Alright, so I was captain this season! And…
I did it again. I drafted two highly competent high-mmr players and filled the team with anchors. The first time around it was Luke + Noah, this time it was Elliot Pudge/Milk + QuadBuck.
In brief: this was one of my happier RD2L seasons.
I haven't written a blog in a long time because I’m a washed support player who tends to regret signing up after the first two weeks of a season. I bargain with myself about whether I should stick out the season or ditch. Similar to the seasons before, we lost a lot of games. We floundered on team strategy, didn’t really scrim, but somehow managed to (mostly) show up on Sundays. So, what was different?
I named the server PMA RD2L Team as a joke, but I must say that the drafting advice that Velvelvel and Doomcow gave me was spot on. They told me that both of the high mmr players I picked were PMA/skilled and Gachi spam pinged me to pick Adrian (TripleRainbow). Aug assured me that Adrian was PMA and also very good pick. Newbs got drug into my lane as some sort of budget psych experiment. (Sorry Newbs).
While I feel bad that we didn’t do well, I can’t emphasize enough how different it is to have a team where no one is actively aggressive on comms. There were times when discontentment was high, especially between games as we worked on what we could have done better. However, at the end of each Sunday night, our chat had no overt blaming. Quad occasionally spoke of overall strategy with some statement like, “We needed to rotate more as a team”, but that was it. Even after a horrible performance the week before, my team was willing to pick me the same hero again. It was genuinely touching to have that kind of support. As everyone suggested at the start of the season, I was the most negative person on the team.
I’m not going to go into the individual strengths of any players specifically — I’ll let their games and bizarro (but highly endearing) playstyles speak for them. (And I’ll let my abysmal Wyvern winrate speak for me.) I would draft any of them again, though I know they’d be praying for any other captain. I’d play on this specific team over some playoff teams I’ve been on where the environment was toxic. At the risk of sounding like a sad carebear, RD2L is more fun with PMA people, and I’m starting to understand friendstack drafters.
Better luck next season, Quad, EP, Adrian, and Newbs. May the auction draft be ever in your favor. I’m glad I got to play with y’all.