I also miss outlaws! They were so cool :)

You can find the Multi Template Ladder at: https://www.warlight-mtl.com/

Welcome to this week's weekly update, in a mostly quiet week. The website for the ladder has had a bit of downtime throughout the week, albeit the ladder itself stayed online, so games were still being created. The top 10 haven't had much need of this service, however, as most of the players at the top maintain a slow pace of play. As a result, only Beelzeebub finished more than 5 games this week. At the top remains Octane, whose three wins puts his winstreak at 15, which ties his personal record. This one is the most impressive of said winstreaks though, as it's been done entirely in first place.

Optimum, Harmony and ONE! remain dominant in the clans department, as over 40% of the currently joined players on the ladder belong to these three clans. Part of that number does come from the fact that multiple players have left the ladder the last few weeks, lowering overall participation to 54 players at the time of writing. It is my hope that people won't be discouraged by this, as there's still plenty of interesting and strong opponents on the ladder to face.

This week's climbers are primarily Ralph and Bechaa, who finish the week at 1817 and 1755 rating, respectively. Bechaa's performance is often streaky on the ladder, so hopefully this is an indication of a return to form to the former 2121 rating player. Ralph, similarly, has had some boot/nonjoin-streaks in the past, and this may be a push towards former glory at the 1982 rating peak he has.


The Top 10:

Rank	Player			Rating	W/L	Rank Change
1	Octane			2212	3/0	0
2	tornado			2004	1/1	0
3	Buns157			1995	1/0	0
4	Juan			1942	4/1	3
5	Beren Erchamion		1925	1/0	3
6	FiveStarGeneral		1916	1/3	0
7	malakkan		1912	0/2	-3
8	Jacoþ thε Restle§°ⁿ³	1888	1/3	-3
9	Beelzeebub		1881	6/2	1
10	jache			1881	0/1	NEW

(NEW implies the player wasn't ranked a week ago, whatever the reason for that may be)

Stats of the Week:
Most Active: Ralph and Syphen, with 10 games each
Most Wins: Ralph, 8 wins
Biggest Rank Rise: Bechaa, rose 10 ranks
Biggest Rank Tumble: Ōbāmīum, Jacoþ thε Restle§°ⁿ³ and malakkan, dropped 3 ranks each
Biggest Rating Rise: Bechaa, gained 73 points
Biggest Rating Drop: Jacoþ thε Restle§°ⁿ³, lost 54 points
Longest Ongoing Winstreak: Octane, 15 wins in a row

Due to intense drinking, this week's player of the week segment will be delayed. The player of the week this week is malakkan, so stay tuned for that.

The games of the week will also be delayed, unfortunately.

That's it for this week, if you have anything you want to include in a future update contact me or Ralph

"One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor." - George Carlin

---

Sorry for the delay! A mixture of bad and worse decisions left me an absolute mess. Im finally alive and kicking, so here are a few notable games from last week (13.05 -> 19.05):

Bechaa vs Beelzebub, Randomized Strat ME: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=37882153
Beelzebub opened the game by going for an unconventional 0.9% chance FTB +5 Central Russia. Try it 99 more times and you might get it :) The ever rising Bechaa, who ended up winning the game, did the much more sane strategy of finishing a +4 CA into a +5 SA for the first 3 turns. The result was 14v10, with beelz having done some expansion in +4 Caucasus (needing 7 to finish it without risk) and also having a 6v2 stack advantage after trying to counter Bechaa´s +6 Greenland. The next turn Bechaa did his usual: One trillion delays and a heavy attack, while beelz finished his bonus. Same income game, but the stack advantage flipped to 7v2 in favor of Bechaa, with neither having missed any card pieces. The weighted round chose bechaa over belz, as both deployed 1 to get a card piece and 18 to defend/attack, with the 24 attack killing 15 (40%), resulting in an 11v5 stack. Beelz skipped the card piece the next turn to catch back up, the stack now at 10v6, which bechaa saw as his queue to take the +4 West Africa he had entered and opened the previous 2 turns. He then abandoned and blockaded Greenland, leaving Beelz to chase after shadows while Bechaa moved through northern africa to counter the +6 Europe. A perfect plan he almost screwed up by overexpanding the following turn, as he was saved by random move order on the last turn, which allowed him to break the bonus and win the game.

7ate9 vs Syphen, Succession Wars: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=37792877
Timinator Apex want this template gone! Sign up for the petition by commenting on the thread if you agree with him XD
If you want to learn the template look at what 7ate9 did here. He went for the south, with the best expansion option towards the middle. Income might look close for the first few turns, but Syphen sent his troops the wrong way to keep up cursing him with bad trades throughout the game. Moreover he also ended up very cut off with his picks in the south, and spent his ENTIRE reinforcement card there. New template, and weird template, but pick the center, spend your troops in your cluster and dont try anything fancy. I have yet to see anything else work. 7ate9 streamlined his troops into the middle towards Syphen, which ultimately led to Syphens downfall as he sent his troops the other way.

Platinum vs MarkusBM, MA Battle Islands: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=37812582
Yes thats right Markus, nobody is safe (except for me). Plat had intel, Markus did not, and thus Plat countered Markus turn 1, defended the counter and his bonus turn 2 (while also blockading and finishing another bonus in the meantime). They countered each other turn 3, leaving income at 7v8. One important note: Dont get fooled by the army count! Markus may have had 2 more armies after turn 3, but only 5 were moveable and 4 of those were stranded, while Plat had 8 moveable armies threatening elim in the center. This allowed Plat to expand on turn 4, while also predicting a gift + no deploy + counter from MarKus. The result was a staggering 15v7 income lead, with equal moveable armies. Markus tried to get back into the game, but that proved to be a mountain too tall to climb, even if he tried heroically on both turn 5 and turn 6.

Edited 5/26/2024 18:59:26

You can find the Multi Template Ladder at: https://www.warlight-mtl.com/

Welcome to this week's weekly update, after a week that saw the return of the king. Rufus is back to contest the top, but the gap he needs to close is bigger than ever as Octane has bested his personal longest winstreak, climbing ever higher in the ratings. Octane also currently sits just 7 rating off his highest rating of all time, albeit last he was there Rufus managed to overtake him despite that. Jacoþ thε Restle§°ⁿ³ is taking bets on when Rufus hits 2200 again.

After yet another week with several people in the top 10 playing slowly, I figured it was time to reflect on what that actually means for the standings. The activity bonus goes up to 80, but there's a buffer that allows you to go above that. In order to maintain an activity bonus of 80, you need to finish a game every 2.5 days, or about 3 games a week. Anyone below this amount will not benefit fully. As is, 3 players in the top 10 have finished less than that amount this past week (not counting Rufus). Due to the slow pace of recent weeks, 6 players in the top 10 don't have maxed activity bonuses, and as such could gain rating by simply playing faster rather than better (though admittedly many are at least close to the cap). The addition of fast players like Ralph, Beelzeebub and Rufus does increase the average pace of play, but as is, both 11th and 12th place would be in the top 10 if they played faster. Notably, Buns157 would be in second place with a maxed activity bonus.

Optimum, ONE! and Harmony remain the most active clans on the ladder, and ONE! presents yet another dominant week with 6 players in the top 10. Meanwhile, Masters increases their presence to 5 players, all 5 of which are in the top 15.

This weeks big climbers are Ralph and Adreso, closely followed by Bechaa and Syphen. Ralph puts up an excellent 11-3 week, while Adreso goes undefeated while beating former first places MoriOri and master of desaster

The Top 10:

Rank	Player			Rating	W/L	Rank Change
1	Octane			2231	4/0	0
2	tornado			2015	2/1	0
3	Buns157			2002	1/1	0
4	Rufus			1986	1/1	NEW
5	Juan			1967	6/2	-1
6	Beren Erchamion		1936	2/1	-1
7	Ralph			1922	11/3	7
8	FiveStarGeneral		1890	0/1	-1
9	malakkan		1870	0/2	-1
10	Beelzeebub		1867	6/5	2

(NEW implies the player wasn't ranked a week ago, whatever the reason for that may be)

Stats of the Week:
Most Active: Ralph, with 14 games (11 wins, 3 losses)
Most Wins: Ralph, 11 wins
Biggest Rank Rise: Ralph, rose 7 ranks
Biggest Rank Tumble: Jacoþ thε Restle§°ⁿ³, dropped 7 ranks
Biggest Rating Rise: Ralph, gained 100 points
Biggest Rating Drop: Jacoþ thε Restle§°ⁿ³, lost 120 points
Longest Ongoing Winstreak: Octane, 19 wins in a row

Player of the Week:
Beren Erchamion

This weeks player needs no introduction, but he gets it anyway. Beren runs the MTL and is a cornerstone to the community. He has five top 10 placements on the seasonal ladder, where two of them were in the top 5. He has the 2v2 ladder trophy, the 3v3 ladder trophy, the real time ladder trophy, and a 2nd place on the 1v1 ladder. Beren has also been a mainstay towards the top of the MTL ever since it was rebooted, with his current streak in the top 10 amounting to 124 days (the longest active streak) and has been in the top 5 for most of that time as well. Fellow warzoner, Jefferspin, has publicly stated that Beren is better than everyone, and I am inclined to agree!

Favorite template: Strat ME
Favorite player: master of desaster
Peak rating: 2063
Peak rank: 2

(Interviewer: Ralph)
Thanks for joining us for the weekly update boss!

Thanks for doing these interviews! They’re always fun to read

I appreciate you saying that! I can also see that you have put a previous interviewee as your favorite player. How do you think Min34 will react to this? He seemed jealous when mod declared you were his favorite player during his interview.

That’s a very good question. I always weigh carefully what I think Min34 will think about anything I say. In this case, I think he will understand, because of my history with mod on the 3v3 ladder.
He also hasn’t been as effusive about my singing as mod has, so he can only blame himself for this.

Im happy to hear that I will receive no complaints on this weeks interview then! But lets cut to the meat of the matter: You have now had a full consecutive week in the top 5 of the ladder, and close to 8 consecutive weeks in the top 10. The 1st rank is not far off, do you plan on making a push for it?

Haha I like how you say it’s not far off when Octane is 300 points ahead of me right now
I’m currently playing the ladder rather casually, as CL has sapped a lot of my motivation. Currently I’m just trying to keep my top 10 streak going as long as I can, and if I get a good run of games, we’ll see what happens.

So modest! Then I believe you are more concerned with the players behind you than those ahead of you. Any players in particular who you fear might end your streak in the top 10?

There are a lot of great players sitting just outside the top ten like Timinator, malakkan, belz, and Motoki. Almost the entire top 20 has peak ratings over 2000, so if a bunch of them get motivated or go on a hot streak while I have a poor run of form, I will likely drop out of the top 10.

You are the host of the MTL and I think its safe to say that you know better than the average player when it comes to whats required to take the trophy and stay near the top. Any advice to the current challengers?

Take it one game at a time and don’t let frustration from one game bleed over into your other games. Also I’m not sure of others feel this way, but I find I play better when I have around four games at a time and play quickly. It’s free enough games that you can keep them straight in your mind, but enough that even if you have slow a few slow opponents, you can play enough to stay engaged with the ladder. Playing quickly also makes it easier to remember what’s going on in the game.
Of course I don’t follow this advice myself most of the time, as Rufus regularly reminds me.

To finish this interview of with a prediction: When do you think that the supreme reign of Octane is coming to an end?

He’s got a huge lead right now. I suspect as CL comes to a close, we may see buns, tornado, and mod put a bit more effort into rising on the ladder, and of course Rufus could come back at any time. I expect he’ll remain in first for at least another month, though maybe longer.

(Upon hearing that Rufus rejoined the ladder today, Beren changed his prediction:)

Well in that case maybe two weeks, as he does have a good rating cushion as of right now. But if he does last a month, he’ll start to challenge Buns' third longest streak in first.

Edited 5/26/2024 19:17:44

Notable Games:

7ate9 vs CraZy, Fast Earth: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=37803798
Dont let the name fool you, this was NOT a fast game. In fact it took almost 16.5 days from creation until it was finished! If you are a fan of the 75/50 killrate templates, then this is a game for you. T1 both players hit each other, 7ate9 spent 3 income to CraZys 2, and ended up wiping his opponent, while CraZy set up CA for the next turn. Turn 2 7ate9 took a step back in Greenland, expecting the attack from CraZy, allowing him to live for another turn. Turn 4 saw an expertly performed counter from 7ate9, spending an OP card to eliminate a spare from CraZy which allowed his second attack to counter the completion of Indonesia, and turn 6 saw the roles reversed, with CraZy maximizing the killrates to his favor to turn an equal stack position in Indonesia into a 3v1 in his favor. The dance continued, but CraZys lack of intel on where 7ate9 had his income ended up putting him on the back foot: After eliminating 7ate9 in Greenland, and a blunder of forgetting Attack-Only on turn 9, CraZy then spent his income gunning for the Scandinavian border, only to find it empty, while 7ate9 finished a +3 and got a comfortable 3 income lead. A questionable turn 12 by both players saw the game placed firmly in the grasp of 7ate9, and an even more confusing turn 13 saw CraZy call the gg. WP to both players!

Juan vs Beren Erchamion, Malvia: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=37779128
Juan had a hot start to the week, briefly passing the 2k rating barrier, and this was a notable game from that run. Neither player had any direct intel from picks, which was evident with both players sending small stacks to double borders on empty bonuses on turn 4 while trying to get a feel for the game. The players met at turn 5 in a bonus between the players +4s, and while Beren commited troops for deployment the following turn, he ended up somewhat passive in the attack. This proved costly for Beren, as the dust settled after the turn he had 17 troops one move away from applying pressure on Juan, had been countered in a +3 he tried to finish, was 7 income behind AND had spent his reinforcement card. Juan used the following turn to consolidate his lead: A first order attack in the bonus he had just countered, as well as a defensive deploy on both borders while waiting out Berens OD card saw Juan acquire a 19 army lead on his clanmate. Beren was forced to blockade his bonus to protect his income the following turn, but it was too little too late. Juan was too far ahead in terms of income, army and positional advantage, and closed the game out.

Obamium vs MetalGear4.5, Guiroma: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=37846679
A battle between two newcomers who both joined the ladder in 2024, featuring a strategy which I have never seen before! Obamium picked fairly standard: Some ftbs and some picks for expansion. While there is plenty of room for improvement, his picks are not far from what you would expect from any player on the beloved guiroma template. MetalGear, on the other hand, picked no less than 3(!!!) +1s in his top 4 picks, with the only outlier being his 1st pick, a +2 in Spain that bordered his 2nd pick, the adjacent +1 in Spain. 10 income after turn 1, while also countering/expanding into a neighbouring bonus sounds good on paper, I dont recommend this at all. His income progression: 5-10-10-12-15-21, left a LOT to be desired compared to Obamiums: 5-8-13-18-22-28, as he effectively ruined all of his potential for expansion. The only positive I can think of was that Obamium had absolutely no idea where his opponent was, and sent stacks in all directions. The drawback: Obamium could afford it with the massive lead he had. When the players met on turn 5, Obamium swiftly broke MetalGears +4 in Egypt and continued to steamroll ahead. Obamium had more than double the total amount of armies that MetalGear had and almost twice the income when the game ended after turn 7.

That's it for this week, if you have anything you want to include in a future update contact me or Ralph

Rufus back nice, Octane is rly pushing that rating. Will be fun to see how it turns out, but my guess, Octane won’t give 1st up easily :p

You can find the Multi Template Ladder at: https://www.warlight-mtl.com/

Welcome back to another weekly update. This week has seen one streak ended and another started, as Octane's 20 game win streak in first place was finally toppled by not one, but two Masters, in the form of first CraZy and then Rufus. Meanwhile, Rufus has been on a rampage, posting a 9 game winstreak which includes wins against Octane, malakkan, master of desaster and CraZy. As as result, what was a 245 rating gap between Octane and Rufus at the end of last week is now down to a mere 106.

With Bechaa making a return to form and rejoining the top 10, there's now 4 fast players in the top 10, 3 of which managed to post winrates of 85% or above. The higher pace of play means both Bechaa and Ralph are currently ranked higher than they would have been if activity bonuses weren't a thing.

In the clans department, we see a new development. ONE!'s Juan dropped from the ladder, and malakkan was overtaken and pushed outside the top 10, so there's now just 4 ONE! members left in the top 10. Masters on the other hand have made a resurgence, with 3 players in the top 10. In terms of overall membership, Optimum tops the charts with 8 players on the ladder, closely followed by ONE! and Harmony.

This weeks top climbers have been Rufus, Bechaa and lawm. Lawm had a solid 3-0 week with wins against higher rated opponents, Bechaa went 6-1 and included a win against Rufus, while Rufus impressive climb is based on an 11-1 performance, including aforementioned 9 game winning streak and a win against Octane.

The Top 10:

Rank	Player			Rating	W/L	Rank Change
1	Octane			2180	1/2	0
2	Rufus			2074	11/1	2
3	Buns157			2003	1/0	0
4	tornado			1983	0/1	-2
5	Ralph			1950	6/1	1
6	Beren Erchamion		1950	2/0	-1
7	FiveStarGeneral		1912	2/0	1
8	Bechaa			1864	6/1	6
9	master of desaster	1852	0/1	0
10	CraZy			1843	4/2	3

(NEW implies the player wasn't ranked a week ago, whatever the reason for that may be)

Stats of the Week:
Most Active: Syphen, with 19 games (9 wins, 10 losses)
Most Wins: Rufus, 11 wins
Biggest Rank Rise: Baer, rose 9 ranks
Biggest Rank Tumble: Fisherking70, dropped 6 ranks
Biggest Rating Rise: Rufus, gained 88 points
Biggest Rating Drop: Fisherking70, lost 61 points
Longest Ongoing Winstreak: Rufus, 9 wins in a row

Player of the week:
Syphen

The player of the week for this week is Syphen. A staggering 19(!) games in 7 days on the MTL is cause for celebrations, especially since it brought with it a new personal best rating at 1701. Syphen, who currently has a respectable 1653 rating, is spearheading the 101st charge up the ladder, with the clan having a total of 4 active players at the time of writing. As a part of the famed training clan, I expect great things from both him and his peers in the coming months.

Favorite template: French Brawl
Favorite player: alexclusive
Peak rating: 1701
Peak rank: 19

Thanks for joining us for this week Syphen!

Thanks ralph! I love reading these every week, please keep doing them!

You have been incredibly active this week, with almost 20 games completed in the space of 7 days. Im impressed! Do you feel like playing this quickly helps you learn the templates quicker, or is the amount of games too high to properly analyse afterwards?

This week I was playing really fast on the MTL trying to push my rating up but I don't intend to keep the pace. I'm still getting a complete feel for most templates but now I have a decent library to look back on to analyze what i may have done wrong. Playing quickly caused some frustration to spill over to other matches, so I will be taking some more time in my games to stay collected

Speaking of pushing your rating: Congratulations on a new PB and finally breaching 1700!

Thanks! I hope to beat that again but it only gets harder as im already getting a taste of playing some of the best on the ladder

Trust me, the games only get better the higher you climb! Any players you have been matched with recently where you went «Yep, I got stomped» after the game finished, or have you always felt somewhat competitive?

I felt that way towards my match against Muli on Africa, I had good intel but I made a wrong move predicting one of his spots which didn't work, then suddenly I met him and I got ran over, but I do try my best on all games and can give a good battle

The INSS templates are often extra punishing, so I can imagine the feeling!
There are 4 players from the 101st on the ladder currently, do you and your clanmates support each other with game analysis and template practice?

Yeah of course, I am always down for a practice game, we have play many internal matches and also many people open to analyzing our matches, the competitiveness within the clan is very nice and i say it has helped me improve a lot

Any players in particular that you think deserves a shout?

One guy also in the mtl from 101st gualandi, we have a lot of games against each other and they are always competitive

Great to have a bit of a friendly rivalry within the clan! Finally, tell me about your next goal on the MTL, and a prediction on when you think you will reach it.

A goal of mine right now would be to contend to be and stay in the top 20, with how it looks right now I hope i can begin contending for that within a few weeks

Ralph will post some game analysis of interesting games in the coming days, so stay tuned for that!

That's it for this week, if you have anything you want to include in a future update contact me or Ralph

Thanks for doing these, guys, I enjoy reading them!

- When Texx will be interviewed -

Favourite player: Texx

Nah man. That would be too egotistical, even for me. There’s lots of cool people in this community. If I ever got the honour of doing an interview I’d show some love to my friends and give them a shoutout.

You can find the Multi Template Ladder at: https://www.warlight-mtl.com/

Another week comes to a close, and as such it is time for another weekly update. Octane extends his first place streak to 47 days in a row, putting him in 6th place in the all time first-place-streak rankings. Below him, top 6 remains unchanged compared to last week, but a strong week from Buns157 widens the gap between third and fourth. A couple of losses from Octane additionally means the gap between first and second is down to 72 rating.

During the mid-week Ralph managed to push his personal all-time-highest rating above 2000, which briefly saw him in third place. Some losses have however pushed him back down to fifth. SerFen has rejoined the ladder, and a strong week sees them solidly in 7th place.

Ralph set up a coin bounty for OP members, and as such there's been a surge in ladder participation from the OP players, which now see 11 members on the ladder. ONE! and Harmony are still the second and third most active clans, and ONE! especially continues looking strong with 4 members in the top 10. Of course, Masters also look strong with their 3 players in the top 10.

The high risers this week have been a bit less impactful compared to previous weeks, but 7ate9, QuixoteG and lawm all had nice weeks in terms of rating. The three most winning players this week all find themselves high in the ratings already, and as such their wins were balanced out by relatively few losses. Rento rejoins the ladder and immediately finds themselves on a 7 game winstreak, which surely bodes well for the future.

The Top 10:

Rank	Player			Rating	W/L	Rank Change
1	Octane			2137	2/2	0
2	Rufus			2065	9/3	0
3	Buns157			2036	5/2	0
4	tornado			1974	0/0	0
5	Ralph			1972	8/3	0
6	Beren Erchamion		1917	0/2	0
7	SerFen			1909	9/3	NEW
8	FiveStarGeneral		1904	1/2	-1
9	CraZy			1871	4/1	1
10	master of desaster	1862	2/1	-1

(NEW implies the player wasn't ranked a week ago, whatever the reason for that may be)

Stats of the Week:
Most Active: Syphen, with 16 games (6 wins, 10 losses)
Most Wins: Rufus and SerFen, 9 wins each
Biggest Rank Rise: Tjoex, rose 9 ranks
Biggest Rank Tumble: Bechaa, dropped 11 ranks
Biggest Rating Rise: 7ate9, gained 53 points
Biggest Rating Drop: Bechaa, lost 98 points
Longest Ongoing Winstreak: Rento, 7 wins in a row

Player of the week:
Baer

The player of the week for this week is Baer, but a delay means the inteview will be posted later.

Notable games:

Rufus vs Buns, Aseridith Islands: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=38076283
The deposed king is hunting for his crown, and this weeks victim was our favorite brit, buns! Rufus and Buns had the same 11 picks in a different order, with Rufus focusing the center with his 1-2 and buns picking a +5 mining site for his 1-2. They deviated from each other with the 12th pick, which proved very valuable to Rufus. Buns got caught having to move to get out of negative income from some starts, while Rufus focused on growing. This, as well as an extremely greedy turn 2 by both players, gave Rufus an income and army advantage through the entire game. Clinical!
One lesson from this game: Be careful with your late picks, the 3 army starts and negative income bonuses have punished the writer of this analysis as well.

Bonsai vs Baer, Tor-ture: https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=38120368
Torture is a fitting name. Baer had a bit of bad luck going against him the first turns: He lost a spare t1 in the bonus he was trying to take, and then got caught on the backfoot by bonsais 6th pick. Bonsai used this to his advantage by going full greed, and took a +3.T3 Bonsai used this to eliminate one of Baers starts, putting him firmly ahead but not quite fully won. There was a close call on t7: Both players played OP card, but the gods of RMO let bonsai break a bonus and get away with an otherwise VERY risky play. That turn made the game go from 11-11 with one Baer start eliminated to 17-8 and two Baer starts eliminated. Talk about game winning moves!

That's it for this week, if you have anything you want to include in a future update contact me or Ralph

Player of the Week:
Baer

The player of this week is Baer. He has been around on the MTL for longer than Ive played this game! He has the 6th most games played on the ladder, with his 1767 games, and more than 2000(!!) days ranked in total on the ladder. If you have joined the ladder in the past, chances are you have at least a few games against him.

Favourite Player: Octane
Favourite Template: Small Earth Commander and Bomb
Peak Rating: 1856
Peak Rank: 10

Thank you for joining us, Baer! You have the 3rd most days ranked on the MTL, how have you kept motivation throughout this time?

MTL is great because it keeps providing you with fun/new games against active opponents

Do you know which opponent you have played the most on the MTL? With your almost 1800 ladder games I assume there are a few youve faced quite a lot!

I definitely recognize many of the names I play against, but there isn't one that jumps to mind as coming up most often.

We have recently seen an influx of players from the clans Harmony and Optimum, as well as the ever-present players from ONE! and Masters. Do you think Corp will follow suit and we will see a wave coming in from your clan now that Clan League is coming to an end?

I wouldn't expect a large influx of players from CORP. Clan League was never a big focus in CORP, so I would not expect that ending to have any significant impact on players looking for something else.

To finish things off, what is your favourite thing about the ladder, and what would you change with the ladder? With all your games and the amount of time youve spent on the ladder, I am sure you have valuable insight that might help improving it down the line.

Favourite thing about the MTL ladder is getting exposure to many different strategic templates against a wide variety of strong opponents. No big change comes to mind - I guess it may be fun if there were some sort of yearly playoff system?

Edited 6/18/2024 07:36:29

Every time I have to log back in to the MTL website, under "manage ladder settings" on the home page it shows "Join Ladder" instead of my number of games/vetoes, even though I am already actively participating. Do I need to click on that every time I log in to ensure I get more games? Or is this just a visual thing?

Apologies to anyone who has been surprised not to be getting any MTL games. There was a bug which removed you from the ladder if you clicked "Login" rather than "Login and Join" when logging in on the ladder website. This has now been fixed. Please check to make sure you are in fact joined to the ladder if you haven't been getting games.

@Saleen147, you ran into this precise bug. Please check to see that you are logged in, but in the future you should not have this problem.

Edited 6/16/2024 00:15:37

Thanks Beren!

You can find the Multi Template Ladder at: https://www.warlight-mtl.com/

Welcome to another weekly update. This was a week where Octane's first place streak was finally broken, after an impressive 52 days in first. He was overtaken by a dominant Rufus, who's currently on an 11 game winstreak. The game that pushed Rufus ahead of Octane was a loss from Octane to Motoki, meaning Octane has lost his last 5 games in a row against Masters. Octane decided to take a break after getting pushed to second, stating an intent to rejoin the ladder at a later date, but not having the motivation to play right now with nothing on the line. Rufus is 115 rating ahead of the new second place, Buns157.

This was a week that saw a large amount of newcomers and rejoiners on the ladder. Tuesday we saw the membership count around 57, but by Saturday that amount had climbed to 64, which is where it sits at time of writing. A recruitment drive from Ralph and a few other OP members seems to be the driving factor for this week's push. I expect the bugfix Beren posted to cause a slight increase in player count, since fewer players will accidentally leave the ladder. One of the players coming back is Gunslinger, who had an impressive push that got him into 7th place on the ladder and set a new personal rating record of 1904.

In the clans department, OP is on top in terms of membership, having 12 players on the ladder. ONE! has 7 active players, and 101st ties up Harmony in third place with 6 players each. In the top 10, ONE! is back to 5 players, while Masters hold 3 spots and OP holds 2.

Some noteworthy climbers in the standings (Rufus and Gunslinger were already mentioned) are CraZy with their impressive 4-1 week including a win against Buns157, and nickpugs with a massive 16-2 week, who was unranked last week but has stormed his way into 22nd place, surely looking to climb more.

The Top 10:

Rank	Player			Rating	W/L	Rank Change
1	Rufus			2131	11/1	1
2	Buns157			2016	1/1	1
3	tornado			1965	0/0	1
4	Ralph			1947	2/3	1
5	CraZy			1910	4/1	4
6	FiveStarGeneral		1903	1/1	1
7	The Gunslinger		1878	9/3	8
8	master of desaster	1871	1/1	3
9	Beren Erchamion		1868	0/3	-3
10	malakkan		1849	1/1	3

(NEW implies the player wasn't ranked a week ago, whatever the reason for that may be)

Stats of the Week:
Most Active: nickpugs3, with 18 games (16 wins, 2 losses)
Most Wins: nickpugs3, with 16 wins
Biggest Rank Rise: The Gunslinger, rose 8 ranks
Biggest Rank Tumble: brain, dropped 7 ranks
Biggest Rating Rise: The Gunslinger, gained 73 points
Biggest Rating Drop: Jacoþ thε Restle§°ⁿ³, lost 63 points
Longest Ongoing Winstreak: Rufus, 11 wins in a row

Player of the week:
Rufus

The player of the week for this week is Rufus, but a delay means the inteview will be posted later.

Notable games:

These will also be delayed. You can follow the thread to get updates on when posts are made, but expect the analysis to go up one of the coming days.

That's it for this week, if you have anything you want to include in a future update contact me or Ralph.

After a humdinger of a stream by Fizzer, going over a massive amount of changes to the game, this feels like jumping after Wirkola. Nevertheless, I have an exciting interview to share with you all!

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Player of the week:
Rufus

We all love him, we have all been gatekept from the MTL trophy by him. 4 seasonal ladder trophies, a seasonal ladder 2nd place finish on 4 separate occasions, as well as finishing 3rd twice AND a total of 14 top 10 seasonal ladder finishes. More 1st place finishes on the coin leadboard than you can count, and a 1v1 ladder rating almost 250 points higher the 2nd highest rating. But the most impressive feat of them all: Rufus has kept the no. 1 spot on the MTL for more than 50% of the past 6 years. I think he is the GOAT, and regardless of that: he is definitely the player of this week now that he is back on top.

Favourite Player: Cloud Strife
Favourite Template: Great Lakes (the best test of skill)
Peak Rating: 2322
Peak Rank: 1

The world almost feels back to normal now that you're back in first. Am I safe to assume that you will keep the gate firmly shut for the hopeful few biting at your heels?

After a short break it feels like I finally came back to my top-notch form to continue to hold the precious 1st place. Hopefully, it lasts as long as before.

Speaking of those hopeful few: Anyone you feel are ready to take the final step up and pose a threat to 1st?

Octane had fire inside of him to finally reach the trophy and now that he achieved that, I don't see anyone else going as far as him. While Tornado always had potential to do that and came very close, it doesn't look like he will try that again anytime soon, especially with such a low elo rating. Although, there is another very active player who could climb up to the 2nd place, but I would rather not talk about them.

You are currently on a 12 game winstreak, and I think all players admire your consistency and speed. Do you have some advice on how to try and approach a similar level of play to what you consistently display?

Love for the game and a lot of practise. That's the best I can do to put it in a few words. Unless you want me to go more technical.

Getting into the technicalities is something that I believe would be beneficial in this case. If you have something specific you feel most of the player base needs to improve upon please tell!

If you want to become a good player, then you have to know about kill rates and what is efficient and what is not. Often times you can see players defending with 6 armies against 8 army attack without using a tap. That's the very first step of improving your gameplay. Then you have more complicated terms like tempo, trades or sacrifices. That leads to new players trying to save every piece of their arsenal not knowing that they are actually digging a grave for themselves.

Enough with helping the competition, otherwise we both plummet down the rankings! The MTL now has 65 joined players, close to an all-time high, but there are a few missing. Anyone you want call out, and tell to man-up and rejoin?

It would only make sense to call out someone who is already active in the game, but not the ladder. So that would be Texx and Alex, but I already know the reasons why they don't join at least for now. There are also others who come and go like Juan, Forsaken, Dom, etc. Many good players who would make the ladder more interesting. Now when I am writing this, I am asking myself if there are any players who have never even tried MTL... Probably not from the active circle.

I can only think of a certain toad... Since we have you as the player of the week, Id like to reminisce about the past: You have been the dominant force on the MTL for more than 6 years now, ever since you first got the top spot the 13th of April 2018. Out of the 2257 days that have passed since, you have been the sole monarch for 1164 of them. Who have been your biggest rivals during this time, and has it been lonely at the top?

I guess you can name everyone who got the trophy during that time: Beep, Nomercy, Fivestar, Octane... If I didn't leave someone behind. Anyway, Nomercy and Fivestar didn't play that long at the very top, so they had kind of short appearance, meanwhile Beep was probably the biggest rival.

To round things off, I have a double question for you: We have seen Beep retire recently, but do you think your former rival will return in the future? And have you considered retiring from the game, or do you think you will keep playing for the foreseeable future?

I don't think that he will return, but nowadays I see greater potential in younger talent. I would like to see them more motivated instead. Speaking about retirement it is not a fun topic, but I will play till I see myself still improving at this game.

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Notable games will come out tomorrow. But you heard it here first: Rufus is going to keep us all out of the top spot for the foreseeable future!

Edited 6/18/2024 07:18:29

R.I.P. MTL being on the ladder page.

The battle is lost but the war is not over

Fizzer did say he might try out the mtl. Maybe he'll see the merit of it then.