AADL-GT Pad Logo

This past Saturday marked some significant milestones in the proud history of the AADL-GT series. We had our first real workout of the new library Wiis while moving our official Smash Bros. competition up to Brawl. We also had our first online competition with other libraries, playing in a small elimination tournament against the Detroit Public Library and the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. New clans were the order of the day as the newly formed Whole Famn Damily racked up the points. Even with changes, traditional powers found their way to the top of the leaderboard.

The first event of the day featured Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii with our single player tournament. 54 players divided into 16 four-player pools, with AADL-GT regulars Juggleguy, aikem, Tub O Lard, limabean, Solon, and Hot_ArmS each going a perfect 4-0 in their free-for-all and 3 head=to-head matches. As the top 32 moved to head-to-head elimination, these top players all moved on. However, the round of 16 brought losses for Tub O Lard, aikem, and Juggleguy to Solon, SwordSensei and TutuOfAllTradesYetMasterOfNone respectively. With 8 challengers remaining, limabean's streak came to an end against Funzo, who was joined in the top 4 by Solon, Jacob K, and Hot_ArmS. The final epic battle of unbeatens concluded the event as Hot_ArmS emerged victorious over Solon, with Jacob K taking third place over Funzo. In addition to their prize winnings, the top four also were invited to represent the AADL in our online matches against DPL and PLCMC.

Team Smash brought the clan battles to the forefront as top teams FusterCluck representing clan The Whole Famn Damily, and Lard-in-Box representing clan We're Better than Special Ops making it to the top four. But they fell to teams AsianInvasion and WePwn representing clan Asian Invasion in the semi-finals, with team AsianInvasion taking the top spot.

As Mario Kart Wii is still near impossible to obtain, the switch to Mario Kart brought back the gamecube's Mario Kart Double Dash for single player pools. Three Kart Masters topped the pool leaderboard with perfect finishes in their four pool races: D-Rex, Dale W and Johninabox. As we moved to elimination races, Johninabox won the first semi-final with Dale W moving on with a third place finish and D-Rex was eliminated with a fifth place finish. Our second semi-final saw Juggleguy win, moving on to the final race. The final 8-player race's top four finishers all came from the first semi-final, with Dale W taking top place, followed by Tru dog, aikem, and Johninabox taking 4th.

The team Mario Kart event wrapped up the afternoon's regular events with 3 qualifying races and one final. Jewels&Money took the top spot, followed by Lard-in-a-box, NinjaPimps and FusterCluck rounding out the top 4.

The last event of the day was the Clan Battle, which pits the top 4 Clans against each other: The Whole Famn Damily with 7155 points, We're Better Than Special Ops with 6580 points, Asian Invasion with 6090 points, and A Solo Special Ops with 5590 points. As the Asian Invasion Clan didn't stick around to play Mario Kart, they automatically lost and we were down to the top 3 clans. Four brawl matches commenced, each with a representative from all three clans. The Whole Famn Damily came in first in three of the four matches, ensuring a place in the finals. The battle between Better Than Special Ops and A Solo Special Ops came down to the last match, where We're Better Than Special Ops lived up to their name, grabbing first place, while A Solo Special Ops were eliminated with a third place finish in the match. The surprise game for the Wii was Dr. Mario, and the difficulty level for the first of two match ups was set a bit too low, resulting in what appeared to be an endless match. Victory eventually came to The Whole Famn Damily as the screen filled with bitter pills for Better Than Special Ops. With the memory of Kirby's Dream Course not yet forgotten, the difficulty setting was bumped up appropriately for the second match. The Whole Famn Damily quickly won again, claiming victory in the round 1 Clan Battle.

Round 2 is September 20 in the downtown library, which may be the debut of Mario Kart Wii for single player Kart. See you next month!