Mastery of Understatement

Well, it's pre-game time again. It's an open question at this point whether our opponent's are going to show or not at this point. They're a Euro guild. We're PST based. It's not a good mix as we're nearly on opposite ends of the earth. Even the fallback is earlier than we normally like to get started which is something like 9PST and then on into the night. It's going to be 3AM GMT which is 7PM PST. That's an eight hour difference, by the way, and means we'll be playing in what amounts to the early night while they'll be playing in the early morning.

So, with that in mind, check out the latest missive from Mr. Brellisford at the official site. Seriously, last week people were up in arms about what Adam wrote. But I'm much more annoyed by this week's article. There's the pony and candy cane dreaming final paragraphs about the automated tournaments which is full of speculation that, really, I don't even know why it's made its way into the text. But, more than that, it's the glossing over of the scheduling difficulties. It's nothing short of a disaster, when you get right down to it, and the cavalier attitude on display is more than a little annoying - cheap little disclaimer aside, this is an article on the official site and, just like an editorial in the newspaper, it doesn't get there if it bothers the people running the show. It's not just this article, though, it's also the responses of Mr. Gills and others who say, basically, tough noogies. Real teams will sacrifice whatever it takes to be competitive. And this wholely predictable problem is just something we all have to grit our teeths and endure. Just amazing that sort of thing gets through the PR department.

Anyhow, it also makes mention of how "gimmick" builds are being run. Along with a passing shot at the brokenness of Jade Isle. I take a bit of an issue with the term as, at heart, every build has a gimmick. And what matters is whether it's doing what it's supposed to, not whether it conforms to any objective standard of the "perfect" build. And, in a tournament, you're supposed to win games. Complaining about that is a little like saying the forward pass is "cheap". But, anyway, beyond that, it makes a lot of sense that teams are turning towards extreme builds. As Saidin says, it's hard to prepare for everything that can be thrown at you. And the lead time between matches (Which probably isn't going to be as large with the ATs.) means there's plenty of time to come up with something off the wall that just might give you an edge. When you've got an inferior team facing a better one, that kind of curveball just might be good enough to win. It's basically what we're hoping to do in OoX tonight.

Although I imagine it must be giving the better teams fits because in the sort of stagnant metagame we're in now (Because, of course, skill updates are on lock-down until the tournament's over) the extremes to run with are a lot more apparent and widely known. While the day after the skills are rebalanced it's the teams that are running the more balanced stuff who have the edge while everyone's figuring out what's the latest hot thing to run.

Anyhow, I'm off to get some reps in before our expected match time. Playing something a bit different tonight (hopefully) so I need some practice.