NW 2v2 Season II
Alright lads thanks very much for attending this second season of the 2v2 tournament and once again putting your faith in me to host it. Not quite as successful as last year (especially in the initial sign-up process) but we were still able to finish the league without any early drop-outs and to see it through to completion so happy days. I personally preferred the group-stage format as it reduced the tournie length but sadly this couldn't be avoided this time around. All matches (with the exception of a few where the rule-set was not properly followed) took under an hour, involved plenty of snappy, non-campy action so as far as I am concerned the rules require little to no change if played again.
I'd like to apologise for all the teams putting together their rosters meticulously, expecting a similar team locking system to last season and then this not being implemented; in hindsight one of the recurring complaints from other seasons of this and NWBC were that the locking scripts were often not used anyway since there is such a high player count, so perhaps this is something we can retire for these tournies. Thankyou to the incredibly small (and ever dwindling) pool of refs who took time out of their busy weeks to ref matches - in truth out of all the competitive tournaments which are played in this community, this and NWBC in my opinion are some of the hardest to fairly ref as there are so many variables and you have to be on the ball all the time; thankyou to our regular refs, you know who you are!
Despite the tournament having a sour start for me personally with much drama (to the point where I didn't even want to host it come the first week), week after week has turned me around and I am glad I persevered, since I have been able to enjoy the tournament for what it is so thankyou to the participants for putting to bed any drama fairly quickly once we'd properly started.
3rd place is still to be decided but for now very well played to the 45th placing 1st and the 15th & 77y team placing 2nd. Well played to all participants and goodluck in RGL!