Prelude:
Having talked to some people and seeing their take on the reviews, I have decided to write a reboot for my previous Clarity season.
My intention is to write down all the events that took place during the season, being as objective as possible.
By now, I’ve played a lot of seasons in various amateur leagues since my debut in 2020 something. For my first team, I was excited to write a review, but then the feeling gradually faded as I realized reviews are somewhat pointless.
At this point, I haven’t written a review for like at least the past 5 seasons (Jan 28, 2021). Something must have really been wrong if I’d decided to spend my time writing stuff.
The timeline:
We were drafted into a team: Panda, Greenman, GRIMM, rmbl and FAllS.
Upon joining the team server we were provided with the role/gameplay plan by Panda.
I addressed the plan saying that perhaps this should be given some more thought considering the players we have drafted. I wrote a nice message on how, in my opinion, a captain should behave and communicate, providing examples of my own previous experiences.
I don’t remember what exactly was said afterwards (it really is a shame Panda destroyed the server 1 minute after losing the final game), however, there wasn’t much room for retaliation after I basically said I wouldn’t play anything other than 1/2 in this stack.
Panda unveiled our team name ‘Grimm Fanclub’ and we convincingly won our first series.
There was nothing special about any of our games, before every series, Panda would come up with a plan to pick a hero or two and we’d basically roll with that.
After not winning our first series (it might have been an earlier game we’ve won) I was met with a statement ‘you’ll play support now’.
Before the next series, Panda seemed to have dropped it and stuck to playing pos 4.
Every game we played had an escalation of some sort, things might have not been going great and some people would just ‘lose it’ in-game.
After a few of these escalations, I stated that I don’t care what I play, I’ll go play 4 or whatever, as long as we stop whining about everything and anything. However, the change was not made and I stuck to playing whatever I was playing.
Before one of the series, rmbl requested a standin, who was not found until the very last second.
Before our last series (the first round of playoffs), I informed my team midday that I would very much likely require a standin for me at one or multiple games. It was met with ‘okay chief’. However, after checking all the standin channels, I did not see any messages. 30 minutes before game time I started looking for one myself, I found zGrozemag, who was 30 MMR above my signup MMR. Given the situation he’d be playing any role off-role, I believed the standin wouldn’t have been rejected even if it was brought to council. I waited for the enemy captain to respond, we talked and the standin was eventually accepted. After joining the team server, zGrozemag informed me that he will most likely not be playing as someone else has been found.
After the game was lost Panda wrote on the team server that they lost because he could not prepare for the draft and was not informed about the standin situation, which is just yet another blatant nonsense statement.
Player reviews:
- GRIMM.
I played okay, not great, not terrible, I had great games, I had completely trash games. Overall, I played consistently to my ability, the major factor in my games were the lane matchups and how I’d come out in the lane and after the laning phase.
2. Greenman.
After seeing the team I would end up in, I was not looking forward to playing with Greenman in an actual team. We play a lot together and against one another in lobbies. However, Greeman has pleasantly surprised me by winning a lot of his lanes and having a good impact in most of the games we’ve played. He did not play many different heroes, nor did he need to. Our draft was heavily enabled by picking his core early in the drafting stage.
3. FAIIS
Good player (I think we’ve played with FAIIS in some season before, but I am unsure), when he was drafted a lane-dominating hero, he’d join mid-game with great impact. Much as myself, he was affected by some poorer lane matchups. He was also left alone a few times in a few weaker lanes, which resulted in him having some very difficult midgames.
4. Panda
Playing off-role, I did not have high expectations for Panda, however, some games he really stepped up and performed really well. Playing position 4 and not knowing what to do at certain times can affect the whole game and there were some key moments that could be worked on, however, overall, Panda did fine gameplay-wise.
5. rmbl
I do not concern myself with my pos 5’s most of the time, lower MMR players play worse, better players play good and rmbl played just fine. He was also limited by draft decisions and some lanes we ended up losing. Could he have done better? For sure. But then again, everyone can always do better. He plays solid 5 and I don’t have much to complain about. We could have done better in some lanes, if we executed differently.
Impressions and thoughts:
When it comes to our games, we were definitely a strong team with a strong tri-core for our division, I strongly believe we could have gone all the way and very likely won the whole thing, if not for some other factors.
I could probably write 5 more pages about all the things that took place and happened, however, I will stick only to the important things that have to be uncovered.
We would end up picking losing lanes, because hero A is good against heroes B and C, even if the lane is not so great. We would also go into the draft with the mentality player X wants to play heroes D and E. However, after picking those heroes, we would end up picking heroes F and G for players Z and Y, even if they did not want to play those heroes.
Drafting what people want to play and then not doing the same for other players, after already compromising the draft with the first picks is not cool. Yes, it can work and might have possibly worked, however, in some games we intentionally sabotaged our own games before they even began.
When we would make a bad play or something unfortunate would happen, Panda would often escalate it in voice chat.
Some of the more memorable lines would be: call it, I am bored, let them end. Such statements, when the team is playing and still trying to win are very toxic and should not exist in a competitive team environment. If I wanted someone shouting “I AM BORED” in my headphones, I would queue up a pub. It’s common for teams to immediately leave voice chat after losing, however, the captain should not be the person who does it first.
Greenman, one game, also followed up Panda’s escalation in-game, calling me ‘the worst player in the team’. Which is fine, I understand that people are upset that we’re losing. I have no intention nor reason to prove to anyone that I’m better or worse than them.
Such escalations were a staple in our games and the environment was overall one of the more toxic ones from all the teams I’ve played with.
Panda acts hypocritical, calling people ‘friends and ‘sirs’, while acting the opposite behind their backs. This has been witnessed across multiple servers and teams now. Calling our team ‘Grimm Fanclub’ without consulting with anyone and clearly hating on me is just another example of extremely toxic behavior.
However, it’s not everything bad when it comes to Panda. He can be a fun guy and have fun with others too. People deal with issues on a daily basis, but that does not make them assholes.
These were generally the reasons why I have not played with Panda in a team before and after experiencing it firsthand, I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone really.
On the bright side, I have improved my opinion of Greenman after playing with him and I was able to voice chat with FAIIS (YES HE SPEAKS HOLY MOLY).
Now, before writing this, I just remembered that Panda’s fiasco with buying accounts and his ban in RD2L. I have advocated before and I still do that we all know his skill level and how he plays, adjusting Panda to a fixed MMR is not an issue.
What is an issue, however, is active and passive toxicity in-game and outside of it. We’ve all seen people banned for acting rude and flaming. In my opinion, Panda’s mald rivals that of Reddydas. However, Reddydas does it because he’s in a heated moment, people get emotional. Constant toxicity is in people’s nature and, as I’ve mentioned before, I would not wish anyone to experience it.
I don’t mind playing bad or playing with people who are bad, however, playing with toxic shits should not be part of a friendly amateur league.
Aftermath:
Panda has performed his duties as a captain below par. The best skill of his, when it comes to captaining, is creating a Discord server and making sure that all the channels are nice and with purpose.
Drafting-wise, Panda has a very conservative opinion of heroes, matchups, and gameplay. I am unsure if ‘conservative’ is the correct term, to put it differently, he often fails to see the bigger picture of how the games would pan out.
The overall toxicity has made the season very unenjoyable for me overall, but I did have fun playing some games with all my teammates.
Appendix:
I don’t really plan on copywriting this, I wrote it in a few goes, I’m also not a native speaker, so pardon my mistakes and other inconsistencies.
If anyone wants to talk about my review or has any questions, please feel free to approach me.
My intention is not to flame Panda. In an ideal world, I would have Panda self-reflect his personality, his approach when it comes to the game, and his ideas about it. However, I don’t think that’s currently possible. I hold no grudges or hard feelings, people are as they are and we can either accept it or be in denial about it.
And though I currently think that I will NEVER play a season with him in a team again, deep down, I am not opposed to the possibility of giving second chances to people who actually wish to be better humans.
For me, this is a tool to talk about something important and to expose people for what they really are, I don’t see myself writing any of these in the near future as I usually enjoy my seasons with different people even if we end up losing. I want to thank Snuffkin for inspiring me to write something useful and potentially contribute to the community.