AFPL Season 1 and my RNG Apocalypse

The Battle Report Without a Battle

We are the nerdiest of the nerds, my comrades and I. Whereas the common nerd gets his daily dose of chills from watching live Starcraft, we few hunger for more when the final gg is called. Mutalisks surgically tearing apart an economy, tanks in formation cratering the opposition, voidrays A-moving across the map, these are the drugs of choice for the average nerd. Yet for us, they are not enough. The proud enclave of our Skype chat is a sanctuary of higher nerdiness, where resolving algorithms may roam free to mingle with the crashing sounds of the ultralisk and the clatter of stimmed marine fire. It is a place where the few go to discuss the nuances of a die rolling alongside the intricacies of Jaedong's impeccable control. It is beautiful here in the sun, and I welcome you, reader, into this most triumphant report of the first season of the hallowed Aligulac Fantasy Proleague.

The Teams

Following a grueling preseason full of theory crafting to a level the likes of which you likely cannot even fathom, the draft began. During the draft each team selects one player from the available pool, expertly selecting the next brush with which to paint their masterpiece. With snake draft rules the order switches each round (Team 1, Team 2, Team 3, Team 3, Team 2, Team 1, etc), raising the skill cap of the draft all the way to BW levels. Everything about our league was next level.

Featuring the up and comer Zest, soon to show off his mettle in his first ever GSL finals, a solid Zerg-Zerg one-two punch in Solar and Effort and a strong Terran anchor Bbyong, I give you: Team KT Prillan is [not a merciful] god
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Next up is the frightening team led by the Towel Terran, the Terrorist, and a water Pokemon, featuring an Xmen fanboy, a cool-and-intimidating-english-word, and their pet Zerg Pet. I give you: Team Darkdwarf
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Choo-Choo motherf****rs its team soul train coming through. Parting is the head of the megazord that is this epic team. With an awesome Protoss champion in Stork as his sword arm, the mighty and stable TY as his shield and the easily underestimated Zerg duo of TRUE and Hydra as his mighty round-house-kicking legs and the sweet megazord sunglasses of Jila(Kal) to top it all off, everyone knew who was going to take Season 1 without a map dropped: Team Kommatiazo
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Tough to follow that act right? But someone has to. That task falls to the awesome destructive force that is ByuL, backed up by one of the most evenly balanced and well rounded teams in the league. Stats, Super, and the GSL finalist soO are all staples for their IRL teams even if they aren't the go to ace player. With the very solid Skyhigh and Hack to back them up, this team is looking like a contender: Team Zelevin
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More like team OPterown, am I right? I'm probably the first person to ever make that joke. Anyway, old Opty's team selection skills, much like this group of mega-nerds, was next level on every level. Check it: Rain? Obviously. Soulkey? Duh. Creator? Obvious Prime fanboy is obvious, but still, c'mon. Dream? Of course. Cure? Solid back up. Splendid? Splendid. All the way from the land down under, it's Team Opterown
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This team has three pillars of awesome. Life, the young Zerg hero. sOs, or $O$ depending on who you ask. Classic, the Terran convert gone Protoss force. With Keen, Miso, and Hitman for back up it's clear this teams goal is to win 3-0 with its trifecta every round, but will it work out? It might be very nice to be a part of: Team Varanice
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Borrowing the SKT T1 emblem didn't stop mouzChase from pursuing two of their biggest rivals as champions. What a genius, drafting the two strongest Terrans in a pool devoid of strong Terrans its Maru and Flash leading the way here. With Roro, Trap, and Shine to back them up they aren't the only two who can get some W's for this team. Also Eins. Who is Eins? It's Team mouzChase
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Picking the Game Genie Terran may seem like a good idea on paper, and it turns out it is a good idea in practice too. Adding herO to that mix alongside the Zerg duo of Coca and Curious, with Hoejja and Salvation warming the bench this team is looking fearsome. It's Team Pangpootata
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The Regular Season

I'll just let you read the standings after 5 weeks of grueling RNG based algorithmic warfare. For those too lazy to read the chart: Team Kommatiazo, while being the best on paper, clearly, got absolutely, utterly, completely, undoubtedly, mercilessly, crushingly annihilated by the RNG.

There were some epic games and some close finishes(other than the competition for the EG-TL award). Only map score separated Opterown from Pangpootata as the champion in the final standings. And 3rd-5th was all tied up as well, save map score again. Overall, the season went really well, and the picking game was quite entertaining. Except for me. I feel your pain EG-TL. I feel it all too well. Losing a record setting 12 favored match ups to the RNG gods, the season quickly spiraled out of control for my team. Let's look at Team Kommatiazo's Ace player Parting over the course of the season shall we?

PartinG<Frost>sKyHigh
PartinG<Habitation Station> (T)

Maru

PartinG<Yeonsu>Classic
(P)

PartinG<Frost>Zest
PartinG<Yeonsu> (T)

Cure

PartinG<Habitation Station - Ace>Rain
(P)

PartinG<Habitation Station>Mvp
(P)

PartinG<Yeonsu>Rogue

Friends, this is why the Illuminati brain trust is revising our RNG algorithms to produce more realistic, predictable results. As a huge Parting fan, this season hurts. The RNG system is going to be getting an overhaul during the off-season so that we can have a more interesting and dynamic season 2. Too many teams were able/chose to only play the same 4 players over and over. Next season will be bigger, it will be better, and hopefully I'll win more than 7 maps in the entire season.

Season 2: AFPL Illuminati grows in strength

In season 2 there are going to be some awesome additions to our set up:

Instead of Bo5, Bo7's (6 man lineup + Ace) will now be the standard, with the first and second maps also being used as the sixth and seventh.
With the off season comes trading and another draft to fill additional spots
The addition of more than just the Kespa SPL teams and players. The draft pool now contains players from other top teams such as Liquid, EG, and Root, as well as teamless masters such as Bomber and MC!
A revamping of the map balance system. Rather than simply giving a map a swing towards one race, each map now accounts for each match up and will weigh accordingly into the calculations
Elimination of outlier games. + Show Spoiler [Long explanation] +
With the previous rules, if sOs is matched up against a Kassia and has a 70% chance of winning after map and match up calculations, then we say sOs has a 70-30 advantage, and the RNG produces a number 1-100. If that number falls in [1-30] then he loses, if it falls in [31-100] then he wins. With the new system (the specifics are yet to be finalized) it would look essentially the same except now the RNG rolls only [20-80], so sOs now loses on [20-30] and wins on [31-80]. So instead of 70 chances to win and 30 to lose, he now has 50 chances to win and 10 chances to lose.
Addition of a rule stating that all players on your team must be in the lineup at least twice (subject to change, this might get bumped up to 3 or 4 times) during the season
Revamped teams. Taking the above into account, teams will now be made up of at least 9 players worth at most 54 points total (point values are inferred from Aligulac directly. e.e. 1000-1100 is 1 point, 1101-1200 is 2 points, etc.)

But the most important thing we'll be adding in the off-season? YOU

We need at least 2 more players, possibly 3 for our total of 8, so please PM me or Darkdwarf if you're interested. We'd like to start drafting and trading ASAP, so get in on the action! You'll be taking over for one of the teams that are now left vacant (think of it as replacing the old head coach) as redoing the whole draft from scratch would delay us too long. If you have any questions please feel free to let us know. Our group may be small and elite, but we are open to suggestions for improvement to the system and are just looking to have fun! Come join us!

Thanks for reading
-Kommatiazo

AFPL Season 1 and my RNG Apocalypse

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