I know I’m slightly jumping the gun here and assuming the outcomes of the final week’s matchups, but some I think are safe to call. And I’m impatient. I’ll update this if any of the predicted results change.
So was Season 1 a complete waste of time and went exactly as expected, or did it instil a fresh sense of competition and chaos, full of heroic climbs and heartbreaking defeats?
See the attached image (at the bottom of this post) for how things actually went (assuming the final week goes as expected, my assumptions are in the image).
This is only EU so far, as I haven’t been watching NA closely enough to be able to make a reasonable guess at the final week. I might get around to it closer to the end, or if anyone wants to do the analysis I’ll gladly edit it into this post.
The first interesting thing to note is that the final rankings, predicted by the initial rankings and the matchup schedule, are nearly identical to the initial rankings, except that 3 and 4 always trade places. I guess some of you knew this from the first week, but I hadn’t done the counting until now and was surprised by how well the schedule and scoring method reflected the starting positions.
Now to the actual results:
Gold League:
Both the top 2 and bottom 2 servers remain the same, the only real movement comes in the middle ranks.
Vizunah and SFR swap places at the top. Not really a major upset. Most people had their money on SFR before the Season started, but nobody was counting Vizunah out of the running either and many suspected Vizunah might shift up a gear once the season started. However, this result has produced some of the most amusing QQing and trolling in a long time :P
The real upset in Gold League was the complete collapse of Riverside. Jade Sea and Baruch Bay both made decent gains, partly at the expense of Riverside. I’m still not entirely sure what caused the collapse of Riverside, and I’m on Riverside!
Silver League:
The big story here is the under-performance of Abaddon’s Mouth. It was expected they’d face tough opposition from Deso and Gandara, but it was assumed by most that they were guaranteed a top 3 place. I have heard rumours that quite a few Abaddons transferred to Kodash and Elona, perhaps explaining Kodash’s slightly better than expected performance.
It didn’t surprise very many people that Desolation suddenly shifted up a gear after their mysterious nose-dive from Tier 1 down into Silver League.
Other than that, the only interesting movement is Far Shiverpeaks and Gunnar’s Hold swapping +/- 3 places. I know FSP had some guilds join at the start of the season explaining their better than expected performance, but I don’t know why Gunnars underperformed.
Bronze League:
A very static Leauge, 5 of the 9 servers don’t move at all.
However, despite the lack of movement, the numbers hide the fact that Drakkar Lake have been dominating this league far more completely than the initial rankings could have predicted.
The only major upset is the rise of Ruins of Surmia at the expense of Dzagonur and Blacktide.
