IntroductionLEGACY PLAYOFFS?! YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT LEGACY PLAYOFFS?! Since every other series got the playoffs treatment last week, this has become a Legacy-only post. All of the players and teams included here made the Legacy playoffs. As a reminder, we use internal data calculated into a formula called PAR to create these rankings. PAR calculates data such as win/loss, game win rates, and strength of schedule. If you would like to read more about how this is calculated, read the blog that Marty wrote explaining how it all works! Each week we will be updating you on how these players and teams shift throughout their respective series, as well as highlighting individuals and their journeys. Let’s finish our venture out into the Dark Beyond. legacy Time for the final PPR of the season! We’ll take a look at how our top 8 teams and their top players have shook out at the end of the Legacy regular season, as well as how our legacy playoff bracket and seeding compares to the PPR ranking. Finally, I’ll round it out with my predictions for our upcoming bracket - please don’t @EPICat when I mispredict your team!
Defias vs Do A Barrel Roll Defias is the definite favorite going into this playoff season. With their impressive 7-1 record, league high 142 points (17.75 PPW), place on top of the team power rankings, and three players in the top ten (grumpyninja leading the way at 7-1, with Nice Jewish Owl and Potwasher both at 6-2). Do A Barrel Roll is also a force to be reckoned with, however. LtCavalry sits in 2nd place of the player rankings with his 7-1 record, and the team has received the recent support of Maxiebon1234 dropping into the 2 seed while continuing his rampage of Pro and Wild where he didn’t drop a single match the whole season. As strong as Defias is, I think Do A Barrel Roll is the team to take them down. No matter the result, it will be a close and well-fought match, so I give Do A Barrel Roll a 15-13 victory. Anomaly Perplexed Me? vs Los Justin Hermanos I have no biases going into this match, and Anomaly Perplexed Me? will surely win 20-0! Seriously though, this will be a hard fought match between two similarly strong teams both coming off of extremely strong seasons. Los Justin Hermanos sit in the bronze position of the team rankings, led by Pokemon661’s 6-2 record. Anomaly Perplexed Me? have dropped into 5th place after a couple of no contest matches last week - they are partly carried by CalebEM’s 7-1 record (which somehow didn’t make the top 10). I’m excited to see how badly APM beats up the Justins :) 7 Mile Spanking Machine vs Anaconda’s Preferred Meal This is a really interesting match to predict. 7 Mile Spanking Machine has been one of the most consistent teams all season, ending up with a 6-2 record and in 4th place of the team rankings, while APM struggled the first half of the season before kicking into high gear the past few weeks. Aharmlessdog and SuperSenter’s 6-2 records (matching with the team!) are helping carry them, while LotusKnight’s 5-2 record for APM has helped secure their playoff spot. Part of APM’s strategy in their team composition is their double 550 players, leading to a stacked top end, while 7 Mile Spanking Machine has done the exact opposite with only a 167 PR difference between their 1 and 5 seeds. I think this will be another closely contested match (I sound like a broken record, I know), but I believe 7 Mile will edge out APM with a 16-11 score. DadLegend vs DaSTUBBS For our final matchup, we see our 2nd place team, DadLegend, take on the 2nd place team of the red conference, DaSTUBBS. Halohalo of DadLegend rounds out the podium for his team, while Ozmonaut of DaSTUBBS sits in 6th place with his 6-2 record. While both teams are strong, we have seen some outstanding performance from DadLegend this season, while we just saw DaSTUBBS stumble in their final week and almost lose their playoff spot to STD. Who did this final stumble come from? DadLegend themselves. I expect to see this result repeated, so I’ll give this match to DadLegend with a 18-9 score. Bonus matches APM? 13-12 Do A Barrel Roll Just running back our regular season score here, this class is sure to be close! DadLegend 15-12 7 Mile I think the Dads are on a roll right now, and will take 7 Mile in stride in their quest to win finals APM? 16-11 DadLegend These totally unbiased reviews from me have come to a head with the inevitable APM? Victory! In all seriousness, though, I think this is one of the closest and most stacked group of playoff teams I’ve seen in THL since I’ve been here. I expect to see many of these face-offs going down to the final match. Good luck to all legacy teams, and thanks for an incredible regular season! See you all in a few months for season 30!! -EPICat
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introductionPLAYOFFS?! YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS?! Outside of Legacy, all of our series will only be featuring players/teams that made the playoffs. This will be the final Power Rankings for this season with all of our series. We will still be releasing them for just Legacy until Legacy enters the playoffs. As a reminder, we use internal data calculated into a formula called PAR to create these rankings. PAR calculates data such as win/loss, game win rates, and strength of schedule. If you would like to read more about how this is calculated, read the blog that Marty wrote explaining how it all works! Each week we will be updating you on how these players and teams shift throughout their respective series, as well as highlighting individuals and their journeys. Let’s finish our venture out into the Dark Beyond. legacy Hello THL, it’s time for the penultimate (one of my favorite words) Legacy PPR! We’ll talk through the significant shakeups in our player and team rankings — the most lopsided so far — as well as my odds and predictions for our upcoming playoff finalists. Let’s start off with the Gold Conference! After going five for five in their cross-conference endeavors this past week, we see Gold teams make up a massive chunk of the top 10. Strictly Business shot into 8th place for their first top 10 appearance, as well as ET C’Thun remaining in 9th. Towards the top of our rankings, Do A Barrel Roll moved into 4th place with their victory and Anomaly Perplexed Me? found their way onto the podium for the first time. APM? is in a dominant position going into the final week, with an 18 point lead over 3rd place. Only needing 5 points to clinch a playoff birth, I give APM? A 99% chance of moving on (yes, these odds are completely arbitrary - there is no actual math going behind them). As for the second playoff spot, we see Do A Barrel Roll presently in 2nd place with an 11 point lead (and tiebreakers) over Strictly Business and a 14 point lead over ET C’Thun. While these numbers are technically possible to allow Strictly Business or ET C’Thun to move into 2nd, it’s difficult due to them needing an extremely strong week and for Do A Barrel Roll to flop. I give Do A Barrel Roll a 94% chance to advance, Strictly Business a 5% chance, and ET C’Thun a 2% chance. Let’s move on to the Silver Conference. Despite being the conference that suffered all 5 losses to the Gold teams, we still see three different Silver teams represented in the top 10, though they all dropped several spots. Los Justin Hermanos had the biggest shift, dropping from an impressive 2nd all the way down to 7th, while 7 Mile Spanking Machine and The Ceaseless Expanse Ate Our Team dropping 3 places each. This conference is much clearer as to who our playoff teams will be. Los Justin Hermanos needs only 2 points to clinch their spot, so I’ll give them a 99.9% chance, and 7 Mile Spanking Machine only needs 3, so I’ll also give them a 99.9% chance. Yes, this leaves The Ceaseless Expanse Ate Our Team with only a measly 0.2% chance, but honestly, that’s probably higher then their actual odds. Next, our penultimate (I’m gonna use the word whenever I want, nobody is stopping me heheh) conference - Red! We are back to the “average” (don’t @ me with the math please) number of top 10 teams from this conference in 2. Defias, in fact, is our number 1 team! With a 6-1 record (the best in the league) and an entire 125 points or 17.86 PPW (also the best in the league), Defias is a force to be reckoned with. While they didn’t have their playoff spot clinched at the start of the week, an early week win has brought them to 23 points over the third place team, Standard THL Degenerates, making them the first team to secure themselves into playoffs. Congratulations to Defias and their 100% odds to move on! As for the second spot, DaSTUBBS (who also jumped up 3 places in the Power Rankings) has a 13 point lead over STD without any tiebreaks, meaning that they need 11 points to move on. While it is once again possible for STD to break into second with a sweep and a loss from DaSTUBBS (they are facing the leader of Blue Conference and our 3rd place team, DadLegend), I still find it highly unlikely to happen. I give DaSTUBBS a 94% chance to continue and STD a 4% chance. Ok, just one more conference to go (and thank you for bearing with me so far!). Blue Conference is probably our closest playoff race yet, despite them only having 1 team in the top 10, the aforementioned DadLegend. Speaking of this powerful team, they have the easiest job to clinch playoffs yet (besides Defias who already made it). With only 1 point, DadLegend’s tiebreaker over 8 Handed Death Chop clinches their spot in playoffs, so I’ll give them a 99.9999% chance to make it. As for our 2nd spot, Anaconda’s Preferred Meal, sat 9 points above 8 Handed Death Chop at the beginning of the week. With APM’s tiebreaks, they only need 14 points to make it to playoffs. While this is our closest race in the league, it still isn’t very close, so I give APM a 92% chance to move on. 8 Handed Death Chop needs an incredible week against the current strongest team, Defias, so they get an 8.0001% chance to advance to playoffs. Finally, let’s take a quick look at our players. We see even more shifts around, with winning and losing players moving several spots each. We also see 3 new players in the top 10 - CalebEM (go APM?), Ozmonaut, and aharmlessdog. Only Do A Barrel Roll’s LtCavalry and Defias’ grumpyninja remain undefeated as we move into our final week. Grumpyninja has a significantly better game score, going 21-6 across the season (congrats!), while LtCavalry is 21-10. If grumpyninja pulls out a final win, they will be our future MVP, but a loss could leave it in LtCavalry’s hands. Thanks for making it all the way through this upcoming playoff rant. I’m looking forward to our final writeup next week, highlighting our 8 playoff teams and the top players featured on each. Good luck to all THL’ers in the final week of the Legacy regular season! -EPICat hero Playoffs are here and only 6 teams remain. First let's look at who made it out alive from each conference. In the Teal conference we have Defias and A Poulderfist Mountain. From the Purple Conference we have Defy Us along with F2L Black. Finally, from the Orange conference we have Wraiths of the Beyond and Just Three Adjourning Crewmates. A huge round of applause to the 6 teams that were able to make it this time around. May the best of them win the playoffs. I love a good underdog story and Defy Us had a good one this season. They did not get their first week win until the 4th week of the season. However, they kept their spirits up and were able to dominate weeks 4-6 with no issue. On the flip side, Defias was able to have a great season not losing a single week going into our playoffs. Another major congratulations to all the teams that made the playoffs this season. 3 of the top 10 players were able to have an undefeated run into the playoffs. Congrats to Classy, NotBamity, and Ozmanaut for not losing a single match this season. We will see if any of them can continue this streak all the way to the final round. Finally lets look a little bit into our matchups for week 1 of the playoffs. For matchups we have Defias and Wraiths of the Beyond with a bye, APM vs. F2L Black, and Defy us Vs. Just Three Adjourning Crewmates. Looks like some pretty interesting matchups for the week and we will see which teams remain on top with us in the next week. -amazingoo pro Congratulations to the Top 6 teams that made the cut. I'm going to give my "famous" Baseless Educated Wishes as the team reviews in a moment. So, let's jump into a review of the Dark Beyond Pro Series undefeated players: Maxiebon1234 (WashedUp) 7-0 End of list. Petition to have Blizzard change 'The Year of Pegasus' to 'Year of Maxiebon1234'. Maxie ended undefeated in Pro Series and Wild series and both teams are entering playoffs, and his Legacy team is still in the hunt for playoffs. Note for any Pro teams that will be matched against Washed Up this playoffs: Win with seeds 2 through 5, because your 1 seed needs help! Alright, enough Maxie-Stanning. Congratulations also to Pyrollama (Cheese Mongers United) 6-1 and rebobson (F2L) 5-2. Incredible seasons that would have been first place performances in many prior seasons. Now for the playoff matchups: F2L (4th Place) VERSUS Ada's Litter (5th Place) On paper, these two teams are nearly mirror images of one another. Player match wins are identical, player match losses are identical. Ada's Litter got beat up on by Washed Up last week, while F2L defeated last year's Pro champs in BrushyTuna. With the momentum going in F2L's favor, I give them a SLIGHT advantage this week. WHODACK'S BASELESS EDUCATED WISH: F2L 15, Ada's 13 Washed Up (3rd Place) VERSUS ET Yogg-Saron (6th Place) ET Yogg-Saron squeaked into the playoffs due to their solid play in the first half of the season. The last few weeks has been pretty tough. And, they're up against Washed Up led by my GOAT vote, Maxiebon1234. I expect Maxie to do Maxie things, can the rest of the team pull out the upset? I'm leaning no, but prove me wrong! WHODACK'S BASELESS EDUCATED WISH: Washed Up 17, ETYS 11 Good luck to all! -Whodack wild Welcome to playoffs! Anxious Puckin' Mess went nearly-undefeated, losing only to my own team, Wild THL Fanatics, and as such have earned their spot at the top of the power rankings. In second is another strong team returning from last season, the Staff of the Five Dubs. Hawk 2's 3-3 record may not seem elite but they've kept it up against the best teams and dominated everybody else, granting them the final spot on the podium. WTF rounds out our playoff teams off the podium but by no means out of contention. Any one of these four teams have the chance to go all the way.
As for the players, the story is once again the incredible depth and consistency of the Staff. From the 1 to the 5, every player is one to be feared. In fact, one-seed Copa is ranked "only" fifth after getting swept by maxie last week. He'll be looking for a bounce-back week against WTF 1 seed Devalion, commonly referred to as the "handsomest man in THL", whose greatness knows no bounds and whose skill is unmatched. Oh, sorry, you mean we have to talk about the players who've actually been winning? *Ahem*, anyways. Copa is joined by wild newcomer Filtrophobe and longtime performer NJO (Nice Jewish Owl) in the top five. The three of them form a combined effort that makes getting through the Staff a challenge each and every week. Of course, maxiebon1234, the Aussie sensation, grandmaster, and recent world championship competitor, has been tearing up the competition to the tune of 6-0. In fact, his thirteen match wins spread out across Wild and Pro are somehow more than his total of twelve GAME losses between the series. Any time he plays, you can pencil it in for an APM lead, and his dominance is the key reason why APM earned that one seed in the Dark Beyond. But I'd be remiss not to mention THL veteran OTZaixia, who took the dissolution of F2L in stride and has made a home for himself at the front of free agent team Hawk 2. With wins over players as good as SchmoopieDady and Sinferno, you can never count the combo king out of a match. I'm excited to see the OTZ vs Maxie match this week - it should be one of the best on the docket! Unfortunately, with playoffs starting this does mean this will be the last Wild power rankings until the next season. I hope you guys have enjoyed reading these as much as I've enjoyed writing them! See you in the playoffs and, as always, happy hunting lions. -Devalion introductionTHE ZERG ARE ENCROACHING FAST! As a reminder, we use internal data calculated into a formula called PAR to create these rankings. PAR calculates data such as win/loss, game win rates, and strength of schedule. If you would like to read more about how this is calculated, read the blog that Marty wrote explaining how it all works! Each week we will be updating you on how these players and teams shift throughout their respective series, as well as highlighting individuals and their journeys. Let’s continue our venture out into the Dark Beyond. LEGACY There’s only two weeks left of the regular season, and the teams are getting more and more competitive! We had a couple big upsets this week, with both 7 Mile Spanking Machine and Defias losing their undefeated records. The only other large change comes from Anomaly Perplexed Me?’s sweeps over Golden Wisps, causing both teams to jump in the rankings. Most top 2 conference teams have a significant lead going into playoffs, with only Anaconda’s Preferred Meal being 3 points behind the Golden Wisps offering a tight playoff race. Will that change as we move into the final week or will the top teams continue to dominate? Looking at players instead, we’ve lost another 4 perfect records. Oxob3333, LtCavalry, and grumpyninja remain at the top with 2 more matches to go and an MVP title on the line. Looking at our plethora of 5-1 players that remain in the top 10, we see many familiar names from a variety of teams, as well as three new faces in Disagr33ment, pokemon661, CritEcal. I’m looking forward to seeing how these final few weeks shape up! -EPICat hero We are getting closer and closer to the end of the regular season and a lot of teams are going to be a close call on making the playoffs or not. Wraiths Of the Beyond has risen to be our top team this week. In fact all our top 3 teams of the week are the same, just shifted around a little bit. Just Three Adjourning Crewmates and A Paternal Milestone were also able to join us this week. On the players' side of things, the top 8 players remained on the leaderboard while SuperHero and YellowDart joined in 9th and 10th place. Our top 5 players remain undefeated as well. Pretty impressive this late into the season! It is looking to be a very competitive season as all the teams and players on the top are remaining in the top as the weeks go on. We will see if anyone is able to knock our undefeated players down this coming week. -Amazingoo pro It's getting tight at the top! Despite a decisive win from Identified Pet Tracking this week, Cheese Mongers United got tired of sitting in second place and leapfrogged Pet Tracking to claim the top spot. With a decisive-er win over F2L, the Cheese Mongers are now in the driver's seat going into the second half of the season. Can they maintain their hold on the Black Conference and the Pro League? We'll see if Three Seed University can weaken the Cheese Mongers Grasp in their match up this week. In the fight for third place, BrushyTuna got upended by the Staff of the Five Dubs and have fallen back into the 4th seed. Ada's Litter squaked out a win over Hearthstone Queens and find themselves in third place once again. But, right behind them are BrushyTuna in 4th, Washed Up in 5th, and F2L in 6th - so the playoff spots are still wide open! In our Player Power Rankings, Maxiebon1234 (Washed Up) extended his record to 6-0 while also beating me in our Wild matchup. (I'm not mad, you're mad.) Pyrollama (Cheese Mongers United) and Dagda (Interstellar Strategists) sit in 2nd and 3rd place each with one loss on the season. And, Wild9 is the only other player with 5 wins to remain undefeated. Great season so far, good luck to all! -Whodack wild As we enter the final week of the regular season, the Wild Power Rankings have mostly stabilized. The top three teams have been dominant this season, hoarding the podium spots to themselves since Power Rankings began 3 weeks ago. Likewise, the top 4 spots on the players side are the only players to make it to this point with 1 or fewer losses. If you want to keep up with the best here, you’ll have to bring your A game.
Staff of the Five Dubs and Anxious Puckin’ Mess make up our marquee match this week. The two will face off to see who clinches first place and dodges Wild THL Fanatics in the first round of playoffs next week. Barring a monumental collapse, DoctorBOMD’s team have the 3 seed locked. If you only have time for one match, look out for Copa vs maxiebon1234. They’re the only players left undefeated this season, and whoever wins is sure to end up on the top of our final Wild Power Rankings. -MartyB introductionFIRST THL POWER RANKINGS OF 2025! As a reminder, we use internal data calculated into a formula called PAR to create these rankings. PAR calculates data such as win/loss, game win rates, and strength of schedule. If you would like to read more about how this is calculated, read the blog that Marty wrote explaining how it all works! Each week we will be updating you on how these players and teams shift throughout their respective series, as well as highlighting individuals and their journeys. Let’s continue our venture out into the Dark Beyond. legacy Into Week 5 we go! There were a couple major shake-ups this week, including a new #1 team. DadLegend, with another resounding victory that brought them to a series high of 98 points, has bounded into the top spot of the Legacy team Power Rankings. This spot opened up due to the Golden Wisps taking a loss and jumping down into 5th place. The other major change we can see is The Ceaseless Expanse Ate Our Team jumping up into 7th place with a tie against fellow high ranking Silver Conference team, Los Justin Hermanos. Taking their previous spot is our only new team in the rankings, ET C’Thun. As we move into the final three weeks of the season, all teams are officially finished with in-conference play. This means that every race to make playoffs will not be decided by any final matches between the top teams of a conference, but instead solely on how a team can compete with teams across the entire series, and perhaps a bit of luck in the strength of opponents you end up facing. With half of the teams being in this top ten ranking, we should expect about 7 matches between the top teams in the next three weeks (ChatGPT did the math, don’t ask me how). Instead, a total of 9 matches will occur between the current top teams, with DadLegend and Da STUBBS clocking in one each week for some of the strongest final schedules. 7 Mile Spanking Machine, Defias, Los Justin Hermanos, and ET C’Thun each play only one match versus other top teams, giving them a theoretical advantage in racking up the points as we approach playoffs. I’m looking forward to seeing how all these matchups shake out as we get closer and closer to the end of the regular season and every team seeks to find their spot in playoffs! Moving to our top ten players, we see our undefeated players move from a whopping eleven down to only seven, who are now all included in our PAR listing. Grumpyninja continues to lead this ranking with a 5-0 match score and an incredible 15-4 game score. He is one of five players in Red Conference to make the top ten, including two of his teammates (Nice Jewish Owl and Potwasher, shout out to Defias for fielding three top players!) None of these players will face each other this week, but I’m looking forward to seeing who can keep their perfect record and who will end up falling as we approach the end of the season and the eventual crowning of our Legacy MVP! -EPICat hero Still lots of competition in the hero series this season. Defias remains on top this week with Wraiths of the Beyond in a close second. All the top teams from last week mostly stayed on the top of the leaderboard while shifting a few spots up or down. Two new teams also joined us this week in the 9th and 10th place spots. The teal conference contains our top 2 players so far in hero with EPICat in first and NotBamity in second. Meanwhile the brown conference occupies most of the middle spots. Will Defias remain the top team for three weeks in a row? We will just have to wait and see. -amazingoo pro Checking in on the Pros, the top two teams stayed in their positions - Unidentified Pet Tracking at #1, Cheese Mongers United at #2 - while a "newcomer" breaks into the three seed. "Newcomer" is only so fitting for a prolific team like BrushyTuna. But, they've overcome an early loss and found their way back onto the podium. Team Tuna is taking advantage of an Ada's Litter slip up against the Interstellar Strategists last week - but Ada's Litter is still sitting strong in the 4th seed and F2L reminded everyone they're still a THL force and jumped into the 5th seed. Our undefeated players list grows shorter. Still standing are: Maxiebon1234 of Washed Up, Dagda of Interstellar Strategists, eswaff of Unidentified Pet Tracking, and Wild9 of Cheese Mongers United. How long can this go on? Good luck wrapping up this extended holiday week! -Whodack wild Happy New Year and welcome to week six of the Wild Power Rankings! With Wild THL Fanatics picking up its first loss at the hands of the Staff of the Five Dubs, the race for first has heightened up. At press time, the Staff appears to have a slight edge over Anxious Puckin' Mess, but we can't count out WTF, who will be rested and ready for revenge exiting their bye week.
There are still three undefeated players remaining, and it's no surprise to see Maxie and Copa at the top, but in Filtrophobe's first wild season, the Aussie has been tearing apart the competition. He and Copa provide a one-two punch that makes the Staff a team to be feared in any week. Another rookie, UsernameABCD, was undefeated as well before a loss to Maxie last week, which at this point is a rite of passage for any wild newbie (don't ask me how I know, sadge). Rounding out our top five, in fourth place, is OTZaixia, who's been keeping Hawk 2 in playoff contention as they've navigated a rough first half. Man, it's great to be back. See y'all in week seven, and, as always, happy hunting lions -Devalion |
AuthorThe THL blog is curated and edited by THL's Content Managers. All THL members are welcomed and encouraged to pitch ideas for articles they would like to see on the site. If you have an idea, please reach out to LotusKnight on Discord or via the THL Help email address: [email protected] Archives
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