> > > You're not really helping your own cause, Alex, as
> > > apparently you CAN take a kamikaze in the
> > > Qualifie. and still make it to the finals.
> >
> > Apparently :D
> >
> > Think I got lucky matchups these last couple rounds though. We'll see if my 444/333 will end up beating your 554/443
>
> Heh, Sam told he froze a few duplicate accounts, perhaps did you encounter a few frozen accounts...

I think there's only at most one he encountered that was actually a frozen account, or at least only one that hadn't yet already made preparations, heh. You can make a guess at which ones were frozen by checking to see which ones stopped spending gold/making strategies/assigning points, although obviously it's possible that they simply happened to forget to update. Looking back through his opponents, there's only one that didn't update, so he probably faced at most one frozen account (or maybe just one that forgot to update). I thought, if anything, that one would be the one to knock him off, unless he ended up fighting Auto in the semis; instead, I ended up fighting him :P

It's hard to say at this point what would've happened; the kamikaze attack is fairly obvious, but after that it's difficult to tell how things would've gone. Would he have faced tougher opponents? Easier ones? What about those that were shifted up a position (including myself)? Would accounts still have ended up being frozen? Of course, it's entirely possible that one of the cheaters could've ended up winning had that not happened, or at least they could've had a different impact on the final result. It's also within the realm of possibility that Sam may have ended up investigating things anyway.

So, I can't completely claim that it's the definitive win I was hoping for, but, that's okay. I got some decent testing for some a variation in strategy and some worthy opponents. And hey, it seemed to work fairly well :) I do hope some of the other tough players like Nell and Trogdont and Arawn and Droopy come back though. As fun as it is chipping away at "The Best", it's still enjoyable facing off against the other veterans. I was looking forward to matching wits with the winner of the 2nd tournament, unfortunately it looks like he didn't quite make it to the final rounds. And as always, you can never be too careful against Auto and that Jupe strategy of his, hehe. Not to say that there isn't ever any good fresh competition either; I think if BG can work out a couple of odd strategy kinks we could be seeing a definite contender soon...