez can't play, that's too bad for them and it ruins the EPL for their team, and if perez can play, that's unfair for the other teams.

[[Armag] diarouga]

It is part of a strategy to be honest. Everyone knew the risk, your bid you assumption of that risk. It is no different than in a sport signing a player with an injury.

Except there's this rule

Do not sign up to play for a team if you do not intend to see the tournament through to the end.

So he shouldn't have been allowed to sign up in the first place.
And as I said, if MDS has extra information about perez, that's cheating.

[deleted_user]

I mean I was just fan-boying MDS - not implying any sort of secret information because I agree; that would be cheating.

Semantics is ESOC's favorite word. Semantically, Perez's "intent" is fully there. He just lacks a vehicle to actualize it.

[n0el]

It is part of a strategy to be honest. Everyone knew the risk, your bid you assumption of that risk. It is no different than in a sport signing a player with an injury.

Except there's this rule

Do not sign up to play for a team if you do not intend to see the tournament through to the end.

So he shouldn't have been allowed to sign up in the first place.
And as I said, if MDS has extra information about perez, that's cheating.

True, but i think his intent is to play through the end, but he lacks the ability to do so at the moment.

[Mr_Bramboy]

We don't know how the situation is going to develop. Just a week before the auction Pérez was fully intending to travel back until that was forbidden. He was working on getting a permit to travel to his PC in the meantime and so we allowed him to be a part of the auction. Team managers were informed of the situation and knew the risk.

The corona pandemic is hitting everyone and everything on this planet, even the ESOC events. Similarly, there are a few players who might not be able to play all the time due to the pandemic. I know at least one player has a medical background and may need to work extra hours if all hell breaks loose. This is unfortunate, but there's not much we can do about it.

[[Armag] diarouga]

We don't know how the situation is going to develop. Just a week before the auction Pérez was fully intending to travel back until that was forbidden. He was working on getting a permit to travel to his PC in the meantime and so we allowed him to be a part of the auction. Team managers were informed of the situation and knew the risk.

The corona pandemic is hitting everyone and everything on this planet, even the ESOC events. Similarly, there are a few players who might not be able to play all the time due to the pandemic. I know at least one player has a medical background and may need to work extra hours if all hell breaks loose. This is unfortunate, but there's not much we can do about it.

You can prevent awkward situations though, when you're aware of these.

[WickedCossack]

Haha great rankings @Cometk love that you've dished out on some players.

Hope your post gets good visibility despite being in the middle of a thread.

[TheNameDaniel]

Fair rating for CMC

[KINGofOsmane]

Still cant sleep after all these years.
I still see @stanleywinston rightklicking my tc with azzy lol

[deleted_user]

If you think about it, enough tilt should cancel itself out.

[Oliveza]

@Cometk

spoiler

Really enjoyed reading this, you should make more rants

[Riotcoke]

CMC Charging in.

[Riotcoke]

In 6 weeks time.

[samwise12]

Impersonally, Samwise is the weakest champion, and personally, I think Sams kind of sucks.

[Oliveza]

#BIGS

[Riotcoke]

Ez4CMC

[Ezad]

Lets conquer this tournament #NWC

[sebnan12]

Ez4CMC

and non of them is in the actual clan. what a scam bunch of wasted players.