Episode 1 — Despair
06/28/2022–11:00 PM — 20 Hours until the draft
I get notified that my name was ‘’randomly’’ picked and I am forced to captain as I was going to bed. I am wide awake, season ruined, night ruined, life ruined. I had dinner plans for the draft night, on top of that I have a day job. How was I expected to captain on such short notice..? Were these admins not thinking of anything when they were using a method like this? Why was it done at such last second? Who was I going to pick? Who was going to do the draft for me? I had many questions in my head that night, which caused me to get no sleep. I scrapped a dodge and want list together and started to look for someone who can do the draft for me with Kimer’s help.
06/29/2022- 10:30 PM — 10 Seconds after the draft
Thankfully Ekken stepped up and drafted for me. He managed to draft me the team below which considering everything, it’s not the worst thing.
I knew most of the players I got and Mads was one of the players I wanted. We didn’t really have any star players but it looked like a balanced team that could work together. Maybe the season wasn’t going to be that bad?
Episode 2 — I was wrong, the beach episode
07/01/2022
Three of my players notify me they could not make it to 1st official gameday. Mads thinks the season is not starting for another week… Starting the season with such a blow, will we ever be able to recover I think to myself. This not only puts us behind on the scoreboard but also we miss a chance to play together and figure out how our team will work the best. Big blow to my plans of winning the season. But there is always hope…
Episode 3 — No Hope
07/13/2022- — 07/21/2022
Two quick series that deliver us to 0–6. In the 2nd week, We were trying to still sort out what was going on in the team and who plays what. I have to mention we did well on lanes most of these games but it all broke down around 10 min mark and we just could not organize for mid-game. Couldn’t play together at all as a team. Aronix had some weird issues with calls the first couple of weeks, Thron was just on a different rhythm, Mads was trying to let me make calls but not following them half the time and I was trying to make calls which were half bad, half ignored. It was pure chaos, still, I did not hate playing during this period. People felt like they were trying and no one was really being a dick. I appreciate that. This doesn’t change the fact that we were at the bottom of our bracket with 0–6.
Episode 4— Some Hope?
07/27/2022
Our first win was against tammyB’s team(Go next IDC). From my perspective we did great in both games even in the game we lost we had an advantage early on, sadly had problems coming together as always. But in game 2 somehow we managed to have a superior draft. Aronix and Stl both brought their A-game. If I could get them to play like that all season we would go to places. Just to give you a perspective on how good they played I was basically useless the entire game so they won 4v5. I was really proud of my team here and felt somewhat hopeful after our 1–7 run maybe for the first time and we had some team morale
08/03/2022
This matchup was personal. We were facing Kimer’s team and he was the one who caused all this and made me captain. I was determined to make him pay one way or another. My team was also quite excited to make them suffer aswell.
1st game was pure despair. We tried to draft as meta as possible with Zeus, Bristle, and Puck but it was not working at all. I did nothing that game as Zeus and I banned stl from saying Zeus during drafts from that point. All lanes were lost. All hope, dreams.
2nd game something happened that changed everything… Something unexpected… something that would make us tie the series.
During the draft I ran out of time and instead of picking Visage, I randomed Dark Seer. Honestly, this was super lucky because Aronix has been asking for Dark Seer previously and we kinda had a draft that worked around it. I ended up transitioning into carry role and stl took over the 4 role due to him not being comfortable playing pudge.
Mads played great that game, Darkseer clock lane went well and I wasn’t completely useless. Thron even almost made us win the lane. (We did lose the lane but its the effort that counts) I do also have to mention I noticed Thron spacing off at the start of the game and not joining the rune fights. After confronting him about it turned out he was busy making memes.
Team morale was up at this point and things were not looking too dire. We actually had a shot at making it to the playoffs if we win both of our next series. It was not easy but also not impossible.
08/10/2022
For this playday again both of my highest mmr players and cores together made a plan behind my back and informed me the previous weekend that both of them are going on a holiday again and won’t be able to play the entire week. So rescheduling was not possible. I started searching for 2 standings asap. We were facing Dodgydan which was the other team at the bottom of our group. This was the easier team to 2–0 and I had high hopes of getting those wins. After extensive searches and writing over 20 people and finding 2 standins Dodgydan informed me all 4 of his players were not going to be able to make it to the game and he had to ff. Later on, I learned that he couldn’t be bothered to find standins and he went drinking with his friends instead.
The dream was not impossible anymore. If we win our next two games we were in playoffs and if we 1–1 we still had a chance depending on what happens in the other matchup. Maybe finally team was coming together and we were going to ride this high until the finals.
Episode 5— The Breakdown
08/17/2022
A lot of things went wrong here. Obviously, you already know we did not make it to the playoffs. No one has seen Mads since the gameday and Stl had to take kids and went into hiding. What happened?
Well, the problem started a week ago when we missed another playday together just when we started working things out. We had to start this playday again figuring out what we can do to win. We did a completely different draft. I had it written on my head GIVE MADS PLAYMAKING HEROES NO FARMING STL FARMS. Well, that got erased and I picked TA for mads for some reason. We tried the carry pudge lane again with Stl 4. Really did not work. Thron informed me he is blind before the game, I thought he was joking but he did lose his contact lenses so he couldn't see anything. We lost the lane horribly. All lanes were lost in fact. We did try to come together a couple of times but mads asked to call gg around 20 min mark.
The first game was horrible, honestly our worst game this season but not for long.
2nd game we put Stl back to his carry role and tried to actually draft like usual, whatever that means. It did somewhat work at the start, we did okay in lanes other than the safe lane. But in our usual trend, we broke down mid-game and mads was asking for ff at around 15 min mark. All dreams were lost just like that. 2 quick games.
Episode 6 — The Aftermath
Now I am sitting here looking back on the journey if you can call it that. It surely wasn’t great but it was also not unpleasant. What went wrong? Who is to blame? What could we have done better?
All of those questions I will talk about but I will start with the beginning. Forcing a random player to captain in less than 24 hours left to the draft is bullshit. If I had time I would’ve scouted better and prepared better for the draft.
Having both cores miss 2 playdays and ffing one series entirely. This hit us hard and it really stopped us from coming together and figuring out ourselves as a team. At our last series after the break, I really didn’t know what we were doing as a team still and I doubt any of us did. This can be tied to not following calls properly ingame and not being able to work together.
Being a high-MMR support captain. I tried captaining 7 years ago before this and never after that. You just cannot get a decent draft going as a high MMR support player. In RD2L you need a star player and you can’t get that if you pick late. We did have a really balanced team. I would say none of our players were bad, maybe thron when he couldn’t see. But this all went down when the enemy had one mid-6k core who knew how to farm. It just makes the entire experience an uphill climb and I suggest either playing core or not drafting if you are above 5k as support.
Individual Player Review(Credits)
Thronplunder
Thron just is as lost as the day I met him years ago as a support player. He just struggles as support and underdelivers. He does have his moments when he presses buttons and follows you but you also notice a lot when he is just not there with you and I don’t know what he is thinking. Also, I feel like he just forgets about buying wards and sentries some games. I went out of my way to check the average sentries bought by him the entire group stage and ended up with 19.6. This varies from 7 to 29 which is not great. Buy more sentries thron! To finish it with sweet words, thron is a nice individual and I never had any problems with him as a person. He usually tries to listen to you but sometimes I just don’t know what happens and it is frustrating knowing he can do better.
Aronix
My first season with Aronix and I really didn’t have any high expectations. It was a bit disappointing at the start due to him just not hearing/following calls at all. Later on however, he became the player I depend on the most in the team. Had great Nightstalker/Darkseer/Slardar performances. Honestly, a reliable offlane. Probably my best pick!
Stl
Stl is really as chill as it gets. He did scouting for us which I really appreciated. He is just another average carry player. We had trouble figuring out what to pick with him early on, once we did he went on a holiday so we forgot again. He didn’t shine most of the games however he had his moments. In some games, he just couldn't find any farm but that also was caused by us not being able to come together as I mentioned before to give him the space. I have to complain about him missing two game days, he is a dad but still.
Mads
Mads was one of the players I wanted in the draft and ended up being my first pick. Honestly, I don’t know what I expected from this guy maybe I just like losing games with him. Ingame his lanes usually weren’t won but didn’t go as bad as I thought they were. I also blame myself a bit for not giving him the right heroes in some games. The biggest complaint I have is him dropping the mood, especially on the later games just wanting to give up when everyone else is still trying. Yes, it was unlikely to win these games and we lost them but it feels fucking horrible to hear him say ‘’shall we call it/let’s call it/alright gg’’ after losing a team fight in our t2’s before 20 mins. Also did miss 2 playdays.
Me(Techies) and Mads(Beastmaster) losing to Miracle in 2015
Roran
Probably my worst season yet, I have to admit I did tilt when my calls were not being followed even if some were bad and stopped making calls which made the situation worse in most games. I also did drafts for the team which I am horrible at. Fucked up a bunch there wasting bans and randoming even though it worked out. I really did not want to be a captain but I still tried to be one. I hope it was not too disappointing to be on my team. Made a lot of mistakes ingame too ofc, at least I didn’t miss any gamedays and found standings for my team unlike dodgydan so hey, could be worse. At least you get to have the best team review in the season? At least the longest one. :)
I just want to still thank everyone on the team, even when we got shit on I honestly had fun most weeks. Thank you for keeping it cool and relax. Thank you Ekken for drafting for me on such short notice. Thank you Morgs for offering to standin in case dodgydan’s team showed up and good luck to all the teams in the playoffs!
Closing Words(After Credits Scene)
Did you read all this? Gratz and thank you if you did. I hope you enjoyed it. I will tank a ban for sure next time if I ‘’randomly’’ get picked to be a captain.
