Last Sunday, July 29, saw the second round of the Alliance Tournament, and a reversal of a great many fortunes from Saturday’s first round. Round 2 also gave us the first appearance of previously winning teams that received byes as a result of short brackets. As on Saturday, winners of each match will receive 10 ship SKINs. As the rounds move along, many predicted teams have advanced, leading to an explosive upcoming weekend as allies face allies.
Round 2 Winners Bracket
The following teams advanced from round 2, with the team they defeated in brackets. Defeated teams will still compete in this coming weekend’s losers brackets.
VYDRA RELOLDED [Villore Accords]
Black Legion… [Solyaris Chtonium]
SAMURAI SOUL’d OUT [Brave Collective]
WE FORM V0LTA [Of Sound Mind]
Northern Coalition. [We want your ISK]
Pandemic Legion [Templis CALSF]
skill urself [Goonswarm Federation]
The Initiative. (with Initiative Mercenaries) [BLUE Republic (with Red Federation)]
HYDRA RELOADED [The Bastion]
Triumvirate. [Snuffed Out]
The Tuskers Co. [PURPLE HELMETED WARRIORS]
Exodus. [No Handlebars]
L A Z E R H A W K S [United Federation of Conifers]
Bright Side of Death [Salt Farmers]
CAStabouts [Pen Is Out]
A Band Apart. [Fraternity.]
Round 2 Losers Bracket
The losers bracket, consisting of teams defeated in round one of the main bracket, completed its first round on Sunday. As above, the following teams advanced in the losers bracket. However, the teams they defeated were eliminated. This coming weekend’s losers bracket was then populated from the defeated teams listed above. Also notable in the losers bracket is that a few teams listed here advanced to the second round automatically due to withdrawals. Additionally, Of Sound Mind has a bye into the third round due to Dream Fleet withdrawing.
Holesale Operations [The Bastard Cartel]
lllllllllllllllll [ChaosTheory]
SE7EN-SINS [Phage and Terror]
No Vacancies. [Two Maidens One Chalice]
Immediate Destruction [End of Life]
Test Alliance Please Ignore [Shattered Foundations]
Odin’s Call [B U R N]
Curatores Veritatis Alliance [MOIST.]
The Weekend Warriors [Unspoken Alliance.]
Lowsechnaya Sholupen [Wormhole Poverty Law Foundation]
Centipede Caliphate. [GaNg BaNg TeAm]
Round Two Bouts and Routs
From the very first fight, round two had interesting turns. VYDRA RELOLDED fielded the first proper Alliance Tournament ship of the Alliance Tournament, fielding a Vangel – the cruiser rewarded to winners of Alliance Tournament IX. Their opponents, the Gallente military roleplayer Villore Accords, brought the first industrial ship of AT XVI in the form of a Badger, which was the last ship to die in the 100-1 perfect sweep by VYDRA RELOLDED. The match also cost Villore Accords their flagship Machariel.
SAMURAI SOUL’d OUT also fielded their flagship Navy Scorpion against Brave Collective, as well as a full four battleship fleet with an additional four bombers and minimal logistics. The tremendous amount of damage brought to bear fielded by SAMURAI SOUL erased Brave’s Bhaalgorn and Armageddon both in less than a minute from the first shots fired. Brave’s team focused on control, and while Brave was able to destroy SAMURAI SOUL’s frigates, in the end they couldn’t claw back against SAMURAI’s incredibly focused damage.
We want your ISK fell to Northern Coalitiondot in a one-sided 100-0 rout in their first appearance during AT XVI, as they received a bye into Round 2. The commanding victory demonstrates the bye was not misappropriated as NCdot clearly belongs in the tournament and in the winners bracket.
Pandemic Legion and Templis CALSF was perhaps the strongest match of the day as both sides brought near identical teams, and both fielded their flagship Leshaks. Templis CALSF traded damage for additional neut pressure, with only minimal differences in team composition. Both sides bided their time for nearly two minutes before clashing as they ran into range and began neuting one another. Templis’ eventual loss came down to PL’s destruction of the first ship of the match: a logistics frigate Deacon which died after four minutes and forty-five seconds of intense standoff. Shortly thereafter a clutch jam on the remaining Thalia logistics frigate led to the destruction of Templis’ Leshak. After eight minutes, PL was completely capped out, but Templis CALSF was unable to kill any ships without their DPS Leshak.
The Imperium did not have as strong a second day as the first. After a first day of four wins for Imperium teams, The Bastion and Goonswarm Federation both lost as expected to HYDRA RELOADED and skill urself respectively in what can only be described as complete routs. Snuffed Out also lost to Triumvirate., though it fought hard and did not get swept. Of the Imperium teams only the Initiative will advance in the winners bracket, having bodied the combined Red vs. Blue team.
Looking Ahead
Whereas last weekend gave us a number of matches between current wartime enemies, the coming weekend promises a number of bouts between friends. Northern Coalitiondot will face Pandemic Legion in the winners bracket, and Goonswarm Federation will face TEST Alliance Please Ignore in the losers. In wartime rivalries, and by way of potential payback, Initiative and Initiative Mercenaries will face skill urself in winners as Snuffed Out faces LUMPY.
Five to Watch
As the brackets narrow it becomes harder to choose interesting match-ups, but these are five you may want to make an effort to catch on Saturday, in no particular order:
- VYDRA RELOLDED v. Black Legionellipsis: Black Legionellipsis is a relatively new Alliance Tournament team, and captain Elo Knight, while a brilliant FC, has been preoccupied with the war. Nevertheless, Black Legion has already shown itself to be a dominant force in the tournament so far, easily dispatching Bastard Cartel and SLYCE. They’ll be facing a veteran VYDRA RELOLDED, and could make for an early upset.
- Northern Coalitiondot v. Pandemic Legion: These two Northern allies are due to defend a keepstar together later this evening (Aug. 1) but will have to fight one another on Saturday. Despite the jokes, both field extremely competent, high skill teams, and it’s not unlikely we’ll have another extremely suspenseful high-skill fight from Pandemic Legion.
- skill urself v. The Initiative & Init. Mercs: Both teams have had good runs up so far and both won their second round victories with full sweeps. What happens when an unstoppable force hits an immovable object?
- L A Z E R H A W K S v. Bright Side of Death: These two met in AT XV in the third round last year as well, with a fantastic match where Lazerhawks managed to pull off a strong victory after a shaky start. Bright Side of Death will be looking to change the future this time with similarly high skilled teams.
- Test Alliance Please Ignore v. Goonswarm Federation: It’s TEST v. Goons. TEST has already shown they need to practice hellcamping, but perhaps their peeveepee is more elite than ours?! I might be a little biased here.
There are a good number of other fantastic matches this week as well, so check out the full brackets to see what’s coming up.
