Week 2 Summary:
The second week has wrapped up with some clans moving up and down in the rankings but there is still much more to come this season.
And here are the clans ranked by total points:
Just looking at the rankings for the week, Hydra, CORP and BIA were the only clans to move. This was caused by Hydra having a significantly better Week 2 then Week 1. Hydra outgrew BIA and CORP stalled completely in Week 2, #CORProblems. (As an aside, I'm not saying that in a mean way, I like the way CORProblems looks and its a simply way to sum up the start to the season for CORP). Hydra's upward movement is great, but that shouldn't diminish the awesome week VS and M'Hunters have had both growing signiciantly in the amount of points. Overall, M'Hunters have stretched to a more significant lead over VS in total points, as well due to fewer losses M'Hunters are continuing to demonstrate why its likely they will come in first this season.
Note: Each clan will be introduced with a weekly win-loss record, it is not their overall record.
M'Hunters (7-1) powered forward this week and are now strongly positioned to finish 1st and are in a position to win or tied to win most 1v1 tournaments (French Brawl and Guiroma not included). At this point its a question of how many tournament wins other clans can get since M'Hunters should win maybe a majority of 1v1 tournaments. Overall, M'Hunters has shown no sign of slowly down this season, unlike Season 7, as many strong templates for them have yet to finish games.
In the Horse Race VS (6-3) seem to be doing well and are within striking distance of M'Hunters but digging into their other stats you begin to see why that may be a struggle. This seems less to do with VS's performace than M'Hunters. M'Hunters is just powering forward faster then anyone else meaning catching them requires M'Hunters to stumble. VS is a strong clan overall, but could it be argued that the team templates are where VS should do better? I am legitimately asking, I want people's opinions below.
Onto Hydra (10-4) now, they grew the most this week. While the clan has improved significantly from week 1, their overall record of 13-10 just shows that the clan is losing games and seems to lack a certain "something" to directly challenge for promotion. If you look at the Point Growth chart, you will see that no clans have won a game in a couple days, but Hydra over the course of the week was probably the most consistent with winning games (as I am predicted a comment about this, yes M'Hunters had very consistent growth as well). As if you look later in this post, their win rate consistently improved each day this week. To sum up Hydra this week, they aren't quite the basket case they were in Week 1, but problems still lurk in their lineup.
BIA (5-5) had an average week. With an even record, and Hydra completing more games it would have been very difficult to hold onto their position. BIA started stronger then Hydra and with one good week, Hydra and BIA are quite practically tied. Max points are 170 to 171, win rates are approx 1% apart. The only reason Hydra is ahead in total points is Hydra has completed 23 games to BIA's 20 games. So with Hydra further along in games played, the focus will be whether BIA finishes enough games to retake 3rd place this week.
#CORProblems worsen significantly in Week 2 with a shocking (0-8) record across all templates, and 5 more boot losses in Week 2. The clan had boots on ME SR and Treasure Map Week 1 but it now has shifted to Greece and Treasure Map. Between 3 players, there have been 9 boot losses recorded for CORP: 2 for Quicksand, 3 for BigMeck and 4 for Angry Koala. This issue is strangling CORP, the clan which should be in a competitive race with Hydra, and BIA as it turns out, is in fact in a distant 5th place barely ahead of LEA. And Week 3 can see even more pain, BigMeck has one game left on Greece, Angry Koala one more on Treasure Map, Angry Koala was booted on picks in 2 Great Lakes games which probably means the team is struggling there as well. What this means is CORP is going to start this tournament under a cloud of boots and until they are done, the clan will continue to look weak when they really aren't. If you remove the boots, the clan is at an average (5-5) record. While some of those boot losses could be wins and some losses, the clan almost definitely would be higher then their current (5-14). But what about LEA nearing CORP? More on that in the next paragraph.
LEA (2-7) is probably going relegate despite CORP's results so far. LEA has shown little ability to win games. And their inability to win games means long term I see CORP beating out LEA. I think most would agree that despite the boots CORP has, they can win more games. Its the boots that are dragging CORP down towards LEA, not LEA's skill narrowing the gap with CORP. Which wins out will be interesting. But this isn't about a clan's skill. A win is a win and LEA has narrowed the gap on CORP and CORP needs to seriously fight for every single point it can get from here on out.
Overall, it was a happy week (I can't be
that unbiased about Hydra right now) for some including Hydra and M'Hunters, good for VS, average for BIA, a glimmer of hope for LEA and simply steeling yourself that long term your plan should win out for CORP.
Edited 6/29/2016 21:14:19
