Week 5 is over, Week 6 has begun. Is It Even Possible To Beat Yeye? Find Out This Week on RGL Challenger: Lakeside Pyroshark Edition.
Power Rankings
- Desperado Crash Mambo Combo
- My RGL Profits Have Declined
- Yeye (+1)
- Break the Meta (-1)
- @yo_grrt (+1)
- tuatards (+1)
- Gang Unit Tactics (-2)
With the victory of Yeye over Break the Meta I see it prudent to move Yeye up a peg. If they win their match this week, expect some changes going into playoffs (namely, Yeye. The bottom half of Challenger is now guaranteed to be unable to make playoffs with only 1 win for each of those teams across the board. To call their seasons rough would be an understatement, but that is just how dominant the top half of Challenger is in comparison.
The continual roster instability of Gang Unit Tactics has forced me to place them at the bottom of the division if for nothing else than the lack of coordination continuous roster changes bring on. Especially the move of long-time Pyro Spanish Inquisition to Demo, and his replacement by Lumiti means that they effectively downgraded two different classes on a roster where most of the players are average at best on their classes.
Week 5 Match Analysis and Write-Up
With an upset at the top of the division, and predictable matches across the board everywhere else, this week was another one that was not particularly exciting, really.
DCMC v. GUT (2-0) - Logs
Despite a valiant effort by MichaelPC1 for GUT, the rest of his team just could not contest the players of DCMC. Somehow Scout RPC_33 and Soldier Bliztank for DCMC managed to acquire the first and second spots in frags for their team despite this map being dominated by the Sniper ClassTM. That is not to say that Infamoa for didn't put in work, merely that he was supported by outstanding performances by many of his teammates. Shoutout to Engineer Micahlele for DCMC for managing to get more frags than every player on GUT except for MichaelPC1. As mentioned in the rankings, with the loss of multiple players, GUT had team leader Spanish Inquisition swap from Pyro to Demo. While they did an acceptable amount of work on the class, he was severely outperformed by DZCreeper and will have to do better to be more than just another anchor for the below-average GUT, or get carried by MichaelPC1, itsyAcore, and wise in their upcoming matches.
Standout players: MichaelPC1 and Starfruit66 for GUT. Bliztank and Luigi for DCMC
My RGL Profits Have Declined v. tuatards (2-0) - Logs
Another week in a row where tuatards have to play a top 3 team in Challenger, and another week where they are defeated pretty handily. With a damage deficit of almost 10,000 and a frag difference of over 60 across both halves, only two players (Demo dt and Sniper tua) for tuatards managed to secure a positive k/d, and both of those players only did so by 1 frag. dt continues to be a dominant force for his team, but their problems converting good combo player performances to wins still remains. Profits, on the other hand, profited immensely from their wealth of skilled players with almost everyone on their team having an exceptionally solid performance, especially Soldier SmAk, Heavy Moist Master, and Scout sobigallmytoesarebigtoes. Credit is due to Profits for being able to translate their on-paper dominance to actual wins in-game.
Standout players: dt and Wubs for tuatards. SmAk and Moist Master for Profits.
Yeye v. Break the Meta (2-0) - Logs
With a remarkably solid performance by Yeye, they secure not only an upset win against BtM, but also a very solid 2-0. Despite Demo kjr for BtM securing over 100 more DPM and 14 more frags than chase, it was just not enough for his team to get the win here. With a mediocre 15:20 minute push in the first half, and an inability to beat an average 8:16 time in the second half, BtM had a lot of issues on this map from a coordination standpoint. This was not helped by standout performance by Sniper hmls for Yeye who effectively controlled carry Markers for BtM, winning the SvS 13-10 and securing the top frag on his team.
Another standout was Scout dotwet who managed to secure the second frag, hard shutting down Soldier Aad for BtM with 13 soldier picks. The biggest difference on a class-by-class basis, however, was Heavy. yeye for Yeye managed to secure 35 kills and 304 DPM while bigR (who in all fairness is a Pyro main) went 13-20 with 84 DPM. Sub-100 DPM on a map as good for Heavy as Swiftwater is game-losing by itself, and that was only made worse by the flank of BtM losing badly. Overall, BtM played far below the level I expect of them, and I hope that this is either an auto-banned map for playoffs or they turn it around in the future.
Standout Players: hmls and yeye for Yeye. kjr for BtM.
Bye Week v. @yo_grrt (2-0) - _Logs
Although denied a spot in the division, Team Mental has taken it upon themselves to play the matches instead of Bye Week (who is already playing so many matches in so many divisions already). As these are not real matches I will not cover them in-depth except to shout out the players from the team other than Team Mental. On that note, Pyro darty managed to secure 4 Med picks and Demo Soap got some poundage DPM despite his team losing fairly one-sidedly. Despite being at the bottom of Challenger, @yo_grrt is there by dint of the strength of the top of the division, not really due to the weakness of their move-up roster per se.
Standout players: Saturation and Whalemart for Bye Week. Darty and Jas for @yo_grrt.
Week 6 Predictions
Week 6 has not one but two interesting matches between two top teams in Challenger and two bottom teams in Challenger.
Yeye v. Desperado Crash Mambo Combo (3-4)
It has simply never worked out this season ever predicting against Yeye but I will have to do so again here. This should be one of the closest matches this season, with both teams having standout flanks and combo members. It will really come down to the strength of the move from chase to det on Demo for Yeye, who is a veteran 6s player with relatively little HL experience. That should not matter a whole bunch on Lakeside, however, which primarily demands mechanical ability from Demos rather than format knowledge. I think this match will come down to two factors: 1) whether or not hmls or cinder (who is actually able to play this week, apparently) pops off substantially harder than the other and 2) whether the flank of Yeye is able to handle that of DCMC.
On paper I would give DCMC the slight edge on basically every class (except for Medic and Heavy) and I think that they have the ability to translate that edge to a win here. That being said, Sniper hmls has been showing up to every match these past few weeks ready to pound. If DCMC is not able to control him, expect this to be roughly a 4-2 win for Yeye here.
Players to watch: hmls and det for Yeye. cinder and RPC_33 for DCMC.
My RGL Profits Have Declined v. @yo_grrt (4-0)
While it is not impossible for @yo_grrt to take a round or two here if they get enough momentum, it seems really unlikely given they are hard outclassed across every class except for Demo where Soap for @yo_grrt is only somewhat outclassed by TeatsMcGee for Profits. I expect this to be a textbook win for Profits, who are likely looking forward to their match next week to help determine the exact seeding for playoffs.
Players to watch: TheS4rr<3, SmAk, and Shido for Profits. Soap for @yo_grrt.
Gang Unit Tactics v. tuatards (1-4)
The next-closest match, except it is between two of the worst teams in the division. While I would have given previous iterations of GUT enough credit to secure at least two rounds, the demo differential between Demo Spanish Inquisition and dt is, in my opinion, insurmountable. The combo of tuatards should be able to smash that of GUT such that the relatively superior flank of Soldier wise and Scout itsyAcore of GUT will not be able to do much. While I have no doubt that GUT will make tuatards fight for their win here, I do not think that they will be able to secure it for themselves.
Players to watch: MichaelPC1 for GUT. dt and Chocc for tuatards
Bye Week v. Break the Meta (4-3)
Team Mental will once again be doing battle in the stead of Bye Week this week. While this will (as always) not count towards the actual standings, I expect for Team Mental to be able to secure a win here although look towards Demo kjr and Sniper Markers to make the life of Team Mental hard as they try to win. On a side note Scout blank should really be picked up for a team next season: https://logs.tf/2859341.
Players to watch: Markers and kjr for BtM. blank and pantherr for Team Mental.
Theoretical Best and Second-Best Roster
New, beautiful players have emerged and old, ugly players have been cast off from these rosters. What could the changes be??
Best Roster
- Scout: RPC_33 - Desperado Crash Mambo Combo 4x]
- Soldier: Bliztank - Desperado Crash Mambo Combo [4x]
- Pyro: TK - My RGL Profits Have Declined [4x]
- Demoman: kjr - Break the Meta [2x]
- Heavy: Chocc - tuatards [4x]
- Engineer: Micahlele - Desperado Crash Mambo Combo [5x]
- Medic: reigh - My RGL Profits Have Declined [5x]
- Sniper: Markers - Break The Meta 4x]
- Spy: Shido - My RGL Profits Have Declined [4x]
2nd Best
- Scout: dotwet - Yeye [New, formerly Witness]
- Soldier: wise - Gang Unit Tactics [4x]
- Pyro: Pyrrhus - Desperado Crash Mambo Combo [4x]
- Demoman: DZCreeper - Desperado Crash Mambo Combo [2x]
- Heavy: Moist Master - My RGL Profits Have Declined [5x]
- Engineer: Starfruit66 - Gang Unit Tactics [5x]
- Medic: sakura - Yeye [5x]
- Sniper: Constantly - Yeye [New, formerly Starfruit66]
- Spy: jak [2x]
With witness no longer on Scout and Starfruit66 no longer on Engineer, it is finally time to add some more Yeye players to this list with Scout dotwet and Engineer Constantly, both of who have had exceptionally solid performances these past weeks which have contributed immensely to the ability of their team to keep their undefeated record. I expect them to play a big role in their team’s ability to contest DCMC this week and in playoffs, with Yeye being the first team to be guaranteed a spot no matter how the rest of their matches go.