ATXIII Team Summaries

Last year I tweeted a picture of the hard copy of team notes I had made, a 32-page document summarising info about the history of each team competing in ATXII. I updated it as the tournament went on with how each team did, what they fielded, how they flew, whether they won or lost, etc. This year, I thought I’d bring you some of my more basic research, the quick details about each team. A cheat-sheet if you will.

404 Alliance Not Found

Seed: 39
Formed: 04/03/2014
Flagship: N/A
First Match: System 2 15:40 vs Vox Populi.

Formed early last year, 404 Alliance Not Found is one of the groups that live around Syndicate that seem to love the Alliance tournament. Even though their alliance is quite new, they’ve been flying together for years and are hardcore small-gang PvPers. In their Alliance Tournament debut, they’re trying not to take it too seriously as they have zero experience, though with that said, they’re practicing hard.

Speaking to Bubalubs, their diplo, they seem to be a cheerful group with a great attitude. They’re pretty happy with their first matchup against Vox Populi, very pleased not to up against a Pandemic Legion or HYDRA. 404 strike me as a group that almost certainly won’t get too deep, but I get that feeling that they’ll have a ton of fun regardless of the result and that’s exactly the type of EVE players I love to see.

Affirmative.

Seed: 56
Formed: 02/03/2014
Flagship: Bhaalgorn
First Match: System 1 16:00 vs. Rote Kapelle

Affirmative are automatically one of my favourite teams because their captain, Greygal (previously of Agony), is one of my favourite people in all of EVE. I’ve only had one conversation with her, but her passion and enthusiasm immediately told me everything I needed to know about her and how she runs her alliance. Se is exactly the kind of person I love to play EVE with.

Affirmative. are an alliance that focuses on public roams and very newbie friendly, even in their AT practices. Last year they had a guy who could only do T1 logi, but he turned up to so many practices it was him they wanted flying their logistics ship. They were formed from the NEO II team Freeloaders, who had close ties with RvB and the public roam community.

Last year Affirmative. lost two matches in a row to Pasta in the winners bracket and then to Choke Point in the losers bracket. It probably didn’t help that all their tourney tactics were leaked. In their first match against Pasta they brought a Vargur-Vexor team which was dismantled rather handily by Pasta’s Eos and Armageddon setup, a common sight in the early rounds of ATXII. Marauders showed themselves to be very powerful against everything but cap warfare. Affirmative. tried to keep themselves safe by banning the ‘Geddon, but Pasta brought their flagship through the ban and took the match handily.

In their second match they brought a weird HAMgu/Sleipnir setup against the throwback Domi team of Choke Point. This was a pretty close, fast paced match, but it took so long to chew through the Domis that Affirmative. lost the war of attrition in a nail-biting finish of double Tengu vs double Domi.

-affliction-

Seed: 33
Formed: 20/11/201
Flagship: Bhaalgorn
First Match: System 1 14:20 vs. Agony Empire

-affliction- is one of the teams I am really glad I reached out to, as they are in fact the old Devil’s Warrior Alliance Team under a new name, having been -affliction- before that. They’re comprised of primarily lowsec PvPers, but have a few guys who like highsec wars and some pilots that are only there for the AT.

Last year they got knocked down to the losers bracket in their first match by Solar, but from what could have been a quick 0-2 outing they made a pretty good run of the losers bracket, finishing off the unthinkables, Quebec United Legions and the CAStabouts before finally being taken down by M.I.F. -affliction- already have my interest for fielding a Navy Domi team last year against the unthinkables and actually managing to win. NDomi teams, while looking good on paper, usually fail to apply that face-melting DPS and are so inherently point-heavy that their support just tends to die and thus goes the match.

Overall they fielded the Gila/Minmatar CS setup that was pretty standard during the first few weekends, but also brought out some oddball setups that I feel probably only worked because of their opponents, rather than an inherent brilliance of their own. That said, I’m all for teams bringing in unorthodox setups to spice things up. It forces everyone to stay on their toes and is a real danger to teams who can’t adapt on the fly.

No big names on their kill list yet, but a admirable stream of wins regardless means that Agony will certainly have to be playing on top form to get the better of these guys, as well as needing to be prepared for absolutely anything.

The Afterlife

Seed: 5
Formed: 17/03/2014
Flagship: Barghest
First match: System 1 18:00 vs. End of Life

The Afterlife hold sov in Esoteria and Feythabolis, and other that I honestly know nothing about them on TQ. For the AT they are one of the scary groups of russians who practice with Gorgon Empire. That said, last year after losing their Golem/Loki tinker to a PL Rattlesnake team, they earned their high seeding through a great lower-bracket run, making their way through The G0dfathers, SCUM., C0VEN, Curatores Veritatis Alliance, Shadow Cartel, Exodus. and Triumvirate. Their favoured bans were against shield Tinkers, banning the Tengu eight times and the Loki six. Throughout their run they showed a great variety in comps they could bring, following the meta of movement drones but throwing in Armageddon and Astero teams in with the more standard Gila and Vexor comps.

My favourite match of theirs was probably their match against Exodus, where they brought a kooky Golem/Rattlesnake team supplemented by Sabres and Jaguars. Despite Rise’s apprehension, when the match started The Afterlife bum-rushed into Exodus.’s  team and quickly took the lead by nabbing their Scimitar. Their Jaguars and Sabres made short work of the Exodus. support wing while their heavy ships chewed through the Minmatar command ships, leaving the Gilas to be mopped up at the end. A very cool and very well-executed off-meta team that shows the Afterlife have a great understanding of comp design, and are a team that can throw absolutely anything at you.

Agony Empire

Seed: 32
Formed: 12/02/2007
Flagship: Bhaalorn
First match: 15th System 1 14:20 vs. -affliction-

For the few of you who haven’t heard of them, Agony are an old-school small gang PvP group that really know their stuff. They hold periodic PvP classes and have a history of producing excellent PvPers. I have a huge deal of respect for Agony and their approach to the game.

Agony have a fairly lengthy resume when it comes to tournament performance, even if they started only by playing even-numbered tournaments, so let’s run through it.

AT IV: Lost first round to Terra Incognita.
AT VI: Semifinal finish, losing to Evoke.
AT VIII: Made it to the second round beating Cry Havoc, losing to CVA.
AT X: Somewhat lackluster performance in the crazy round robin that was ATX, winning two of their six games.
ATXI: Agony had a fantastic AT run in ATXI, requiring tournament heavyweights PL to both knock them into the losers bracket and eliminate them, while they took out big names like HUN RELOADED and Rote Kapelle.
ATXII: Sadly last year Agony didn’t make it too far, losing to RvB and Triumvirate, taking series from Circle-of-Two who have fallen far from their silver medal in AT VII and Monkeys with Guns.

Given that this is an odd-numbered tournament, perhaps we can expect Agony to bring back some of the ATXI magic. Their first match should be a good test to see what kind of form they’re on. If they manage to beat -affliction- then they’re likely facing Camel Empire (sorry SMA) in the following match, meaning for all intents and purposes an early drop into the losers bracket. That said, we can’t rule out Agony kicking ass once they get there, they’re certainly one of the teams capable of doing it.

Alternate Allegiance

Seed: 40
Formed: 06/11/2013
Flagship: Bhaalgorn
First match: System 1 vs. Out of Sight.

Alternate Allegiance is a nullsec alliance with a strong industrial base. Purporting to be a more loose coalition of corporations than a strictly controlled alliance, they seem to like to use that production backbone to push whichever goals they wish to achieve. They appear to be somewhat new to PvP in general, but are working their way towards specialising in Black Ops warfare.

An unlikely candidate for AT greatness, an indy group from the depths of the dronelands who hold a large swathe of Oasa and some of Perrigrin Falls. Only time will tell whether they are this year’s shock upstarts or quietly disappear in the first weekend.

A Band Apart.

Seed: 51
Formed: 23/03/2014
Flagship: Armageddon
First match: System 2 17:40 vs. The G0dfathers

Home of blogger and generally creative awesome guy Rixx Javix, a Band Apart. are an alliance of pilots of many and varied interests. If there’s a thing to do in the game, odds are one or two of them will have a finger in it. Though founded by a lowsec pirate-y corp, Stay Frosty, A Band Apart. are pulled together more by a similar attitude to the game than a specific goal. Rixx seems to have found a very pleasant bunch of blokes to hang around with.

The Bastards.

Seed: 41
Formed: 29/12/2010
Flagship: Typhoon Fleet Issue
First match: System 1 16:20 vs. Dead Terrorists

The Bastards are a classic lowsec pirate corp. Although they’ve never participated in the AT before, they’re one of the newcomers this year at the top of my list of those who have a good chance of taking a few matches. The Bastards contain a few pilots who flew in the AT with Shadow Cartel, and some years ago they aligned with the Tuskers in a joint AT venture, even though it was not especially successful. Their team captain is Nashh Kadavr of #EVE_NT fame. If you have some spare time on your hands, you can read a history of their escapades in lowsec here, and they have a pretty cool ingame channel to hang out in: DBastards.

This is the first 8 of the 64 Alliances of ATXIII I hope to do write-ups for. If you are an Alliance leader/member who wouldn’t mind talking to me about your alliance in ATXIII for a few minutes so I can compile more accurate information I would super duper appreciate it.

Apoth <3