Now that GenCon is in the can for another year (and massive congratulations to David for winning the big dance... what is it with David's and National Championships...?), we will all begin to consider the year - or the season - that was. After just recently finishing our own National Champs and my school's SWM tournament, that also draws the curtain on our own season and after meticulously compiling all the stats (I love you, Excel!), here we go for the Save11 SWM New Zealand wrap-up!
Majors, Minors and Beyond...Let's start at the top: kudos to David/Dr Daman for winning our third National Tournament for the second time. That cements his place at the top for the NZ pile and confirms his rightful place as Save11 CEO (although, that does sound a little like being Mandalore, doesn't it?). He adds that to his LowerHuttaCon win earlier this year and brings his number of Major wins to 4, still one behind Graham/TheHutts. Paul/Darth Moore joined him with his 150pt HaweraCon victory to become our latest Major winner, and Aaron/Sharron took out HamilCon to win his second Major title. Our Minor champs this year were Bevan (Hawera Regional again), Paul (Lower Hutt Regional - adding to his earlier Major win) and, I guess, Daman who lost in the final of the NZ Vassal Regional, but was the highest place Kiwi. We do still have 100pt Tournaments too - which still are a blast - which were won by TheHutts, taking out the Hutt100 and me/kezzamachine, winning the Naenae College Champs (and, before you cry "He's just beaten a bunch of school kids!", I only just won it - was pushed close in all my games, and Hayden was in that tournament and he placed higher than me in just about everything this year, including making the semis of LowerHuttaCon... that sounded a bit defensive, didn't it... but, boohoo, sucks to you!). Strangely, I've just noticed for the first time now, we didn't have a Hawera100! Oh dear...
Overall NumbersAll in all, that's 193 competitive games of SWM between 26 players. It's still away from last season's 234 games and just behind the previous season's 199. 26 players is also down on the last two years and we now have to think about new players and what that looks like. This year only saw two new players (James from Hawera and Zakk from Hamilton) and already one of them has decided to not continue in the game. The other, as a side note, Zakk is 8 years old and played in the National Champs. Is that youngest player to play in a Major championship in the world? He didn't win any games, but managed to pick up a point in a 220-160 point loss!
3-2-1'sFor those who are keen on some hard data on our 3-2-1 system, in our 193-game season, we had 113 3pt wins to 80 2pt wins, for a 59% rate of completed games. Without the actual numbers in front of me, I can only guess that the number of 3pt wins was higher in our major tournaments as we have 61% 3pt wins in Majors, with 57% in both Minors and 100pt games. The 1 point loss numbers are interesting - a 1pt loss was only registered in 28 games this year, and that number is fairly consistent with our previous four seasons.
Season Highs8 of our 26 players player fewer than 10 games, but on the opposite end, we had 9 players play 20 or more. Our top were Daman and Sharron with 31 each. The most wins of the season went to Daman, whose 25-6 at 81% was so dominant, it is only bested by TheHutts 29-5 (85%) two seasons earlier. Daman also stands out above the pack because his 81% is trailed by the next 4: Sharron 68% (21-10), Hutts 67% (18-9), Mike/Smuggler 63% (15-9) and Hawera Dave/Doug Platapus at 61% (14-9). However, when it comes to 3pt wins, Hutts was on top this season, converting 16 of his 18 wins in 3pt victories. Sharron and Daman both had 15 3pt wins. And, although he'll hate to hear it, no one got closer to their opponents this season than Sharron with 5 1pt losses, his most notable close lose coming to Darth Moore to lose the HaweraCon Final 145-144. Dang!
FactionsWho was the most popular? Well, by far and away Daal... I mean, Imperials! 73 games they represented, the next best being Separatist at 52. We've played 52 games in the last five seasons with all Fringe squads and 42 of those games were this season, thank you Talon! Republic were 38 games, Sith and NR 35, Rebel 27, Mandos and Vong on 23 and hardly anyone played OR this last season, they only had 14 games! Not only did Imperials fair well with numbers, they also won 73% of their games, everyone else sitting between 52-43%, except for Republic on 39% and Mandos at 30%. It wasn't all bad news for Mandos, as after five seasons, there was finally at Mandos vs Fringe game - the last our all the matchups to happen in NZ - Mandos (thanks to Zach/xxSkillsxx) beating Fringe (Hayden/Haydensolo).
MapsIt was a new season with new maps! Bill will be pleased - Jabba's Palace was top for the second year running, featuring in 29 games. Good ol' Ruined Base was next on 26, followed closely by Cantina (23) and Bothan Spynet (21). Of the new maps, Great Library featured only twice in List A, Starport District also featured twice for List B and List C's Tomb of the Acolytes got the biggest new press, featuring in 15 games! Interestingly, our maplists must have gotten a little confused, because List A only had 3 games in total - meaning we must have forgotten to use it! Also, of note, Business District, while not being on any of the Restricted Lists, featured twice in a 100pt tournament. 21 games out of 193 featured the new maps.
All Time NumbersWe have some players now topping some big numbers within our Save11 community. Probably the only record I still hold is the most games: I've played 132 competitive games in the last 1856 days - one every two weeks. Not too shabby... especially considering this was my worst ever season (10-10 at 50%) and the one where I had played the least (only 20 games!). I'm 83-49... gee, can't wait for that next loss! I'm followed closely by Bevan (127 games at 88-39 - most career wins!), Sharron (121/83-38), Hutts (120/83-37) and Bob/KFCs waiting for you (105/66-39). A big congrats to Dave/Doug Platapus who finally played his 100th game to finish exactly there at 44-56, and to Mike/Smuggler who finished the season completing his 50th career win to be 50-33. While Dr Daman has only played 87 games, he is at a very healthy 60-27 and is in line to be our 7th player to hit 100 games. The last three players on 50 games or more are Ian (81/32-49), Rich/Darth Rattlehead (58/19-39) and Robin (53/24-29), with Kurt one game shy of 50. I've also added a new stat of Total Points - that is, adding up all the career 3pt, 2pt and 1pt games and the 8 players above 100 are: Hutts 241, Sharron 237, Bevan 231, me 218, Daman 166, Bob 165, Mike 149 and Dave 143. Not a wholly useful stats, but fun to look at!
And that, they say, is that...All in all, it was a pretty good season. Not as plentiful as last year, so that leaves us with some questions, and with some previously key players looking to move on, it gives us a challenge or two to address. However, quality Vsets and maps keep coming and we now adopt the 10-gambit system to stay in line with the international game. Bring on season 6/2014-2015!
If you want to look deeper into our stats, check out how I compile it all or just check out my awesome numbers, you can download my supercool Excel spreadsheet here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/28jb24jn8v9wl3h/Save11%20Records.xlsxThat will give you all the details I use. I'm sure Graham/TheHutts will have this out as soon as he can and looking over all the numbers, although becoming a father for the second time in the last week may slow that up... or perhaps he has more time to read things while cuddling a newborn during the wee hours...? Anyhoo, congrats to Graham on a new baby, to David/Daman for winning the NZs and being our top player for the season, and to David/Weeks for being the world's top player.
Mauri ora, mauri mate!kez