WED
Number in brackets indicates power ranking. * indicates captain choice for best team, ! indicates captain choice for worst team.
Predictable Results:
Anstar (2) — exZ (8): 2–0
Anstar predictably cleaned house in this series with two very clean games on SF and Morph, ending up with a combined series score of 27–1–15. Shoutouts to Nsphere for ending both games with an Ocean Heart as his neutral item in 41 and 28 minute games. Could be worse, though — his 5 player finished game 1 without a neutral item.
Laavi (24) — Joll (22): 1–1
Could it be possible that Midoame isn’t actually a meme? A series score of 33–6–19 might suggest as much, especially considering he opted for the deceased OD hero in the lost game, with the rest of his team unable to deal with Jeremy’s Troll (how often do you think I’ll get the chance to write that?), especially in tandem with Mikel popping off on a 4 Weaver. It seems that Mikel wasn’t too happy with the idea of winning 2 lanes and drawing one, so he asked for jungle Enigma in game 2, resulting in all of his teams’ lanes losing. At least he drew in Radiant Jungle, I guess?
Wesside (14) — Thronplunder (12): 1–1
With a high 6k core on the roster for both teams here, it makes sense on paper for them to trade games in this series. The story of this series in practice, however, might be about the second best player on each time — LPSD put a shift in on his mid Invoker in the first game, which paired with Szajtek’s MK secured a pretty decisive win, whereas Jihadi Swamp went deathless on Bloodseeker in the second game. Without watching the game, though, I feel like it’d be a fair guess to say that the game fell apart for Thron’s team with Szajtek’s first death on QoP — I say this in part due to QoP’s game falling apart with the first death, and in part due to what the graphs show, which, well…
Melalez (16) — Drakesfjord (3): 0–2
Drakesfjord’s team is one I bumped up significantly late into the process of writing power rankings, deciding to reject my usual bias of underrating PONPO. He did well in this series, especially on QoP, but I won’t go calling him amazing considering he was matched up against a lower MMR player in zoren. The real uncertainty with this team for me personally was not knowing Drakesfjord and thus being unable to rate him properly, but he cleaned the fuck up in this series. Not too surprising overall, since I consider Drakesfjord’s team to be flat out better than Melalez’s, role for role, except for offlane.
Severe (15) — Kalisdar (21): 1–1
Severe’s goon squad vs the world! Kalisdar’s squad had a pretty relaxed game 1 win off the back of an Acid last pick Naga, but with fewer cheese options in the second game despite still being last pick, Severe’s drafting prowess set his team up for a strong game 2. Shoutout to Butters for the carry on Luna.
Haraway (13) — Stl (19): 1–1
I wasn’t sure how Haraway’s team would do early considering FA troubles, but the numbers attached to the series don’t really tell the whole story — similarly to Drakesfjord, the big question mark for Haraway was how newcomer Legatus Steg would do, but he had a dominant PL performance in game 1, so for now, these concerns might be laid to rest, even though one game doesn’t make a player, though. Game 2 shows a massive lead for Haraway’s team for most of the game, but a massive teamwipe throw mere minutes before the end of the game suggests they either misplayed horrendously or couldn’t deal with Stl and Shnoor’s fresh timings. Still, looking at the series, I think it’d be fair to say that Haraway’s team was the better of the two for most of this game, and it’s not a stretch to think they’ll only solidify further when the FA troubles get sorted.
Slight Surprises:
BrainyGonzo (20) — Reddydas (23) (!): 2–0
It’s fairly obvious that Reddydas’ team isn’t exactly the greatest in the division — and the captain’s declaring it the worst team indicates as much — but I wasn’t exactly expecting them to get 2–0'd in just barely over an hour. With a game 1 tricore of Bristle/Pango/QoP, though, it’s not too surprising that they had issues bringing down Swag’s Medusa (or dealing with the control coming out of Coffee’s Willow, for that matter). I can’t help but feel one should be drafting better heroes against a second pick Dusa, but here we are, looking into game 2, where the Dusa is now firstpicked, and once again with a lack of solutions. Maybe I was wrong to bump up Reddydas’ team to 23rd instead of my original placement of 24th? Or, well, maybe I’m underrating the synergy of a Gonzo — Swag team. I’ll find out soon enough.
Madsen (6) — Darba (4): 0–2
There are few things as dangerous in RD2L as playing against Harb when he’s feeling himself, and jesus fuck he most definitely was here. The highest fantasy total for a first pick player, a byproduct of his ludicrous 49–8–24 series score, meant that this long (and for a large chunk of it, fairly close) series was in Harb’s hands to close out, and he did. Fucking animal. Average picking Techies didn’t do much good for my team’s sanity either. Still, props to them for a dang fun series and a good win — pregame I’d have expected this to be a 1–1 at least.
Schuffi (18) — Holy Harry (7): 1–1
A gap of 11 rankings means Harry’s team should’ve had a better time here, which they were on pace to do after a comeback from a mediocre early game in the first match. They didn’t really learn much from that game, though, coming out of the lanes on the back foot again, with timings that appear to have been too slow to match the very impressive performances from Schuffi and Blackjack, each with 17 kills to their names in game 2 on Ember and Troll respectively. If they can play like that consistently I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve grossly underestimated them.
Moyo (9) — Maslyy (5): 0–2
I didn’t fully buy into the fanfare around Moyo’s team, but I’ll be honest in saying I didn’t expect them to exactly get 2–0'd, and fairly decisively at that. Neon did well in both games, but Blackbriar remains somewhat underwhelming in a core role. Maslyy’s second pick Clinkz did a lot of work, despite decent solutions on Moyo’s team, while game 2 saw the classic Maslyy/Takeshi combo covering the early to mid and mid to late game respectively. For Moyo’s team to justify their high ranking here, I think the rest of the team needs to pull their weight, rather than just piggybacking off Neon’s laning.
Crispy Bacon (17) — Kimer (11): 0–2
Boelens is a better core than any of the ones on Crispy Bacon’s team, but I can’t help but think they should’ve done better, considering the mid player for Kimer is an unknown Ancient 2, and their offlaner is, well, Kimer. Seriously? If Crispy Bacon’s team isn’t winning lanes against Ancients with much higher players, they’re gonna struggle a lot more against even better players.
Big Upsets:
Play (10) — Waloo (1) (*): 2–0
Wowza. First ranked, captain vote favorites, none of it seemed to matter. Play went insane, 20–1–33 series score, while laning against one of the better mids in the division; massive contribution from Denden’s safelane Mars and newcomer Moon and Star’s offlane Enigma, underwhelming performances from Roo and Grim, and the favorites are swiftly dispatched in two games that weren’t even particularly close. Or, like, at all, with Play’s team being ahead for most of both games, a couple tiny dips excluded.
SUN
Number in brackets indicates power ranking. * indicates captain choice for best team, ! indicated captain choice for worst team.
SUN did not go easy on me.
Predictable Results:
Harbinger (14) — Rinku (16): 2–0
Okay, I’ll be honest. In the above WED section, this would be a surprise or even an upset, but this category for SUN is so starved that I needed one match here to retain at least a shred of dignity. That said, I think there’s a gap between Rinku and all of the other teams, and it showed here. Both of these matches were another Harb solo carry fest, and that’s not really even because his teammates didn’t do well — they just didn’t need to.
Slight Surprises:
Maus (5) — Neox (8): 2–0
Unequipped to deal with a late Waloo Alch pick, the first game of this series can be chalked up to the draft. Game 2, though, is an enigma. Waloo and Neox traded deaths for the first 15 minutes of the game, but where Neox kept dying on QoP again and again, Waloo calmed down. All the while, Butters and Kuro are recovering from poor early games on Ursa and Slark respectively, but with one dying 2 times, and the other 13, it snowballed into a massive lead for Maus’ team, securing a 2–0. Their win here is a surprise since I’d thought these teams might be closer, but here we are. I’m not sure you can win games where your three cores have died a total of 33 times.
Big Upsets:
Madsen (2) (*) — hi5 (3) (*): 2–0
The captain voted favorites, two top 3 teams, and not a very close series at all. Not taking the preferable sidelane matchups allowed my team to decisively win both games while KTZ tried his very best to salvage the series from mid. He couldn’t.
Grimmjow (10) — Play (12): 0–2
Fucking Play. I know he’s good, but he’s now stomped 4 games in a week, and I don’t know what to make of that. This series was not close, Darba did well, the entire team did. I mean, hell, it took them about an hour to win both games. They’ve bullied Grimmjow’s team into having internal issues. Keeping a close eye on both of these teams.
Neon (11) — RampagingBench (1): 2–0
What the fuck is it with these teams I rank first? Game two is unticketed here, but if it was anything like game 1, it wasn’t particularly close. Neon popped off on mid Pango, and my informants tell me Valchers showed up on PA in game 2, with Neon winning his lane again. Bench’s team could be significantly weaker than I’d first thought, underperforming in lanes and seemingly leaving Anstar with too much of an ask to get them back into it. Sidenote, Reddydas please use neutral items I heard they’re good.
Ovidiu (15) — Sakoh (4): 1–1
When I look at game 1 of this series, I’d expect more of the same in all subsequent games. Ovidiu’s 2 supports playing off-role as cores losing lanes, enemy cores having a good time, one-sided all throughout…yet a Szajtek Shnoor dual-core is felled by a Barg Medusa and Elpie safelane QoP. To be fair, this game did seem somewhat close, but Ovi’s team got the good fight they needed and just closed it out.
Kevin Richardson (6) — Syrphx (7): 0–2
Syrphx might just be a hidden gem for his MMR, seeing as he went absolutely insane in this series on Riki and Morph. With his buddy Dekait winning his lane both games as well, this seems like it was a pretty easy series for them. Kevin’s team is honestly underperforming a fair bit here and are making me genuinely doubt the high ranking I’ve given them — but, then again, so are half the teams in this division.
T-Reds (13) — Cardinalstar (9) (!): 2–0
Mikel core whoops ass, who’da thunk it. A pretty decisive game 1 win, followed by a 66 minute game 2 win for T-Reds in an unticketed match (thanks, coordinator!), showing that perhaps I was overestimating the team the captain’s voted as the worst of the bunch. I’ll refrain from overanalyzing Cardinal’s team, though, seeing as this wasn’t the main roster for them.
Week 2 Predictions
I’ll keep this bit short and to the point, since the week 1 rundown ended up being pretty lengthy.
WED
Drakesfjord — Kimer: 2–0
Similarly to the Melalez series, I think Drakesfjord’s team outclasses Kimer’s for the most part, so I’m predicting a 2-0 for them.
Crispy Bacon — exZ: 1–1
I’m tempted to call this a 2-0 for exZ, but I think Crispy Bacon’s team is able to take a game off of them here, provided they fix whatever issues it is they’re having in their lanes.
Brainy Gonzo — Darba: 0–2
Gonzo’s team surprised me week 1, but I’m not betting against on-form Harb.
Laavi — Thronplunder: 0–2
Unless Mikel works some extreme magic here, I think this should be a pretty simple series for Thron’s cores.
Joll — Kalisdar: 1–1
Midoame is going to show up at least one game, I’m calling it now.
Reddydas — Melalez: 0–2
Reddydas’ team seems nigh unsalvageable, so I’m giving this one to Melalez without too much thought.
Schuffi — Haraway: 1–1
Blackjack and schuffi surprised me week 1 and I have some — potentially misguided — faith in them to show up again.
Wesside — Holy Harry: 1–1
Harry’s squad underperformed a bit, and I think they’ll let a game slip to Wess in week 2.
Madsen — Severe: 1–1
My team’s still adjusting to each other, so I think Sev has the advantage of having a team that’s already decently comfortable with each other, so I’m seeing a fun, close series here.
Waloo — Moyo: 2–0
I’m willing to brush off that first week disaster for Waloo’s team, and I think they’re definitely still good enough to grab a win here, since as it stands the only real threat on Moyo’s team is Neon.
Maslyy — Play: 0–2
I’ll be the first to admit this is a bit inconsistent with my rankings, but Play’s been doing extremely well, and I think there’s a good chance he pops off yet again here.
Anstar — Stl: 2–0
There’s just a disparity in the quality of these two teams’ cores, and that disparity significantly favors Anstar’s squad in my eyes.
SUN (Group A)
Syrphx — Cardinalstar: 2–0
I don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes in Cardinalstar’s team, but I do know that Syrphx’s team did very well week 1, and I think they’re going to carry that momentum onwards here.
T-Reds — Neon: 1–1
Neon’s week 1 upset win says more about their opponents than them in my eyes, and I think they’ll have a closer series against a team who seems to have their shit a bit more together. T-Reds’ success here hinges on Mikel, though.
hi5 — Kevin Richardson: 0–2
Having played hi’s team week 1, I’m largely unimpressed by them as a whole, putting too much pressure on KTZ. Unless they change that, they’ll have a decent shot against teams that KTZ can solo stomp, but I don’t think that’s the case here.
RampagingBench — Madsen: 0–2
Being beaten by a team I think is significantly weaker than mine, I’m unsure that Bench’s team will put up too much of a struggle if they don’t make some major changes.
SUN (Group B)
Play — Sakoh: 2–0
Once again, I’m giving the edge to the on form player, and while I do think Szajtek will challenge Play’s team, they’ve done well as a whole and I’m penciling in a win for them here.
Neox — Ovidiu: 1–1
Two weird teams will make for a weird series, with all 4 cores being mainly support players. I think Neox is the best of those 4 in a core role, but not by a large enough margin that I’d favor them, and with Ovi’s team having a lot of strong players across the board, I think they’ll play teamfights better. Still a fairly balanced match, so I’ll go with a 1-1, though if I had to pick one, I’d lean towards Ovidiu.
Rinku — Grimmjow: 0–2
Like I mentioned earlier, I think there’s a gap between Rinku’s and other teams, so I feel like Grimmjow’s will push through internal issues to get a 2-0 here just off of individual skill.
Harbinger — Maus: 1–1
The last matchup here is also the one I’m least sure about; I think it’d make sense to call this a 2-0 for Maus, but I think there’s massive potential for Harb’s team to take a game off them, so I’m predicting that to be realized.
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