Intro

Welcome back to another week of UGC Platinum Highlander! Monday was rather eventful, with rolls, close games, upsets, and a team disbanding. Process is done with, but we'll be seeing it again in about two months when playoffs roll around. Up next is Borneo, a beautiful Payload map that's been in and out of the rotation for a while now, always with slight improvements. Sadly, the Platinum matchups aren't quite as beautiful as the map, but with such an interesting Process week, there's little to complain about.

Week 2 Results

The first match to review was a 5-4 between A Million Ways and Dead Ringer Storage. After a terrible game against bote in Week 1, mustardoverlord no doubt wanted to get a win as soon as possible, and against the reskinned Blunderful, was coming into it confident.

This was overall the most even game. It really could have gone to either team at any moment. The only real differences being Xan vs tickzf; and split_ vs anon. These were the two players that really were the difference makers for -aMw-.

With that loss, for whatever internal reasons, the team disbanded. While for many this may have been somewhat predictable and expected, it is nevertheless a sad occurrence, as now there are a trove of players without teams and each week will leave one team with a bye. While linkuser, Skag, and feint all joined bote's roster, Couches joined mtn.'s, and anon joined jk, players like tickzf, tech, Hard Ass Johnny, and of course mustardoverlord himself all remain on DRS's roster, making DRS truly “DEAD” Ringer Storage.

On a much lighter note, bote takes yet another victory, this time against the folks at Just Kidding!. While this is not much of a surprise, Just Kidding proved their ability to put up a fight against bote, which bodes well for the team as they improve over the season.

While the logs tell an interesting story, Sniper wise, bowswer put a lot of focus on shutting down corsa, but wasn’t able to actually do so. bowswer may have killed corsa 21 times to his 5, but bowswer only managed one more frag and still dealt less damage. corsa was also able to gather more combo (more specifically the Medic) picks than his rival. Overall, the performances of the two snipers are even, as both Snipers clearly had different objectives going into this game.

The game across the board was fairly even except for one aspect, the Demoman. Muma was able to put out more damage and gather more kills than his counterpart Bobby, and this could definitely be looked at as the major difference between bote and jk!.

In the highest level of Platinum, Kids Next Door faced Menace To Society, a team that took the season off while knd. took the throne. mTs is known for being a team based in the 6s community, lending them a mastery of 6s maps such as process that might not exist on other Platinum teams. KND, on the other hand, are well known for their apparent difficulties with the gamemode, following a thrashing last season given to them by Ginyu Force.

Despite all that, Kids Next Door took the victory in a 5-3 game. Moof returned to snipe for mTs after an appearance by m4risa in Week 1, giving mTs the first match with the full roster they’ll be using this season. They’re certainly not a weaker team than expected before the season, but with this victory knd. solidify a #1 placement at the end of the season, with bote and Hateful Eight being the only teams that will be the most likely to give Kids Next Door a loss.

However, no week is complete without its share of lopsided matches, with three 5-0 scores being reported. ‘92 Dream Team gets their moral boost from winning against Wu Tang Killah Bees, Chill Penguins pick up their second victory for this season against Independant Fighters Alliance, and Hateful Eight walked over Route: Reborn.

Week 3 Matches #

‘92 had a very convincing win last week, but it was against a winless wu-tang that has consistently struggled in Platinum, where-as jk! held their own respectively against a team with much more experience players. As long as ‘92 continues being a team after this season, they will be in talks when debating playoff teams, as they have strong positional players necessary to succeed in the division. In fact, these two teams seem to have equal strength in their roster. ‘92 will really have to rely on Zambler to continue a dominant stance that he displayed last week.

jk! however has something ‘92 doesn’t. Experience. Though sometimes overrated, experience can still count for just enough to put one team over the other when rosters look to be even. jk! is a team that really gels together and enjoys playing with one another, even outside HL. They have players on the team with a strong voice that are always willing to make a call, on a map like Borneo, that can be all that’s needed for a victory. jk! should continue to do what they did last week and put pressure on Space Ghost’s Coffee, but if they truly want to win, they’re going to need to close the gap better on Bobby vs opposing Demoman in Platinum. 2-1 in favor of Just Kidding!

The rest of this week’s matches are quite frankly uninteresting, as aside IFA vs Wu Tang, there are no matches that shouldn’t result in a 2-0.

Power Rankings

• 1) Kids Next Door - Beat the team that beat h8, this solidifies them as #1. With what looks to be an easy week 3, .knd should continue their undefeated streak so far this season. A solid roster all-around and a combo that’s hard to penetrate, it could be awhile before these kids get a taste of defeat.

• 2) Menace To Society - mTs certainly looks different with m4risa sniping but they're no doormat even when she’s not around. They gave .knd a run for their money in the regular season and that should be a testament to the skill level of mTs, though let’s not discredit knd on their well deserved victory.

• 3) Hateful 8 + Decimate - Two juggernauts played each other early and it allowed h8 to get an easier schedule, giving their acquired superstar players more time to find a balance with one another. As long as this team doesn't try to strut their dominance with just DM and play more supportive of one another than look for this team to jump through the power rankings one they get to the second half of the regular season.

• 4) bote - The win against jk! further solidifies a #4 spot, and with the Skag pickup, might even be able to start poking into the Top 3 slots with a bit of luck. While they have yet to play any of the above teams, their end of season record should be solid enough to land them the #4 position.

• 5) Just Kidding! - While they may have lost against bote, the match proved that they are in a similar position to -aMw- in that they should have no problem dispatching most teams lower than them, but will have significant difficulties against any team above them. This is the team most likely to improve over the course of the season, however, and as such may try and snatch a higher number, but with the loss against bote on their history, there’d be a lot needing to happen to do so.

• 6) A Million Ways - With the victory against DRS, ‘blunderful’ snatches the ‘top of low plat’ slot. While they will have significant difficulties against most of the top 5 teams, if not all, their showing in Week 2 should be evident in any match against a team not placed above them.

• 7) Chill Penguins - Bv is a team that looks to play with one another and definitely lacks DM superiority over other teams. However, because this is a team of close friends that play with each other season after season, as well as outside the Highlander Competitive game mode, this is a team that could continue to move up the rankings, currently this is the most accurate placement for the team.

• 8) Tree Forest 2 - Last season Tree Forest was a surprising move-up. A lot of teams and players didn't think they had it in them to win games. However, they were able to do enough to not have to worry about placement, unlike other teams around them that had to make changes to their roster to prove they could belong. What many would consider an easy schedule so far, they struggled to win against a team that many have joked about but was able to beat a team that looked to be promising a week earlier. Tree could be an interesting team but they’re going to need to be impressive against KND if they want to remain in this spot.

Maybe Next Time: '92 Dream Team - ‘92 is a team that arguably could be in playoffs, but while all the above teams played a ‘proof’ match at one point to solidify their position against other teams near them in the rankings, ‘92 have played what was arguably the best and worst teams in Platinum. A game against jk! might give them a chance to prove themselves.

Credit to brick and brooky12