@Onoma: If you would like to count it that way then Aura have 4 final earth and 1 phobia game not completed yet.

Well, I would hope that people who leave FCC still try to win games. You could understand a slight drop-off in play due to the drama though (less focus). Personally, I try to win every game I am in, even if my motivation may be less in some.

Clan League Update 2 (Part 1):

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Second update huh? Well, lets see how much ground I can cover XD


Well, since the previous (cough only cough) update for Division C, much has changed. Wait, has only Hydra and FCC swapped spots? Really? Like, 50%+ of the games have finished since the first update on week 3 and we are finishing week 13. Damn, I actually wasn't necessary then? No one else agrees?

In all honesty, the fact that after 10 weeks the only things that actually shifted in the macro-level was FCC moved from 4th to 3rd place and Hydra vice versa, is shocking. But looking at things at the macro-level shows how imprecise that is. Because FCC has bounced from 4th to 2nd then down to 3rd again during this short time this season. The top line numbers hide the interesting nuggets beneath.

That is why I am here with this update. Because at least for history's sake, what happened in Division C of Clan League 9 needs to be recorded and commented upon because I think this is an important time in both Clan League and Warlight that needs recording.



So let's start at the top and work our way down.

7th Heaven

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I think the community largely agreed going into this season that 7th Heaven was going to come first; the only people that disagreed were likely a few fanatics in FCC and trolls in TJC who weren't entirely serious about their respective clans coming in first place. As much as FCC at first, and later TJC have put up strong second place numbers, its impossible to come first when the first place clan is seemly incapable of losing games. And that is 7th Heaven in a nut shell right now: undefeated after 20 games. Now, the extent to which 7th Heaven was going to dominate this season was more in question then their position in this division, but I think most could agree that, even juggernauts lose every once in awhile. But 7th Heaven has made this season look easy almost.

This clan is all muscle at this point. No fat, no bloat. Just efficient to a degree few see in Warlight. They locked up their promotion to B long ago. And as both them and we look to the future, 7th Heaven is a contender for promotion to A at this point in time.

Now, that has as much to do with them as it has to do with over the past few months B has become weaker and weaker. At first, it looked like B might contain Blitz, Outlaws, VS, WG, Sninja, 7th Heaven and FCC* which would have been a fascinating division to watch as at the very least all clans would be competitive in some form. But slowly the dominoes have fallen. Blitz had its death, then most unfortunate birth under Dr. Stupid which has been like a second death; a Schrodingers cat. And I doubt that Blitz will return to CL in any meaningful way for the next season, since the native players left and the alts remained.

So while Blitz was lost, another Division C clan could move up which would be a wash overall. It would mean both TJC and FCC were in a position to promote and both have done well this season. The problems are still coming. But more on them later.

* = Yes, that isn't going to happen but I merely pointing out earlier in the season the results in A, B and C were pointing in that direction before things changed obviously

The Juggernauts Clan

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Juggernauts this season has probably the most compelling comeback. At first, they didn't start off all that well at all, and for the first half of this season in Division C, they were flirting with 4th place, not that far ahead of Statisticians, but neither that far behind Hydra at the very least. But their comeback has been strong and coincided with a decline in the numbers for all their main competitors: FCC, Hydra and Statisticians. Its not often you see a clan claw back from an approx. 40% ish win rate up to a 60% ish win rate. But TJC has shown strong skills, and has benefited from the downfall of others.

The two phases of TJC's time this season have a relatively simple explanation: team games versus 1v1s. TJC has had a pretty middling showing on the 1v1s:

• (2-2) on Elitist Africa
  
• 1-4 on Phobia
  
• 3-1 on Greece

When you contrast that middling record with their much stronger team games record, its easy to see why they rallied later this season as the 2v2s and 3v3s started to end:

• 3-1 on 3v3 Europe
  
• 4-1 on China
  
• 2-0 on Final Earth

Without discussing the next two clans too much, TJC has safely locked up second place and promotion to Division B with the implosion of FCC and Hydra's middling performance. This all should bode well for TJC going into next season but I think new rules for CL10 should give people pause.

The introduction of the new rules targeting alts and multi-clan members puts into question the strength of TJC in CL, not necessarily their ability to participate. TJC is clearly an active clan but is it that those active players will play for TJC or another clan I would ask? If TJC could clarify this for people would be helpful. But in most cases questioning TJC about its practices, whether you agree with them or not, is greeted with one part hostility and one part trolling. This behaviour pretty much sums up my opinion of their clan as much as I know they are a good clan, just their bad side can get the better of them at times.

I would say more regarding the issue of loaning players out in CL from strong clans that want to play in CL, but I want to address that later.

In Part 2, FCC and Hydra; a clan I have strong feelings about and my own clan. This oughta be fun....

Clan League Update 2: Part 2

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Fifth Column Confederation:

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Look, FCC has peaked; both in CL and on Warlight. The clan is dead, not withstanding Master Mudkip, but does he count regarding CL? They rose fast with the idea that CL would validate their presence within the Warlight strategy community, but I think they are a clan we all should look to as a cautionary tale of relying on an institution as CL for success. As much as FCC was unstable as a whole; look at how the clan rose and fell based on the activity of its leaders, first Aura Guardian then SuperGamerzChannel; I think it was their dogmatic clinging to their clan and its 'brand' that destroyed them in the end since they repeatedly clung to the clan even when olive branches were extended.

I will admit I underestimated FCC this season both in Qualifier 1 and now in Division C. I would like to say I get the last laugh since FCC has died and I am still here standing but if only in FCC's death I wasn't spurned by their leadership for a second time when I offered them a home after SuperGamerzChannel's departure and subsequent implosion of the clan. Not everyone talented left when SuperGamerzChannel left, there was still value left in the clan. Look, when you offer a person everything they are looking for and they say "that's nice, but I'd like to do this on my own even if I don't succeed" I feel like I reserve the right to be upset. Like, the mentality that "I might not succeed, but as long as its me driving this into the ground, I'm cool with that" is a bit frustrating. Especially since this is the second time a clan leader has expressed that opinion to me meaning I think many clans would react in the same way, which is a bit sad to me.

So here we have what was once the dominant second place clan in Division C, a strong contender going into the next season, losing one player and it unraveling the entire clan to the point where said player leaving just quits the vast majority of his remaining games because they are just done with everything. As much as SuperGamerzChannel reserves that right to do so, it feels fitting for a clan like FCC in the end that always was tumultuous. So we have seen FCC tumble from a 70% ish win rate down to its current 55% win rate. Whether FCC comes 3rd or 4th doesn't matter; it isn't playing in CL next season unless we want a bunch of diplomacy players in Division B.

With the death of FCC, another interesting clan in Division B has been lost. As much as their lineup was thin (they had 11 players in their roster when they could have submitted 25 and at the time of SuperGamerzChannel's departure, I believe they had 1 or 2 players only that could have replaced him, regardless of their skill) what was there was really good. With FCC out, Blitz out, that puts Hydra as the next clan in the lineup to move up to B. At this point, we see a potential B of FC, VS, WG, Sninja, 7th Heaven, TJC and Hydra; and while that isn't that bad it just pales in comparison to that lineup I wrote up at the beginning.

Now, onto Hydra. I am not looking forward to this part.

Hydra:

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I think Hydra has earned a label of "perennial underperformer" at this point. With this being my third CL at this point (one season under Illuminati, two seasons under Hydra), the inability of Hydra to perform in CL is something that can't be avoided anymore. And these past few months has given me time to mull things over, reflect on my leadership in Hydra and the clan as a whole. It hasn't been pretty, but I think I understand myself and the clan I lead much better now.

I went into this season with a general expectation: "Hydra will get around a 50% win rate, and with the competition from TJC, Stats and FCC, we will all have middling win rates with that being enough for third place". Well, that didn't turn out to be true at all with FCC and TJC over performing my expectations and Stats under performing. Because of that, Hydra ended up with an approx. 50% win rate (currently 45.83%) which I did get right but with two clans doing better then I expected that pushed Hydra further down to 4th place and with Stats losing more games then I thought FCC and TJC rose higher then I wanted.

I always try to be honest with the lineups I make for CL and this season has driven home to point that Hydra players, while talented, aren't CL 'type' players. Let me explain. Lets contrast FCC and Hydra: Hydra has a deeper lineup of players then FCC but FCC has more consistent players. FCC has players that are much more detailed with their games then Hydra and that approach leads to FCC pulling off more upsets then Hydra. And that to me was the realisation I had.

As much as Hydra has talented players, CL isn't something that has the weight to it that other clans and players put on it. We are a strategy clan, but it isn't like we aren't a collection of micromanagers that are more likely attracted to the elite clan system. Hydra's separation from the other clans is something that attracts certain players to it, but its the semi-serious way we Warlight that defines us. In the end, this is a game we play in our free time and its about having fun first, about success second. And when I came to this conclusion, it was liberating frankly. That I don't feel beholden to this institution or the wider Warlight strategy community anymore has made me happier.

Now Hydra will continue to play in CL, and we are currently on track to promote to Division B not through out ability to win games, but through two ideas I have: CL destroys clans and Warlight is dying. But more on those later.

Hark, a CL Division C update! Wow, I've not seen one of these in a while... heh :)

I'm not so sure about CL destroying clans... I think the competitive nature of people at the elite end of play brings out the worst in certain people, and that is what ends up destroying clans. Or guilds.

I've seen this same phenomenon in 12 years of playing Everquest: guild does really well and starts moving up in the world that is Everquest, but that drives out the casual gamer, who really is who made up the guild's "culture" or "identity" to get to that point. There really is a need to remember that this is just a game, people play it for fun, and while winning and gaining recognition is great, it really is just a game. Once the glue, or the people who held the guild or clan get tired of running things and can't find good replacements, the center cannot hold, the gyre turns ever wider, and things fall apart. It's a pretty cautionary tale, but I find it's true in any sort of gaming or sport.

Clan League Update 2: Part 3

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Before I move onto Statisticians and Lu Fredd, I want to point out that the Points Contested Graph I think most accurately reflects the strength and weaknesses of the clans throughout the season. Here you can see TJC's struggle then rally more dramatically, FCC's collapse, and my plan for Hydra coming third in the beginning of the season where TJC and Stats struggled just behind Hydra before TJC's rally.



Statisticians:

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At this point Statisticians has one problem only: depth. The clan is a clan of extremes from the heights of Math Wolf, Yeon, and Jackie Treehorn to players like JuOx and Kamakura, the inconsistency of the clan is most on display.

Going into this season, many had low expectations for Statisticians, with most agreeing on a 5th place showing for the clan. The consensus was that with most of their firepower used in Qualifier 3, the clan with a depth problem would struggle in Division C and that was pretty much accurate. Statisticians has few bright spots to look at, so far only Elitist Africa is guaranteed to finish with a positive win rate while 2v2 China (0-5), Greece (1-4), Phobia (2-3) have not gone well and the 2v2 Final Earth team is (0-2) so far with that shocking loss to Lu Fredd.

Statisticians doesn't seem like a CL type clan to me at least. The clan seems like a good clan for those that have chosen it, but its setup doesn't seem to suggest CL success. They did get out of Qualifier 3, but they got an assist from 101st in that department. And while their performance hasn't been good, it isn't terrible either. Their heavy weights have carried them to a number of wins and will finish with a respectable 35%+ win rate.

And Statisticians might get a second lucky break as clans keep on dying in CL. If what has just happened the other day is true, then we might be looking at the break up of French Community. If true, then effectively we are looking at the entirety of Division C promoting to Division B with FCC dropping out, effectively, and Lu Fredd looking extremely unhealthy. And if true, Division B continues slipping away from that truly awesome lineup of clans.

Lu Fredd:

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What would this division have been like if CORP had been here? We will never know but by god does Lu Fredd owe a ton to CORP (the other underperformer that has distracted from Hydra so far). We all knew Lu Fredd would do badly, and their current result is right about where I think they should be. The games I've seen played by Lu Fredd aren't good at all, but at least they aren't wasting people's time, I hope at least.

I mean, there isn't much to say about their performance. They have done much better on 2v2s then the 1v1s or 3v3s which is something.

But I think its probably more relevant to question if they participate next season. The clan is down to 8 players now which is, um, unhealthy to say the least. Elite clans sustain that by choice. Lu Fredd seems to be there because of attrition. And that is why at this point all of the active Division C clans seem on track to promote.

Overall:

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And here we are. Things still aren't settled but things are never settled in CL, they keep changing right up to the last moment (remember when Apex swore they would field a team this season up until they realised it was impossible). So while I would imply 7th Heaven, TJC, Hydra and Stats should promote to B, it isn't a certainty at all. FCC still lies claim to a spot until that is forfeited, same with Blitz and French Community.

Overall, this kind of implies the gutting of the qualifier clans with most of the strength moving up to B but that is almost a good thing. This season was unreasonable with the amount of similar strength clans, and there were some surprise winners and losers with the format change. Next season should be less competitive. There will be new clans signing up but their quality seems questionable to me as well I expect that number to be fewer then the number that signed up this season. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if CL10 had fewer clans then CL9.

To me, this hits kind of at the point I brought up at the end of my Hydra section: CL destroys clans and Warlight is dying. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that CL is a roiling mess of clans fighting it out to move up on this unofficial 'ladder' of clans. And as a result it can be birth of new clans and the death of others. The politics of clans is most obviously on display in CL. I am not suggesting I have not participated in this at all, I am part of this system. It is as much a flaw as much as its the reason some of us even pay attention to CL at all. To watch a soapy drama of death, destruction and trolling for your entertainment. And while this has sustained itself up until now, I think peak CL has been reached as we enter the decline of Warlight. Even if Warlight traffic isn't down overall, traffic overall to this old Warlight of clans and the desktop client is declining. In the end, the inter fighting of clans is all good and fine only we now have a retreating pool of strategy players to contend with and there are going to be clans dying along the way. In the end, with CL it is a question of who can climb over the rotting corpses to the top of this league.

Edited 8/28/2017 15:38:15

Great writeup! I enjoyed reading, but I really wanted to reply with this:

Warlight is not dying!

Oh, you are referring to a minority of players that subscribe to the clans sub-forum? Sure, that part of Warlight might be in decline (not arguing with that). But this game contains a lot more than clans, or clan league.

Forgot the rules specify subs need to be announced here, sorry for the confusion.


1v1 Elitist Africa - Alexander the Great OUT // Jenova IN

1v1 Strat Greece - Alexander the Great OUT // Cloud Strife IN


Cheers

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P.S. Thanks for the update GE.

Um This looks more like a Great Expanse's personal feelings about CL and warlight clans than an update to me, but anyway thanks for the writeup.

I think there would be most likely 4 promotion spots in division C, things will get more interesting if there are more than 4 but let's not get to that. French Community probably would not join. fyi there are 10 clan dropouts for Season 8 and 7 new clans joining for season 9 so might see more activity on that. Clans in warlight are pretty volatile.

Ideally you only need 6 players for a CL and the 7+1 (Master Failure who is inactive) Lu Fredd guys looks to be reliable and would still on the clan so I would expect them to be in CL for next season.

Clans in warlight start of as a solid recognition of a group of people that get along and play along together, and of course like many other online games the best ones tends to stay and the casual ones would leave after the fun had lost, causing most clans to be with some elitism. There are many other games out there which had well-structured system for clans like clan battles, clan belts and this thread's centre of attention, clan leagues. It kinds of give a meaning to warlight clans and I think the introduction of CL to warlight is inevitable.

As for clan dying because of CL, I would say CL is a flash point, but clans that died had a full stock of flammable stuffs owned. (and FCC which doesn't even relate to CL at all) And I like dramas as they are really fun to watch, trolling is a good thing to do too as long as it's not like the OT forum.

What you suggesting is that the soap dramas, death and destruction of clans brings a decline of of the clan part of warlight? I don't think the above events are avoidable, and dramas in warlight have never been short anyway, doesn't seem to have affect clan participation. The main reason for the decline of clans is simply because there are too many of them in a strat community that stays largely intact. It's a Le Chatelier thing.

and no, not death of warlight, more than half of warlight gamers doesn't even join a clan. I have seen this "death of warlight" phrase for a fair amount of times, and it's becoming more and more of a cliche to me.

Well good luck to Hydra on whatever division you are in, you had a strong squad and I would certainly not want to face you.

List of clans I doubt will play next season.

French Community
Blitz
FCC
Lufredd
BIA
Olympus
Poon Squad
Dutch NL
DWF

Might drop out.
VIW (unlikely)
German Warlords

Clans joining.
nWo

Not sure.
LEA

Probably not.
Vipers.
AOE

So I predict we will drop from 18 to 10 clans for the qualifier. In the extreme it could go down to only 7 or 8.

I agree with most of Super's assessment.

-Blizt has some alts right now, but I think they haven't rebuilt much since their top players left few months ago.

-FCC has lost most of their strategic players (Smoove, Aura, Super, SFG, etc.) and the ones remaining in FCC seems to be more role-playing oriented. One thing is for sure, they stand no chance in Division B with their current line-up

-French clan I think might go inactive. I saw Boubou left for Lynx recently, it is not looking like they will participate again.

-LuFredd is losing some players for some reason lately, maybe they will return, maybe not. They have some nice players like Kalati, Nicat and Max. If they can recruit a few other players they could be fine.

-BIA has lost some players to other clans like 101st, their status is uncertain but less uncertain than some others.

-Olympus probably will play again and get a ton of boots like usual.

-Poon Squad lost matrixch to 101st, arguably their best player. They might play again, more than some other clans on this list.

-Dutch NL could come back I think.

-DWF lost their top player in fireice82. I have no clue if they will participate in CL considering the guys left seem to prefer other types of games than strategic ones or are alts for other top clans.

-VIW might still play. They are still recruiting new guys and there seems to have some sort of activity within the clan.

-German Warlords probably will play again.

-NWO is almost sure to participate.

-LEA no clue.

-Vipers would have some nice players to participate like Dar. I don't know how good and deep of a CL roster they could have excluding their alts but I feel they could probably put up a good fight in CL10.

-AOE seems to be quite inactive.

Edited 8/28/2017 23:15:07

Blitz is being held together by alts, if they were to be propped into clan league using them, it would be a disaster. This is a horrible idea.

French community is very inactive and I know that players within the clan are looking to other options at this point.

FCC has 1 player from this CL playing, and he is fairly inactive.

Lufredd is dead, they can't even fill a roster, and Max is playing for SNinja.

BIA is inactive, most of their active players have been picked up by 101st.

Olympus as far as I know will be barred from joining.

Poon Squad is inactive, as seen by players leaving and what they have told me.

Dutch NL suffered heavily with boots. I doubt they play.

DWF is inactive and no longer has stable leadership

VIW has a major inactivity problem, but still has enough players to fill a roster.

German Warlords got slaughtered, so it's just speculation.

As long as you continue to lead I'm sure nwo will play.

LEA is active, that's all I know.

Vipers is unlikely. They seem inactive and have been few players wanting to play.

AOE was trying to rebuild, but it's likely that it has failed.

Good assessment overall. It surely looks like 7th Heaven, TJC and maybe even Hydra could end up in Division B in CL10. Even Stats at 5th place could be in B at this point...

If French + Blizt drop-out, that leaves 2 places in division B + the 2 already assured first 2 positions of C. And considering the actual 3rd of C, FCC, is kind of dead in terms of strategic playing, we could see places 1 to 5 in B next season (except FCC).

What is concerning is that a lot of strategic clans seems to be dying but few that I am aware of are building for the next CL. Maybe Wizards could be such a clan if Bugs Bunny or whatever his name is now would be fully committed to his clan (meaning having his main in it). Idk.

It was nice to see FCC on the uprise while it lasted. It was nice to see a clan coming from almost nowhere and have great aspirations. I am hoping other clans will try to build-up to be competitive on the future CL.

Edited 8/29/2017 01:47:59

The reason why we don't see a lot of new clans coming up is there already are a lot of clan out there. All of them eat, breathe, grow or shrink, and recruit new members (well most of them).
Clans like BIA, Blitz, Viw (who will most likely still play, they have a lot of new recruits) Olympus were in a decline for years now. DwF was always known only for having ALE and another 65 level player in it. Turtles were always very volatile having so few players in them. FCC was unexpected, but could easily survive with better management decisions. Lu Fredd already collapsed once. Poon Squad is a casual clan, they could easily recruit a lot of people if managers weren't going inactive. :p German Warlords are a big and active clan (I think?).

But what about other clans? If WL was EU4, then 101st/Lynx would have a record for biggest coalition against them from Agressive Expansion modifier they just worked up for themself. They could field two or three strong CL lineups. MASTER, ONE!, Outlaws got stronger than ever. Sninja literally doubled up their firepower upon the merge with Vikinger (which mostly consisted of players not coming from other clans) and will actually be competitive in division B. VS gained some players. GG lost some, but also gained some. And many clans came through little to no change in size and strength.

Basically what we see is normalization. Hordes of weak, long declining clans collapse into fewer, but stronger clans. It really seems more drastic because it's all happening within one season of Clan League, but this season has been nearly double the length of previous divisions, so we see a bigger sum of movements.

Out of the new clans, NWO, Wizards, Huns IMO could be a solid addition to Clan League for sure, I will be surprised if at least one of them will not join. Maybe Cats, The Lost Wolves and/or the Italian clan will participate as well.

I think this debate over "are warlight clans growing or not" is coloured by your view of your own clan. If you are in a healthy clan right now, a minority of clans, you are wondering what the hell people are talking about? If you are in a clan that has collapsed recently, or a clan that has seen recruitment decrease you likely understand the argument I am making. So if you are say, Lynx, then you might think things are fine but if you are in Icelandic Turtles you might be more inclined to see problems.

And I do agree with Onoma's point that this CL is longer then normal, and we are witnessing history more. As well I personally have finished one 3v3 game, two games are nearing their end, and I still need to start my two remaining games. At this rate, we are looking at late Fall before Division C is done. I hope Division A enjoys the months of boredom and literally nothing to do as its a first for those clans.

Edited 8/29/2017 13:08:47

Normally the lower divisions didn't play as slow as A or B. This seems to have changed. 2d20h seems to be the norm now for teamgames.

I think the main difference between now and earlier in WL's history is that the strategic players and clans take it far more seriously. This has many consequences, one of which is increased recruiting, which you see manifested as poaching. You can also see that the "elite" clans are almost all much larger than comparably "elite" clans were only two years ago, probably due to a greater willingness to teach as well as recognition of potential instead of only recruiting fully formed players. On the whole, I don't think it is debatable that the overall pool of strategic talent has increased - it's only that instead of enriching the lower division clans as it had seemed it might, the talent is still flowing to the top clans.

If clan as a whole is revolving around CL play mainly, it is no wonder that clan collapse as result of bad performance, having hardly anything more to offer. Mismatching that natural process for "dying of Warlight" is huge overstatement. GG's example prove that CL relegation does not mean end of the clan automatically, but you need stable and enjoyable environment in the clan itself in the first place.

"Normally the lower divisions didn't play as slow as A or B. This seems to have changed. 2d20h seems to be the norm now for teamgames."

I think it has more to do with the qualifiers and then division C rather than anything else. Having to go through 2 steps takes more time. No new games can be made for division C before we finished totally qualifiers, meaning 1 guy or 1 team in qualifiers can delay the happening of division C and hence delay the ending of a whole season.

Edited 8/29/2017 16:48:51

Yes it's definitely the fault of that process. However a few seasons before the lower divisions played their games so quick, that this longer procedure wouldn't have mattered