Week 2 Power Rankings – Salov

Welcome back to Week 2 of CTFDL’s Power Rankings! We had quite a turbulent night with some match hosting hiccups and more importantly, what many considered upsets in some of the matches. This is definitely reflected by some major voting swings in our polls. With 3 teams now eliminated and 2 matches to be played, here are the standings for this week:

Match Results from Week 2
G6 – Fangs Out defeated Carebear Countdown (21 minutes)
G7 – Coming From Behind defeated We Are All Friends Here (8 minutes)
G8 – Seven Plagues defeated Takuteko Draculakushyon (sudden death)
G9 – Seven Plagues defeated Coming From Behind (sudden death)

Voters this week (in alphabetical order): Angelus, Axidus, Joe, Kev, mixm, Salov, Thiz, Zmn

*Votes are weighed based on rankings. i.e. a 1st place vote will grant 6 points, 2nd place with 5 points, etc

• 1. (+2) Fangs Out (2-1) – Advanced to Championship Finals
  “Strong showing of good comms and teamwork despite missing three pivotal starters to their rotation.” – Angelus
• “maniac for playing a good game. Igid for improving from his previous sl debut.” – mixm
• The first team to advance to the finals garnered a lot of hype and praise among our voters. Fangs out became the first team to beat last week’s unanimous undefeated favorite, Carebear Countdown, within regulation time. With both teams showcasing power offense, Fangs Out came out ahead in much of the match as it kept CBC’s turrets down and forced pressure for CBC home swings. Players like maniac, mysticgohan, NY-mikejones surprised the crowd, playing significant roles to FO’s power offense. Returning from his debut SL match, Igid also showed great improvements in his positioning and ability to stay alive to keep O pressure.
• T2. (-1) Carebear Countdown (2-1) – Bottom Bracket Finals
• “bro my team lost Flair. so ya” – Chuckie
• “CBC will be tough to beat if they can show their full lineup. They started off strong but it doesn’t mean they will end strong. Props to Fangs Out for making it all the way to the end. Don’t sleep on SP! Congrats to everyone so far for a great CTFDL S1!” – Zmn
• As mentioned, Carebear Countdown suffered its first defeat but remained to be a favorite among commentators and voters. Without a few regulars including Flair absent from the lineup, the squad had its turn to play an incomplete starting lineup against Fangs Out. In fact, some spectators were surprised to see Decker still not dressed for a match. CBC attempted to pull out some surprising tricks for the match, but it was unfortunately disrupted by the unexpected restarts in the match. They showed some promises with its power offense, but it was not as potent as the JT flagging offense that it rolled out last week.
• Nevertheless, the community definitely recognize the raw potential of the squad at full strength, and they still have one of the most solid vet-anchored defense and top JT flagging defense in the league. Now backed to the wall in elimination situation, we will likely see CBC pull out its best lineup as they play Seven Plagues. It will be a match featuring the unstoppable force vs the immovable wall, as every CBC match ended in regulation, whereas most of 7P’s games got to sudden death.
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• T2. (+3) Seven Plagues (3-1) – Bottom Bracket Final
• Seven Plagues has been the winner this week, climbing up in standings with two strong hard fought wins to stay alive in the tournament. For the majority of the 90 minutes of play, they were relentless and were able to maintain offense uptime and held their base to . This week they have also shown that they are be a sudden death specialist team, with more SD matches played (3) than any other team and remaining undefeated in all of them. Zmn has showcased why he was picked high in the draft, as he played the role of Sudden Death lucky charm and got the lone flag twice this tournament. Although it got really close this week, to-date we have not seen any sudden deaths being aborted, further demonstrating the pivotal value of the initial flag capture.

Coming From Behind (2-2) Eliminated

Coming From Behind made a quick working of WAAFH to climb up the bottom bracket, but unfortunately could not live up to its name when it mattered the most when they could abort with their 10man offense during sudden death. CFB has been a strong 5v5 team but hampered by the sudden death settings. The team showed us in the WAAFH match how much stronger their fighting game can be when they play to their full strength, but it was unfortunately not enough to break through the Seven Plague’s D7 defense. Their offense did not fare as well against the Seven Plague D which likes to collespe further to play with the turrets and make opportunity to set up support flanks.

Takuteko Draculakushyon (0-2) Eliminated

TD has shown valiant effort in this tournament and suffered a heartbreaking loss to be eliminated. The TD D kept the match going with very resiliant defense handling the O swings, and it paid off as their offense capitalized on a quick counterattack that caught Seven Plagues off guard and cleared their D. Their 10 man unfortunately could not hold for the 90 seconds, as their opponent rushed the flag room and ran off with 3 flags. There was a moment when some questioned why TD did not attempt to make a last minute base hop when metal had all 5 flags on him (perhaps it was too rushed for someone to get to a base last minute to switch to?). Since that mini reset, their O could not generate any major gains and was unfortunately eliminated via sudden death.

We Are All Friends Here (0-2) Eliminated

People rated high on WAAFH last week based on its roster potential, but unfortunately they were eliminated quickly by CFB. Players on the team has shown growth compared to their previous match, but it was not enough to hold off from CFB’s aggressive power offense. Thanks again for reading, and we look forward to see you all at the championship week and some post-season review and analysis!