Winter is usually when things change. The first big Ladle was either in December or February, depending on how you count it, but both Ladle 17 and Ladle 18 were in winter. The most important Ladle was in January. This was Ladle 29, the first of the Speeders three-peat, the first holing Ladle. It began an era from which we have yet to emerge. The first Ladle with a somewhat modern balance of power was also in January. This was Ladle 41, the first Ladle a team with a core of Spin, Eckz and Lizmatic won, and the first in which Team Unknown won a match in the finals. Unknown and Eckz and Envy’s Meet Your Maker have since won two more Ladles apiece, and mYm is on a four final streak. Lest we forget Speeders, the current champions. SP remains the winningest team out there, with an absurd record of 16 finals appearances since that tectonic Ladle 29.
So, it is winter again. Things have already begun to change. Pru died, Swift was born. With SP and mYm separating themselves from the pack this fall, a pack of solid teams has solidified. This pack includes Unk, TX, CT, R, Swift (yet to be acronymed, it seems), and PL. Among these seven, there is great parity. They trade wins and defeats with each other. They play competitive matches. They beat the teams they are supposed to beat, but cannot seem to beat those teams they so wish to: each other and the perennial finalists, SP, mym.
Things will change. The current polarity of the Ladle cannot sustain itself, simply because neither mYm nor SP has any particularly overwhelming advantage. The win where teams of similar skill lose because they have a coherent plan. For SP, it remains a derivative of that gameplan of 29, fundamentally sound, time-tested, crystal clear. mYm has shown an impressive ability to adapt to their opponent while remaining a cohesive unit. They simply have their shit together. Those seven team that don’t; they lose.
If any of those seven get their act together, or even a team outside that pack (the United Noobs come to mind) they will join those two up on the pedestal. Both mYm and SP dropped a match in an earlier round of Ladle 52. The skill levels are too close for there to be any unsurmountable cliff between them and those below.
If any of that happened no one would be particularly surprised and no one, well besides that team, would particularly care. It would be change, but nothing like Ladle 18 or Ladle 29. In those winters, fortress changed. Holing fundamentally changed fortress. It made player advantage more important, it made sumo ability more important, it made old school defensive technique subordinate to the raw strength of the defensive tactic, it put a premium on coordination within a team’s attack, it either made the sweeper critical or got rid of him altogether in favor of a sweepbox. Holing changed things. The sweepbox hasn’t. No defensive tactic can. Defense can’t change the game because defense never threatens opponent’s with defeat. Defense prevents losing but it does actively pursue victory. Occasionally, not losing is good enough to win, but defensive tactics do not pose a danger to the opponent. He can simply not engage with them, wait, bide his time. He need not react, they pose no danger. Attack changes things. No attack more effective than the holing Speeders used in Ladle 29 has been discovered. Defenses are fighting a two-year old enemy.
Preventing holes doesn’t change the game, it just slows it down. Beating holes, through better recovery methods or simply increased skill, better sweeping, better playing, seems like an alternative. The result of this would be a more free form game, more organic, essentially a regression to pre-29 fortress. With the amount of sumobar being played, increased comfort with a broken zone seems like a real possibility. Casual fortress seems to be played with a lot of broken zone on both ends of the grid. Could this trickle up to the Ladle?
Or perhaps new tactics don’t arise to replace the old. The tactics simply get smaller. Perhaps coordination reaches a higher level of detail, becomes more specific and precise. Maybe teams become far more coordinated, and just get better. Maybe people win not by doing different things but by doing things better.
Or maybe everything changes. It is winter. And the more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.
Change is always imminent.
It’s all about rock-paper-scissors. The ‘paper’ tactic has been discovered, which beats ‘rock’ by far. When teams are able to counter the new strategy, another strategy emerges which beats the former ultimate one, which perhaps can be countered best by adopting the original gameplay.
It’s all about evolution. During the 70′s, a certain butterfly’s wings were noted to become darker, as the trees’ colours they hid on changed colour due to pollution. Then, when radical ecological laws were implied, the colour of the tree lightened, and so did the colour of the butterfly’s wings.
Adapting to the environment, in tron’s case the teams. That proves (short-term) success.
When it comes to over-defending, it’s clear that even the best defenses can be broken easily. Holing is the most obvious. What we are seeing today is the not-so-obvious ways to break defenses. To me it’s like a card match. Teams are capable of making quick, complex tactical decisions, but often you don’t know if it will work until you see your opponent’s “cards” (usually at the split).
Another thing I think is noteworthy is the recent focus on center players. The center has been thrust back into the spotlight again. The fist interaction of the match happens in the middle at the split, and lately the action there has been fierce. Positions 1,2 & 3 are now coordinating attacks on the opponent’s center and wings, rather than the traditional “split, seal, speed (toward the sides).” It’s pretty crazy. But if you manage to get a kill in those first few seconds, damn, that put a team at a disadvantage for an entire round.
We all know about getting that first kill.
You forgot me in ladle 41 conc. It was liz x and me! And now we are all on mym.
If I’d known anyone was going to read it, I’d have made sure it was accurate.
Anyway, thanks, corrected now.
a) we aren’t dead, most of us just don’t have time at the moment. we will be back.
b) Swift didn’t come out of nowhere, it consists of players that have been around for quite some time now and you all know how to play fort.