ATXIII Team Summaries Part VII

You can read the previous parts here: one, two, three, four, five, six.

Rote Kapelle

Seed: 9
Formed: 30/10/2008
Flagship: Bhaalgorn
First match: PE1-R1 16:00 vs. Affirmative.

Rote Kapelle are an old school tourney team from Syndicate, an area rich with tournament teams. My co-commentator Bacchanalian from ATXII was a Rote member, and they have a long history of tournaments between the players, even if the alliance itself hasn’t participated as extensively as they have personally.

ATVIII: Lost to HYDRA in Ro16.
ATX: Beat Percussive Pizza Time Diplomacy, Fluffeh Bunneh Murder Squad, Kill it with Fire, PL, lost to RvB and Verge of Collapse (winners).
ATXI: Beat Wormhole Holders, The Fourth District, Verge of Collapse, lost to THE R0NIN and Agony Empire.
ATXII: Beat The Fearless Empire, SCUM. and Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork before losing to PL and then THE R0NIN.

Rote are a pretty old school team with guys that know what they’re doing. From what I can gather, the thing stopping them being a great team is something of a lethargy for EVE. Motivation year-round can be very difficult for older players who believe they have seen and done it all. Unless Rote found a new passion for the game, they still have plenty of experience to knock most teams out, but they won’t manage to be a serious contender for the title.

Scary Wormhole People

Seed: 17
Formed: 11/04/2013
Flagship: N/A
First match: PE1-R1 15:00 vs. The Gorgon Empire & Spawn

Scary Wormhole People are a wormhole alliance (C5, PvP focused) with no previous AT history. Recently they hosted the EVE New England meetup and have participated in the alliance panels of previous years. They actually won a fanfest EVE Valkyrie tournament, though that won’t say much about their potential in the alliance tournament. Gorgon are a damn good team, especially with the injection of the old Darkside. team, so it was no surprise that TDSIN lost their first match.

Shadow Cartel

Seed: 11
Formed: 26/11/2008
Flagship: Bhaalgorn
First match: JB-007 19:00 vs. Pandemic Horde

Shadow Cartel are pretty much the strongest lowsec force at the moment, perhaps rivalled by Snuff Box on a good day. They’re old, rich motherfuckers that upstarts like me call “the cancer of lowsec” for flying high-grade slaved Guardians and other such things. In reality, they’re just rich and good at what they do. In terms of the Alliance Tournament, Shadow Cartel are a middling team. They can give the top-tier teams a wobble and trample over the new blood. This will be SCs fourth entry to the AT, having been pretty consistently in the middle of the pack with a great losers bracket run at the end of ATXII.

ATX: Beat The Kadeshi, Suddenly Spaceships, Gypsy Band and lost to Tribal Conclave, Percussive Pizza Time Diplomacy and Nulli Secunda.
ATXI: Beat Noir. and Urine Alliance (Snuff Box), lost to Darkside. and M.I.F.
ATXII: Beat The G0dfathers, lost to Pandemic Legion, then beat The Fearless Empire, WAFFLES. and Red vs. Blue before finally falling to The Afterlife.

Shadow Cartel brought us some really cool matches last year, and while I don’t think anyone is expecting them to be a serious contender, they’re certainly a middleweight team that can give the top teams clenched buttocks if they don’t take them seriously. Like, watch their match vs PL last year. Shit was intense.

SpaceMonkey’s Alliance

Seed: 64
Formed: 14/02/2009
Flagship: Bhaalgorn
First match: PE1-R1 14:00 vs. The Camel Empire

Oh SMA. I’m so sorry.

On the bright side, your losers bracket run shouldn’t hit any big players for quite a while, so you should be able to rack up some serious ship skins if you didn’t give up as soon as you saw who your first round opponents were.

Anyway, SMA are a Clusterperium member alliance who hold all but one system in Fade, a little of Cloud Ring, a little of Pure Blind and one system all the way over in Fountain. When looking through the records, I was sure SMA had participated in an AT before but I can’t find any record of them doing so. I’m more inclined to believe this is me fucking up, but it may be the case. Still, SMA will lose to Camel and we get to see what they’re made of in their potential losers bracket run.

Suddenly Spaceships.

Seed: 57
Formed: 10/02/2012
Flagship: Bhaalgorn
First match: PE1-R1 15:20 vs. Exodus.

Suddenly Spaceships were the first group that ever hotdropped a fleet I was FCing back in Molden Heath. As per their name and ticker, historically they’ve loved hotdropping the crap out of unsuspecting nerds all over lowsec.

Suddenly’ first entered the AT in ATX, where they beat Red vs. Blue, Capital Punishment. and Gypsy Band and lost to Shadow Cartel and Percussive Pizza Diplomacy. That’s a pretty decent debut, but they either decided  against, or couldn’t get into ATs XI and XII. After three years, will their return be triumphant or a flop?

Tactical Narcotics Team

Seed: 10
Formed: 14/05/2009
Flagship: N/A
First match: JB-007 16:00 vs. WAFFLES.

TNT is another Clusterperium alliance taking part in the AT. They currently hold half of Tribute’s sov, as well as some other patches over Mittens’ empire. None of the Clusterperium teams have ever done exceptionally well in the ATm with the exception of C02s second place finish all the way back in ATVII. That said, TNT look damn solid.

Last year in their first attempt at the AT, TNT went above everyone’s expectations (except perhaps their own?) by beating A Nest of Vipers, TEST and even THE R0NIN, before their winners bracket run was cut short by the eventual winners, The Camel Empire. Unfortunately they then dropped straight into a match with Triumvirate. and were thusly knocked out of the tournament. However,  taking down TEST and especially the R0NIN on your first entry is pretty amazing.

In terms of comps, on the first weekend of last year I was impressed by TNT in that they fielded a Navy Domi comp and didn’t immediately lose, then went on to use well-thought out comps that countered their opponents well for their matches against TEST and THE R0NIN. I think TNT expected Camel to bring a similar Sleip/Gila setup, as they had beaten in the match before against R0NIN, but instead they got picked apart by Camel’s armour drone team. Then, their match against Tri was close. DAMN close. I wasn’t a huge fan of TNTs take on the Golem + drone team, but it was a reasonable comp and they ALMOST closed the match out. It was seriously close.

TNT should do well this year, I’m really interested to see what they gained from their experience first time around, as they could very well be a team that breaks into the top tier this year.

Test Alliance Please Ignore

Seed: 7
Formed: 12/05/2010
Flagship: Bhaalgorn
First match: JB-007 15:20 vs. Drop the Hammer

TEST currently hold Wicked Creek and were once the most famous part of the Honeybadger Coalition. I won’t bother with a history lesson (this series is already way behind), but suffice to say that historically TEST had a culture that was proud of their incompetence. Their AT team, on the other hand, have been really quite capable by comparison. Never making it to the final rounds, TESTs AT team has put in a solid middling effort, showing vast improvement from ATXI to ATXII.

In ATXI, TEST beat Sicarus Draconis and RAZOR, losing to Late Night Alliance and SCUM. Last year, they really hit their stride and made it pretty deep, requiring HYDRA themselves to finally eliminate them after a tear through the loser’s bracket. TEST had a shaky start by beating Ushra’Khan and losing to TNT, but they then went through the remains of HUN Reloaded, Easily Excited, Feign Disorder and Pasta Syndicate, before finally running into HYDRA. None of these were big names (except HUN, who as I have previously mentioned lost their AT talent to Nulli), but a run that deep can’t be ignored.

That Escalated Quickly

Seed: 63
Formed: 20/12/2013
Flagship: Barghest
First match: JB-007 14:00 vs. Nulli Secunda

That escalated quickly are another of the first timers to the alliance tournament. They’re a lowsec pirate alliance who PvP primarily in southern lowsec, though from their killboards it seems that incursions into Providence happen every so often. Unfortunately, TEQ are already out of the tournament at the time of writing, losing to Nulli and The WeHurt Initiative. Better luck next year guys!