Luckily (I suppose) I kept getting side-tracked when trying to do this write-up, so I kept postponing by a week, until it worked out that I was ready to complete it Mar 26th which was the night of the CEVO-p finals! I waited for the outcome of this match to determine the top 2 as they (jCp and mNm) were the 2 teams that already earned #1 and #2 on this list. These 2 teams knocked out overRated and Audigy on their path to the CEVO Pro finals. The finals went as follows: Mug ‘N Mouse had the first map choice and as expected they picked Mout, but just Cause project came prepared and won this set 8-4. just Cause project then selected IC which was no surprise, and mNm showed they could hang with them. jCp took a 5-2 lead, but mNm won 5 straight rounds on defense including a huge ace by chrones to get them to 7-5, but jCp recovered and tied it up 7-7. The final map was predetermined to be Urban Assault and stan put on a show. jCp took a huge 6-2 lead and only needed 1 more round to secure then win, which they were able to do 3 rounds later to make the score 7-4 and clinch the victory. Stan was the MVP for jCp and chrones was MVP for mNm and I’m sure his shoulders were sore after he carried them through the finals and gave them hope. Stan showed he had nerves of steel and experience to go with it and led his team to victory in the finals. Great job to both teams and great matches!

CAL Season 8 finished with plenty of drama once again as mugNmouse.rabb joined the roster after the rosters were supposed to be locked and played in a playoff match, so their win vs Audigy was soon after overturned. overRated went on to beat Audigy in the finals in a close match on pipeline. CEVO Amateur has had a lot less drama and should be complete within a couple of weeks. There’s been a few upsets which caused some last minute shuffling in the rankings as well. TWL Intervites started with 22 teams 9 weeks ago, but has fallen to 14 teams currently with 2 weeks left in the season. The remaining teams all seem to be in good shape and pretty active, so it should make for an interesting playoff run nonetheless. This list covered the last 2 weeks of CAL matches + playoffs, the last 5 weeks of 3 CEVO, plus 4 rounds of playoffs, the first 9 weeks of TWL leagues, and throw in some TWL ladder matches as bonus(which are pretty much worth 10% of what a league match is worth). The matches that were tabulated ran from January 18th, 2008 to March 25th, 2008. I will likely release the next list just after the TWL playoffs are complete.

The way the list is determined is by starting with the last list http://www.gotfrag.com/aa/story/41310/, then tabulating the matches that happened since that list was released and moving teams up and down accordingly. Doing it this way makes the list somewhat progressive, but at the same time more recent matches are considered a bigger factor in calculating the rankings, than matches which happened about a month ago or more.

Mr.Clean's Top 25 AA Competitive Team Report for March 25th, 2008.

I will give a quick summary of the teams that moved up the most in the rankings. Starting with Dropouts & Unreasonable Ownage who both moved up several spots to crack the top 10, both are amongst the remaining 5 teams in CEVO-a playoffs as well. epiC jumped up 7 positions in the standings thanks in large to 3 upset wins and are now ranked at #13. That’s Dope didn’t have a good league record to show for it, but they jumped up 5 spots because of a couple of upset wins, some tough competition in their losses, and combined with the fact that a few of the middle of the pack teams had some struggles. 2 other teams worth noting are United 5 and Radiance who are both on the list for the first time and both cracked the top 15. There’s some speculation about Radiance, but to be fair, until they are busted they earned their representation on this list.

First off we will summarize the top 10 teams. The chart below shows the league results of the teams in the top 10, with a little summary afterwards.

Top List (1-10)

Rank	Squad	+/-	W-L-FFL	RW-RL	QM	QW	UW	BL
1.	just Cause project	(+1)	7-1-0	74-52	8	7	1	0
2.	Mug ‘N Mouse	(+2)	13-5-1	133-96	15	10	1	1
3.	overRated	(+2)	9-2-0	69-46	10	8	2	0
4.	Audigy	(-3)	7-5-0	44-60	9	4	0	5
5.	Redemption	(-2)	2-1-0	25-15	3	2	0	0
6.	Cover 3	(0)	4-3-0	53-36	7	4	1	0
7.	Dropouts	(+4)	14-3-0	132-72	11	8	1	2
8.	Unreasonable Ownage	(+6)	15-4-0	145-102	16	10	2	2
9.	Even Flow	(-2)	14-5-0	131-96	15	8	0	4
10.	United 5	(NR)	9-0-0	73-35	9	9	9	0

Once again the Top 5 was a pain to figure out, but much easier than last time! With CEVO pro playoffs down to 2 teams and CAL-i finals complete, there was distinction between the top 5. With just Cause project knocking out Audigy (took them 2 tries) and overRated, plus a last match of the season win vs Mug ‘N Mouse, they were pretty much a lock at #1. They faced MNM in the finals and took them in the 3 set showdown 8-4 mout, 7-7 ic, 7-6 urban. Another great run for jCp and another CEVO-pro title to finish it off. Mug ‘N Mouse won both their CEVO-pro playoff matches to earn their spot in the finals very quickly. If they swept jCp in the finals it would have been a great feat and probably given them the #1 spot, but they fell in the 3 set playoff 0-2-1. A good try nonetheless. They’ve also run over the competition in TWL intervites as shown by their 9-0 record. Their only blemishes recently were in CAL, which they lost the final 2 matches of the season, plus had their win vs Audigy in the playoffs taken away when they used a player on their roster which wasn’t supposed to have been able to join that late in the season. overRated comes in at #3 and were on their way to #1 possibly after winning CAL invites. The tables turned on them in CEVO pro playoffs when they got smoked by MNM on mout then boycotted round 2 vs jCp as they did not feel it was right to be forced to videocast their match. Falling 3 spots to #4 is Audigy who were #1 last time on this list. For a team with such high expectations and with such confidence in their abilities they failed to show such success in both CAL invite and CEVO pro playoffs. They had a pretty strong season in CAL and made it to the finals after a win in an overturned match vs MNM and another win vs Redemption, but they just fell short in their loss to overRated in the finals on pipeline. CEVO was more of a bumpy road as they lost to c3 and oR in the second half of the season. They did beat jCp on Mout to start the CEVO playoffs, but lost to MNM on pipe followed by jCp on wcse in the next 2 playoff matches causing them to be eliminated. Completing the top 5 is Redemption. With CAL being the only league they participated in this winter, redemption only had a few matches recently. After a first round bye in the playoffs they got bumped out by Audigy in the semis.

 

From 6th to 10th was pretty tight as well except for maybe Cover 3 who locked up 6th. Cov3 had a chance to knock out the eventual CAL-i champions (overRated) in the quarter-finals. They faced them on Urban which is oR’s weakest competitive map, but oR came thru with the very close 7-6 win. In CEVO Cover 3 was the only missing team of the 8 that would have been a worthy playoff contender, they missed a playoff spot by a very narrow margin. They have still been practicing hard since being eliminated from the leagues so look for them to come back strong. Moving up to 7th place we have Dropouts. They didn’t fair so well in CAL invite, but in TWL intervites and CEVO Amateur they had a lot of success this season. Their biggest win was probably against Even Flow giving eFlow their only loss of the season in CEVO. Now they will try to get to the CEVO Amateur finals, but still have a couple of speed bumps to get past on the way. Unreasonable Ownage are next in line, and cracked the top 10 for the first time. Their biggest matches were against eFlow of which they won 2 of the 3 times they faced off. They are in pursuit of the CEVO Amateur championship this season after some nice wins, including their most recent win against the infamous Radiance putting them in the finals. Dropping a couple of spots to ninth place is Even Flow. They had some recent struggles in the CEVO-a playoffs losing back to back matches to Unreasonable Ownage and FightClub which knocked them out of the playoffs after being the early favorites to win. They had some roster issues in those key matches and that led to their downfall. Aside from that eFlow is ranked second in their division in the TWL intervites and will look for a strong playoff run. Their biggest recent success story was their CAL Main championship less than a month ago! They only had to win 2 matches in the playoffs to take this title, but they earned it by beating U in the semis and unR in the finals. Ranked 10th overall we have a bit of a surprise, United 5. This team formed just before the start of TWL’s 12th season, and looked to have a pretty solid roster. It’s safe to say they exceeded all expectations as all 9 teams they faced in their 9 league matches were on the last Top 25 list. They won all 9 of these! Sure, only one of those teams they beat is in the current top 10 (dropouts), but it was an impressive feat nonetheless. Next week they will try to complete the perfect season, hopefully that won’t jinx them like it did to Ataxia last season.