MLG Columbus 2010

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As of the roster lock, this is how the Top 16 teams look:

The above is sourced from LastMan's thread on MLGPro.com.

A few noticeable changes in there, but the one which sticks out to me like a sore thumb is actually one of the most recent switches. SK. What. The. ****. You pick up two relatively unknown players in the '08/'09 off-season, they'd had their moments in the limelight but nothing substantial in terms of the higher placings, and then go on to pretty much dominate the '09 season. You land the first back to back tournament victories in Halo 3, the name Pistola becomes basically synonymous with Event MVP, and come the Pros Choice awards those same two players are all over the number one spots. One gets best overall, the other best pure slayer, and together they land best duo, amongst many others. And yet, after an untimely xbox failure in a really tough matchup, and with it being against Classic who are all up in your face 100% of the time so they completely capitalised on it and took the series, you completely lose faith in this superstar team? EVEN if Heinz simply wasn't working out within the team chemistry and social wise, Neighbor? Honestly?

I know, we've been here, but now we have ... this. Pistola gets dropped three days before the roster lock for Columbus, and tD pick up Totz. That's just low, seriously. FB are equally screwed over and basically have to pick up Pistola, and he has to accept or miss the event entirely and screw up his points. On both Totz and tD's part, not a classy move. I really had hope for this new FB squad, and now suddenly Totz decides to dive aboard the Titanic as it's sinking. Maybe he'll be able to fix Neighbor, idk, but honestly I kinda wanted Pistola to move on for his own sake, just not in a situation like this.

Still, come Columbus I'm gonna be watching FB closely, I want to see how much of the new approach Totz brought has rubbed off on the other 3, hopefully a noticeable amount. I also want to see how Pistola performs in an environment other than tD, its been a while since the Ambush days and he's come a long way. This is a less than perfect situation by a long way, but hopefully both parties can make something out of it. I honestly can't see this turning out to be the new dream team, the fit doesn't seem quite right, but again I've yet to see how Pistola performs in a different environment, maybe he could really work as a sneaky and aggressive 4th for FB. Idk, but I'll be rooting for them come the 4th of June.

In other news, Karma is off Heaven and Earth. Epic sadface. Dunno what I think of this new HaE lineup, can't really see Strongside or Sypher bringing a massive change to where they currently stand, and I quite liked the Orlando lineup. But the flipside of this is that Naded is now back on Carbon, which is good. That whole thing seems to be a little tense, but hopefully they'll regain that cohesion they seemed to have at the end of '09, I want to see Walshy take one more first place finish before Halo 3 is out if I'm honest.

Other changes of some note are that Power are missing the BUK twins for Columbus as they're unable to attend, so they got in two temps basically in the form of Fearris and ZooWuu. Can't really say I know anything about these players, but hopefully Power can take home some points to make this worth it, and both of those guys have toyed with the top 16 if I'm right so they know what they're doing.

Also, current 'It-Girl' aRealyGoodNoob has been picked up by Warriors after leaving Adrenaline Rush. Warriors dropped zNightmare to pick up Noob, and again I don't really know anything about these players in detail but every single word I've heard about Nightmare post Orlando was that he choked, with more than a few 'I told you so's. Pretty typical MLG Forum kid stuff, but Noob has currently got the spotlight for his individual skill, and Warriors are supposed to be a potentially strong team anyway. Darkest Hour quite frankly came from no where in terms of expectations at Orlando, so it'll be interesting to see what the bottom end of the Top 16 can do to upset those above them.

You. Thoughts? Go!

 

I demand that you make a massive "Do a Barrel Roll!" sign, and I wana see it in the main stage bleachers during the finals .

 

It's not strictly Columbus related, but I just saw this on MLG:

Stride Championship episode 2

Two pretty good matches, but what stuck out to me was what Roy said in the pregame interview bits (about 5:50). I can't remember if these interviews were shown before, but I certainly don't remember them if they were:

The sentiment itself is nothing new, even this thread is pretty devoid of pro-Neighbor posts, same for the whole of tD now tbh. But still, stronger words than I expected from his former team mate of over a year, obviously he's more than comfortable sharing on the subject. I hope Str8 actually do something for Columbus and get their turn at thrashing new tD, needs to happen.

 

I get what you mean, but in the case of dropping Heinz, he himself said in an interview that SK was very much the one applying the pressure. Whilst you can't always believe what players say about questionable team changes, in this case Heinz frankly has no reason to lie about who was the driving force behind him being dropped. I for one got the impression that Heinz perceived SK and, to a slightly lesser extent, Hysteria as the main ones pushing for him to leave.

As for dropping Pistola, Neighbor has been on the team for one event. Obviously if you're part of a team, you're part of a team and there shouldn't be any sort of settling period where you have a lesser say as a member if that team. But tD at the point Neighbor joined, ie. SK, Hysteria, Pistola and Bravo (to be fair, he at least seems to be as much a part of the team as the others in terms of having a voice), I feel that being overly OK with a new player joining and immediately questioning the dynamic of the 3 current members is a bit odd. Obviously they agreed on the count of dropping Pistola, Hysteria as well you're right. But tbh I think team leader does factor outside the game. During the '09 season when tD members did Timeout articles or suchlike, we heard how SK was the driving force behind the team as a whole, keeping the practice schedule tight and giving that sense of direction (whilst not always friendly it would seem) to the team.

Put it like this, would SK ever get dropped from tD, or would the members that would drop him leave instead? I personally think the latter, which kind of makes the point in itself. Obviously he didn't make the decision completely on his own, and it's not like he could just ignore what Neighbor, Bravo or, even more so, Hysteria say. But everything that has been said on the subject indicates that it was SK at the core of actually deciding to drop players, an informal final word and always the one doing the deed. This isn't just true with Pistola and Heinz either, even back to the drop of FiS there was that same sense, and Snip3down was quick to chime in alongside Heinz with his thoughts on being an ex-tD member when Str8 picked up Heinz.

Sorry, kinda rant there, but I've lost alot of love for tD as a team and SK as a leader. Hysteria's always had that image as a bit of a **** tbh, only during mid '09 did he actually start shrugging that off by association as people started to like tD, but SK seemed more level headed back then.

OT: Loving FB in the WBF tomorrow. Honestly I'm kinda disappointed to see Str8 lose to BtH, the latter are looking incredibly strong but I wanted to see Str8 finally get their act together, why exactly this lineup is consistently failing to come together is still beyond me. Also disappointed to see Illuminati taken down by Carbon, I was hopeful after they 3-0'd Classic, but obviously Ghost and crew just aren't on form for Columbus or they wouldn't be on their way home right now.

Power have secured at least top 12, win. I really hope they can follow this up with another strong performance next event, when the BUKs are back. I'm also hoping Frenetic Array manage to get past Ambush, though I see they've just fallen behind 2-1 in the series after fumbling a solid lead on Guardian Ball. It was really good to see those guys from Aus walk in with 128th seed and laughs on every side ever since that thread went up on MLG saying they were coming, then almost immediately dominate 49 Yellow Dragons and proceed to destroy the Open Bracket. Tbh even at this point they could lose and still have infinite bragging rights over all the teams who called them out on the forums, but I'd like to see them go further.

EDIT: Dang, Frenetic Array just got knocked out by Ambush, but at least they still have a shot at a 17th place finish and have secured at least 20th for sure. With Power and now Fray, "come play me On LAN you foreign kid from country X" seems more and more like famous last words when spoken by overconfident US AM players. Going from 128th to 20th seed within the space of one day, that's gotta be some kind of record right?

Also, checking now, Power have got a tough road ahead of them, it looks like they're going to have to beat SQ, then Str8, then Classic (assuming Cat 5 or AR don't beat Classic), then Carbon and then BtH (again, assuming that no one from the bottom half of the bracket like tD, HaE or Warriors don't take down BtH first, but I can't see that happening) to get to the LBF. I honestly don't expect them to get to LBF, but the further they get along that chain of games the happier I'll be. Hopefully they can ride off SQ getting trashed by Instinct and get past them, if they do I don't think Str8 are that unimaginable a challenge.

 

@Insane: agreed. You sort 'him out proper when you get there.

I missed the FB/Carbon match but just watched it back on the rebroadcast, they're looking so good right now. FiS going +16 and 41 assists from OGRE 2 in game 4 was just insane, and Pistola is fitting in so well. He's not putting up the big numbers all the time, but tbh he doesn't need to and is meshing really well with FB's current style, running around like a crazy man and messing with the entire other team. I was dubious about this new FB, I wanted so much for it to work as a lineup but wasn't sure if it would after being such a forced move, but now we have an FB-Instinct WBF.

I'm still not 100% convinced they will take down Instinct, especially since they still seem to have a little trouble warming up and it's their first match of tomorrow. Instinct can apparently play at full pelt from game 1, so even if FB take the event (which I sincerely hope they do) I can see them having to do it from the LB. I hope for their sake that I'm wrong, because coming from a series down against Instinct in the finals would be daunting to say the least.

EDIT: Just glanced at the k/d leaderboard and Neighbor is in first with +94, way ahead of Royal 2 in second with +59. I know these leaderboards are often indicative of how much people have played more than who was putting up the best numbers overall at the event, but I think it's hilarious to see Neighbor up there with tD in the position they are. Could he possibly be resorting to stat whoring at the cost of the team again? Surely not...