FFA Masters League

 

To the obviously most important thing and i only do this for you seksi:
eshen played in that particular game not so bad (took all his courage and attacked someone who had no army) and obviously everything went into his favor (he is happily allowed to tri-race with imbalanced orc heroes) so he must be a deserving winner especially since the other guys failed kinda hard (sheik wasting way too much money by investing in wrong stuff while multiracing and overall making some bad decisions or trunkz who just been careless with his armycontrol many times like letting his archers and talons tank vs tauren and wyvvern when he had his hippos idle near him or losing literally everything except 1 hero when he was in orcbase and did not recognize lusted chims with orc heroes making the tp...and let's not talk about qwest).

Talk about getting credit because of effectiveness in this environment? Where is stein when you need him? Just a pretty capitalistic view.

Look: e.g. (sigh, i already regret using that comparison because it will feed someones hybris) if a dictator controls his country and the people there with all perfidious strategies but he does so successfully and effectively and reaches some goal like a fake election or staying in control for decades, you also pay tribute to him? If you can ignore the way someone reaches certain ojectives and just see the results, i won't even argue with you about that.

But too many people are just focused on results. Only a few ask further and look behind the structure of „success“ and results. And how those „achievements“ (how eshen was calling wins in ffa himself...) happen to that guy i cannot respect and not even accept.
It's the easiest thing to just say „wp gratz“, but how much is that worth it anyway? (for example i don't see eshen say „gg wp“ after he lost he only says it after he wins – ofc he would come with „that's because i only win“ :D which he actually would not dare to say because then he would destroy the illusive image of recently being the humble guy!?)

I feel like many just see the result and want to be part of that and pay false respect. Also all this implies that ffa is some sort of honorable sports when it's not. Surely FML should stand for a higher form of competetive ffa but what is that even?

The most successful playertype is a mediocre player that never dominates but always teams and manips, flies under the radar and uses most effective (meta) cheese. And that gave many players the chance to reach a final or even win it.
And don't get me wrong i like the randomness of a nice ffa and some big surprise champions. But from the purest playerskill there are only magadanksy, htrt, f-l-y, noe and maybe 1-2 more who you could say been the best players that won.

And again i am totally fine with the underdog winning and all that but what i cannot understand is that people accept being in a 5 hour game with someone who is so blatantly lying, manipping, insulting and coming up with all dirty shit possible to just win a game which is made to have fun with. And then act like it was a normal game afterwards. That guy fooled you, played you, bitched you and you just accept that!?  Where is the pride and sense of reflection of these people letting himself treated like that without proper consequences?

I do think that a lot of people fell for eshens fake charming campaign he did for so long now and somehow just don't have the right mindset to deal with it. He is pretty good at talking and just twisting everything the way it suits him and that's just a travesty.

No one could expose all the stuff he is spreading all the time with his crazy output.

And btw before i came back @Round3 of this season i did not say a word and was not around since october so it was about time to remind people again. But obviously it did not help to go harder on eshen which he would have deserved.
Before the final i did not even try to get the other players being alert about eshen. You can expect a proper motivation and planning for a final by every participant if you are atleast half serious for it.

Retroprospectively i should have warned qwest directly about playing it safe more early but bringing it up that he was rushed out before was obviously not clear enough for him. (and it was not unlikely eshen woulda try to do that aswell because he usually cannot beat qwest later)

Furthermore eshen left fml discord like 1 year ago because he was annoyed by the heavy chatters (lol!) there or whatever but continued to manip vs a lot of players in w3c discord. But then he came back after months because he probably was thinking he needed to be around his potential opponents to gather information and jump into any conversation what could lead to ppl teaming up vs him.
Also giving them the feeling of „being one of them“, a bunch of wc3 and ffa enthusiasts who enjoy a good time and funny talk and trolling (yawn).
But instead - being as active as he was in discord – it was just a tool, a platform to optimize the circumstances and mostly for charming people (the better players that got some leverage) or bullying them (the worse players, that got not much of a base or seemingly are not as strong as others) whatever would help him the most.

Also so damn hypocritical with campaigning against the w3c booster (which is a mess for sure for ffa if it should be anon) but instead using it himself !(because he is so afraid of losing meaningless laddergames? Most of the players in the early w3c ffa seasons when there was a lot of activity did not even know who he is and IF others woulda know that they'd play vs eshen it mostly woulda helped him > getting underestimated).

Another really obnoxious way of acting by him are his hilarious personal attacks. He is often trying so hard with any little information he thinks he might have and use that trying to get under someones skin. Like anyone would care what that lowmannered guy had to say about anyone. But let alone the attempt and that he thinks he would reach anything with it (besides that he might feel better in a pityful way) shows again that he is some toxic brat.

I am waiting a long time now that he tries to insult someone for his english. When he is a native speaker himself and most of the people in the scene got atleast decent writing i saw it numerous times how he tried to make fun of those. How messed up is that?

Then he stages himself as the white knight with the fight vs smurfers on discord (says the guy that has probably more smurfs and akas than any other guy in fml history).
 
So people seems to tend to forget pretty quickly and seemingly just give a guy like that opportunity after opportunity and maybe think he would have changed or whatever but the only thing he cares about is himself winning ffa games and he is willing to do whatever it takes to reach that actually laughable goal. While he is not caring at all about how long he will take of someones time with dragging out games and starting chatty manipfests over hilarious things ingame or even outside of it.  How many guys did he molest with his explicit mean insult and making them leave the scene after running into him in a laddergame, i am really wondering. But he keeps talking about attracting new players...

Oh and in the final and later he was talking about „gentleman playing“?! Wait – What! Give me a break. That really was another beyond-of-belief-moment with that absolutely shameless manipulative dork. It is common approach to just say the complete opposite what you actually are by „lying directly into the others faces“, seen many times by mental guys especially in the recent 5 years. That hopeless hypocrite.

And btw: i used to see the positives (but that's gone for quite some time) about his questionable attitude like being passionated about the game (but it's obsession and he is just being consumed by it), playing for win and not messing with games leaving too early (but it's just ultimate tryhard actually, makes it so annoying to chase his builds all over the map and look for hidden armies and stuff like that every game) or taking some responsibility with being a tbr captain (actually just to serve himself the most games as possible, probably outscheduled his own teammembers, doesn't honor anything, did not even pick Mog, the founder of ravenclaw, as last pick).

Besides adding some spice and hopefully some sort of entertainment „i came back“ aswell because i could foresee giving the circumstances that the guy i think stands for so much with his playstyle and overall attitude what people criticize the gametype and players for woulda finally reach something he really should not because it coulda been like a final nail in the coffin for the reputation of ffa.

But once it happened i don't feel anything about it. It is just irrelevant. Someone has to win a season and who it is does not matter at all besides for the guy that actually won ( that one can be delighted or whatever he wants like feeling as some cartoon character).

And with that win there opens again a door for eshen. He could finally start playing like a normal guy and let all the stupid relentless manips, all the fake show, whining and crying and incredibly over-the-top tryhard in such a gametype behind him and become a more relaxed and likeable guy. We'll see but i highly doubt it.

A little bit i feel like Don Quijote with writing all these texts. Good thing is that writing all these lines still takes much less time than being in a game with a guy like eshen!

And btw i feel like i should feel bad about some of the words i used in that excerpt but also a nice guy should be allowed to speak freely when something obviously is just not right, even when that means to say the ugly truth.

But damn - now it's enough. I don't say no more about that matter for a while.
Saludos.

So sticking around long enough and using massive lameness and extreme manips every single game seems to be enough. What a sad day for FFA and FML.

Absolutely terrible that this pathological lier and desperate manipper with his means-spirited and highly toxic and fake character finally had enough luck for getting through. What a shame, what a disgrace.

I despise his style of playing ffa and this result is a travesty. Everyone who congratulates that manipulative dipshit is doing so wrong and somewhat supports that unscrupulous style.

Atleast i have not been part of this seasons cast, so i won't take blame on this twisted mess.

On paper that game looks legit. First 4 of regular season went to the final. Despite a lot to be desired during the season it could conclude in a very interesting game.
We have the animosity between qwest and eshen and between qwest and trunkz. Meanwhile trunkz and eshen seem to show some odd mutual respect to each other. Sheik seems to be out of drama picture – so far!
Also notable how many times qwest and trunkz have been in a final past seasons (together with junkerzam). Pretty solid.
It's super unlikely that trunkz and eshen will fight each other early (although that would benefit trunkz). So we either end up with a lot of small skirmishes or fights with other pairings.


Qwest: Seemingly had a smooth sliding into the final. If he has some time and motivation he is clear#1 ladder player aswell. Killed the current ladder season with just one very active day.
He picked a map that has room for a lot of strategical opportunities and is far from the standard 4way player map. Very bold move to pick that one.
Interesting to see with what gameplan he enters the game. He had a couple of really rough finals. I remember him getting teamed pretty hard (vs dv and noexx), rushed out (by cumulo) or suicided (by trunkz) so let's see how he deals with all that.

Eshen: Woulda been surprised if he hadn't already dmed other final participants. To qwest: "hey bro, peace for that game, okay? I know i did a lot of shit past games we had together but i will be honorable this one! Really want fair game."
And to sheik:" Yo, awesome semifinal game! We played same team remember? We friends and i respect you so much. If i can't win i really want you to win it."
To trunkz:"Hey trunky, a bit lucky in semifinal but you played strong season – you deserved final! And btw we need watch out for union of two russians xD. USA and Germany good alliance for years now :P. You always welcome in my base to hide and build when qwest rush you."
Of course even for eshen standards that woulda been a bit too obvious but you get the point i assume...
He is clearly the worst player in that one and will be underestimated for it. A lot of times the overlooked player in finals won so that would'nt be a surprise at all.

Sheik: Can only repeat that he looks like the total package ffa player. His semifinal game was a piece of art. He still appears to be fresh in the game and probably does not carry that much of bad experiences therefore into that final. He can be relaxed and just play it. Also because it's usually damn hard to win a semifinal and final afterwards in fml. Only done 1 or 2 times. Probably he should care not to get into the war of words too much especially if it's becoming a long game. Getting into manipfests with very talkative guys and native english speakers can be very draining over time. Needs to prepare a strategy to deal with the chatting and that it won't influence him too much.

Trunkz: He needs to be careful with not looking too strong. Imo he can take either of them out midgame pretty easily once his creeproute will be working. With levels and full army there won't be a way to beat him for undead. As usual he needs to be prepared for not losing via baserace. Should have a lot of wisps hidden :D. If he does not win i can see him make eshen win somehow in the end.

LET THE MESS BEGIN

Recently i started to watch some ffa streams again, watch results and even read some discord chat.
Nice to see a new season be played out with seeing some familiar and newer names.
It would been super cool if the final cast would been: Neytpoh, Sheik, Syde, Trunkz. But that's wishful thinking and most likely 1-2 others will also enter the final playoff game of this season.

M22
Enjoi
SyDe
Peregrine
M00se

Enjoi looks like a good undead with decent fundamental undead mechanics and micro. Probably lacks some experience in FML but seems overall like a promising prospect.

Syde has really fine and robotstyle army control. I don't know how much he plays, but it seems that he is far from being as active as he used to be like 1-2 years ago. Considered as one of the nicest and balanced guys in FML and the WC3 1n1 scene overall he should stay like that but maybe just forget about that aswell as long as he is being in a game of free for all! ;-D He could try to channel the flow he had when he was facing me on some deathrose game 1,5 years ago. I was watching his streamtape afterwards and he was shouting „putain“ when i stayed around to harras his expand with single Paladin after he repeatedly killed my main with 100 before i could produce army (thanks to a lack of lumber). I had a good jiggle seeing and hearing that and i was fine with him winning, but i could not let him getting that win so smoothly after several warnings for „letting me produce units bro“ :-).

Perecringe/ Eshan/ Nightwing etc.
That guy is on a roll, duh? 3 Wins and another win in a sub game :D. Seems like people being ignorant about his history of how he is winning games or simply do not care about it. Just after a few moments of watching some of his games, chat or stream i was triggered. I bite my tongue most of the time when i see and read from that guy but once in a while there needs to be a reminder to other players and maybe newer ffaers, who maybe
don´t know what this dude is mostly about. He stands for so many things why FFA is sometimes such a mess:
1. Stalling games (just waits, plays passively, drags gameprogression out, tires people out making them lose patience) seemingly having all the time in the world to win a freaking ffa game.
2. Heavy manipulations nonstop. And not only during a game (there are plenty of heavy-users and you should not trust anyone's words in a FFA game anyway) but that guy does it before games and after games, too! There is not a single other player that created so much drama and chit-chat after a game. Usually after he loses, ofc course. When he wins he is all about praising the others play (sure, they probably played exactly in his cards), complimenting their fighting skills (who cares about winning fights, when you lose the game afterwards) or calling himself lucky (yeah indeed: lucky about the others ignorance and carelessness).
3. Extremely toxic. Carries past ingame-drama or events and uses that for manipping opportunities. (just look at his r4 prediction thread. He implies that he is ready to get rushed by Syde for stealing the win from him in r1. That's called reversed psychology and he hopes that neither Syde or anyone else actually does what he proposes.  Also blames people on ladder so much and prematurely about preteam and maphack which causes a very hostile environment to play in.

Apparently he is around everywhere these days. I saw him saying his two cents to basically every matter on discord, streaming games (i saw Gradient, Supremo, Punpun, Sheik game) where he mostly insults guys (Supremo & Gradient) and trying to make fun of them or blaming Sheik for being manipulative and passive – a good example where he blames others for stuff he is doing himself nonstop and way harder. Then talking about how Qwest is Sheiks biggest rival in a potential final with those two...hello pregame manips ~.~ Furthermore i recognized how he wrote in a scheduling threat from another match, trying to force those players to play it asap...n/c. All this omnipresence is somehow suspicious and is mostly used by him for manipulative purposes.

Also it is really hilarious how he streams games in the beginning of a season when he got rank 1 somehow again (ofc with avoiding tough casts and all the stuff being mentioned above) and then it says „rank 1 FFA“ in the stream description but of course once the season would progress and he is in danger of losing the „to-him- so-precious-rank 1" to someone else he stops streaming because of being afraid that'll be used against him. But early on for flexing and probaly some attention issues he needs every of his 5 observes to know which ranked player they are watching... :D
Additionally he was streaming some months ago with the tag „god of ffa“ or king of ffa or whatever it was...- more accurate it would be: Her Shameless Lameness, the spoiled princess of Manipville.

Excuse the wall of text but please see this as it is: An appeal to not let Perecringe get away with his lame unscrupulous playstyle.
Here are my quick tips dealing with him:
Go hard on him in games, get rid of him whenever there is a chance to.
Don't believe whatever he says. Think by your own and scout (especially for hidden armies, zeppelins, items).
Ignore him outside of games unless he obviously once again trying to create a web of manipulative content – then expose him and point to it.

M00se: He is around for a while now and showed some good games on TBR if i remember right. He is a little bit of a predictable undead standard user so he might need to mix it up with necrowagon or unholy frenzied wyrms and fiends. Gotta be a tough game for him but he if he flies under the radar he maybe has a shot in a long 4way when he can survive until the 3way with a good bank.


M23
qwest
Voxius
Neytpoh
ostone

Qwest is just a beast when he is motivated and in shape. His mechanics are top notch and he has those not just for the generic undead micro but also for the manipping parts in a game. He tries a lot of mimics during a game but is a very creative player (despite his sticking to armies with just gargs & a few destros or wyrms most of the times) with "inventing" the „qwest build“, finding places to make islands or developing strategies for a lot of scenarios. I disliked it mostly playing vs qwest because he is a wrecking machine and also because of his nasty manips, but he usually does not create any drama or manips after or before games.
He seemingly has some animosity with Neytpoh (stemming probably from some final i cannot really recall or additional other games) which i don't know much about. Hopefully they can figure it out in r4 game or even before, so it won't stand in their way in a potential semifinal or final clash.

Voxius: Around for a while now and even though his results have been quite forgettable until now he seemingly enjoys most of the games and the community. Sometimes he switches a bit quickly from liking guys to hating the same guys shortly after or the way round. He should maybe try to stay a bit more balanced and relaxed and think twice before being friendly with certain guys or being offensive to others :). If he plays his cards right he might be able to snatch some good points in this game.

Neytpoh: Looks like he is in a very good shape atm and playing not only solo (he is easily top 20 EU when active) but also being refining his ffa-skills in order for a run playing for the title – he is undoubtly one of the big favourites for it. Strong showings in first rounds with just carelessly giving away a win in that – admittingly – unique sappering ending sequence. Qwest cannot touch him in pure micro battles but in every other aspect. Will be interesting to see how they handle their rivalry.

Ostone: He is such a good player when being in shape and motivated but he been around so little the past years and it's a bit of a pity.

M24
rulaZ
GivenToFly
Peanut
Vyvanne

Rulaz is a smart player with most of the times good decision making. His army compositions are also often well balanced. Sometimes it appears that he fades when it becomes a bit more chaotic. So when he stays composed and focused i see him winning this, depending on who subs and how motivated Vyvanne will be.

GivenToFly aka Seeker i only know a little bit about. Is he the same guy as Flameseeker? Pretty solid and experienced player but maybe needs to try a bit harder these days. He and Vyvanne were suiciding each other some other game and here we have the chance to see if they get over that and start playing smarter or if that story will be re-written.

Peanut: Will be subbed. The guy has much potential but gets poked a lot by technical issues. When he is active and doesn't suffer from internet oder laptop issues he should be a safe pick for a semifinal.

Vyvanne: Such a good player but the myth around him often stands in his way. Somehow he is targeted a lot although he has not been around that much the past years. Maybe switching to his orc style will be a refreshing change.

M25
junkerzam
Leluaami
5te1n
fetta_ook

Junkerzam: A bit unlucky he ran into Neytpoh early in two of his games. The first time he actually had a good shot but stumbled under the pressure. Known for being an aggressive and brash player he has a big task ahead of him in that tricky cast.

Leluaami: One of the most improved players during the past years. Sometimes he seems a bit shaky in his approach but when he gets into his flow he is hard to beat these days combining strong elf play with different strats and herocombos and the ability of staying around and coming back into many games even when it's looking tough.

5Te1n: The stars aligned early in the ladder season with him wiping the floor with his pitiful opposition. Unfortunately he lost his magic but here is the inevitable outcome: He will qualify for the semifinals. First he will grab 23 points and then every other who might stand above him in the rankings will receive penalty points for being unacceptable rightwingers with no desire for progression and happiness in life.

fetta_ook: Few days ago i watched Seksis stream and he was playing on market square vs some cheeser orc. At first i was a bit unsure who that guy could be but then this happened: That orc proposed peace to Seksi which he accepted. Then Seksi had to fight in his own base vs strong undead, struggling to keep his heroes alive, but he fought the undead back who had to tp out. Seksis DK was low on HP and DANG that blademaster popped out of nowhere and assassinated the Deathknight with his sword. Perfect example of how to identify a fetta_ook in your game ;-). He was playing decently btw in that game so he might have a small chance of pulling of an upset here IF he and his fellow swede do not suicide each other. If they actually do suicide there will be a lot of nice 2n2 action needed to heal their relationship!

M26
sheik
trunkz
headintheclouds
LION

Sheik: First time i saw him around was in TBR 1 when he was part of the legendary TMNT alongside me. He had a couple of good games but came up short and he was in good company with that! Since then a lot has changed and besides being a very consistent solo and 2n2 player with good results he seemingly also gathered enough experience in ffa to win games repeatedly. His season showed that he is getting a polished ffaer more and more. Besides the obviously present micro he strings the other aspects of the game together very well.

Trunkz: created that cool and very effective elf strategy which was copied many times. What is a strength in having experience with so many games playing the same strategy there also is a weakness in it since it is very predictable yet oftenly so hard to beat. From what i'ven seen there is only a good way to rush him early once the demonunter is not lvl 6 or even better not yet lvl 5! After that it becomes incredible hard to fight him and if there is no coordinated teaming (to which every player has to succumb sooner or later) basically the only chance is to baserace (to which he also adapted better during the years). Given that it will be interesting to see if there will be a fair clash between the powerhouses sheik and trunkz.

Headintheclouds/PunPun: I remember having some heated inhouse games with him. He is a good elf with getting better understanding of the overall ffa game. I saw some of that infamous regame mess on imaginary friends where he showed some good and some developable stuff. If he can control his temper and stay cool and composed he has a shot as an underdog in that strong cast.

Lion: Sorry if he does not have an aka i don't know anything about him.

M27
NoMercy2
tukimkim
aarnikratti
letshavesomefun

NoMercy2: Always was wondering why it was 2! Is it meant to be „to“ and for style purposes it is 2?
Or had he an account NoMercy and wanted to do another account and what else could it have been than NoMercy2?! ;) He seems a bit rusty. Wasn't he around when cumulo was active? He got some experience and might be able to show more than he has so far in the season.

Tukimkim: The guy has a background in melodic music. His name just sounds cool when be spoken. Besides some cryptic chat in discord i can say nothing about him except that the peruvian recruiting program works apparently well!

Aarni-the-karateguy: After his brilliant R1 game i thought he could make a walkthrough in S32. Sadly he have not played it consequently the next rounds when he had sheik in some trouble early after a good rush or teaming neytpoh poorly and not finishing perecringe. I'd like to see a focused and more tryhard aarninator in this game to give shave a run for his money.

Letshavesomefun: Interesting how „shave“ developed from that accountname :D. Reminds me of how „Reinforcement“ would become „Cement“ suddenly (good luck on your 1v1 journey and stop losing games vs Arma the way you did, i was rooting for you and game1 was a pretty cool one).
Shave is a walking contradiction and an enigmatic phenomenon. Being a fashion influencer on discord, sharing his beachvolleyball and tinder stories with the world and plague his gaming buddies with his windows95 PC (is it true that he got a new one after all?!) and still being able to pull out miracles like winning games with strong casts (like the final last year and r3 game) despite his practice contains of 95% chatting.

M28
Gradient
SelfControlMe
supremo
Airenikus

Gradient: Legendary polish power! Most famous FFA player outside of the FML/discord FFA bubble for sure. Emperor of Grubby in FFA and Solo. Since his supremacy in FFA bored him he decided to went fulltime MD pro and finally prepares to face Alice in a Best-of-9 Series 1n1 MD.
He will either be subbed because of playing MD or shows up, bash his opponents in 25 mins, takes 23 points and joins another MD.

Selfcontrolme: Not the most powerful aka name. Up to interpretation. I have not seen a game by him so far.

Supremo: Together with Gradient my favourite Gimmick player. His strat is underrated and can work once his DH gets lvl6. He suffers a lot from his bad ping and having problems communicating in a game due to lack of english, although it became better!

Airenikus: Imo he should stick to Orc or Undead. Last time i saw his human i did not like it much. He has the ability to stay in games even though facing adversity. In the past i often experienced how much i dislike the tone of his manips but you cannot deny that he has good understanding of the ffa mechanics and a good sense for sneaking wins. Cannot say in what shape he is currently but he is almost always able to compete and is probably the favourite here. I hope being able to watch that game somehow and see in what form he handles supremo and gradient because it's so tough with them in 3ways.

only know 2 maps so far...wtf...idc i guess

Every day 20 CET  except 23.4.

yo,

this week wednesday? 20 CET?

Otherwise let´s play weekend 2nd week where i am (atm) very flexible.

Either FoM or Rock Quarry.