Tournament BLT VII: Finals

Ok, NOW for the final predicts:

SS OU: Ewin vs Pradhaaan - This seems like it'll be close, but I've been more impressed by what I've seen from Ewin throughout BLT. I hope lightning doesn't strike twice so the rufflets can secure the win.
SS LC: Confide vs Acselsior13 - I expected the hats wouldn't put Sciroccoo in lc for the tie breaker, but confide? I hear confide has a bit of lc experience but acsel has gone undefeated in lc throughout the tour, can't bold against 'em.
SS DOU: Z Strats vs Shadowmonstr7 - I normally would have picked z strats here, but shadow pulled an upset last they played. This is the 3rd time they're playing, both have won against each other once. Assuming the other 2 matches go as predicted, this is the deciding match for which team wins. With that being said, this is just too close to call.

Go Rufflets!!

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ALAS, I would be wrong not to conclude this season with some final words. Before I get into it I wanna congratulate the Resort City Rufflets (ANNOYING HAXERS) jk ly all, if it wasn't going to be our team I'm glad Raj's could be the ones to raise the cup. Also hope you're good OD, let us know :/

Just to give us some uneeded context to the insanity of the Hatterene's season, by the end of it all we had 35 people just chillin in our disc lmaooo. I can't do individual shoutouts for all y'all but thanks for keeping it chill in the latter half of the season. This team had our highs and lows, and at the end of the day there are some things that me and Robb could have done differently as managers. That being said, I wouldn't change this team for anything, and I hope to manage ones similar to it going forward.

INDIVIDUAL SHOUTOUTS:
Robb576: TY FOR COMANAGING WITH ME BLOBBERT. This dude has been OBSESSED with me since I proved my uncanny ability day 1 (kidding sorta), but I had a blast working with you this season. If not for our voice calls this summer I likely would've gone into this BLT draft with a wish and a prayer. Def an awesome co-manager, I look forward to future tours and continuing to obliterate your self-confidence in cc1v1

Plimsoll Punks BITCH. ANYONE WHO DONT KNOW PLIM IS MY BOY BUT EVERYTIME WE LOSE ITS JUST "WOW IMAGINE LOSING" LIKE YEAH NERD I FRICKIN GET IT¿¿¿ Anyways thanks for hosting g, sorry you couldnt rig it for us to win :/

GXE- Insanely good player, didnt manage to backup ur shittalk tho soooooo

Sensei Axew - Man what a privilege to work with sensoat. Honestly the amount you've improved within like a year (or two) is wild, one of the best RU players in the GAME rn. 100% an amazing team player and awesome chat prescense, would draft you for this BLT again without fail every time (although you can't beat arce9 lol)

Ewin You suck lmao. Ewin was so slept on coming into this tour, this dude is a PIONEER of ss ou. Sometimes you're a bum but your 5 minute prep worked 80% of the time, and you're def one of the best players on this squad. Sorry we couldn't get you your voice, but lowkey your nom wouldnt have gone through anyways LMFAO :] Still ly, hope to play with you in some more tours in the future

Z Strats I would NEVER tell z this but he's probably my favorite new player I've had the chance of meeting/working with. For some context, z is absolute trash at dou, metronome battles, and most importantly !randpoke wars. Z is a weeb that bothers me to my core, but...yeah. That is all. (Ayy keep your head up g, you been knew as one of the best dubbs players to do it this gen. Sorry that luck didnt always fall your way, and that you suck in finals uwu)

Maple I think this is dugza but honestly¿¿¿¿ This has to be the WOAT name change of all time... ANYWAYS, thank you for always scheduling last minute and posting it as a surprise gift to this team LMAO. Like one minute we just talkin about the weather then dugza comes out of nowhere bein like "It's my time to shine bitches." I'm so glad you could turn your luck around midseason and consistently be a player we could rely on, honestly a great team member and one of the best mono players to ever do it

Confide Confide is def a player you want to have on any team. He actively hyped up our squad, was ready to play on a whim, and not to mention is one of the best lower tier players on all of smog rn. Srsly this dude qualled for circuit playoffs like a yr before everyone else¡¡ He always kept his morale high (even with some unfort losses/luck), and was an amazing contribution to this team.

Abyssal Ruins Part of the reason I feel like I could've done better as a manager is how I supported our ou core, specifically working more with you and making sure that at the end of the day the tour was just somethin fun to be a part of. Kinda failed in that department, anyways you were an integral part of this team for a large part of the season, so thanks a lot man. Idk if you're going to be transitioning away from SS for awhile, but if so make sure to keep in contact with me on disc mate

dahli THE HUMAN REVERSE CARD!!! This season started off SHAKY lmaoooo but you came back and ended up being an insanely great part of this team :p I'm glad we could make this season a bit better for ya, and that you could get some MASSIVE wins towards the end. You really came through in the clutch, just tyty

saba1111 THE VALUE AT 1-0!!!! Ik you didnt play that much this tour but ily saboat, big DUBS only boyyyyyyy. Honestly, at the end of the day you and acsel had the same win % owo

Jack In My Box Canadian nerd... I know you may have wanted to improve your record a bit, but you were still an awesome team member :D Switchin in and out every week def ruined the mojo for you and sciro a bit, sorry we could never really make up our minds loool. And just remember...Aunt Jemima syrup is SUPERIOR

Sciroccoo You really came in clutch for us some weeks, always willing to play last minute on a whim. Similar story to JIMB, sorry we kept the rotation going for so long, def ruined both of your mojo's a fair bit. You were also subject to some really unfortunate luck, but at the end of the day you were a really great team player, so tyty

EB- EBOATTTTTT. I know you didnt get to play quite as much as you woulda liked, but thanks for being a part of the team and hyping us up week in and out (even when you call me bad 24/7). I know I'll see more of ya in the future, keep it real g

I THINK GRAY CALLED ME COOL IN HIS POST SO TY GRAY YOU ARE COOL TOO

HATT OUT

EDIT: IF ANY OF MY TEAMMATES WANNA COMPLIMENT MY AWESOME SKILL/MANAGING FEEL FREE

EDIT EDIT: Thanks a ton to solonor24 and @thele whatever your tag is for being the OG support people.
 
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Congratulations to the Resort City Rufflets for winning BLT VII! Thank you Eyan and Robb576 for helping me with the spreadsheet and administrative decisions. Thanks to the managers for making my job easy by sending the lineups on time. Thanks to the tours room auth for helping me host and assist me whenever I needed. Finally, thanks to all the players who participated and made this BLT a fun one to host and watch.
 
Kept you waiting, huh?

With my vacation coming to an end, it's time to end this series of eulogies with ... my own team D: I'll be writing it as a mix from my own perspective, where I sometimes explain why we picked certain players, and that of an outsider. Without further ado, It's time for the Hammerlocke Hatterenes.

-The draft:
The hats had a unique situation from the start, being the fact that we had the only qualifying manager that would be picked up in the first part of the draft. We went the extra mile to qualify top 8 so we would pick up only three other people from the guaranteed pool and could shop for a full eight in the 50-points one. We felt that the guaranteed pool was weaker on average and with this strategy we would have more value on the team. On top of this, our playing manager was 70to90gxe, arguably the playing manager most guaranteed to be an instawin this tour. The UU pool didn't look that good outside of UU Masters Winner gxe and 1 or 2 other names, so to be able to pick him up at 12.5K is a steal.

After the hats picked up their playing manager, the rest of the drafting could begin. The hats bid on most players that were proven but stopped pretty low, just to be able to grab them for cheap if everyone happened to be asleep. The first player they almost got was jeran, who stopped at 6.5K where the hats bid up to 6K, but the zams paid the extra 0.5 to snatch him away. We expected jeran to go at least to something like 8K and he wasn't really on our shortlist, so this was a lucky escape for us. The first player the hats did pick up outside of gxe was Z strats for 13K, making him the most expensive player of the top 8 pool. For DOU, we noticed there were basically two tiers of DOU players, namely "SMB" and "not-SMB", even though the not-SMB pool was very competent. Thinking that most peeps would jump on SMB just to get the edge, we focussed on what we would think to be the best of the not-SMB pool, and landed on Z strats. While his recent records might have been overshadowed by others in the pool, getting to R8 of DOU SSNL, Top 4 of DOU LT and going a neutral 2-2 in DPL are extremely good. After the hats missed out on Stareal (6.5K --> 7K goodras) and imjustgray (7.5K --> 9K swamperts), they picked up Jack in my Box for 4K. Jack was Robb's LC-player in BLT VI, and pulled out a good 3-3 record against strong opposition. He did leave after BLT VI and came back to qual for VII, but it looked like he was getting back in form. The hats were cutting a bit of costs on LC, and they could have done a whole lot worse than this in my opinion :^). The last player they picked up was BlinkBoy for 4K. Blinkboy was also a decent player but they hadn't been sighted since they checked in on the thread over a month before the draft. All in all, it was quite a gamble. After the guaranteed pool, the hats were in the top half regarding team strength. They already had a few of their tiers covered with decent-to-great players, and could focus on the remainder of their tiers in the next part where, as a reminder, they were the only team able to pick up 8 players, rather than 7 + playing manager.

The first serious bids they did in the 50-points pool was on Updated Kanto. Seeing how the goodras got SMB after they directly upbid themselves to 20K, the hats hoped to repeat that trick by going an insta-21K on UK, trumping the laxes' 15K attempt. However, this time around, the other teams were awake and the perts got him for 23K. The first player they picked up was keeping it icy for 10K. kii is a well-known player in the tournaments room, and always puts out good records. He got to R10 of OU SSNL as well so he'd be a strong OU-player. There were some rumors about him being heavily demotivated and wanting to quit, so the hats did pull a gamble with this one. After losing out on Feliburn (21K --> 21.5K laxes), the hats immmediately landed in their next bidding war and got confide for 16.5K. confide was on his way to becoming a great lower tier player, able to help anywhere, and we decided he'd be best as our NU-slot. Getting to R2 of NULT and going 3-0 in NUPL, he had the records to boot. The hats then lost out on havens (8K --> 8.5K laxes).

After this, they got into a streak of buying players for 10K for a while. This started with DugZa. In a stacked mono pool, DugZa seemed like one of the better players, and was in R8 Winners of Mono SSNL at the time of draft (got to R9). Additionally, they had non-SS records in a Quarterfinal of Monotype bo3-multigen seeded tour, and going 5-1 in Monotype BLT IV in USUM. As I said, these are not full gen8 records, but still show a lot of monotype prowess. The goodras upbid GunGunJ by 1K, getting him for 8K, and afterwards the hats picked up Sensei Axew for 10K. Sensei was an RU main who dabbled a bit in other tiers like DOU, reaching to R6 of DOU SSNL. For RU, he lacked tour records at the time but had a great RUgged Mountain Reboot run to boot (kind of like a pokemon league where you fight against strong RU players). There weren't that many high caliber RU players so this seemed like a good pick. The hats ended their 10K streak by getting peachyclouds/dahli for that price. This seemed like an underpay based on the records dahli had when getting drafted. R11 OU SSNL, R8 Winners Mono SSNL at the time (became top 4) and being put into the wcop roster are a few of these. Non-SS related, just like DugZa dahli reached to the Quarterfinals of Monotype bo3-multigen seeded tour, and got to 4-1 in Monotype BLT IV in USUM (1-1) and BW (3-0). To pay 10K for this is a great deal.

The hats were practically done with their draft now, as they had a main for every tier, plus a possible Blinkboy. From here on out they could buy additional support or maybe even snag away some strong other mainers if they really wanted to, and with 30K for 3 players their options were all but limited. They used half of their remaining budget to outbid how much the bolts wanted to spend and picked up electric win for 15K. Ewin reached to R9 of OU SSNL, had a poor 1-3 record in OUPL, but on the flipside, got drafted for OUPL, and was a Wcop starter for germany. Ewin wasn't bad, and showed much potential to be great. However, the hats now had a bit of a problem. They had 3 confirmed OU-slots and 2 Mono-slots, respectively kii/dahli/ewin and DugZa/dahli. They would need to find a balance between the slots to not bench someone who costed at least 10K for too long, as that would be a waste of money (looking at you, Bolts/Velvet, Goodras/PA, Rufflets/Raj). A 10K bid for NRTS (13K, snoms) wasn't enough. A 12K bid, their max, for TreeckoMaMan (12.5K, swamperts), and an 8K bid for TectonicDestroyer (9.5K, zams) weren't enough either. However, the hats landed on 7K Sciroccoo afterwards. Sciro was a decently-known LC player who I estimated to operate on a similar level to Jack in my Box. Having an additional LC-player meant they could discuss sets and prep with each other, so this buy would work in the long run. The hats threw their last 8K on saba1111.

After contacting Blinkboy, he stated that he couldn't play for BLT, and the hatterenes picked up EpicBoost. Some teams saw this as a controversial decision over, say, giove97, but giove's specialities were in tiers we already had plenty of players for, most notably LC (Jack/Sciro) and Monotype (DugZa/dahli). EpicBoost put the other lower tiers as his preferred places to play and that fitted better with the small backup gaps our team had at that time.

I know I'm saying this about my own team, but we had a killer roster. In almost all available slots, the hats were able to put people that could at least compete with the expected instawins. I didn't rank my own team obviously.

-The Tour:
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(edited with the final tiebreak scores)
There isn't extremely much to say here record-wise, as there are only a few surprises. Leading the list is Ewin with a 6-2 record. As we hoped, Ewin did indeed show potential for greatness. Being on a roll thanks to a 3-0 groups in wcop happening at the same time as BLT, Ewin ran through most of the opposition. Friso and ewin were of roughly equal skill this tour, and went 1-1 against each other, after they both forgot how to schedule in the semifinals. The loss against LittleSpookz was mu reliant but other than that this was a great run for him. GXE followed suit with a 6-2-1 record, having a deadgame against toastedbunzzz. He only lost against a lossless Trade and used an unconventional bad team (come on, admit it man) against kythr. Other than that, he also cruised through a weaker pool to finish on a great record. Z Strats went 6-4, but only lost against two players in TTTx and Shadowmonstr. Entering the finals 6-2 as best player of the team and then going 6-4 is rough, but I can't attribute this to his skill suddenly worsening. Z was a dominant player this BLT, and with mainer wins against mishi and cheese, this is certainly a good run for him too.

Sensei Axew got up to a good record as well, only losing from Feliburn and nemesis arce9 twice. The record was to be expected so there isn't that much to say about this one. Wins against the likes of Mac3 and SMB are always nice. Ending the ranks of mainstay positives is DugZa, at 4-3-1. After standing at an awful 0-3-1 record after Week 5, DugZa became a monster and won 4 times in a row, against some of the stronger monotype players this tour, like Havens and the revenge vs Floss. Confide unfortunately struggled a bit against strong mainers and received a mixed run, going 4-5 in NU. There was definitely some bad luck involved here and there, with bad player calling both his wins against confide "lucky ones". This made me wondering why the perts chose NU as their pick for tiebreaks rather than something like LC, as luck will eventually run out. Going back to confide, their sole trip into LC resulted in an 0-1. He might look back to this tour with disappointment but I'll say he still proved his worth.

kii and dahli both went 2-4, but kii's negative record is more surprising than dahli's. The latter had to face a slew of very strong mainers like hamhamhamham and pradhaaan, while kii lost to names like halaman95 and lugia_numair. He did win against twixtry though which is nice. dahli managed to win two times when it was needed the most. Saba had a wild tour, despite playing only one game, as that one game was wild enough to be made into a movie. Going AWOL for like 30 minutes when T1 starts, getting a timer loss, but turning it around into a win, thanks to the goodras having the courtsey to replay. Saba is the only hatterene to go without loss, sitting at 1-0.

The real painpoint of the hatterens was their LC tier. While both Jack and Sciro were decent, neither managed to win after Week 2. The hats were planning to rotate them every week until one of them won more than the other, but Jack was suddenly unable to play for a few weeks in a row, leaving sciro to try picking up the scraps. Most of the other LC mainers were simply stronger than our LC player that week, and unfortunately the support of another person didn't help that. Rounding things out is EpicBoost, who unfortunately is the only person to go winless for the hatterens. He made a sole trip to RU and lost to PokemonCestDur.

In the semifinals, the hatterenes tied against the swamperts after leading 4-2, but won with 2-0 in the tiebreak, with the long-hyped up match of Ewin vs Friso ending in a win for the german, and confide beating bad player in NU. In the finals, the hatterenes showed great resolve when they were 0-3 behind, turning it around into a 4-4 tie. In the tiebreaker, confide lost to ascelsior in LC and Z strats had an unfortunate match agaisnt shadowmonstr, meaning the hats land on the second place of BLT.

-Verdict:
I'm still a firm believer that the hatterenes had the best team this season, partly because I managed it. Even though we were struggling for most of the season to secure a playoff spot, this is without a doubt the best team I have managed so far. Everything clicked and it made for a good atmosphere and big results to boot. It always sucks to lose in finals, especially if it feels unjustified, but shit happens and now it's time to move on. I won't do shoutouts because gxe has done the most goat shoutouts ever, like holy fuck how do you expect me to beat that. I will see you all next year, peace! 576/10
 
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