Sixes S37 - Congratulations to our winners & runner-ups!

Well well well, what do we have here? Sixes winners!

Yes yes, the season is over. Whilst many of you are probably playing in our Experimental Cup 2 tournament and will be busy, we figured we should probably get the winner's post out (however late it may be 😬). As always, congratulations to the winners, the runner-ups, and also to all of you. Sixes had some bumps this season, but overall it was a bloody good season, and we hope you are ready for Sixes Spring S38 signups to open in around a week's time!

If you haven't seen it already, please give our Post-Season Polls a look, we would appreciate as much feedback on the seasons as possible!

Sixes Post Season 37 Poll

Congratulations Premier winners xcx!

After four seasons, Taoyuan Leopards were the first to bring us to a full five-map series, which in itself is an achievement. We've all seen xcx before, maybe under the names Witness Gaming or soirée, so by now most everyone will know the players. Taoyuan Leopards was David, and Goliath couldn't be anymore, well, Goliath. But that didn't dissuade their courage or their drive. The Picks/Bans process went about in a way most would expect, the usual pug maps and some King of the Hill, with the only exception being a Process ban out of Taoyuan Leopards, who also saw fit to ban the third and most recently added KOTH map in our Sixes map pool, Bagel. Our newest map addition Sultry received an immediate first ban from xcx, making it clear that the old dogs didn't want to learn new tricks, which could only go the way of the new.

Our first map Product, the pick of xcx, didn't go the way many would have expected. Whilst xcx managed to close out the first round, in the second closest round of the map, Taoyuan Leopards demonstrated an unshakeable will to rob xcx of the win on their own map pick, responding not-so-kindly with two round wins, bringing the score 2-1 to Taoyuan Leopards. In the closest round of the map xcx edged out a round win to tie the score at 2-2, with lexx being the only xcx player to make a real mark against a dominating front from Taoyuan Leopards in that round, but they had a 13-kill deficit. It was clear that Taoyuan Leopards were more than ready for the Product pick, and their soon-to-be MVP robor (AKA sheep) led the charge in damage and frags for Product, and led them to a round win for the fifth round of the map, bringing the score to 3-2 to Taoyuan Leopards, leading with the highest damage of that round.

David had truly slapped Goliath, emphasis on slapped. Because Goliath didn't like that, and retribution was coming. Gullywash was Taoyuan Leopards' pick, and they were confident heading into their pick not only because of their map win on Product but because it was their pick. However, xcx's loss on Product should have been a cautionary tale, because as much as we could try to sugarcoat Gullywash, it took xcx only twenty minutes to bring us a 5-0 scoreline, with matttt and lexx certainly not sleeping through these finals, especially not whilst playing on Gullywash, both leading their team in space made and damage. Speaking of sleeping through the Grand Finals, Doge was actually there, but both of Taoyuan Leopard's soldiers may have been snoozing on Gullywash.

Speaking of sleeping, it was clear that Sunshine was naptime for some, being the pick of xcx, and with all prior map picks being lost by the team who picked them - there was a pattern being established. Sunshine was a more lively affair for Taoyuan Leopards, who were certainly not the ones sleeping this time, matttt once again bringing direction to their team, which ended up being needed more than they would expect. Sunshine was one of the closer maps we had seen in the series, with the least disparity between every player in the server, everyone had shown up - it just took some time for a few. As we alluded to earlier, however, the map ended 3-2 to Taoyuan Leopards, continuing the trend of these two teams not being able to win their map pick, but that would eventually end.

Clearcut rolled around next, and boy was this one of the more exciting maps of the series, with only three kills separating the teams. However, there was one singular reason as to why xcx got close, and ended up leading in kills on Clearcut, and it was cooki. cooki had twenty-five, yes, twenty-five more kills than the next player on his team. He had more than double the kills of the next player on his team, with the only hope for Taoyuan Leopards being robor, trying his best but ultimately trailing behind cooki with the second most kills. With the two top damage leaders in the server on the side of xcx, a 3-2 scoreline to xcx on Clearcut saw fruition, and credit to Taoyuan Leopards for making this map as close as it was, even securing the first round which ended up being the fastest of the map, but xcx has a legacy for a reason, and we got to see more than a glimpse at that.

You don't need to be a mathematician to see we are at 2-2 for the series score, and no-one has won their map pick yet, but as we hinted at earlier, that ends. Taoyuan Leopards fans didn't know it yet, but the glisten in their eye when thinking up what the win would look like, xcx was ready to wipe it all away. If we were to pick an MVP for the match, it'd be a close race between matttt and cooki, the latter of whom put up some ludicrous numbers, but matttt simply was there - on every map, at all times, he showed up in a big way for xcx. Sadly for Taoyuan Leopards, they couldn't shut him down, and he played no small part in the end result for this series, with xcx bringing the map to a 5-2 finale, and the series to a 3-2.

It was a big series and something we hadn't seen in a long while. We're looking forward to a Taoyuan Leopards return next season because, with some time and grinding, we could see the results of this series flipped on its head in the future. With that, congratulations to xcx for another win, and kudos to Taoyuan Leopards for giving us an entertaining match.

Writeup authored by core.

Placements

- xcx
- Taoyuan Leopards
- en passant
- Ascension

Series Score

3 - 2
Match

Awards

Best Combo Scout: cooki
Best Flank Scout: HUNGRY4EGGS
Best Pocket: Doge.exe has stopped working
Best Roamer: AUZ
Best Demoman: matt
Best Medic: conor
Best Utility: robor

Most Improved Player: Pipelin12
Most Valuable Player: robor
Friendliest Team: Ascension
Most Improved Team: en passant & Taoyuan Leopards
Best Dressed Team: Ascension

Best Caster: Elmo

Congratulations High winners fever kids!

Coming into the High Grand Final, we had an inkling of what was going to happen. We've seen it before, a team of Highlander gamers turning Sixes into offclass hell, but had we really seen what was going to happen in this match before? A shock to no one I'm sure, but we witnessed Sunshine, Product, and Snakewater in this series, with Clearcut, Sultry, and Gullywash being banned. We've laid out the story in just two sentences, but we need to fill you in on what happened.

Sunshine was not much of a shock for most, we witnessed a 2-1 from fever kids, but in that near-thirty-minute heat, we witnessed more offclassing from BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD than the entirety of the Premier Grand Final. That may be a lie, we didn't count, but it certainly felt like it, and it wouldn't surprise us if it were correct. See we expected offclassing, some of it was far more effective than expected, but the permanent Sniper on the side of BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD, that being Flow, only really aided in slowing down the game, with his presence making it harder for his team to execute successful pushes. Much of their success came from lunar and BONKITUP leading Ubers from near-constant disadvantages, and doing a hell of a lot of work with those Ubers. Despite this, it wasn't enough to prevent fever kids from closing out the map on them.

Product was our next map to experience, and it was something indeed. Do you know the offclassing we mentioned earlier? Yeah, it was still here, and it finally became effective. What changed you might ask? Well, the obvious indicator would be that it's a KOTH map, but that's not the whole story, nor the true, unstoppable, Russian force behind their success. You may know of a man, with his gun named Sasha, clearly BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD knew of this man, because four players on their roster played Heavy, three of which had over a minute on the class, with their main Demoman lunar spending over six minutes on Heavy. The map concluded with a 3-2 to BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD, finally securing a map win off the back of two players in particular, lunar who we've already mentioned on this map, and Flow, who had seemingly come alive since Sunshine. Whilst lunar did play six minutes of Heavy, it was not as effective as the twenty-five minutes of Demoman. With star-studded performances on Product out of these two, we would get to see a third map.

Snakewater was our third map, and BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD saw far more effective use of their offclass shenanigans on Snakewater than they did on the previous 5CP map, Sunshine. Flow once again spent the vast majority of the thirty-two minutes of Snakewater on Sniper, and we once again had the pleasure of seeing a Demoman offclass, but not just to Heavy this time, but to Engineer. That's right, twenty-seven minutes of Engineer gameplay, in Sixes. See lunar also took twenty-five percent of the total heals for Snakewater on their side, and credit, where it is due, did do a lot of work on the class. But that work would fall short, for both lunar and Flow. We haven't mentioned anyone specifically on the side of fever kids yet, but we wanted to highlight some of their work in general.

fever kids showed up, especially jane doe and the one, the only yuki. Yes, that yuki, from Team Immunity. It's been some time, but they returned recently, and are still performing admirably, putting up consistently top of the scoreboard numbers alongside jane doe for all three maps. Everyone on the side fever kids performed breathtakingly, and they worked hard for the win in that match. BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD showed us something we don't get to see too often and gave us quite the show. Ultimately, congratulations are in order for fever kids, our Season 37 High winners!

Writeup authored by core.