I'm no expert on EU players but I figured I'd get a topic started and maybe someone with a clue would chime in. :-)

First off I'd be shocked if any of the NA players such as Vegeta, B1aze, Phil, Pinion, Thrill, etc get drafted. I suspect a lot of captains will go for their friends or clan mates which is a mistake from a competitive point of view. Ideally you want to pick the best available player not someone who is your buddy. To use Vegeta as an example in the NA Draft league he went last every round in a straight 1-7 draft yet he probably has the strongest team because he mainly picked on skills alone. Most of the people he drafted he did not know well but he sure does now! Captains should be private messaging any player they lack knowledge of but are interested in picking just to touch base.

My general advice as someone who has played 9 seasons in draft leagues is don't gamble early. Para posted in another thread that razor for instance has connection issues at times. Do you really want to risk picking someone who might have issues as your first or second pick? I don't think it's worth it as it can tank a team for the season if a player has problems. It's better to go for solid players over risks unless it is very late in the draft.

Anyone have any ideas who captains are going to draft as their top picks?

I really doubt people will pick "their friends", I think most captains will just go for skill.

About my connection: it's not THAT bad.. mostly just 5 pl.. which i've had for like 4 years and im used to it anyway.. no big deal
Im also harder to hit for enemies!

I think though ping will be an issue when selecting their picks so NA players will certainly be less likely to be picked I guess.. even though squeeze has showned he can perform with high ping.

I just hope Milton picks me!

I thought your post was a bit funny so ill reply a bit funny:

Ok

Me too.

Seems like a strange suspicion to me, if its not for the fact that it is a clan mate (from a top clan) and they play really well together...

...then this makes no sense. Otherwise: Oh rly?

What will you do if the best availible player also happen to be your buddy?

I'm fairly sure every captain will pick the best player in line.

Personally, I see any draft league as a "half serious half fun" 4on4 thing, so I'm not connecting the dots on the whole "I'll be shocked if NA players get picked" attitude.

The biggest (and only, imho) conflict with NA players should be time zone issues. There should be no competitive bias except to say that yeah there are plenty of rookies in the NA scene, so they would be picked last. But to say they wouldn't be picked at all doesn't make any sense for me.

Unless... there were not enough captains to pick everyone? If that's the case, I am also sadface - why not just make more captains to accomodate a full draft?

Personally, I hope everybody gets picked and the rookies get pracs in to learn more and more 4on4, and the seasoned veterans kick each others butts

This season we really wanna focus on our original concept. top div2-div1 players in a hotmix draft tournament. It's not targeted for low div2/div3 players. atm, we don't feel we can justify more captains and more teams with the current signups available. I know some will have a *sadface* cause they wanna be a part of it, but it just won't be possible this season if we want 10 teams that are fairly equal.

As I have said previously, we will take feedback during and after season and there's nothing to hinder you or anyone else to create a similar draft for "the rest" of the scene.
Or simply come up with a viable draft concept yourself, that would include more players. We simply don't know where this will take us. We wanna make this season the best we can do within our means. It won't be more than 1½ months anyway so plenty of time left in 2012 to explore other options

For now though, time to get your HOTMIX ON!

This won't happen for sure just because captains have imperfect knowledge. :-) To be honest a lot of the best draft picks I've seen in other leagues are when certain captains have "inside" information others lack. Captains really need to do their due diligence and I hope this thread can help them. I agree if the best or almost best pick is your buddy go for it. I guarantee however you'll see some picks which will leave you scratching your head. I was going to do first round predictions but decided I didn't know enough to make them. Is the correct first round order this? -

1. en_karl
2. Darkki
3. moltas
4. carapace
5. bps
6. zero
7. ParadokS
8. nitram
9. murdoc
10. Milton


I think this draft is fairly serious. It's more competition than fun but competition is fun, no? :-)


That's already the case, there are already more sign ups than spots. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Ah ok, I wasn't fully informed then at all

This is, atleast for me, the truth and nothing but the truth!

What could be more fair or more fun, than to get 10 active, equally high skilled teams duking it out in a well organized league?

The only thing that could make it more fun is if those teams actually were clans that played together for years
But the scene need to be bigger for that to happen, like it was around 2003/2004.

I think this draft will be pretty serious, quakers like to win!

Yeah ofcourse that's the ideal, to have several historic well-known clans with rivalries against eachother and that they all are on equal level of skill so you don't know who will be the winner.
Sadly that doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for several years now and there's really no realistic way of getting that back, unless there's some billionare deciding to pour millions of dollars into qw I don't see that ever happening again.
I think atm the closest we can come to have several highly skilled teams on near equal level is by a draft league such as Salvation.

It will be interesting to see who gets picked first.
Out of the current list of signed players I would go with fix if I was the one picking first.
Rusty or not he seems to be able to always adapt to the situation and play his best versus the best possible opponents.
Striker is hot too but he will be absent parts of the season.

Ihmo: fix, striker and razor will be top3 picks in some variation, but you never know. Phrenic, Grisling & Dimman would be dark horses here.

Next group of guys should be (not naming them in any particular order): votary, od, ganon, nepra, lethalwiz, ok98, moje, gor, pai, creature, krab, molle

And the next: rkd, niw, dahmer, adde, purity, rst, eggarf, knave, hangtime, kloze/23

There are also some players in there without that real 4on4 spirit, but who are still good players: locktar & the-interceptor and it will be interesting to see when they will be picked. Im sure they will be amongst the 40 but the question is how early or late they are chosen.

So, thats 30 players. 10 spots left and i really dont have a clue how the captains value the rest of the guys on the list. The only non-european, non-russian player I would pick (because of the ping) would be squeeze but as far as I can tell he hasnt signed up.
And ofc, im missing Rikoll amongst the signed players

Yes, I am aware that i have too few or too many players in the different categories, draftwise, but i didnt intend for this to be a simulation of the picks just name-dropping some players who i think will get picked and who they compete with skill wise.

All in all, the picks will be fun to watch and the games are going to be super intense if everyone bring their a-game.

What do you think about it?

I had some dead spare time between meetings so I hacked together a small draft tool that you can use to pick your order and post it back here
http://salvation.dartvader.org/

Just drag the players from the pool into the draft order, and sort them any way you like. then copy paste the BBCode from the textarea down under into this forum thread to share you're picks

I did it just for the fun and really fast. so don't expect it to be free of bugs. enjoy!

This is mine but I think team balance is more important than picking the best players.


Has the signup phase finished now? and is the live draw this monday night?

signups closes 17th and yes on monday we will have draft picking night

That's my opinion as well. In some post someone was asking the hypothetical question whether captains are going to pick the "best players" or their "friends" - and it was asked in a way as if preferring their friends was the wrong way to go. I don't think it is. The best (team)player isn't worth anything if he's complaining non-stop when the team loses, is annoiyed that prac at day X doesn't take place, or is asked to let $5th_man play a map in order to get prac. And many other cases.

There's a reason why nepotism exists, it's not corruption only. I'm also looking forward to the draft and the games this league generates.

Also, Fix is going to be choice number 1. Whoever chooses him, is my personal favourite in this tournament as he represents div3, hah!

One thing I think is gonna be interesting is how happy individual players are with their 'choice' of captains and indeed teammates. Theoretically you could get picked alongside people that you don't get along with, although I think there isn't much true animosity left in the QW scene anymore But for example when it comes to availability, you'll want to be picked alongside players that can play prac games at similar times to yourself, which looking at some of the posts in the signup thread might be less common than one might expect. Likewise in terms of the captain, I think the 'luckiest' teams will have really enthusiastic captains trying to arrange games all the time.

Well the tournament is getting hyped and it's both fun for spectators, participants and admins alike. But when it comes down to it - it's a hotmix tournament, and of course we put the captains in the spotlight and to some extend they are expected to carry their teams. But it's really a team effort and we shouldn't put too much pressure on them. I'm sure some captains will be more enthusiastic about leading their team - but really, they are just picking the best players they think will give them optimal chances in the tournament. There is nothing to hinder a picked up player to step up himself and get the team involved. Not everyone is a born leader just because you got some madskills. Perhaps some of the captains just wanna show up and play. Many cleanleaders in my time were far from the highest skilled players on the team.
I know, it's a little corny. Anyway, the minimum requirements for all, captains and players alike, is simply to follow the schedule, try to make it a smooth tournament and have fun! Whatever captains or players wish to give extra, should be on their own merits. I would hate to see most players feeling obligated to prac 24/7 with their draft team because the captain is whipping them. But I can't say I wouldn't appreciate it from my own draft team

I'm sure draft night will be a fun event for most and after that is done, we can do what we love the most - PLAYING. Cause that's what it's about in the end. So I really hope players will appreciate the effort from the people behind this concept and try to show up on the gamenights so we get as few walkover as possible!

my predictions, and it's not how i think about the players, its about how i think people think, so no offence guys.
But on the other hand, i suck on picking people. But anyway, here from 1-20 where grisling is first out.

My top20:

i want moar hotlists!

This was alot harder than expected O_o

I have no idea why im not in any of those lists, i mean, who wouldnt want to have a joker who roam around the map with no clue at all what is happening around him ... bps knows hes shit but rest of the lists is just.....

I must admit most of the lists don't make sense to me either

LocKtar is a given pick.. i still remember at some LAN: "locktar hold tele!" and then he spent 20 minutes in big room airgibbing people..
he simply does weird shit no-one expect which is key2victory in any match!

razor, tele? ofc you meant the TWO teles at bigroom???

Well squeeze signed up and he is top10 anyday imo of the signed players

FSrazor, that was qhlan 9 or something, we played 4on4 with him, told him on dm2 (hold ya telly), a few mins went by and they slipped like
crazy, we asked him: where the fuck are you?! the answer was: im holding the yas at the telly

ask me if i held them, YES I DID.

LocKTar FTW! =D