EVE Alliance Tournament Discussion

Wanted to give a summary of our tourney experience this year, and a few shout outs to all the people that helped make this victory possible.

I returned to the "captain" position this year in the hopes of re-claiming the title for PL, but a lot has changed in the last couple years. I'd say this year I was more of a General Manager than a captain. There is so much talent in PL, from theorycrafters, fc's, logistics etc. The trick really is to figure out ways to keep them all doing what they do best.

Elise Randolph wasn't there for the final weekend, but he really deserves a lot of credit for this victory. He ran most of our practices...probably about 50 practices in total. I've never seen that kind of dedication to the sometimes grueling tournament testing that we do.

As for theorycrafting, we had some great people working hard this year. blackhorizen designed many of our core teams, from our rushes to our tinkers. Gobbins was also a strong contributor here, constantly posting new ideas and new tweaks to existing ideas. And strong work was done by RnBonnet, Dez Affinity, Seijen, Lee Daulton, and last but not least Straife. Straife has been inventing creative setups for years, which we often end up not being able to use, but this year he designed the team that we won the finals with. My hat is off to his persistence with the theorycrafting for all these years. That setup filled a huge gap in our lineup, and provided our only reliable counter our "7.6 Domi" sentry drone team which was used against us.

On to piloting. There are too many great pilots to list. We had a lot of guys really step up their game this year, no doubt due to Elise's insane testing regiment. I will mention a few people who performed very well despite what the announcers may have lead you to believe.

Tinkeng - One of the best logi pilots I've ever flown with. Very versatile, a good communicator. He did an excellent job this year match after match. All those times you saw him out of rep range were because I told him to stay out of rep range. He was following orders.

Blast X - It was difficult having 2 top notch Logi specialists this year. I had to make tough decisions. Ultimately I tended to favor Tink because his english is better, but Blast is beyond a doubt the best Tinker Logi pilot in all of eve. He proved that in the 3rd Exodus match. I don't know anybody else who would have survived that.

Fmerc - He lost an utu, and took a lot of **** for it. But I specifically told him to fly that utu like it was an ishkur. He did his job, and he died with honor. If you give people limited issue ships and they don't fly them like any other ship, then you lose the match.

Dancul - Dancul may be smug, but that is also what makes him a great pilot for the tournament. When you give somebody a 50 billion isk ship to fly, they better have nerves of steel and confidence to match. Dancul never waivered.

With regards to logistics, Kearl, PhalanxIII, and slackjawed collectively worked through the night on saturday to get everything ready for sunday. Without their hard work, we had no chance.

The final day was by far the most grueling day I've ever had in eve. The pace of it all was overwhelming. After about 6 matches I was near my braking point. The fitting, the logistics, the strategizing. It's immensely stressful. When I hit my breaking point, Gobbins and Dancul stepped up big time. Dancul took over in the Tinker match. Nobody knew what to do, so I handed the reins to him, and he did some amazing fc'ing for the final 3 minutes of the match that no doubt kept Blast alive. For the finals, morale was incredibly low, but Gobbins still believed, and he kept coming up with creative ideas. Gobbins and Dancul fc'ed 70% of our final matches against hydra. I took a back seat and did some fun frigate piloting...too burned out to grasp the strategic side of things anymore.

I also can't forget to mention the most valuable meta-gaming contributors this year. Elise and Sala Cameron did some amazing next level intel gathering that did give us a slight edge in many of our earlier matches. I don't want to go into too many details here, but they did amazing work. I also can't forget to mention Captain Thunk. When I woke up Sunday morning he sent me a message. He had stayed up late and written a nice CREST analysis tool for us, that was very valuable at figuring out what other teams had fitted after the matches. (Possibly too valuable, I still think CCP should reconsider this).

It was a team win this year. So many contributors. I am very proud of what PL has grown into.

A note for CCP: Triple omni sentry drones that can hit frigates going 4000 m/s with full claymore bonuses...you probably want to look into that.


I also want to tip my hat to Ronin, and Exodus. You guys were fantastic opponents this year. One of you will no doubt claim the title in the near future. Agony, you guys were serious contenders that I wasn't happy about fighting twice. Look forward to seeing what the future holds for you.

And of course, gg Hydra. We'll see you again soon ;)

Great work all around!



Hannah McKay poisons deb and dexter.

Logistics were fortunate enough to be able to relax a bit on the final day. We had a few scrambles when the team conjured up a couple of compositions on the fly, but all in all we were able to keep everyone in ships, even when it came down to the last few minutes (which it did a couple of times).

Proud is a good word to describe it.

Congrats to the entire team, and your incredible comeback.

Hydra, hats off as well.

The secret to pl's victory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siwpn14IE7E

Oh' and touching my penis. ;)

dear santa i want the 80's back...

gg :) amazing tournament great job and well deserved win o7

Some really neat stats:

PL setups posted: 141
Hours spent practicing: ~150
Team size: 40
Flagship cost: 50 billion (pretty sure it's the most expensive)
Most expensive team: 310 billion (we never fielded it)
Matches played: 18
Damage done (isk): 180b (1st)
Damage taken (isk): 82b (3rd)
Ships killed: 159 (1st)
Ships lost: 80 (1st)

Some of my favorite team names
* Sweet Home Spergeabama
* Sharknado
* Kronosaurus
* Hypechantress

By far some of the most exciting e-sports I have ever watched. Great matches all day yesterday, and the finals were amazing. Grats to PL and Hydra for their winnings.

Shamis Orzoz in ATXI - The Return of the King

Congrats guys! Well done.