#lmou | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rhapsody-crossing · 6 years

Text

S2: RSI Tournament - A Memoir (Part 4)

Part 1 HERE Part 3 HERE

10. Ready, Set, Ink! Facts

There were a total of 12 teams and 58 cephalopods that registered for this tournament.

Using Challonge, the 12 teams were divided into groups of 2 (6 teams per group). Tofu team ended up in Group A.

The tournament ran in round-robin format, meaning every teams were required to face each other within their group like so:

Team captains were required to contact each other and arrange a time for battle. All battles have to be completed before 28th July. It was not necessary to fight teams in round sequence; in fact, the rounds were merely to determine the ranked mode sequence:

Round 1 Splat Zones Tower Control Rainmaker Clam Blitz Turf War

Round 2 Tower Control Clam Blitz Splat Zones Rainmaker Turf War

Round 3 Rainmaker Splat Zones Clam Blitz Tower Control Turf War

Round 4 Clam Blitz Rainmaker Tower Control Splat Zones Turf War

Round 5 Rainmaker Tower Control Splat Zones Clam Blitz Turf War

A total of 8 teams (top 4 each group) would be qualified for Knock-Off round held on 4th August 2018.

11. Qualifying Rounds

The current tournament setting allows some flexibility under a pretty tensed deadline.

It was fun to see how other team worked: Team 7 arranged that most of their battles could be complete in a day; Maws arranged their battles on a whim; Sukalu spaced their battles to allow more training in between; ViolentlyPangoro provides a an organised availability schedule during discussions; Squidsbeak Splat Tim is only available after 12.30am.

louhai wanted to pull a Team 7, but we vehemently rejected it in consideration of our members’ battle condition. He would later (briefly) passed the leadership mantle to me in order for me to facilitate battle time between teams; poor guy was stressed out from juggling family time and team’s time arrangement-- particularly with SST.

Ideally, I wanted to finish all battles within the first few days of the week to allow some time for rest and practice; SST’s availability put a damper on my plans. I pushed the match to Friday night to control the damage on my team’s status.

a) vs YOLO (2pm, Sunday)

YOLO was a team formed by single registrants, mostly of fresh cephalopods. I had the opportunity to face them in a practice match they held with a couple of community members. The result was me doing 18 kills with a Hydra Splatling at first time usage.

(Looking back, the above experience may have contributed to me picking Heavy Splatling later.)

Aria was a concerning factor; she tends to boast a little on her network with US Spla2n players and often plays with Fito (a Malaysian Spla2n vet). She improved pretty swiftly as well in terms of ranked.

JKLAUS and Joel were assault players, but they were still very fresh.

500K was their notable long range support, I was often disturbed by her Jet Squelcher.

It seemed that my concerns were for naught, as the resulting matches were pretty one-sided. All in all, it was a curb-stomp battle with nothing notable to write of.

b) vs LMoU (Last Minute of Us) (10pm, Sunday)

LMoU is an all girls team.

Their leader, Maiki, used to participate Ink Your Heart Out! as team Avengers. It was touching to see her again, taking a more active role to boot.

Sapphire was a member of Avengers too. Other than being a popular Splatoon artist, she is also a S ranker who masterfully wields NZap ‘85.

Mogu is a new face, but she eventually becomes more familiar as she hangs out in Splatoon 2′s Messenger group chat.

hikk is also a new face. Not much is known about her, except that she uses long range weapons like Splat Charger and Dualie Squelchers.

The day before tournament started, we actually bumped into them in League. We never really had a fair battle due to the constant stream of disconnects, but the impression obtained was that they are manageable.

Splat Zones

There were two internet hiccups in the beginning, which caused an incident within the runners. Nevertheless, in ended with me hosting the match (surprisingly without any disconnects).

Splat Zones in Shellendorf Institute carries a special place in my heart because it’s where we had one of our rare victory against [ ].

For this match, slap and I started by perching on the roof. Sapphire had attempted to ambush us, but my toxic mist slowed her for a second, enough for slap to splat her with his Dynamo. We then did most of out defending below, with Kuniki and louhai flanking and ambushing.

The highlight of the moment for me was when three of LMoU members fell under my RBP. Sapphire got me in the end as if out of heroic vengeance, though she was quickly taken out by slap.

All in all, I netted a lot of good kills on this one:

Tower Control

If slap ever doubted himself, this was the battle data I would use to motivate him and remind him of his worth.

This was a particularly memorable battle where everyone moves like a clockwork. I could still remember how everyone sync’d: while the original plan was to have me on the tower, slap as the backliner/support, with Kuniki and Furi flanking together... there came a point where our roles were switched, that Furi was on tower and I was returning to the skirmish spot. Upon seeing me, slap took on the role and joined Kuniki in flanking towards the enemy base while I stood carefully at the back, pressuring enemy with my range and AoE hits. Each and everyone of us switching into different roles seamlessly, adapting towards the situation.

Rainmaker

This was a very quick run, with Furi carrying the Rainmaker towards the base. Three of us got splatted except Kuniki.

The match ended very impressively because Kuniki carried the Rainmaker to the pedestal.

Kuniki, who used to refuse to carry, carried the Rainmaker to the pedestal.

“POTG MVP!” commented Rezi on the Live Stream of this match. Yup, he certainly was for this match.

Overall, it was a good one.

c) vs Violently Pangoro (8.30pm, Tuesday)

Anticipating the fight with VP unnerves me because, unlike most teams which I had some form of data, I had nothing on them. Nada, zilch, zero.

Their battles were postponed quite often, so we ended up being their first opponents.

After a few connection issues, we managed to get onto the match:

Tower Control

Swift match, I reckon the opponents are unfamiliar with the map. We won this one without much fuss.

Clam Blitz

It is unsure whether if we let our guard down, or our opponents are adapting. We had a few easy net breaks in the beginning before they gathered themselves and defend their net well.

Nick and vp-keron were quite notable in my memory. We managed to KO bonus.

Splat Zones

They actually put up a better fight in this one! I was quite impressed considering how fresh they looked, but they really done their best.

Despite us having the KO bonus, it was wrung out of them with some difficulties.

Despite being one of the newer teams, I respect their adaptability. In terms of skill and experience, they were perhaps on par with YOLO. In fact, I was looking forward to see the battle results between them and YOLO.

(It was unfortunate that both teams ended up not fighting each other due to a feud born out of miscommunication and poor time management.)

d) vs Unclesotongs (9.30pm, Wednesday)

Unclesotongs was another old face from Ink Your Heart Out. Back then, they were known as littlesotongs. It seems that the little one has evolved into an uncle. Come next tournament, would they name themselves Grandpasotongs?

Nevertheless, my team was pretty relaxed when facing them... and that perhaps was what made the battle difficult.

Clam Blitz

Briefly recalled there was some struggle in the beginning, close calls in the middle. Ultimately, they still managed a KO bonus. slap especially guarded well.

Rainmaker

Rainmaker’s loss was mainly due to map unfamiliarity. I would pin the blame on myself for leading them on the roof when we would later learn that left and middle are more viable options. All in all, it was a painful match.

Tower Control

It was my disconnect that caused a loss on our end, but the match being really painful to play. Star was particularly good at ambushing with his roller that my hand can’t help but twitched restlessly (if only I had tri-slosher). The ground was filled by their turf, making it hard to traverse.

Splat Zones

A match that was too close for its own good. The difficulties were mostly due to the lack of range, but Tofu managed to came through after a series of zone exchanges.

Turf War

A fairly balance match, only to be thrown off due to SotongZero disconnecting.

While Tofu had won this match, it had been a wake-up call for us to not take things too easy. There were simply a lot to reflect; had we grown tardy? Was it weapon range? Why were we having difficulties with them?

12. Reflection, Splatlings and Atomic-senpai

louhai and jp_BoomSS would later have an exchange in which we would learn that UncleSotongs’ strategy was inspired by Harapan. Their curiosity on how Harapan gave us a hard time made them watch for their weapons and tactics.

The information made me sick to the stomach; it is undeniable that range and turf was one of the issues, and despite our victory, I hated on how it felt like our weakness was being exploited. I hated that I could not prevent that weakness from being exploited, that I wasn’t playing my role well enough to stop them... that I couldn’t do my job well enough as a Long Range support... all in all, I went through a quiet emo phase because I felt that I had let my team down.

Still, considering that turfing was an issue, I decided to switch to the Splatling family which would at least have both range and turfing capabilities as well as allowing me to defend myself better against melee/short range assaulter.

It was Friday evening when I started farming chunks for a Splatling set, just hours before our final match with SST. Wanting to see a familiar face (or at least attempt to be social), I randomly joined a Friend for Turf War.

Said friend happened to Atomic.

Atomic was a member of Yaoika (now Diamantia), an Oceanink Division 1 team. Thanks to our connection with Rezi, Tofu became a little more acquainted with Nameless members and few Yaoika members (namely Atomic and Goizord).

I hopped in without much expectations, just looking forward to a chill turf time; what I did not expect was me getting toyedchased around by a highly skilled player.

In fact, I would never forget that moment: I was so far off the middle of Blackbelly Skate Park when Atomic spotted me and made a beeline towards me for a kill! We danced in our base before I splatted him with a partial charge. It was an exhilarating feeling, it was like looking at Death in the eyes and survived!

Of course, the subsequent matches against him was almost impossible, but getting every splat on him was a satisfaction.

(Upon knowing that I was farming for chunks, he actually allowed me to win a few games when we’re opponents. Regardless, the gap of skill was clearly felt as he zipped towards our base in mere seconds in the beginning, and was able to hide and ambushed/squid danced at a small ink patch. If he were serious, I would probably have die a thousand deaths already.)

e) vs Squidbeak Splat Tim (12.30am, Saturday)

The original plan was to let louhai and Furi rest as they have work on Saturday, but everyone agreed in wanting to see the match ‘til the end together. At this, I was proud of Tofu’s spirit.

SST was one of the top dogs in Group A, winning most of their matches. Our match was something a few people looked forward to because it would be between two teams who had not lose a single battle.

Their team leader, Fito, is a well-known veteran who uses Splat Roller. He was the one that everyone was quite wary of (skills for others, attitude for moi).

Agent 8 (a.k.a Nao Raine) was an Ink Brush user. louhai was pretty happy when he know of this fellow Ink Brush user’s existence that he overhyped his skills.

HahA_xDD and Bryanwolol were really fresh squids who uses Tri-Slosher and Splattershot respectively.

As we roughly knew their weapons on this one, I decided to stick to Tri-slosher Noveau.

Rainmaker

There was a disconnect in the beginning on SST’s end, but my overall thoughts gathered from the battle was “Is that it?”.

Agent 8 could never beat me if we were to go face to face (yay for Tri range), and Fito wasn’t that hard to handle. I could not help but wonder if my face-off against Atomic earlier had made the battle seemed easier.

All in all, Rainmaker was a pretty smooth trip with me carrying the pedestal under Furi’s protection.

Splat Zones

Another quick one. The key was really to take out Fito and Agent 8; Kuniki went all out with that one while I turf as best as I could.

Clam Blitz

I swapped louhai to play in this one so that he would not stay up late in vain.

Furi was really familiar with this map, to the point that Kuniki called Sturgeon Shipyard Furi’s map. It showed, considering that she broke their net most of the time.

In this match, it was also clear that Fito was the one doing most of the hard work... but alas, Splatoon 2 is a team’s game, not a One Person Glory’s game.