Well, it's season break until the 4th of January, where teams will no doubt dig deep as we all look towards the finals in March.
Things continue to pan out as expected on the ladder as far as rank goes, but even more drama has unfolded amidst some of the nation's better sides...
Minbari (who recently left Third Eye to join Psychedelic Noxious Pugnacity) and Jin have both left PnP to reform QWTF team J. A number of other players from Third Eye and Heads on Sticks are also expected to jump ship and head over, and some have already. Heeeysa (te), Tones (Fv/te) and Doc (hos) are all on the list of apparents, as well as a number of old-school J members.
It's expected they'll join the GA ladder and begin competing after break, but in the meantime this is how things stand...
Psychedelic Noxious Pugnacity remain in first place after a successful defence against both Violent eXcess (7-2 cp_granary) and Heads on Sticks (4-1 ctf_2fort). With as many as 4 star members leaving though, people have begun to question if they'll remain as strong as they have been in past months.
Heads on Sticks sit in 2nd, after an amusing failure to enter a result by Nesreca and a failure to accept a challenge by Adversus threw them up to the top of the ladder with PnP. Since then they've challenged and lost against PnP, and defended successfully once again against 3rd place Violent eXcess.
Third Eye, previously renaming themselves Brown Eye, have back-flipped on that decision and have begun to take things a little more seriously again, despite their incredibly witty ladder format protest; changing their clan's ladder name to 8v8 Sucks Balls. They're placed 4th, with an easy win over Junglist Massive and a successful defence of that 4th position against Nesreca.
Angry Power Rangers continue to leap forward, knocking off another couple teams and moving into 5th, but without any highlight matches thus far.
Hyphen Gaming are now placed 7th after another few easy wins, including one against Panapticon Conspiracy. Out-of-ladder scrims suggest that this team is going to do very well inside the top 10.
Adversus, after failing to accept a challenge from Heads on Sticks and being slapped back to 9th have lay dorment, with only a single simple match defending their position, and no challenge higher to attempt a reclaim of their previous position.
Nesreca are now 10th after failing to submit their winning result against Heads on Sticks. They quickly made a move on Third Eye's 4th place, only to have the match end in a 1-1 tie and no positon movement for either team.
Mad Dogz are now in a much more appropriate 11th place with a huge 5 wins since last recap - being the most active team this write-up, jumping from 44th last I spoke of them. Seeing them inside the top 10 is almost assured, come end of January.
Fang With Vengance have moved up but are still ranked just 14th after a dissapointing loss when trying to tackle Forceful Insertions in 6th place. They'll no doubt be very keen to jump back on the horse, this time perhaps not challenging with Dustbowl.
Symbolic have unintentionally moved backwards, from 13th position to 20th, due to much upper-ladder movement and their own ladder inactivity. They've failed to make challenges or any ground, completing just a single successful defence since the last recap.
Looking at other teams; Violent eXcess have claimed third position after moving up the ladder quickly partly due to second-rate opposition, but haven't been unable to capatlise on their high rank with another failed challenge against Heads on Sticks and a one failed challenge against Psychedelic Noxious Pugnacity.
Misplaced Grr! Combustible Battalion are still 8th but are sure to be thrown well out of the top 10 very shortly, while Forceful Insertions are 6th and although they haven't played many top-tier opponents, they did manage to keep Fang With Vengance from stealing their position due to their beneficial map choice of Dustbowl. It'll be interesting to see how well they do after the Christmas break against the tide of great teams approaching the top of the ladder.
That about wraps it up for now, bar another Symbolic defence against snapd! taking place tommorrow night before games halt for roast meals and presents, which will almost certainly be another uninspiring win for the team as they remain in that 20th position.
Until next time...