Pink Poogle Toy Forum

I know it wouldn't help me, Pickles -- I didn't decide to go for All Stars until a few days in, and I can calculate how many games/day I need pretty easily (it's more due to the late start). I'm trying for 800 SoSds/day, and have been succeeding so far. Just for funsies, I calculated properly, and I need 697 SoSd's per day to get there by the end of the 5 rounds (not including bye days). And I haven't played any today yet (just going to get my 3x/day NP games in, which should get me to rank 10).

I didn't play either bye days, and I am on Rank 13. Hoping tonight to get to 14, or at least close to it.

I just saw our bracket. Wow. Altador again (whom we won't get to play, again -- or maybe not? since KI got to face Tyrannia last round, maybe it's our turn), another row 2 team, 2 row 3 teams, and a row 4 team to round it off? Sheesh. Well, it's our test.

I disagree with the results from the Vaeolus bracket; the worst HW ever did was draw, and Meridell lost to them outright, so HW had a better overall record (I think it's more important that you win, not how much you win by, unless you need a tiebreaker). And now Meridell should have a cakewalk to keep its first place in its bracket for this round, cementing its 3rd place, while KI and RI will both be stuck in 4th, max. (Though KI just barely squeaked by with its 2nd place last time -- Darigan beat them, and the only real difference other than that was that KI drew with Kreludor while Darigan lost 3 of the 4 games to them.) I just want a chance to test ourselves against some of the other top teams so we can see where we should really fall. I guess I'm getting that, this round, but I meant Meridell, KI, Tyrannia, and Altador. At least KI has gotten a chance against Tyrannia.

And the drama just keeps coming... Apparently Altador has two cheating groups (much smaller than Neocodex), CORE and Clraik in addition to STEALTH.

Ugh, Altador AGAIN?! Seriously. There's something totally un-random about their "random" assigning there. I mean, really, what are the odds we'd end up with them in the same bracket 3 times in a row?

And yeah, I'd heard about Altador's cheating groups. Apparently TNT is not going to address the cheating at all. Instead, this is how they're dealing with it:

Disappointed, TNT. Disappointed.

I also don't get how they scored the brackets. Doesn't make any sense to me. I'm hoping we get into a bracket that DOESN'T have Altador or Tyrannia at least once so we have an honest chance at getting first in the bracket - instead of being guaranteed no better than 2nd against teams with cheaters. Ugh.


ETA: Have y'all seen this yet? If it's true, RI is screwed for this cup, particularly with the cheating groups on Altador.

Yes, I had noticed that, actually. I was hoping at some point TNT would change things up because that's the stupidest bracket system ever -- especially since there's no weighting for difficulty of bracket. If I were designing a system, this is what I'd do:

Long round 1 (could be broken into multiple "rounds" with provisional rankings after each round and bye days thrown in): single round robin, every team plays every other team (it's really not that hard to design, at all). After every team has played every other team, add up the total number of wins each team had (with optional weightings, e.g., YYB and optional bonus games weigh more) to determine provisional ranking. Any ties can be broken by how the two teams actually did against each other and actual scores (a 7-5 win would count more than a 5-4 win). These provisional scores would determine teams in 4x4 play-off brackets. Because of the two extra teams, you could have any virtual ties that would cut across the brackets play for a berth in the higher (or lower) bracket while everyone else gets a bye day (if there are no ties, teams 15-18 could play their way into the lowest bracket, or just give everyone a bye and have teams 17-18 play each other to determine their final rankings). The tournament would last 17 days for the first round and 2 days for the second round (or 4 days if you wanted to make the second round matches 2 days each), not counting any bye days.

Bummed we lost on half our games to HW. Ah well. I would've played more last night if I hadn't gotten a phone call from a friend saying she was going to be in town this morning and could she come by? (which resulted in an hour or so of touch-up cleaning). Naturally, she texted me at 6:45am this morning saying she wasn't coming by after all.

I like your idea for tournament play, siniri. It sounds like it'd be much more fair - but shorter, too.

Be careful what you wish for. We survived DC intact and proved we deserve at least second in the bracket, but we finally get to face Altador. Apparently the team strategy is to focus on YYB and SoSd. I'm not sure we can take YYB, to be honest (I'm not sure we can take any of them, if they do the best they have in the past), but since I play both at the same time, it makes no difference to me, really. I'll have to see how much time I can spend on it today, though.

Brightvale beat Altador... in SS. And Brightvale is at the bottom of the bracket

Actually, I'm tickled silly that we finally get to take them on. After having missed out on the opportunity twice, it's about time. At least now we've got a chance to prove ourselves one way or the other - and give our best while doing so.
Is it RI's team or Altador's? I'll certainly do as much SOSD as I possibly can today, seeing as I probably won't be able to do much over the weekend, and I'm nowhere near far ahead enough (plus I only send 5-goal games, none of the 1-goal business, so hopefully that'll help). It'll all depend on how long I get for Little P's nap and what needs to be done once he goes to bed tonight.


I do think that the fact that we're matching up against teams like HW and DC wtih still at least half wins if not more shows that, even though we're stuck below Altador in every bracket, we do have a fairly strong team. I'm glad we're finally getting to go against some of the "harder" teams (if it's possible to even know at this point).

I think we have the third strongest team -- KI and Meridell each lost against one of those two (DC and HW), and we managed to survive with a win against both (barely eked by against HW, but a win is a win, and we beat them by more than they beat us, in our respective two games). We definitely have the 3rd strongest record. I saw a proposed bracket for next round that would put us together with Altador, Tyrannia, KI, and Meridell (and whoever Meridell's partner is). I think we can at least take third in that bracket, but it could give DC a chance to sneak past us. Ah, well, no sense worrying about something that may not even happen.

And yes, that's RI's strategy: spam in YYB and SoSd. Unfortunately, with 2 cheating groups working for Altador (and that redface from yesterday -- congrats, BV!), it's an uphill battle. But Rooligans are bringing it! I hope we take *something*. I've played 570 SoSd equivalents already, just for warm-ups during breakfast and lunch. Finished my 15 SS goal, 30/40 for MSN, and 23/50 for YYB. Only 174/1200 for SoSd (yes, my goal is to max out, if possible -- not sure I have the time), but that's the fastest game. It should be a lot easier when I do my marathon tonight, to just focus on the YYB/SoSd combo. My hand's a bit sore, so I may forgo the rest of the MSN if it doesn't feel better later.

Oh, and I reached rank 12 last night -- my highest in any AC ever (ACV was prior record, rank 11), and I'm 10 SoSd's from rank 13 already.

Regardless if we have the 3rd strongest or not, if we're always paired with Altador, it'll make it hard to actually come in 3rd.

I've managed to get my daily goal # of games in, so everything from here on out is extra. We'll see how much free time I have this evening.

In other news, the Staff Tournament results are in. I KNEW I should've stuck with Snarkie. Also, Mr. Insane. What happened?!

ETA: From the editorial:

That actually makes sense. I'm glad they addressed it in some fashion, at least.

That makes sense, Pickles. Silencing still seems rather harsh, though. Here's some data from the first round of the staff tourney (copy-pasted from another site):
Forwards
DJ Skellington: 773
Lawyerbot: 1038
Comastar: 1455
Blitzkrieg: 1185 *also close
Viola: 661
Senormalo: 1343
Dragona: 536

Defenders
Mr. Insane: 155
Subordinate Prime: 800 *also close
Kid Hawk: 511
Undutchable: 790 *also close
El Picklesaur: 601
Bancha Ninja: 1405
Marketing Maggie: 845

Goalies
Jimmy James: 1206
Snarkie: 1570
Socktastic: 1369 *also close
Breik: 1350 *also lose

My picks round one:

Comastar - 1455
Senormalo - 1343
Mr. Insane - 155* Do I change or keep and see if he will redeem himself - that is the question.
Bancha Ninja- 1405
Breik - 1350

Total: 5708

I traded Mr. Insane and Breik for Maggie and Snarkie, respectively. Mr. Insane does tend to get a bit better with time, but so does almost everyone else, and he started way behind.

ETA: I maxed out on SoSd! Also got 68 YYB wins, 15 SS, and 40 MSN. Hope it's enough to help us win at least one game against Altador. Now level 14 and more than halfway to 15. 2147 SoSd equivalents today.

I traded Mr. Insane for Bancha Ninja. Otherwise, I left my team in tact:

Comastar
Lawyerbot
Mr. Insane Bancha Ninja
El Picklesaur
Snarkie

Round 1: 4819