GST 2017- Official Review/Observation

[NJKxX]

First of, as part of Shrekt, I would like to congratulate Flushy, but specially iNone for never giving up on his goal of winning a GST. Next of, I would like to congratulate Curse for showing an exemplar attitude towards this GST, and also Equinox, for always representing the minority of mexican players out here. Lastly, I liked a lot Freeze's contribution to make this GST more fun, those guys always bring back some good ol' memories; and of course, Tetris for doubting the doubters, those guys worked a lot to get there... well done!

Moving on to GST Qualifications Week/GST 2017 Advertising:

- Discussing this subject with Meph, we both agreed that the GST 2017 lacked advertising ever since the beginning of the "GST Season".
- Gangs were not particularly looking forward to qualify for GST this year, as an example, "School Shooters United" and "Zig" were practice tags for GST Gangs, and they were inside the podium in the Base Battle rankings.
- Basing Gangs should have gotten a chance to qualify through their area of expertise. Meph had a very good point on how BitzSam first nerfs the guns, HomelessWitch creates a new, fresh base, and gang are not even able to qualify to GST through basing. Basing gangs that qualified to the GST this year, were last or second to last in the Gang Spar/Base Battle rankings.

July 15th, 2017. Official Annual Gang Spar Tournament:

- Everything started wrong, the moment the "crashing" issue was still a present fear for every single player playing the GST. Previous GST's, players would worry about their lag, their opponents, or any other reasonable factor, but it is absolutely ridiculous that players should be haunted by the fact they can crash/lag out in the middle of a match.
- iFreeze: Iceman pulled the comeback on an amazing way, but on semi-finals, his players were crashing insanely fast, and in such inconvenient times. Noone and Trent Cædmon were 50HP and they both crashed, making there HP and contribution useless to the final outcome.
- Sully: This guy stayed up with me all night, getting ready, training with partners from C0NS, and I helped him train a lot individually. Anyways, Sully didn't stay up to crash the moment the barriers opened in their first and only match vs Fin. He didn't even get a chance to shoot his gun in the arena.
- C0NS vs Fin: This match was particularly the best match in the whole GST, but it is important to mention that 3 members of C0NS crashed in the first 20 seconds of the match. Then, C0NS was leading a 5v3 lead on Fin, and 2 more members crashed. This is unbelievable, lol. The outcome of months of effort and work, all thrown in the bus by a server issue which was caught to the staff's attention 5 weeks prior GST.
- Kartel vs Tetris: I don't know if i stated this before, this is not a flame thread, but let's be honest here, Kartel would realistically sweep Tetris under the bus on a 12v12 equal match. The fact four members in Kartel crashed, which left Anero alone in the bottom, just gave Tetris a walk-over to get the job done.
- Shrekt vs Meg0rb: I mean, we all took this match as a joke, but meg0rb didn't, and five of their members couldn't even shoot the Multiplex Gun... I mean, c'mon now. Everyone here would be pissed if that happened to you, and that's not something a player provokes, because SY also won a match without even having a gun out, lol.
- Shrekt vs Flushy: I, as a Shrekt member, knew the complications we had to defend the title after we heard and assumed horrible news on our own team-mates, but the server and the over-all organization of the GST made it impossible for us to even stand a chance. One of our members wasn't able to play the match anymore, so we had 5 minutes to recruit somebody, and get him in Shrekt-GST shape, lol. Then, 2 players were having difficulties moving and seeing the opponents; and last but not least, one of them crashed, yay! Basically the match started and ended as a 8v12, just as many more matches in this GST.
- Twitch Livestream: The livestream was overall a success, and it was pretty fun, but Kirzey missed out a lot of action and key plays in the bottom. Casper and Sequel did an amazing job commentating, but I specially liked Sequel's preparation. This guy asked me days earlier for fun facts on Shrekt, making the stream more enjoyable for the viewers to learn about each gang's history. To be honest, Meph's voice and humor were very, very missed. Last year, he would bring a different vibe to the stream, creating some sort of a comedy, action livestream. It is to say, that at the beginning, the quality of the livestream was a little bit sloppy, and some times Kirzey's screen would absolutely freeze.
- Gang Members/Switching Teams: Gangs had to submit a full 12-man team roster with their Graal ID's included. The issue here was, days before GST, usb, a C0NS member, was offered a spot in Curse, gang that had a lot of potential to advance far in the GST, so usb took the offer. The rules stated that the leader had to agree with his member leaving the gang, in order for Anero to approve the move. Talking off the record with Asap Con, he told me he never agreed on usb leaving his gang. Why do I do this? For hate? No, I'm calling this out because OKC a former member of Kartel, was offered a Shrekt spot, because the gang was in the need of a member and OKC was a suitable option for the occasion. Curse was in the need of a member as well, and there was no inconvenience with them getting not one, but two members from different gangs. This is actually pretty biased and un rational due to the fact that Anero, a Kartel member and owner of the gang, did not allow OKC to move from Kartel to Shrekt, while OKC was trying to get this move inside the rules, while usb did the move illegally. Not to create theories or anything, but if Anero wouldn't have been the leader and owner of the gang, he wouldn't have had any inconvenience with OKC getting transferred to Shrekt.
- Friendly Fire: There was plenty of time to prepare and script the GST properly, and it ends up making fun of himself, by enabling friendly fire. I mean, come on. How can those silly mistakes happen?

To conclude this review of the GST 2017, and in an honest point of observation, if this silly mistakes (which players shouldn't have to worry about) didn't happen, the outcome of 60-80% of the matches would've been different, including the GST champion...
As said before, this is not a flame thread, but an opportunity for us, as a community, to open our eyes and actually see how this GST went down this year.

Well Done to all the GST Gangs, and a personal thanks to Anero for once again stepping up to host this event.

Also, my prayers to my friend Duke, who suffered from a car accident a day before GST, leaving us missing from his whereabouts till today in the afternoon.

#GangCrashTournament

[BL1NK]

The GST cosmetically, was amazing. The arena was well-set, Casper, Sequel, Kirzey, Anero, and Derek did really great, Kirzey managed to get all the good shots in, Sequel and Casper were just fantastic at commentary, Derek fixed a bug in practical split-seconds, and Anero put in a lot of work this year.

The matches were really good too, minus the huge crashing issue that affected plenty of players from playing or crashing mid-match. I mean, I think it would've been a game changer in some matches had players not crashed, and that really sucks that a lot did indeed crash. And personally, I see why participants were pissed off, had I played (which I was supposed to, but Anero added the wrong sub I cri ;(, but it's all good) and crashed almost instantaneously or midway, I'd be frustrated because it's out of anyone's hands to fix it and it's pretty much unpredictable and unfair to some extent.

My only concern is the one concern that's actually out of the GST crew's hands, and that's crashing, because players shouldn't have to worry about stuff like that, but overall, it was a tremendous job well-done. Good job guys.

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Hope Duke is doing okay, sorry to hear that.

[RPG Tetris]

In my opinion , GST was fun but yes it was a bit of a mess . A minimum of two members crashed every round for us , qualifications were actually too easy and when gangs like meg0rb qualify , you know something is wrong . You should go back to the 4 BB , 4 GS and 4 Basing system next year . About the crashing now , you need to fix this problem especially before crypt . I know admins can't do anything , only toonslab can but still we need to find a way. The livestream was amazing , I loved the commentating and it was generally pretty good . The main issues were just the qualifications (which need to be more competitive) and this crashing issue needs to be fixed. I relogged before every game , hence I never crashed but I don't know whether that works for others too . The main focuses are making qualifications more competitive and fixing this crash issue . Other then that ,GST was amazing !

[Killjoy]

yeah tbh the crash was annoying, but all i wanted in this year is to have fun at era gst, and i had a lot of fun playing and watching the livestream. west gst is coming also, and i think theres no crashing issue there. Should be fun , goodluck to everyone who's doing gst and congrats to flushy

[BrandonS17]

Gst was fun but In my opinion gst shouldn't of been hosted with the crashing situation happening, teams where all put into advantages and disadvantages due to the problem. Without the crashing some of the matches in my opinion wouldn't have gone down the same. But flushy deserved the W.

[Junz]

I have to agree with you in regards to crashing ruining the GST. I don't think this year was satisfactory, solely based on the crashing aspect adding a factor of luck. However, fixing that issue is entirely on toonslab, and i hope it's resolved ASAP. The least GST contenders deserve, after practising for months, is a fair GST.

Also, i hope Duke gets well soon!

In regards to OKC not being allowed to move, that's partially due to our plans being leaked to Shrekt, OKC is the only one of us who'd have reason to do so. Letting him freely hop to another gang would promote such behaviour.

We suspected this as just a few days before, Duke planted OX in Kartel, for the sole reason of passing on our game plans, and to 'run around in circles' during the (expected) Kartel v Shrekt match.

At the end of the day, i think Anero did a great job. There was a ridiculous amount of drama and issues regarding this year's GST, and he didn't have the time he would previously to set it up, and yet in my opinion the current map was the best we've seen yet, it encouraged skillful pushing, and there were an array of locations to push from.
As such, matches were a lot faster and more interesting than previous years, it's unfortunate that crashing had to ruin the competitive aspect on the most part. Also, props to both Casper and Sequel for commentating, i know Sequel prepared notes on every competing gang to make it a little more interesting, i appreciate that, nice work!

[Key]

Well, i agree, GST2017 is very entertaining and fun, except the crash issues, if meph was there i can hear his voice that makes me hype, also i congratulate flushy for new gst champion

[Trix]

Well, i agree, GST2017 is very entertaining and fun, except the crash issues, if meph was there i can hear his voice that makes me hype, also i congratulate flushy for new gst champion

Anero said Curse glitch and everyone saw the chat, was anero joking or what?

[JustJoshuaVega]

The crashing issue ruined GST.


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[Joeyaudi1]

I didn't watch the stream because I have a slow internet ;-; but I stayed online for a free ec