GT Round 2 Results: A very good day for Us

Sun, 09/30/2007 - 12:12am by eli

AADL-GT history was made today when legendary supertitans Clan Us stormed to victory in all four events, earning an astounding 11,190 points, capturing half of the day's top 4 spots, and topping it off with a clan battle win at Calling All Cars for PS3. This is also the day when Us established their true depth as a clan with balance, ending their smash-centric reputation and cementing themselves as a potent, multilayered, unstoppable force. That puts Us in the amazing position of holding the top 4 spots on the season leaderboard, with Shin Oroachimaru in #1 after an amazing day.

Right behind remains the Brothers of Maplewood, racking up 4 top 4 finishes and 6810 points, a score that would have put them atop the leaderboard on another day, who also proved greater depth today, taking 2nd in Smash Teams.

This season continues to collapse into an epic struggle between these two mountains of talent, with the 6 of Us and the 6 Brothers of Maplewood accounting for 12 of the top 14 spots on the leaderboard. Read on for full details.

We got started on time with Smash Singles, as 61 players formed 4-player pools for a free-for-all and a round robin. 32 then advanced to seeded elimination. By the time we reached the top 8, the story of the day was already becoming clear as 5 of them were representing Clan Us. [gtplayer:606] defeated [gtplayer:483], but Clan Us's [gtplayer:382] was defeated by wunderkind protege [gtplayer:1030] of the Asian Invasion, who went on to defeat even the mighty [gtplayer:614] in the semis before finally being stopped by [gtplayer:788], who took first place (and also won the friday night regulation event). [gtplayer:606] then handed 3rd place to [gtplayer:614], making for a Clan Us near-event sweep but for that Asian Invasion.

Smash Teams began with 27 teams registered and two matches for each team. Ties between teams that went 1 and 1 were then broken by clan scores, which led to a round of 8 with 2 teams from Clan Us, two teams from the Asian Invasion, and one each from BOM and SSB. While the Royster's Team Silence defeated The Dark Angels (#6 [gtplayer:457] and [gtplayer:137]), The Brothers of Maplewood's team Oh Yeah (#7 [gtplayer:197] and #9 [gtplayer:166]) stopped the Tiny Terrors ([gtplayer:1028] and #14 [gtplayer:1030]) and even beat Team Silence, only to lose to the unstoppable combo of Clan Us's #2 [gtplayer:788] and #3 [gtplayer:483] in the finals, handing them another first place finish for the day.

Rolling on into Kart singles with 57 players registered, the Brothers of Maplewood felt like we were headed into their turf. While the final 16 included 4 BOMs but only 3 of us, the final race included two of each: [gtplayer:146] and [gtplayer:197] from BOM, and [gtplayer:614] and [gtplayer:382] of Us. Due to a scoring error, [gtplayer:614] had advanced instead of [gtplayer:606], although [gtplayer:614] had placed 2nd in his mistaken semifinal, earning his spot. I gave them the option of switching Omega who should have advanced into the final instead of shin Oroachimaru who had advanced, and they decided to leave Oroachimaru in the finals. That turned out to be a good decision, as [gtplayer:614] went on to win the final race and claim a third event victory for Clan Us, as [gtplayer:146] and [gtplayer:197] took second and third. Fourth place went to [gtplayer:424], who did quite well in the event and is clearly a player to watch.

The pressure was on BOM to step it up and assert themselves a bit in the face of Us's impressive prowess as the Team Kart event began for the 24 registered teams. After two races each (and no tiebreaker required!) the semifinal 16 featured again two teams from Us but all three teams of BOM, plus two teams of Angry Little Girls, another emerging contender for the still-up-for-grabs third place in the clan standings. All seven of those teams advanced to the final race, along with the Dark Angels, where the Roysters proved they had what it takes to deliver another win for their Clan, storming to first and securing the first-ever first place sweep by a clan. second place went to the [gtplayer:457]-powered Dark Angels, while [gtplayer:382] and [gtplayer:504] of Clan Us took third as well, leaving Oh Yeah! of BOM to fourth.

So, with taking all 4 firsts, 1 second, and 3 thirds, Clan Us was perched high above the other clans with a ticket to the clan battle finals. Asian Invasion was unable to field a team, so the Round 2 Clan Battle started off with a Kart Singles race for 4 members of Clan SSB and 4 Angry Little Girls. ALG scored 190 points in that race, while SSB got 200, edging out the girls and earning the right to then get completely swept by the Brothers of Maplewood at Melee enroute to their rematch against Us in the Clan Battle final. At round 1, BOM had blown away all contenders at Monkey Target, but this month's game was David Jaffe's multiplayer masterpiece Calling All Cars for the PS3. After each clan had one game to warm up, Clan Us got an early edge over BOM and held it until the end, winning the
Clan Battle and wrapping up an amazing day filled solely with contests that they had won, as they demonstrated decisvely that Clan Us is not the one-trick pony their opponents hoped they were.

Next up is a talk by Greg Trefry, game developer, and then the Rhthym Master tourney 10/19, followed by Round 3 on 10/20. See you there!