Division 4: where high div’ers raise their ego

The regular QuakeWorld summerbreak came to an end a couple of weeks ago when the European Quake League season six started. Before the league started there was remarkably much of debate about the divisions. After only a few days the divisions were announced to be finished and that left some people looking at them very disappointed.

Division four turned out to become one of the biggest divisions in the league and many of the clan division placements could be argued about. However it’s proved to be a waste of time and now, since over half the teams have played at least one game, there is most likely no way that any changes are going to be made anymore. So instead of touching the fire sensitive subject let’s move on and look at what has already happened and predict the future.

Early in the season we have already witnessed one major upset as Finnish Clan Metally Troopers beat Swedish EnemyQuad in two straight maps. Finnish player 187’s departure from Chosen has clearly raised the activity and skill in CMT because beating EQ while they had their top lineup, consisting Votary and Overdose, is something that only CMT might be capable of this season. Both teams are clearly the favourites to win the division since they have been spotted beating even some of the division 3 teams.

Currently Chosen is the only team who has played four games and they have also won each one of them, which obviously puts them on top of the division. Although Chosen has started the season very good they are very aware of the fact that there are still plenty of very hard games left to be played. Chosen was capable of coming on top against one of the hard clans, that is OldOnes, who also have recently strengthened their lineup by adding solid division 3 veteran Knave to it. So far Oldones have had a little bad luck in their EQL games as they have lost both of them 1-2 in overall close games. They will surely try to turn the tables as the league progresses.

So far The Pimps have had the roughest season start as they got beat down in both of their games by Chosen and Clan Metally Troopers. I was also able to witness an accusation that one of the Pimps players would be using aimbot because one of their opponents had noticed unbelievably good shaft aiming for a high pinger. However it seems that nobody took the role of researching this accusation and for example checking the demos. He might’ve got away of the dilemma this time but on the other hand the whole accusation could just as well turn out to be false. Ofcourse everyone hopes for the latter, right?

Atleast one clan was lucky enough to make their wish come true as Smackthatass was moved back to division 4 although they won the division last season. Smackthatass claimed that their roster had gone through rough changes, in reality only one of their players had decided to go inactive and he of course was the so called key-player, smerz. As Smackthatass got moved to a division lower, it didn’t take them too long to find a couple of oldschool german players as they added Fox and Tuna from Dybbuk. Sta is known to be top contender on dm2 and now with Fox, who is also rumoured to be crazy on dm2 & Tuna in the lineup, their chances of doing well in division 4 definitely stepped multiple ladders up. So far they haven’t played any EQL games yet but it will interesting to see how they will be able to perform.

The wildcards might be Jägarna and Osams. Jägarna is no stranger in the lower divisions but they also have just recently beefed up their lineup by adding ex. Wunderbar players xero and und. Hollow is also a player who shouldn’t be underestimated because he also has proven to be a good player and when he’s teamed up with xero and und, we should expect them to make some upsets. The start of this season hasn’t been as good as they probably wanted because so far they have lost all of their 3 games. However they were able to take a map away from CMT and that is good example of what I meant by the upsets earlier.

On the other hand, Osams has been a stranger to the lower divisions the last couple of years. Normally we used to see these smiling lads in atleast division 3 or even 2 but now as they have lost lakso and Xerial, they seem to be coming down the divisions. Osams still does have some of the top dogs left like Steppa and Kauka, who once they’re in shape can make the knees shake of other division 4 clans. It is hard to predict what kind of season these guys are going to have because it will be pretty much up to them. Without any practise they are probably going to get the same results as they have got so far, which leaves them to fight for the middle position of the division.

But what is the future going to hold for us? The division 4 in my eyes looks like to become quite unpredictable, random and you shouldn’t be surprised to see even some rapecloset games. What also makes the division a bit weird this season is the fact that a lot of teams seem to have players from higher divisions and that kind of makes the predicting job a bit harder. The skill level is kind of around the edge that one or two way better players can still make a big difference, but it also depends quite much on the opponent’s level of teamplay. However as earlier mentioned CMT and EQ seem like the favourites for the title. Clans like Chosen, OldOnes or Osams might be able to mess the plans up, but the odds for that are probably not in their favour. It will be interesting to see what the season is going to bring as it progresses further.