PURE Season 3 Reflections - Top 10 Overall, Honorable Mentions, Power Rankings

 

PURE Season 3 Reflections

 It's been a long season, and lots of happenings have been covered in the rankings. Deciding on Top 5's was quite difficult, as outside of the sandbaggers that dominated the top 2 or 3 spots, the skill level was extremely close. 

In this reflection post, I'll wrap up with my thoughts on Season 3's Open Division with some Honorable Mentions,  a final power ranking of each team, my all-star team which would be the best roster I could make with all the talent who played in Open this year, and my picks for Top 10 Overall Players,

Honorable Mentions

This year had so many good players that just barely scraped the top 5. It would feel wrong to not write about them somewhere, so I decided to write all of them here. Are there any others that you feel should have gotten a mention? And if there are, how mad are you that you aren't here?

Demoman - Meth (NotReallyGood)

The Pakistani Superstar, Meth established himself as the true pinnacle of Div-3-ness. Meth carried NRG through his damage, and his ability to somehow not lock out choke, press W into crowds of enemies and pipe them for free without getting punished. It cannot be denied that Meth was effective with his job. He got tons of damage, but the mistakes he made ultimately brought him down and it was not enough to put him into the Top 5.

Demoman - ︻╦╤─ (Reading Specialists)

Yes, yes. I know this guy didn't actually play in Open this season. But you can't honestly tell me you didn't take a look at the Division placements and ask yourself - why the FUCK is Reading Specialists in Intermediate? Kind of ironic that one team in Open is made up of four Division Two players but the team in Intermediate is made up of three Open players. Anyways, Gunguy was the only actual Division Two player to stay on this team until the end of the season, and he played well so I felt like putting him here. He definitely would have placed on the Top 5 had his team played in the proper division, so it felt right. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Roamer - Acesty (Yang Ciao)

I was really debating putting Acesty on the list instead of GreenShaDow, and it was really close. But, I took one look at their BBall team, and decided the divide was clear. As well as this, the move from Demoman (a class he was very good on) to make room for Bufo (lol wtf hahahahaha) was questionable to say the least. All jokes aside, I put GreenShaDow over Acesty because despite Acesty being on the class that has a very fast mode of travel, and being on the role that encourages rocket jumping the most, Acesty just didn't seem to want to jump. Watching Acesty was like watching a penguin waddle all over the place. Despite this, what put Acesty over other roamers was that he still fulfilled his role and got tons of damage. Unfortunately it didn't put Acesty over GreenShaDow as GreenShaDow jumps. The flying, early bird gets the worm, not the waddling ugly duckling.

Roamer - Purrpa (TerraTakers)

Purrpa was initially on ABNA Black, but was moved to sub after Moonchild was brought in. While there is no debate in who the better roamer is between Purrpa and Moonchild, Purrpa also did his job very well and had the added advantage of being the most experienced Division Three player. Purrpa has been Division Three since AFC10, which gave him the advantage in the battlefield, being masterful in Div-3 tactics. Anyways, Purrpa didn't make this list because he simply didn't have enough showings of skill. ABNA Black didn't fit his playstyle very well, while he only joined TerraTakers in Transfer Week 1 meant that he didn't have enough games to show his prowess. He definitely could have placed higher had he found a team for Transfer Week 2 or had TerraTakers made playoffs, but, there's no point in debating what could have happened. Here he is.

Pocket Scout - Angery (Yang Ciao)

Angery was a player I really debated putting on the list. After watching Yang Ciao's matches, it was incredibly apparent that Angery was hard-carrying the team Deceptive style. He was maincalling for his team, winning 1v1s and scaring off three or more players at once through raw DM. However, I realized one thing: Yang Ciao kinda blew. They chased super hard, so either Angery did not have enough control over his other players and wasn't a good maincaller, or he didn't see a problem with chasing like a dog after cars. (Probably the most likely one, as he himself chased hard) At any rate, it wasn't a good look for him. Ultimately what led me to put Flam over Angery was that Flam's control over his team was much more apparent, and Flam played intelligently and conservatively. Maybe if his players weren't as braincell-deficient he would have placed on the list. Who knows? Angery still has very strong DM, which led me to place him here. 

Pocket Scout - xdstalememes (Signatured.)

Going into the season and when the seedings were posted, everyone saw Signatured at number one and fear began to settle in. Nobody had heard of these players, except for xdstalememes and G4vin. Fears of getting raped in matches by hardened, experienced veterans were rampant. However, once the season started, everyone told and heard the same washed-up jokes. "Signatured is a good team - in 2018! haahahahhahaha xddddd loll funnyyyy" Anyways, xdstalememes was the standout player on this team. Pounding on both pocket soldier and scout, he seemed like the only player on that team who hadn't had their mechanical skill fade into complete obscurity. xdstalememes simply didn't place higher than this spot however, and for one simple fact. His team just didn't win. Hopefully xdstalememes will find a better team in the future that will allow him to win and shine better.

Pocket Scout - Poeyy (Reading Specialists)

Again, I know this guy didn't actually play in Open but he played pocket scout for Reading Specialists, which was basically a Tier 2 Open team. I don't have much to say about him, aside from the fact that he has good DM and good calls. He can also play medic extremely well and soldier relatively well, so I put him here as he was one of the good players on RS. 

Pocket Soldier - Aaron (Raid Shadow Legends)

This guy was kind of a living, breathing, bruh moment. A pocket soldier who doesn't take high ground? Is that even physically possible? But, Aaron embodied it, in flesh and bone. In the early season, Aaron characterized himself as a pocket soldier who seemed to be afraid of heights. But in the playoffs stage, when Cabby had computer-security issues, Aaron managed to step it up. Getting over his fear of heights led him to be one of the most consistent-performing on RSL. His damage was consistently good, he got good picks and worked well with his team. What didn't put him on the list was he simply didn't play enough, and didn't have enough showings to warrant putting him on the list, especially with how half of the showings have him not taking high ground.

Final Power Ranking (Subject to Change)

1. ABNA Black

2. Der Krankenwagen

3. Abusement Park

4. TerraTakers (with catkoi, purrpa and yoshiSZN #freemyboy) (TIE)

4. Raid Shadow Legends (TIE)

6. TerraTakers

8. Ravens Clutch

9. Sylvain E-Sport

10. NotReallyGood (TIE)

10. Yang Ciao (TIE)

12. Sen de haizi

13. Signatured.

The gaps between 1st, 2nd and 3rd are quite large. Positions 6 through to 10 were very close. One controversial choice for me was Sylvain E-Sport. Sylvain E-Sport was a group of French people who decided they wanted to dick around in Asia. Fulltime off-classing with as much hitscan as possible, they absolutely sucked dick on all 5CP. However, they pounded on all KOTH maps. Just because of how good their players were on such high ping on KOTH, I decided to put them at ninth place. I tied NRG and Yang Ciao because of how back and forth their scrims and matches were.

"Where's the other teams??? Where's my team :(((??", you might be whining. However, the answer is simple. All the other teams were so fucking dogshit that they didn't matter.

All-Star Team

Flank Scout: Meejaey

Pocket Scout: Deceptive

Pocket Soldier: dddd4444/Spud

Roaming Soldier: Moonchild

Demoman: Alpy

Medic: Drae

Originally I was going to have an all-star team with all the best players for each class on this list. However, I felt that this wouldn't truly be the best team in Open. So, I came up with this roster. I moved a few players on and off classes they had played throughout the season, specifically D4LE and Deceptive. 

With solid scouts in Meejaey and Deceptive, these two were the most mechanically gifted scouts in Open this season. Deceptive proved himself an excellent pocket scout many times in both scrims and matches, and with the amount of kills and damage he got on the hitscan class I had to put him here. Meejaey, on the other hand, while he has amazing DM was the best flank scout because he didn't need heals to make his impact known and felt from one side of the map to another. This scout combo would destroy anything set before them.

I'm still a bit undecided on who to put on pocket soldier over D4LE and Spud. As although Spud placed at number one on the pocket soldier list, I'm not sure if Spud's maincalling ability and friendship with Deceptive is enough to make-up for the raw mechanical advantage D4LE has. So I'm going to stay undecided. Maybe this team can run the swap-in-swap-out-soldiers rotation system DK ran. Moonchild was undisputedly the best roamer this season, so there's no surprise he's here.

For Demoman, I put Alpy here, simply because his play seemed smarter and less heal-heavy than Khronus. That's not to say Khronus didn't play wonderfully, but Alpy clutched many moments and with amazing scouts in Deceptive and Meejaey, this All-Star Roster would kill anything in seconds.

For Medic, I put Drae. Drae proved time and time again this season that he was the best. Always knowing when to leave and microing his team, Drae would be the perfect addition to this team by providing clear and confident direction while everyone else can focus on killing everything they see.

Overall Top 10 Best Players in PURE League Season 3

After ranking the top 5 for each class, I tried to come up with an overall Top 5. However, I just couldn't do it so I made a top 10 just so I could mention all the players who played so well this season. Kinda weird that none of them are actually Div 3. Here's the top 10 I made:

10. Swift - Medic (Abusement Park)

Picking a tenth place was extremely difficult for me. I thought of a plethora of outstanding players, in Jub, cabby, 4B, catkoi, kron, flam and Catman. What sold Swift for me though, was his aggressive heals and playstyle that really put him above and beyond Catman and the other Medics in Open. Swift not only seemed to have a very good grasp of counting Uber but was always decisive with what he wanted to do. Whether he wanted to support or abandon his team in fights, he always made the right choice. His positioning in aggressive spots was a key part of Abusement Park's strategy and defined their playstyle.

9. Khronus - Demoman (Abusement Park)

Khronus was amazing this season. His DM and experience carried Abusement Park through, and playing around Khronus was always a crucial part to AP's playstyle. Pumping heals into Khronus was always a surefire way to victory, and Khronus proved it right time and time again, consistently getting 400+ DPM logs. Again, even if Abusement Park did not get a placement, it is undeniable that Khronus has so much talent.

8. Tissueman - Pocket Scout (ABNA Black)

Tissueman - the most wholesome player in Asia. Despite his cuddly and bubbly personality, Tissueman was absolutely merciless to everybody his team faced. Season 3 started late for Tissueman - making a transition from the "intermediate" team of Reading Specialists to the "open" team of ABNA Black in week seven. Though I knew of Tissueman's prowess on Scout, I wasn't sure if late-stage roster changes were wise, especially after witnessing the catastrophe of Bloodfeud leaving Krankenwagen. Tissueman immediately proved me wrong in all his matches. It's no surprise that Gale suddenly had a burst of improvement as soon as Tissueman joined the team. The amount of care and selfless play Tissue puts into the game is unmatched, and as such its no surprise that Tissueman placed in the top 10.

7. dddd4444 - Pocket Soldier/Scout (Raid Shadow Legends)

D4LE - the only player anyone feared when playing against RSL. D4LE had a rough start to Season 3. With criticism to the admins for letting a past Division 1 player into the fray, D4LE quickly proving to everyone that the team he was playing on was worth jack shit without him. Even though RSL did improve in the later season, D4LE's standards for his team never dropped and without D4LE and the experience and knowledge he provided, RSL would not have gotten half as far as they did.

6. Drae - Medic (Raven's Clutch)

Drae was voted best medic in the mid-season vote iFun held, and for good reason. Drae has the gamesense, mechanical skill and knowledge to play pretty much any class at a Division Two level, and this really showed on Medic. Though I wasn't sure if it was the best choice to move him off a playmaker class to Medic, the situation-reading ability that Drae has shines no matter what class he plays. On Medic, his clear and consistent maincalling provided direction and his gamesense showed opportunities that no other player in Open save for Spud or Meejaey would have seen. Drae is one of  the most (if not the most) intelligent players in Open and his gameplay on medic really shows that.

5. Moonchild - Roaming Soldier (ABNA Black)

Moonchild, like many other players on this list started his season late. He jumped ship through a few different teams; eventually settling for a team with like-minded players who all wanted to sandbag hard in Open; ABNA Black. ABNA Black didn't really need another Division Two player to win, but Moonchild's transfer into the roster made it final; sending a message to all other Open teams - "you will not win first place, because we will be doing that." Moonchild's amazing jumps combined with Spud's calls created many opportunities for ABNA Black, and that's not mentioning his offclass plays. To conclude, Moonchild's ability to read the situation isn't necessarily as good as Drae's or Spud's, but the mechanical skill and quality of his bombs are more than enough to make up for it.

4. Alpy - Demoman (Der Krankenwagen)

Alpy joined Krankenwagen in Transfer Week 1, the date when all the other Division Two players decided to migrate to Open. However, Alpy had one thing that separated him from the rest of the Div-2 Camp. One thing. That one thing was a Division Two placement badge. And just the same way he obtained the placement badge, Alpy set to work destroying any participant-holders who came at him. While the players ranked below him on this list have been commended for their smart play, Alpy doesn't need that. What he does have, are pipes. With his consistent rollouts, DK almost never lost a midfight because Alpy was always there, doing early damage and piping everything, allowing his scouts and soldiers to clean up with ease. That's not to say Alpy didn't have his 10k IQ Imposter Among Us plays. Many times Alpy showed he wasn't just a drooling retard who could hit all his pipes, but just a retard who could hit all his pipes and stickies. The amount of damage Alpy did was insane, and even though DK played out of their minds, it still feels like Alpy carried them.

3. Meejaey - Flank Scout (ABNA Black)

Rustic brought in Meejaey to ABNA Black after their founder, Carnival left them. Meejaey seemed to fill the same role Rustic did for ABNA Black - carry the shit out of them. Once Rustic left the team, it still continued to feel that way, with him getting insane amounts of frags and damage with virtually no heals. Even in the ocassional scrim or match when Meejaey replaced his dogshit Demo, he still pounded hard no matter what he was shooting; hitscan or projectile. Like Drae and Spud, Meejaey's ability to read the game is amazing and this combined with his superb DM is enough to win games himself. Meejaey was the core that ABNA Black was built around, and they certainly could not have done it without him.

2. Deceptive - Demoman/Pocket Scout (TerraTakers)

You may be surprised at this placement, as Deceptive's team didn't even make playoffs. However, what I believe is that it truly was possible for TerraTakers to have made playoffs had they not been forced to forfeit their matches, even without yoshiSZN (#freemyboy) if they had Catkoi and Purrpa. And the key to that is simple. One player: Deceptive. Deceptive is notorious around the community for toxicity, but what others don't realize is how much Deceptive elevates his team's gameplay. Without Deceptive, TerraTakers would've been a mid-Open, maybe 8th or 9th place team. With Deceptive though, it becomes a real challenge and a wildcard all the teams in open felt shaky going against. Like I said in my entry on Deceptive in the Top 5 article, Deceptive carried TerraTakers so hard. The amount of damage and space Deceptive makes for his team, and combined with a wonderful pocket scout in Catkoi and roamer in Purrpa, it allowed his team so much freedom. 

Ultimately, even if Deceptive didn't get a placement, had he been on any other team that didn't get the stroke of misfortune of getting fucking raped by Rustic, he would have done the same hard-carrying. 

1. Spud - Pocket Soldier (ABNA Black)

Spud will definitely be a controversial choice, but hear me out. Spud doesn't have the same extreme DM as the other players on this list, but what he does have is the clear, confident and concise calls, quick and decisive choice-making, and the ability to read the game and an opposing team like a first-grader's picture book. That's not to say that Spud has bad DM, it is, in fact, amazing and a lot better than some Division Two soldiers. But that's not the quality that defines Spud's gameplay. With Spud, he always had a leash on his team. He coordinated his team extremely well, which allowed for their focus fire and trades to always come out on top. 

Even if Spud doesn't have the mechanical skill of someone like Deceptive or D4LE, the way he led his team to victory is enough to settle it for me that Spud was the best player in Open this season.

Conclusions

Every player in the 30 I came up with for the 5 in each class played very well Perhaps that was why it was such a challenge consolidating it down to 10 to define the best overall. Seeing many new players in Season 3 was very refreshing, and it seems that many of these players are moving onto newer heights in Division Two or deciding to stay in Division Three for a bit longer and improving a bit more. At any rate, it will be very exciting seeing the huge influx of new talent this season in the future.

New talent like GreenShaDow, Roza and Acesty are all exciting prospects and I look forward to seeing the players who didn't make playoffs improve and grow. It really does seem like PURE S3 is the new AFC S10 with all the new players joining. 

Despite this, I can say I was disappointed to say the least with the amount of old faces in the team pool. Seeing players who I had thought had long since departed from the lands of novice was both shocking and kind of saddening. The thought that newer and lesser experienced players were being denied a chance to win or improve by getting stomped by Division Two players was both alarming and deeply distressing.

And after hearing about the ban of yoshiSZN (a promising new talent, banned on unbased and unjustified accusations) and TerraTakers being forced to forfeit all their past matches, I truly wondered if there was any justice in the world. Who would do such injustice? Why are new players not allowed to be good? Another issue I found very unfair was the imbalance in transfer requests being accepted and denied. Why was Clashe (who hadn't played in a year at the time) denied from Abusement Park, but Moonchild and Spud were let into ABNA Black? Why was D4LE even allowed anywhere near Open? While it can be argued that players like Deceptive and D4LE taught their inexperienced teams a lot, teams like ABNA Black had a plethora of experience on their roster and weren't actually teaching anything to anybody.

The event of yoshiSZN's ban, combined with witnessing such a grand amount of sandbagger and seeing both unfair transfer denials and acceptances was very disturbing for me. I thought and mulled it over for a while, when the realization dawned on me.

What realization? You might be asking.

Well, boys and bitches;

My realization was that there was a true winner to Open.

Someone behind all this chaos who masterminded every event, and can only be described as the true winner of Open. No, not the friends we made along the way, but a single player.

A single player who tilted everything in their teams favor.

And that player is...

0. Rustic - The True Winner of Open

Rustic. Rustic, Rustic, Rustic. "Wait...Rustic? Did he even play this season?", you might be asking. He did play this season, replacing Deceptive on ABNA Black in pre-season. Rustic never really found his place on the team, moving from class to class, and finally leaving the team in Week 5. "Why is this guy the true winner of Open?", I also hear you ask. And the answer is really quite simple. Rustic single-handedly won Open for ABNA Black. Not through any in-game mechanics, though that's not to say that Rustic was in fact, an amazing player for ABNA Black. Not even through any weird meta-gaming strategies, like Saint going in spec during his team's match against Krankenwagen. No, we witnessed Rustic single-handedly, systematically destroy every other team before the match was even played. And its through one, tiny little thing...

...and that thing is:

ADMIN CORRRUPTION 

Especially during transfer weeks. Rustic is so fucking good at this game, he doesn't even need to play the game to win a season. He doesn't even need to be on a team to win a season! He can just leave it mid-season and have someone else win it to divert attention away! He just needs to deny transfer for everyone else, stack a team like a house of cards, and he's done. He could write a wikiHow on how to win Open.

Step 1: Become admin in PURE by stacking teams and winning Division Three over and over again, and roster riding on DeDstar's team, thereby winning the trust of admins as a good player.

Step 2: Stack another team through transfer, make sure nobody else can get as sandbagger-infested as yours though.

Step 3: Win

This is why Rustic is the true winner of Open, and the true best player of Open. He defeated every single team before the match was played. Say his name with me. King. Rustic.

tl;dr, PURE needs a hijack rule :p