CRAP (Prev: 3) CRAP 2–0'ed Steven’s team in what looks like a back and forth series. This CRAP team actually has the best tri-core in the division. Not totally sure how I overlooked them Week 0. Could I have been wrong about Steven’s team being the clear favorite? Or for ranking CRAP’s team so low Week 0? It’s early and time will tell. It’s too late to change my opinion on a ‘favorite’ (Steven) but CRAP has earned the #1 slot until they lose.
Zend (Prev: 3) Zend’s lower MMR cores continue to play well and Vktr owns in a tightly contested 1–1 against Forest Bear’s team. It still seems not great to have your second highest MMR at the 5 role. Probably not value. But it’s working so far. Not sure if they will stick up at the top throughout the season… but if they crash and burn at least they now have the clout that comes with the #2 slot on Toth’s power rankings.
Forest Bear (Prev: 5) Forest Bear 1–1'ed Zend team; which is a solid result. They have a pretty nice MMR distribution, but they do lack a super high MMR player and the shotcalling/drafting that goes with such players. In a different season; this would be concerning… but most teams have that same deficiency. Regardless, not totally sold yet. But they have earned this #3 spot early on.
Jabinskiz (Prev: 14) No bias here. Expect a #1 placement after a 2–0 next week.
Steven (Prev: 1) I’m gonna give Steven’s team the benefit of the doubt. On paper they still look very strong. And if you are gonna get 2–0'ed, CRAP’s team is the best one to do it against. At least for the purposes of these rankings. It looks like they had some iffy drafts, and Rhyzerz didn’t have the best mid performances. I’m expecting a 2–0 next week so my pre-season predictions aren’t totally shot.
Rabisu (Prev: 7) Meh. They 1–1'ed a weaker team, so they get to stay about where they were last week. Riv had a 17/0 mid Grim performance. Hmmm. The upcoming CRAP matchup will be indicative if this team is legit or not. I might get flamed for this placement but I’m petty and they beat my team.
Pneuma (Prev: 10) Have I been sleeping on the Pneuma boys? This Linkdx player owned again. Actually wtf happened in this Gronaldo series? How did Pingaling (I thought he was a 4 player?) get an 11 minute Bfury on Bounty Hunter? Can someone actually explain? Anyways this is my new dark horse team for the season. I’m still a big Gronaldo believer and Pneuma’s squad decimated him (on his Ember!!).
MOCA (Prev: 6) Full disclosure I kinda forgot they existed and now they are here. It feels pretty bad to move a team that 2–0'ed down. Idk they played a weak Neku team. I just don’t think their team comp is anything more than average compared to the rest of the division. Their strength is in their RD2L experience. And you can never underestimate the power of Admins. Probable playoff team.
Gronaldo (Prev: 4) Gronaldo? 1–3? You are single handedly ruining my pre-season predictions. Y’all need to win next week or I’m just gonna drop you in last out of spite. Looks like they moved Skia to the offlane to help out Scoliosis. This caused them to go from two strong lanes with one bad lane to one strong lane with two weaker ones. Not sure what the solution here is. Probably just move back to the Skia + Fallen lane (I mean that is literally the team name) and pick Scoliosis/Joker heroes that can’t lose lanes. Gronaldo even lost on his Ember. That’s a pretty big yikes.
StonedSpirit (Prev: 12) They got the 2–0, but it was against what is now a clear cut bottom 4 team in Waifu. This is the lowest ranked 3–1 team, but I’m just not a believer in their cores to be win conditions against better teams. They could definitely make playoffs, but I have them on the fringe. They’ll go higher next week if they prove victorious against Forest Bear.
Michael Jackson (Prev: 13) This team is now 2–2 and all they’ve really done is pick zoo. For that reason alone, I’m keeping them in the bottom half. They are probably better than my post-draft ranks gave them credit for. Still tho fuck 7.26 tryhards am I right fellas? I want to see what happens if this team doesn’t get Lycan/Beast/LD. Probably losses? We’ll find out if their opponents do any amount of scouting.
Velvuzela (Prev: 16) 2 > 1. At least when it comes to immortals. Velvelvel’s team was able to outplay Odyssey and the other 4 members of Burgeoning’s team in a 2–0 stomp. They probably could be higher but 2–2 isn’t the best record. Still, this team has the most potential out of all the lower teams to move up in the ranks. And I’m predicting that they will. Two immortal cores should at least be enough to make playoffs.
Thrillhouse (Prev: 17) Well this is a team I know nothing about. Which isn’t good, because I’m playing them on Sunday. Oh well. At least I’ll know more about them by next ranks. Sitting at 2–2, I’ll just keep them here.
Neku (Prev: 11) I’m pretty down on this Neku squad currently. Coming off an 0–2, they are dropped further. I played mini with Emu once and he was really good. At least he looked that way to my 10 IQ pea brain. And their squad looks solid on paper. Not sure what’s wrong. They should diagnose it quick though. Hopefully Neku and the boys can bring it back next week against Burgeoning.
Waifu (Prev: 8) Seems maybe that Waifu’s team has a lot of holes. It’s gonna be a long season if he can’t 1 v 9 every game. Was Treebeard right? It seems I didn’t look past Waifu/Doofgod and recognize that the rest of their players were anchors. I’m sure Waifu will solo carry some games. But he likely needs to be a win condition, and Death Prophet/Viper are not. Also what’s going on with this team name?
Burgeoning (Prev: 9) See above and replace Waifu with Odyssey.
Bsvhsvj (Prev: 15) Maybe a bit of concern here? Bsvhsvj’s team is (at least I thought) way better than 0–4. They did FF one of the games. Idk. Treyn is capable of carrying them. Deadprez probably shouldn’t build Treads/Maelstrom/Manta on 4 Mirana. Unfortunately, they are the one of two teams with 0 W’s. And as they say: Win or go straight to the bottom of Toth’s power ranks.
Doomcow (Prev: 18) I told Doomcow that I would adjust him up in the rankings if he elected to not ban Windranger. He said he doesn’t care about the rankings. Fine then.
