I'm really proud of this team, so I hope you'll bear with me for some shoutouts. Pre-draft, qsns and I mostly planned to build our draft around a few anchor players, Spurrific in NatDex, SEA in ADV, and me in DLC (lol), as well as pick up Paint again and grab some under-the-radar slots in nadando DPP and Staraptor in SV. I had to skip out on the actual draft because I was busy irl, so coming onto discord and finding out we also picked up Madara, Kunal, Redzone, and Waffle in addition to getting pretty much every slot we planned for felt surreal. You could feel how powerful of a team this was from frame 1.
Before I shoutout my players and such I would like to extend a very serious "good games" to all of the other managers and teams. This derby every team felt incredibly competitive, and might I remind you all that going into week 5
every single team could mathematically either make playoffs or be eliminated. To the spacials in particular, who we tied week 1 and had some very real Pokemon Moments against in the final, it was very enjoyable to play and prepare for your roster and I know I'll see y'all again next year because mimi and idyll will never quit.
qsns I'll say it one more time, thank you for handling the draft, it really was troll of me to leave you hanging like that at the last minute but I think you might've done better than if I was there to help you LOL. I know you were saying you felt like you didn't contribute as much but I have to disagree, between forming the team (and the planning) and the tidbits you offered across various tiers I think you were a great partner to have for this tour and I hope we run it back for another one sometime, though I'd also love to see you tear up the DPP field again.
Staraptor You might not believe it but you really were one of the first players we planned our team around. I had watched your games for previous tournaments and of course am aware of your VGC success, and felt like if we just pushed you in the right directions for team choices you could tear up the field. Look what happened! 6-1 is an incredible record, and all of those wins were well earned and crucial to our success. It was nice getting to talk to you a little more and I wish you success at your new job!
Spurrific doesn't need me to glaze him but I'll do it anyways. After an 0-3 start where it felt like the matchups just weren't shaking out I think most people would've probably asked to be benched and muted the discord. Thank you for being resilient and bossing up. The broken duo always wins in the end.
shadekirby321 I know the record is not what you were hoping for but your expertise in natdex helped a ton, be it giving me feedback on my builds, testing with Justin, or winning that incredible finals game. Just in general you are one of the better teammates I've had across these tours and I'm sure we'll run it back and you'll get the run you're looking for.
MADARAAAA my brother. I have had so much respect for you ever since you started popping off in tournaments, but over the past year I have really come to appreciate your skill (and it culminated in me getting kicked out of circuit playoffs by you LOL). I genuinely could not believe the stars aligned for us to get you in the draft, as I've said before you are such a strong player and positive energy that the team's mood could never be sad when you're around. It was really fun to see you tackle a new tier and watch you beat my ass in test after test. How many more tournaments are you gonna win this year??
AIRedzone us managing to get you in the draft gave the team a lot of flexibility, as I was originally planning to DLC for the whole thing but quickly found out I'm not built for this and you were very willing to take the reigns. I know you had some gameplay moments you weren't proud of but you also had some clutch wins to help get us to this point, thanks a lot. You were also very helpful with advice and testing for DPP.
nadando the goat. DPP, especially bo1 DPP against some of the tier's best players, can be very challenging, and you held your own against some of the best the tier has to offer. Grabbing a relatively unknown player can always be a risk, but in your case I think it turned out to be way more of a reward. Was a pleasure to have you on the team and I hope you become a tournament mainstay if you want to play more.
SEA I love you I love you I love you I love you. Can you believe it's been over 4 and a half years since we were messing around with ADV DOU in the RoA room? It feels like a full circle experience to finally get to team with my first friend on the site and it end up in a success. Like I told you on discord, I'm genuinely amazed by your mastery of the tier, your understanding of the various interactions, and your takes on Pokemon that I would've never arrived at myself. We'll get to working on more doubles tiers soon bby I promise.
Yellow Paint waffle2O2O Not leaving y'all out. Sorry that your games didn't go in your favor, but nonetheless it was a pleasure to have you guys around. Coming from Derby II where our bench players just straight up abandoned the team, this time I was a lot more comfortable. Hopefully you guys get some redemption come DPL.
And to all the cheerleaders/helpers that joined us along the way, it was great to have your support and encouragement
LogIce Xrn Nails tyo Jazz721
This is the first time a team has won back-to-back doubles team tours which I think is an incredible feat. Once again, thank you all for being here and good luck wherever you go next.
Ice Riders out.
