On November 12th I will fly in my 24th Alliance Tournament match as team Captain for A Band Apart alliance. (Technically it will be my 23rd actual match, I missed flying in one match due to an internet outage. But I was still Captain and giving intel on comms, so I still count it.) This Alliance Tournament will be our 7th as an Alliance and overall we are 11-12. You can only lose 2 matches a year, and 6x2 is 12. One year we finished 11th in the AT and another we finished 16th, those remain our best finishes to date. My goal from day one was to one day see our little Alliance make it all the way to the last day of the tournament and that remains my goal this year. We were once one victory away from that goal.
Only one other player from our first team remains an active member of our tournament team other than myself and that is Prda Prda. In those seven years we've had 5 different field FCs and Co-Captains. From the beginning I set the team up with me as Captain and the FC as Co-Captain. I FC'd our Alliance Open run when we went 2-2, but otherwise our FCs have been Cyber Ten, Jose Zampano, Devlin Shardo and Smudge245. I focus on big picture stuff, building comps, developing fits, and giving advice during matches. While the FC focuses on driving the team to victory. It is a solid system I think and I've worked well with all of our FCs over the years.
AT13 was our first and we were barely an Alliance when we went into this one. We had flown together in the NEO tournament, but none of us had real AT experience. We went 0-2 and left early losing to Godfathers and Explicit Alliance in that one. But we learned a lot from the experience, mainly how important actual practice is! The next year we were much better prepared mainly thanks to our new FC Jose Zampano and our regular practice partners in Phoebe Freeport. We won matches against Methodical Alliance, Shadow Cartel, Spectre Fleet and Snuffed Out - losing to Villore Accords and Phoebe Freeport. Which is weird huh? Phoebe ended up falling apart after that and many of their pilots came to fly with us, so in many ways we ended up winning after all.
AT15 we won three in a row and then lost two. Beating Slyce, Hard Knocks and We Form Volta and then losing to Lazerhawks and Brave. Those two will show up again. In AT16 we went 2-2 winning against Fraternity and Centipede Caliphate and losing to Castabouts and Test. Then the Alliance Open and yet another 2-2 performance winning against Literally Triggered and No Vacancies and losing to - you guessed it - Lazerhawks and Brave again.
And then last AT17 is one best forgotten and we went 0-2 losing both of our matches. No excuses, mistakes were made. If we had brought the second comp to the first match and the first comp to the second match, I think the results would have been different. But we totally over-thought ourselves last year and paid the price for it. Our team was pretty green last year and it was our FCs first AT, so these things happen. Most of our team from last year has returned and everyone has a little more experience under their belt. We still have some new players but I have to say the new players have really stepped it up this year.
So we go into this one hopeful and ready to put our best fleet forward. What will happen? No one knows the answer to that. Not even me. I do know this, that no matter what I'll be proud of our team and the players who fly with us. We've had success in the AT and we've had failures in the AT, but through it all it has been the players I've flown with that have made it all worthwhile. I remember them all and I often sit and watch old matches and relive old memories of those who no longer fly with us. My friends. And, after all, that is what Eve is all about - being able to fly with your friends.
Looking forward to it.