| Menu | TEN: APL One Part Three | |
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- News - Introduction |
We defeated AKA and our season finale versus KaM was coming up. We wanted to avenge the loss they gave us in the three vs four match up we had earlier in the season. I was on my Pentium and the Cougars were able to field at least three other players, so we were in good shape. Rat, Grumm, and Khaladan showed up for this match. I remembered Khaladan was getting yelled at by another KaM throughout this match, while the others were engaging in intense combat. It turned out to be a pretty exciting game. Gummyworms was playing for KaM in this game, and he was the best KaM skill-wise. I remembered Gummy was one of the people I was trying to recruit into Cougar before he joined KaM. Grumm liked him as well, but he was our opponent now. He was constantly trying to motivate his team on the field, but KaM was going to have to work harder to beat us today because we have four people. After some intense battling, the match score became 2-2 and KaM was able to capture our flag and leave our base with it. However, the match had to be restarted because I believe someone pinged and an outsider came into the game. KaM was pretty pissed, but the referee said that they did not bring the flag halfway home so the flag will not count. The game was restarted and the score remained 2-2 while we entered overtime. In overtime, I was able to grab KaM's flag and sneak out of their base through the top half of the map with no KaM in sight to stop me. Halfway home, it looked like to be a sure run and I was pretty excited because it was sudden death. I capped the flag and Cougar won their season finale and avenged their earlier loss. It felt good to contribute to the team, especially by scoring the winning cap. However, our season ended there because we piled up too many losses because of our lackluster attendance. Grumm's scenario did not account for Dog and Bunny tying, and that was exactly what happened. Dog was showing the world what a newly formed clan of new players can do in the ARC scene. The playoffs were about to start and the Pink Bunnies were looking to follow up their Clanwars title with an APL title. Throughout the APL season I was playing against various clans and TBWA really impressed me. They were really good at attacking from every angle and there isn't a more helpless feeling in the world than getting raped from all sides. I felt TBWA was the team to beat this APL. My favorite underdog clan in the playoffs would have to be Dog. When they were newly formed before APL, I knew they were good. I was also a big fan of their clan leader, DogBaby. Nobody was able to kill me faster on my 486 than DogBaby on TEN. He was extremely deadly in up-close combat. His missiles were heat-seeking. He was also pretty much the lesser known new guy who was really good at ARC. Since TEN allowed users to create their own games and invite people that they liked, cliques became really apparent. DogBaby wasn't really a part of the "vet" crowd, but he had the skill to match them, in my opinion. After we were unable to recruit him, DogBaby formed his own clan called Dog. He rounded up all the newer players he met in maps like madwars etc. DogBaby was a very charismatic guy. He was also a very enthusiastic guy, I would say, when he was playing on TEN, he was the most enthusiastic ARCer of all-time. Clan Dog soon grew to be very big. The roster included Xeromos, Pengo, MooCow, and Trem to name a few. They were all newer players and relatively unknown. Pengo was probably the Dog that drew the most attention to himself. In front of veterans he would act all goody goody, but in front of other people he would constantly throw temper tantrums. My first meeting with Pengo was on my "asdf1" name in Map of TEN wonders, what we call Small now. He was flagging and I was able to kill him with an off-screen missile and he proceeded to embark on a series of obscenities. His trash talking and temper tantrums became his trademark. TR, led by Blizzard, was another clan I observed. My sister was playing ARC one day and I believe TR-ZapDos was talking some trash. My sister told me to kill him, so I played a life for her and immediately killed him. I didn't think too much of TR at the time, although I didn't really observe them closely either. Technique was another person that was in TR. Technique was one of the first good ARCers I met on my 486. We were playing GO against a team of veterans. I was on my 486 at the time and my teammates included Technique and Purplemop. Purplemop turned out to be a smurf and was really Pinchy. At the time, I thought Technique was a smurf as well because I have never heard of him, and it just seemed like a name a smurf would use. I was playing on my 486, and the game was large enough that I basically could not see a thing. Technique and Purplemop fought valiantly, but the veteran team eventually overran us. TR was a good clan, but they didn't really intimidate me. The first round of the playoffs had Dog against TR. When I saw the result on the website, I was shocked that TR beat Dog 3-0. I don't know who played for each team, but I was thinking that if TR can beat Dog 3-0, surely they can ride that momentum and do well in the next round. Well next round TR went up against Bunny, and I don't know who played in this match either, but the result was an eye-popping 3-0 victory by Bunny. So I'm thinking to myself, "Dog gets 3-0d by a team who gets 3-0d by another team?" ARC is so crazy. Since I don't know the lineups that played for either team, I'm not going to analyze further. The finals game was a game that was going to be legendary. The biggest comeback by a team on the biggest stage. Bunny was down 0-2 against TBWA, who was looking to avenge their 3-0 loss to the Bunny team in Clanwars. Bunny fielded Astrok, Omnislash, Ironlung and Halcyon while TBWA fielded Guess, Eternity, Nanosecond, Day61. Bosh subbed in for Omni and that seemed to be the miracle cure for Bunny, as they capped on TBWA twice to send the game into overtime. One more cap by Bunny and they sealed yet another victory and proved that Bunny dominance wasn't going to go away anytime soon. After the Bunny victory, Bosh posted on ARC forums and conveyed the message that he felt that Bunny wasn't receiving the recognition they deserved for winning the APL. Perhaps this played a role in him taking a less active role in ARC leagues from that point on, but that is just assumption. After Clanwars and the first APL, a dynasty was about to break a part. Yes, it wasn't the longest dynasty and some may argue it wasn't a dynasty at all. However, no one can deny how dominant Bunny was during the earliest years of league play. Led by arguably the best ARCer at the time, Astrok, Bunny was the team you never should bet against, because they will always find a way to win. It was also interesting to note that Astrok left TBWA for Bunny and that it was Bunny who eliminated TBWA twice now. I wonder if there was any bad blood between him and TBWA. Anyone who knows Astrok though, knows he is not the confrontational type, so if there was a rivalry, it wasn't a heated one. The Pink Bunnies was a multi-gaming clan and they have a ton of members. They recruited a lot of people, from ARC and from other games as well. This was one of the reasons Bosh left PB, it wasn't a tight-knit group anymore. It got too big for his tastes. Astrok left and pretty soon PB's ARC division would never be the same again. My semester was over and I went home for a one month vacation. During the winter, Perite and Buju and the rest of the ZULUs were organizing a duel tournament. They created a map where there were multiple dueling arenas inside it. They coordinated the whole event on blue and assigned each group of two to duel in a arena. This seemed like another cool sporting event, and we had a fair amount of spectators watching on the blue team. The way the duel tourney works was like this: The ZULU leaders held many duel tournaments at various times during the week. The top players of each duel tournament advance to the super bowl tournament, where they would duel to determine the champion. The winner of each duel tournament would go straight to the final tournament and would be unable to participate in future qualification tournaments. I participated in a duel tournament and was selected to play Queen in the first round. I was kind of happy she was my first round opponent since she wasn't really known to be the most skillful ARCer. I was still nervous as hell though. I ended up winning the duel 5-1. Second round was a different story. I had to face the legendary Access Denied. Damn my luck. Now I was starting to think that maybe it wasn't that great that I had an easy opponent in the first round. I didn't feel I was warmed up at all. AD got off to a quick start on me, using his long range tactics to perfection. I was quickly down 0-2 in the duel. It was do or die time, I needed a miracle. I convinced myself that there was plenty of time to make a comeback in this duel. I forced myself to deepen my concentration greatly, and we traded deaths the rest of the duel. AD beat me as I expected, but I was a little disappointed that I got off to such a slow start on him. I felt better about my performance after the tournament when I eventually asked him what happened while I was gone. It turns out he breezed through the tournament and beat the finalist, 5-0 (some smurf named Adrenaline-). AD was a machine. My sister got into the action as well and joined a duel tournament. It turns out she had a personal cheerleader in DogBaby. My sister played DeadEye while Doggy was cheering her on. She seemed to frustrate DeadEye a lot and he started to spit out a lot of complaints and started calling her a lagger. Our ping at home averaged about 150 so I just laughed at that comment. She beat DeadEye, which impressed me a lot. He was, after all, a former TBWA. I guess I underrate my sister too much. She lost in the second round however, and that put an end to her tournament experience. I joined my second duel tournament and this time my first round opponent was FFoD_Icer. I beat him 5-3 and played Kam_Bilbo second round. I beat him 5-2 and then I had to play Doggy_SiD. If there was one ARCer out there that I thought I never matched up well against, this was him. DogBaby always hit me with his heat-seeking missiles, so my strategy was to play a long range game with him. It turns out it didn't work. He surprised me with his accurate bouncy shots as well, so I scrapped that strategy and just went back to how I originally played and ate his missiles. He won this duel 5-3. However, since I made it to the third round of the tournament, it was double elimination. I was still in it. I played WizardZULU and beat him 5-3 to earn a spot in the super bowl tournament. Onto the super bowl tournament! Astrok, the most popular ARCer of the time joined this one. I had to admit, his presence alone gave me some anxiety. AD, unfortunately, did not join this one. However, the tournament was filled with so many great ARCers that one couldn't complain. Xero_SiD had to go up against Astrok first round. I felt sorry for Xeromos. My first round opponent was redboxx. While I was dueling him I noticed that Astrok and Xeromos was trading deaths and their duel was extremely competitive. I didn't pay too much attention to their duel though, I was too focused on mine. I beat redboxx 5-3, and boxx received a lot of compliments from the peanut gallery for his efforts. I looked up on the scoreboard and noticed Astrok and Xeromos was tied at 4-4! I was surprised. I thought Astrok would have won by now. Then the unexpected happened. Xeromos got the last kill and Astrok was eliminated in the first round! I was shocked but Xeromos played it cool, like it was no big deal. Astrok had a few words to say about what he thought was less than optimum playing conditions, and left. My second round opponent was QuantmZULU, also known as Blacken. Quantum seemed to have extreme difficulties with his ISP today. I estimate his ping was over 800. He was constantly warping everywhere on the map and his lasers came out in bursts. Despite all this, I managed to kill him in 15 seconds to go up 1-0. He then had one final lag jump and lagged out of the game. He never came back, so I advanced to the third round, and also double elimination. Baron_ZULU was one of the most incredible duelers of the time. He was able to beat DogBaby in their duel. That alone impressed me. However, he wasn't done. I was thinking that Xeromos was going to do a lot of damage this tournament since he beat Astrok, but Baron beat Xero 5-3. I was thinking to myself: "holy shit, Baron is the man." Now it was between Baron and me for first place in the super bowl tournament! I was able to start off strong in this duel and I had Baron smoking while I had full life. However, he gutted it out and took me down to half before I finished him off. We traded deaths the rest of the way and it was soon tied 4-4. It was not only 4-4, but we were both smoking as well. I remembered I was about to move in to finish Baron off but Baron fired a missile at me. The missile missed me and went past me but it hit the wall behind me. The shrapnel that sprung from the wall grazed my ship and that was enough to kill me. Baron was still smoking after he killed me. Damn, I was disappointed. I thought the tournament was over, but it turned out I still had to face Xeromos for second place. I forgot it was double elimination. I was so mentally exhausted from my duel with Baron that Xero quickly got out to a 3-0 lead on me. The peanut gallery started asking me if I was feeling well or not. I gathered my wits about me and the duel ended up in a 5-2 loss. From one laser of winning the tournament to falling to third place in a matter of minutes. That's what I call a disappointment. I congratulated Xero for giving me a good ass beating, and logged off ARC. Despite losing, I felt pretty good about my performance. Not only as an individual but as a representative of my clan. I don't remember seeing any Cougars in the tournament, and I was proud that I got as far as I did, wearing a tag that represented a very underrated clan. Cougar pride, baby. |
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| HFront - Part One - Part Two |
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| TEN - APL1 Part 1 - APL1 Part 2 - APL1 Part 3 more to come |
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| Early WON | ||
| Late Won/Sierra | ||
| CaDF Website | ||
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