That was months ago, why the hell're you writing about it now?
After thinking about it for a while, it felt pretty strange to me as to why I haven't written much about this event. Despite the tourney spanning several months (including inactivity of course, heh) I didn't feel as thrilled to participate in it compared to, oh, NADL. Hell, I was surprised it was a tourney for TDM instagib instead of another NADML. Oh well. Actually, I think I'm writing about this due to the recent closure of Monsterkill, a sister community to Tastyspleen, so to speak. Despite the league page being hosted on TS, I would think the North American insta League was held mostly for the MKers.
I remember most of the beginning. I believe I was still in >ES<. As soon as I heard about NAiL, I tried to get the clan to participate. I guess I didn't try hard enough though, 'cause a simple forum post and a few entries in the shoutbox didn't get everyone interested. Which was a shame, since the only reason I joined >ES< was to get some 4v4 clan matches in. Too bad the leader had a different way of looking at things...heh, and I'm sure everyone wouldn't see a 200 to -50 bashing by BTF as incentive to play TDM more.
At any rate, after seeing that >ES< wouldn't be my key to those team games as I had hoped, I left and became a free agent. As the chain of events would have it, EoM picked me up. So there I was, ready to participate in NAiL. And soon enough, our first match of the league was about to begin.
Unfortunately, our first match with blackflag was not to be. They had a problem with fielding 3 on the day of the match. It's an unforunately common occurrence with leagues and such. This led to a forfeit after they failed to have the minimum 3 again on a rescheduled date. It's too bad we couldn't have a 2v2, but the rules are rules. So I thought, as they were to be broken later on...
We played Just Aim Down in our second match. A delightful clan name referring to one's bad aim and how they should just fire the RL at the ground and throw the match, heh. We lost both maps by 22 and 38 respectively, so that wasn't too bad. Maybe if I concentrated on getting more spawn frags then we would've taken one map at least.
Right, so that wasn't so bad. There was plenty of room for it to get worse, and that space was soon filled up with our next match against Immortal Reapers. iR smacked us down pretty hard, even managing a triple digit victory in the last map. And who the hell picked colour? Heh I think it was Processor...damned map.
At this point though, I stared to pick up some vibrations telling me that the league participants had been shaken up a bit. I think [eL]Rick said something first about spectators and sportsmanship, way before EoM had even won our first match by forfeit. And by these things, he meant adrenaline. Yup, quite a character. Whatever the hell he did, I would've probably found it funny, maybe more than I do now 'cause I don't know all the facts. But regardless of how these web of events were spun, another web was to be connected.
vF was starting to get fed up after their match with KEA. Why? Something about dervish attempting to enforce the timelimit yet both clans didn't listen or something and played anyway. I don't know, I forget. Unforunately, it led to dropping out of the league for them. Actually, I think there's more to that. It probably involves adren as well, heh. Maybe the webs are the same! Eh, wouldn't make my writing any more profound either way.
Still, whether worrying about these things or not didn't hinder the progress of the league. We played our next match against Smurf. Seeing as how they only lost a single map against sF (who dropped later on unforunately), a loss was to be expected. We lost nearly by triple digits on the first map, and the second wasn't too bad but still a near 2:1 ratio.
But the weird part was that we didn't field 3 of our own. Rather, the first map was played with a random spectator (which I could say ringer, heh), and the second map was 2v2. Now, why would this particular match be played when it's clearly against the rules? Maybe part of it had to do with one of the Smurf members being a ref, but I'm sure it was done in the name of advancing the now slow-paced tourney to get to the playoffs. It seems that most recent NA tourneys have a good start, a slow middle, and a terrific ending. Can't say this is a bad thing, but it would be nice to see a constant rate of terrific play and participation throughout the entire duration of the tourney.
And shortly after this bending of the rules, Processor was starting to get edgy as well. He had a conflict with the rules regarding not letting those on the roster being able to play in a match, despite our 'relaxed' match with Smurf. He was a little stubborn, even going so far as to eliminate the NAiL sub-board from our clan forum. Forunately, things worked out for us and we played our next match.
So our final match would be played out against KEA. Heh, technically our final match was a forfeit win against sF after they dropped, but that doesn't count. It certainly was close, closer than the match against JAD. But we got through, with victories by 24 and 7 frags. Maybe we were lucky that ICE{KEA} was lagging a little, but we managed to actually win a match.
Even if we didn't make the playoffs, NAiL was quite an enjoyable experience. It was pretty surprising too, 'cause I didn't expect a lot from an insta TDM league. I don't know if I could say it was run smoothly, though. With NADL shortly behind me at that time, it felt nearly the same regarding the way things were handled, maybe slightly worse due to more participants that comes with a team based league. I hope this doesn't become a natural circumstance for NA tournaments and leagues. Events are quite fun when everything's hunky dory, such as the TS500s and the Sunday MK railfests.
Hopefully the NA scene will be blessed with another event soon, with less obstacles, more participation and a hell of a lot of fun!