Competitive Play

Competitive play occurs when two parties engage in a match with the victor being awarded a commonly desired good. The greater the perceived value of the good, the more competitive the event is going to be. Unlike the case with professional competitive sports, in JKA those goods rarely if ever include set material rewards like money prizes; instead, they are mostly centered around social goods like status, prestige and respect. The primary goal of competitive play in JKA is therefore the testing of one's merit and skills as a player or team against that of other competitors. The competitive event can take on various forms in various gametypes and although competition in CTF has a very long and powerful tradition in JKA, competition most often happens in the context of two parties engaging in some form of saber combat. In all cases, competitive play flourishes the most when situated within a larger organizational structure, like a reliable league or ranking system.

The History of Competitive Sabering

The history of competitive sabering is a cross between the history of formal competitive venues in general and the history of great clans and players in particular. Competitive sabering events are almost exclusively played without pickups and without force powers and are governed by a codified set of rules agreed upon by all the players.

Rulesets vary widely across events, but the two most common for duels are: The American standard of playing a match where the victor is determined by the player that first scores 10 points, with each point being awarded for a successful kill, and the health of both players resetting after each point. The second standard is the European ESL one where the victor of a given duel is determined by the player who either first scores 10 points or ends up with the most points after a 10 minutes timelimit, and where the player scoring a point continues on with the same amount of health and shields that he had left over from the previous fight.

Team Free For All matches are most often held across two rounds with either a specified fraglimit, timelimit or both, and the winner is almost always determined by counting up the points of both rounds together and awarding the team with the highest score. The most prestigious form of TFFA competition is the 3on3 or 4on4 format, also called Team Deathmatch (TDM), but 2on2 matches are not only widely popular, they are oftentimes highly acclaimed as well.

Although serious competition is definitely possible on heavily modded servers, it most often takes place on basejka or mods that strictly aim to preserved the original sabering environment as much as possible. The reasoning behind this insistence on unmodded servers is that the point of competitive play is to determine the better player simpliciter, that is without any qualification, whereas playing on mods like JA+ that significantly change the sabering system just adds such a qualification. A second popular argument is that modded servers inevitably make the sabering mechanics worse by (oftentimes unintentionally) introducing factors that increase the randomness of the gameplay. Whatever the case may be, the main reasons as to why competitive play never took off within communities favouring modded servers was on the one hand the lack of a central organizational structure, like a proper league, and on the other hand a lack of interest towards competitive play in general by players that frequented modded servers.

Strong Roots: Late 2003 to Late 2005

The early history of competitive play in JKA is now shrouded in a lot of darkness, because very little tangible information survived over the years. For a variety of reasons, the time period between the release of JKA and late 2005 features very little interaction between the American and European communities. This is primarily due to two factors: First, the fact that both sides had their own specialized competitive organzations, providing them with ample opportunity for formal means of competitive play, and secondly, the way internet latency heavily affects gameplay in JKA was a demotivating factor for both sides and made formal cross-continental competition more difficult.

America and BWN

Although shortly after the release of the game in September 2003 many high-profile clans had formed, like OoS, KoP, AIM and BSoV, the early period of American JKA was first and foremost the period of clan Master, a large but elite clan with roots in JK2 run by Master DarkStar. It would be Master that eventually set out to create a formal competitive venue in late 2003, dubbing it Bladeworks Network (BWN). However, although BWN provided a good competitive outlet for the American community as a whole, mostly because there was no real alternative, it lacked the necessary rigour for competitive play to truly flourish, as it had serious flaws that made the system prone to abuse and thus an unreliable means of tracking player skill. Despite its flaws, it was the only semi-formal league that the American competitive scene had at its disposal and so it attracted a lot of highly skilled players over the course of its lifetime.

In early 2004, after the dissolution of top clan OoS, WoV started becoming more respectable as a clan thanks to the efforts of Intrepid aka Kilroy, who took it upon himself to recruit a lot of top ex-OoS players. In just a few months WoV ascended from being an inactive JK2 clan to a serious force in competitive JKA, rivaling other great clans like BSoV, Seraph, JKT, DoX and Loi at that point. Master was still by far the most dominating clan though, with some of their members gaining an almost mythological reputation for their skill in combat.

Master DarkStar could be often seen dominating American duel servers and he quickly acquired a great reputation.

Most prone to this kind of idolisation was Master DarkStar. He was at that time widely considered to have been the greatest of all players within the American competitive scene, with an unimaginable level of skill. He was the dominant force behind clan Master, both in terms of fighting prowess as well as administrative authority, and was for a year and a half the single most successful duelist on BWN. Many speculated that before the release of JKA he must have been an internal beta tester for the game, seeing as he was so far ahead of everyone else in terms of skill shortly after the game was officially released. Whatever the case may be, because DarkStar tried to maintain as high a standard of recruitment for clan Master as possible at that time, Master was thus a notoriously difficult clan to get into, with trialing periods spanning multiple months. It is therefore to noone's surprise that Master remained by far the most looked up to clan with the highest skilled members in North America, including such former greats as Sword, Predator, Psycho, SiNiStaR, Omega, Wick3D, Ninja! and Oldlady.

However, as time went by, so did WoV's prowess increase, so much so that the clan was eventually recognized as rivaling Master in terms of sheer skill. Things turned for the worse as some of Master's core members, most notably DarkStar himself, became more and more inactive towards the end of 2004 and Master suddenly and surprisingly disbanded in December of the same year. WoV used this opportunity to pick up some of the most notable ex-Masters, including former Master Viper, and became the de facto best American clan for its time.

The BWN Ladder in October 2005: WoV was rivaling Master at that time.

Some of the other ex-Masters formed their own teams, as did Ironlung with Wu, Keyo with clan Prophet or Oldlady with clan Nurse, the latter of which became a temporary playing ground for a lot of former Masters, like Radman or Wick3D aka Raw. Others joined various miscellaneous clans, as did former Master LFT who joined clan YV. Most were either inactive or just simply retired, including Sword, Predator and Psycho.

It was at that time in January 2005 that WoV was becoming more serious about its aspirations towards greatness and underwent a major restructuring of the clan, forming a new rank that was reserved only for its best and most prestigious players, naming it Wovian; the initial players included were Intrepid, sh0, Sauce, Noir, Kidster, Leif, Viper, Deception and Fusion, later additions were Matrix, Ransom and Autumn as well. They sought not only to preserve their merit as the very best competitive clan within the American scene, they also, for the first time ever in the history of American JKA, actively sought out to compete against top European teams.

Wovian's match against Ozone in March 2005.

So it was that Wovian began practicing on European servers a lot to get used to playing with a high ping. They were very quickly recognized as a major contender to many top European clans at that time, although they were completely unaware of the ESL's existence. Wovian played Ozone in an official match on 15.03.2005, a few months before Ozone went on to join the ESL, and they managed to beat the top European clan with a score of 40-25 and 34-40. A few weeks later Wovian Ransom and sh0 would go on to play Zedi's famous main 2v2 team, consisting of Dimension and Twilight, winning

[Ki] and Wovian as seen on BWN in early 2005.

both rounds, although the records of that match have now been lost.

In the meantime, DarkStar surprisingly made a return and reformed clan Master under the guise of [Ki], which most former Masters flocked to once again. However, even though [Ki] quickly rose to challenge the top clans of the American community, it was widely acknowledged that they could not compete against Wovian anymore, which was now too preoccupied by its quest for world domination. In fact, [Ki] never bothered to formally assert itself against Wovian, being content with playing actively on BWN, and indeed, [Ki] would turn out to be very short-lived as DarkStar once again suddenly disappeared in April of 2005, leaving the clan without a leader and eventually letting it fade away into oblivion.

It was during that April of 2005 that Wovian was at the height of its power and officially challenged the very best

Wovian's official match against aXiom.

European team to a match: Wovian would go on to play team aXiom. On the second of April, Wovian fielded sh0, Viper and Ransom against aXiom's Dureal, Xerxes and Warp. The first round was to be played on a European server, from which aXiom easily emerged victorious with a score of 68-32. For the second round Wovian tried to counteract the possibility of aXiom adopting a very passive strategy and picked the duel map Bespine Courtyard for the match. Unfortunately, although Wovian won the second round easily with a score of 82-59, they were unable to catch up with aXiom in points, losing the match with a final score of 114-127.

Even though Wovian managed to play a good game against aXiom, their first major defeat since early 2004 was too big of a disappointment for a clan that was so used to winning every major event they signed up for and so they began falling into inactivity. The resentment that the restructuring caused amongst the members that were not allowed into the elite Wovian section was becoming a burden as well, with many important members feeling betrayed and leaving the clan out of protest. Wovian tried to counteract this development and eventually abandoned its rank structure in late April 2005, but it was too little too late. The German top clan *aiming would formally challenge the team on the first of May 2005, but Wovian was so inactive by then that they didn't even respond to the challenge.

With this onset of inactivity, some of the core Wovian members began to leave the team as well. This included most notably Matrix, who joined DoX. Shortly thereafter DoX would also recruit former KoP player subLime, who was widely considered alongside KoP's Dark_Knight to have been the best dual saberist in the entire American community. With those recent acquisitions and the inactivity of Wovian and [Ki], DoX was looking to usurp the title of NA champions. However, their aspirations would be dashed from an unlikely source. A team with no reputation at all had gained tremenduous momentum over the last few months, defeating various smaller clans, and in August 2005 they had become serious enough to challenge DoX to an official match: It was the Jedi Academy Aurochs.

The Aurochs were the first competitive NA-European hybrid team that emerged out of the ideals propagated by the Jedi Academy,

The first Aurochs vs DoX match.

which was a school dedicated to helping new players improve in all aspects of JKA. They were also the only competitive team left in JKA to play without poke. As of mid 2005, the Aurochs' lineup included most notably such players like Tido, Jaws! (aka JKXIII), former Master Deqlyn, Sauce, Refl3x, ProXimo, Kain and Masta. DoX did not pull any punches against the Aurochs and fielded their very best lineup, consisting of Matrix, Havok, subLime and skillz. A lot was on the line. After an incredibly close and tense match, the Aurochs won both rounds with scores of 

The second Aurochs vs DoX match.

50-48 and 50-46.

The Aurochs went on to play the top clan KoP shortly thereafter and won convincingly with scores of 50-39 and 50-40. Just to make sure everyone got the message, they rechallenged DoX to another game that was held on 10.08.2005. However, this time around DoX was losing so badly that some of their members, most notably subLime in the first round and skillz in the second one, ragequit in the middle of the game, forcing DoX to substitute them with lesser skilled players like bWb and brutality. The scores were therefore appropriately convincing: 50-23 and 50-39 for the Aurochs.

For almost half a year the Aurochs, playing without poke, would remain at the very top of the American competitive scene. In fact, in September 2005 they would go on to become the first American team ever to sign up for the ESL and actively compete against the European elite.

Europe: Zedi and ESL

The early history of European competitive play was largely dominated by the ESL - the Electronic Sports League. Due to the success that JK2 enjoyed as part of the ESL, the organization made available a plethora of ladders for JKA on the release of the game in September 2003. This provided an excellent means for competitive play right from the start, but even with a proper structure secured, European competition flourished outside of the ESL from late 2003 to late 2004.

In fact, although the ESL quickly saw the creation and ascension of great teams like aXiom and *aiming, alongside various strategic developments like the discovery of the wiggle aka poke, many of the best European clans from late 2003 and early 2004 could be found playing in non-ESL competitive venues made available by various others organizations like Wireplay or ClanBase. In fact, it would be those other leagues and tournaments that facilitated the rise of clans like RNX, BBQ and eF.

While aXiom][Ðureal quickly became famous for introducing the poke into the ESL in late 2003 and thus ending the domination of staffers on the ladders, clans like BBQ with top players like Picto, Remus and Blindside were already ontop of the European scene. In fact, BBQ was the only team to have been a match for aXiom's early 2v2 stars Ðureal and Sadrior in late 2003, who lost to BBQ early on in aXiom's conception. It was against this background that in January 2004 a few members of the then recently disbanded clans [SASH] and [dF] founded a clan that would become one of the most famous and controversial clans in the history of JKA: Zedi.

Right from its conception, Zedi had great aspirations: Their purpose was to become the best and most respectable clan ever made. Their original set of members around the time of its conception were Maze, Tox, Cookie, Dimension and Sleepy, the latter of which soon afterwards went out to recruit Dark and Twilight. A few weeks later Envy, pr0 and FeadeR joined the team as well, with Cookie and Tox quickly becoming inactive.

Zedi practiced a great deal before they accepted official matches or signed up for leagues to avoid early losses. They nonetheless incured an early defeat against clan Pain and then, once they had signed up for the Wireplay 4v4 League, lost their first match against BBQ early in 2004. Unfortunately BBQ left the league a few weeks later, disbanding shortly afterwards, but Zedi still had other hurdles to overcome on their road to glory: They were put in the same league division as the top clans RNX and eF.

Although RNX was a serious contender at that time, Zedi's main threat was clan eF with such great players as Te0, Ri0 and Lazy. This would be Zedi's greatest challenge yet, and in two incredibly close matches Zedi tied eF 196-196 and 122-122. They would go on to beat RNX twice in the league, but lose once outside of it, and defeat the rest of the lesser teams signed up. This would secure Zedi the first place in the Wireplay 4v4 League and they were awarded the championship in early April 2004. Later on in the same month Zedi signed up for the ClanBase 2v2 League, which was one of the largest tournaments at that time but unfortunately did not feature any of the other top European teams that participated in the Wireplay League a few weeks earlier, and so Zedi would take the championship uncontested.

In the meantime, the ESL had become the go-to league for central European talent, most notably the Germans. It had a very strong German community with a lot of top clans actively competing against one another, including *aiming, eSe, hac, sR and most notably aXiom. In fact, aXiom's ESL dominance had already taken roots in early 2004 when Ðureal ascended to the first rank of the international 1v1 ladder with barely any losses. He was also at the head of the most successful 2v2 team at that time, consisting of himself and Sadrior. By the time Zedi won their ClanBase championship in April 2004, aXiom's 2v2 team had been placed first in the 2v2 ladder for four consecutive months with a score of 22-2.

Zedi playing the top German clan Saber Riders in early 2004.

Zedi was at the height of their power in April 2004 and played a lot of matches outside of their formal leagues and tournaments - this included most notably the German top clan Saber Riders, fielding such famous players as BlooDclaw and zentur1o aka EviLWindu. There is some controversy surrounding that match, however, as team sR had to play with rather high pings on Zedi's server in the first round and yet only just barely lost with a score of 80-89. Also, it is uncertain whether this match was supposed to be mere practice or if it was an official clan match.

Whatever the case may be, Zedi was quickly becoming inactive in May 2004. In fact, even though they knew very well about the existence of the ESL and even signed up for it, they didn't any matches there at all. (source) After a few additional games outside of any formal venue, including games against *aiming, hac, XiO and TuA, Zedi officially disbanded in October 2004 for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to the frictions that formed between their players.

Zedi vs XiO from September 2004.

The remaining Zedi players, most of them inactive by that point, formed team Presidents and even signed it up for ESL, but they once again failed to play any games outside of two 2v2s against insignificant teams. In December 2004 was reformed when Presidents merged with clan [<<] and brought in new players like AngeL. (source) This created a streak of activity where Zedi would go on to play a lot of clans over a period of a few weeks. However, they once more completely avoided playing on the ESL, despite having league accounts and registered teams.

In the meantime, aXiom established itself as the most dominant force on the ESL. Ðureal stopped losing 1v1s entirely by that point, running a score of 142 wins to 4 losses on the international 1v1 ladder, and the majority of the top 10 players on there were on his team. He won a large 64 players international tournament in February 2005, beating most notably aXiom][blooDclaw 8-5, Crypt0n 10-5, the legendary Austrian staffer eviLwindu 7-5 and his teammate aXiom][Xerxes 2-1 in the finals. Ðureal's 2v2 team with Sadrior was equally as successful: By the end of 2004, they were ranked first on the ladder with a record of 28 wins and 2 losses. He also signed up aXiom for the TDM ladder in early 2004 where they kept a record of 18 wins to 1 loss, beating such top German clans like *aiming, hac and RGA on multiple occasions. The team seemed unbeatable and aXiom would eventually go ahead and host a 2v2 tournament in December 2004.

Zedi signed up their main 2v2 team consisting of Dimension and Twilight for aXiom's tournament. They reached the finals of that tournament without facing anyone of note, but were now pitched against aXiom's famous duo: Sadrior and Ðureal. Unfortunately the match never got off the ground because Zedi repeatedly failed to show up for the match, so aXiom was awarded a default win.

This sparked a controversy that put Zedi's achievements into question. Before the official dissolution of Zedi in October 2005, their results page correctly distinguished between matches that were official, matches that were played as part of the Wireplay or ClanBase leagues and matches that were merely practice, calling the latter 'friendly'. (source) However, Zedi did not properly distinguish between official matches and scrims, so they calculated the practice matches into their overall score, with many teams complaining that Zedi was priding itself on doing well in scrims that other clans didn't take seriously. (source)

The controversy reached a highpoint in December 2004 when zedi´Dimension and zedi´Nanaki went on to show off results on the ESL forums of matches that Zedi played against some of the top German clans at that time. They were widely criticised for bragging about victories of unofficial matches and were called out multiple times to play the teams in the ESL. Zedi did not comment on those alligations and although they promised to play on the ESL, no TFFA matches were conducted. Both Dimension as well as Twilight joined the ESL 1v1 ladder shortly thereafter, but were largely unsuccessful: Dimension most notably played Ðureal in a 1v1 and lost both rounds with scores of 8-2 and 8-6. (demo)

Zedi's activity remained sporadic for the first few months of 2005, largely consisting of spontaneous matches with various clans. They most notably lost to Wovian around that time, despite fielding their best 2v2 team against the Americans. It was in early 2005 that Zedi had shut down their website for various reasons and replaced it with a score table that did not discriminate between 'friendly' and official matches at all anymore, with no mention of their match

no.Limits vs LeiSure

against Wovian either. (source)

More importantly, June 2005 saw the formation of a team that would go on to become actually great: no.Limits. Right from the start team no.Limits was recognized as a serious contender after they had managed to assert themselves against top clans like the second ranked LeiSure as well as the old timers *aiming and hac.

However, noone at that time could have forseen what would befall the European competitive community in that autumn - something happened in August 2005 that fundamentally upset the entire order of the ESL and forever marked the European competitive scene: Ozone had signed up for the ESL.

Highpoint: Late 2005-2006

In August 2005, the ESL ladder had for the most part a fairly stable structure: The top 5 was dominated by well established German clans, including *aiming, hac and LeiSure. Team aXiom was at that time still widely considered to be the most skilled and successful of the bunch, having reigned supreme in every ESL ladders for well over a year now.

The ESL 1v1 ladder in October 2005.

Their star player Dureal was running a score of 306 wins to 10 losses on the international 1v1 ladder. Team no.Limits was quickly making a name for itself by defeating some of the better clans, but even they lost a match against aXiom by a pretty significant margin in June 2005.

It was in this context that Ozone first joined the ESL - a somewhat unknown team at that time. Although some of their members were familiar, especially o3Dark aka The ThinG, who played for Zedi in 2004 and interacted with some of the people on the ESL forums and the duo inSane and Osiris who had signed up for the 2v2 ladder and played a few matches a month before that, the vast majority of them had little to no prior exposure to the ESL. However, they had gained a lot of skill through practice sessions against other clans and various competitive events outside of the ESL, so that by the time they joined the league, most of them were already seasoned competitive players. Ozone's main lineup at that time consisted of Dark, inSane, OsiriS, Hell Raiser and Ven aka RiC.

Ozone beating LeiSure, hac and no.Limits.

Exactly how skilled they were, and how quickly they would adapt to the new environment, nobody could have predicted. Their first matches were against unknown teams, but they quickly gained momentum and started challenging more established teams like 333, which they defeated with convincing scores. Ozone then went on to defeat the entire upper echelon of the competitive European scene: In short succession they beat *aiming (in TDM as well as 2v2), LeiSure, sG, hac and even the rising no.Limits with scores of 36-36 and 36-28.

In just two months Ozone had managed to rise from zero to hero and was all of a sudden perceived to be a real threat to aXiom's supremacy. Team aXiom had become somewhat inactive at that point, having only played four matches in the last four months, but they stood up to the challenge and scheduled an official match against Ozone on the 26th of October. Nothing but the very best lineup would do against Ozone, so aXiom fielded Sadrior, Dureal, Slither aka Warhammer and Evil. Ozone returned the favour and fielded Dark, inSane, Ven and Hell Raiser. In the most anticipated and widely talked about game in the history of JKA, Ozone came out ahead in the first round with a score of 57-36 and even managed to win the second one 69-55. They had done what nobody had thought possible until then: They had effectively dethroned aXiom. Thus began the age of Ozone.

The famous aXiom vs Ozone games.

Team aXiom recognized after their defeat against Ozone that they had become too inactive to deserve their first spot on the ladder and consequently withdrew from competitive gaming in late 2005. Some of their more active members went on to form neXor.Gaming aka Serenata in November 2010, including Evil and Warhammer, later on recruiting aoshi and divinity into the team. Others joined p3g in mid-2006, like Xerxes, Warp, blooDclaw and Sadrior. Both teams were fairly successful, although they could not live up to the standard set by their former team and were mostly on the receiving end in significant matches against Ozone and no.Limits.

That the Germans were finally eclipsed in JKA, after having dominanted the competitive scene for two years, would become especially apparent during the ESL's Jedi Nations Cup in early 2006. The Jedi Nations Cup (JNC) was a special event where national teams were formed and pitched against one another in a large tournament setting. Both the German as well as the British national teams fought their way through their respective sides of the brackets and met in the finals in February of the same year. The British team consisted almost entirely of Ozone players and fielded a pure Ozone lineup with Dark, Hell Raiser, Osiris and MinTy against the Germans in the finals. The Germans had a mixture of aXiom and *aiming players, fielding *aiming.BuDgi, *aiming.divinity, aXiom][blooDclaw and *aiming.bAsti in the first round and replacing bAsti with aXiom][Evil in the second one. This JNC match showed JKA at its tactically most sophisticated, with both teams playing at their very best. The British team eventually managed to win the first round with a close score of 26-21 and the second one with 60-31, which the Germans gave up on in the last few minutes of the game.

Germany lost the JNC 2006 finals to the UK.

Despite this blow to their confidence, the German JKA scene continued to go strong: Even though some of the newer clans like roYality, p3g and corona were less successful, *aiming remained a serious force on the ladder. They prevailed against the other German teams, keeping their ambitions in check, and remained competitive even against no.Limits, to which they lost once in September 2006 and won once in November of the same year.

Up until late 2006, it would be Ozone that would reign supreme as the most dominant force in competitive JKA. They would go on to win many significant matches, defeating most notably eSe, no.Limits, Number 2 and bioXar in April 2006, the latter of which fielded such famous players as EviLwindu and former aXiom][blooDclaw. But the vast majority of the other better clans got a taste of Ozone's superiority as well: They took out promising newcomers like roYality, defeating them twice, p3g twice as well, TuA and 333 once each and Jedi Sentinels thrice.

Ozone's victories against p3g, bioXar, 333 and no.Limits.

Team no.Limits on the other hand had now thoroughly established itself as a JKA powerhouse that could take on the best of the best. They even managed to beat Ozone in March 2006 with a very close total score of 94-92 and kept competing against Ozone for the first place on the ladder until the end of Ozone's stay in late 2006. It was no.Limits

no.Limits defeated p3g, *aiming and Ozone's famous 2v2 team.

that kept beating up the aXiom successor teams Serenata (neXor) and p3g in multiple games and kept the other successful teams, including BHK/corona, 333, Number 2 and *aiming in check. They were also on the forefront of various creative venues, with #nL.averan releasing the excellent sabering fragvideo Decapitation in February 2006.

Team no.Limit's best player, the legendary staffer Cube, would go on to win the JKA 1v1 World Cup 2005 in October by defeating aXiom][Evil (aka Shirasaya) 4-3, Ozone's inSane 8-6 and P!ng 10-8. He won the second World Cup organized in mid 2006 as well, beating most notably *aiming.divinity 10-5 and zentur1o (aka EvilWindu) 10-8. Cube also defeated Ozone's best duelist Osiris in the 1v1 ladder with scores of 10-8 and 10-7 in April 2006, and went on to win against o3Dark 9-7 a month later and aXiom][Warhammer (now in p3g) in October with scores of 6-2 and 10-8. He and his teammate S3cht would defeat Ozone's famous 2v2 duo inSane and Osiris in the 2v2 ladder in early 2006 and score many significant victories after that, including games against TuA's main 2v2 team consisting of Hell Raiser and Dwight and Number 2's HiC and Mage. Team no.Limits remained successful throughout the entire year in every area of competitive play, ending it with a total score of 16 wins and 2 losses in the 2v2 ladder, and 46 wins and 13 losses in the TDM one.

As the end of the year was dawning, Ozone was becoming more and more inactive and eventually decided to leave the ladder after a final flurry of matches in October, ending their domination with a final score of 54 wins to 4 losses and leaving the ladder to no.Limits. But the year came to a close with a bang instead of a whimper: In October 2006 the Aurochs player P!ng released the now famous fragvideo Revelation 4 to great critical acclaim.

America: The ESL as an International League

The American competitive scene was still largely informal in late 2005. Even worse, BWN was losing its charm and was having a lot of server problems around that time; they would eventually shut down completely for server related reasons in early 2006, but even before that their contribution to the flourishing of the American competitive community was becoming less and less significant. Meanwhile, the Jedi Academy Aurochs were left uncontested, and with no adequate formal league structure to provide a proper venue for competition, they decided early on to sign up for the ESL and would be the first American team to do so. Despite their promising appearence, the Aurochs were largely unsuccessful in their first few months on the ladder, losing to minor teams like TuA, sF and guArdians.

While the Aurochs were preoccupied with the ESL, former Wovian Ransom returned from inactivity and decided to join incognito a random JA+ clan called SITH in hopes of finding new talent and converting the clan to competitive play. He also convinced his former teammate Wovian Viper to do the same, and both became known as SITH_Judas and SITH_Black respectively. However, that was only supposed to be a side venue, since both of them had larger projects in mind - it was at that time that they joined the newly created pan-American team Number 2.

Number 2 was the brainchild of two completely unknown but talented players: HiC and Mage. They had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, but had become very good in a very short amount of time and gained the respect of many well established competitive American players. Number 2 was to become the American flagship on the ESL; with the Aurochs being very strict in their recruitment and their adherence to a non-poke style of playing, Number 2 was the perfect clan for many of the more ambitious Americans to join. In fact, most of the former Wovians would join it, including Matrix, Intrepid, Vozen aka Serium and of course Ransom and Viper; other notable members included dox.subLime, KlAze, Mugenji, Lawless, Achilles and Ascension. It was a colourful mixture of various top clans, although the only players to actually play regularly for Number 2 in high-stakes games were Ransom, Viper, Matrix, Vozen, HiC and Mage.

It was with the creation of Number 2 that the transformation of the ESL from a mostly German league to a fully international one had now been completed. With teams as diverse as the British Ozone and TuA, the Polish no.Limits and 333 and now the American Aurochs and Number 2 actively competing on the ladders, the ESL had become the international center of the competitive scene. This brought many challenges in its wake that the ESL would have to resolve; most of the issues revolved around server choices for cross-continental play, seeing as JKA's gameplay was heavily affected by internet latency. As teams and players barely ever had access to servers that simultaneously provided the American as well as the European teams with acceptable pings, debates raged on in the ESL as to what the proper code of conduct for cross-continental play ought to be. It was tentatively agreed upon that both sides should try as much as possible to minimize ping issues for their opponents, but seeing as the amount of servers available to play on was quite limited, both sides oftentimes accused each other of intentionally trying to cheat their opponents on pings.

Number 2 playing the Aurochs with low-calibre lineups on both sides.

Whatever the case may be, the American teams were most of the time treated with respect. Number 2's relation to the Aurochs was very friendly and although the two teams never played each other with serious lineups, it was informally agreed that Number 2 would take on the mantle of the best American clan at that time, especially in light of their successes and Aurochs' lack thereof in early 2006. That is not to say Number 2 was having it easy: They lost early to Ozone 51-28 on the European server and 32-33 on the American one. They went on to beat a few insignificant teams and lost to *aiming, LeiSure and hac in November. Their fortunes recovered a bit in December when they beat LeiSure and *aiming, but lost to neXor (Serenata) and once more to hac.

Number 2's games against Ozone.

Despite these setbacks, Number 2 was proving again and again that it could actively compete against the top that the European scene had to offer. In their next match against Ozone in January 2006, the scores were much closer: 80-67 for Number 2 in the first round and 41-67 for Ozone in the second, resulting in a win with a total score of 121-134 for Ozone. In fact, this would culminate in a five games winning streak in March 2006, where Number 2 managed to do the unthinkable and actually take games off of both Ozone and no.Limits. They would be unable to repeat those achievements in April, once again losing to both of the previously mentioned clans as well as neXor and corona. They left the ladder after their losses in late April 2006 with a record of 21 wins and 17 losses.

It was in early 2006 that clan SITH was on the rise. The ex-Wovian players Ransom (aka Krazee) and Viper had managed to turn the completely unknown JA+ clan into a serious force within the American competitive community - working on developing the great potential of such players as Fire and Mith. SITH also signed up for the ESL, though they had even less success compared to the larger and more well known American teams. However, a small rivalry developed between the Aurochs and SITH shortly after they signed up for the ladder. Push came to shove when the Aurochs challenged and defeated SITH in an official match in February 2006 with scores of 45-33 and 43-48.

With Number 2 having left the ladder in April, the stage was left open for SITH and the Aurochs to fight it out on the American side of things. The Aurochs challenged SITH for a second time shortly after Number 2 left the ladder, this time facing SITH's best lineup, which consisted of Viper, Joker and Ransom. In a rather close match, the Aurochs once again managed to emerge victorious with scores of 48-38 and 39-43. They would go on a six games winning streak before

The Aurochs at their best: Victories against roYality, fiDelity, Insane (for the third time) and Jedi Sentinels.

losing to the bigger clans on the ladder, including TuA, no.Limits and p3g. This didn't discourage the Aurochs though, and in a flurry of matches in June 2006 they managed to defeat a lot of well established clans in short succession, including roYality, fiDelity, BolS, TuA's B-team twice, SITH for a third time (now renamed 'Insane') and the then emerging Jedi Sentinels, who fielded the top players Minneyar, Grizzli and Unique. This culminated in the Aurochs reaching the third rank in the ESL - something that no other non-poke team would manage to repeat until late 2009.

At the same time Wovian was becoming more active. They were being spotted practicing and even went so far as to hold an internal tournament called the Wovian Classic. Now, because the Aurochs player Jaws aka JKXIII was also affiliated with Wovian at that time, he was allowed to take part in their tournament. Jaws went on to easily defeat Deception, Matrix and played Intrepid in the semi-finals, beating him 12-10 in a very drawn out game. He was awarded a default victory when players from the other side of the bracket were failing to show up.

The Aurochs saw this as a good opportunity to challenge Wovian to an official match, seeing as the two teams had never played each other and the Aurochs were eager to maintain their grip on the top spot of the American competitive community after Number 2 had left the scene. Although Wovian kept declining the challenge, stating that they were still too inactive to play, the entire discussion got rather heated and the Aurochs could be spotted playing Wovian in full tags and with proper lineups at various points in time. This resulted in some confusion on both sides, as nobody was sure which matches were to be counted as proper because nothing was officially scheduled.

The Aurochs losing to p3g's ex-aXiom lineup.

In any case, the Aurochs went on to play p3g twice in a row, facing a lineup consisting of almost purely former aXiom players at both occassions. Although the Aurochs were underperforming for technical reasons, the scores were much closer than anyone would have expected: 57-53 and 19-33 for the first match and 35-38 and 37-59 for the second one. For various reasons, the team was becoming more and more inactive after those matches and eventually decided to leave the ladder in August 2006 with a final score of 26 wins to 14 losses.

It was only appropriate that their final match took place against Krazee's team Dynamite, which the Aurochs were even unable to field a proper lineup against. Team Dynamite was the inofficial reincarnation of Number 2 and was formed in June 2006, consisting almost entirely of members from the previous team; even HiC and Mage were present, but neither actively played after the dissolution of Number 2 in April. Dynamite remained inactive until after their match against the Aurochs in August 2006, after which they went on to defeat most notably *aiming 59-47 and 33-35 and even played a draw against no.Limits in September. Despite their performance, Dynamite seemed at that time even more short lived than their predecessor was; they left the ladder in September, staying for slightly over a month with a total score of 9 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw.

Surprisingly enough, out of the four major American contenders, namely Number 2, Dynamite, the Aurochs and SITH/Insane, it would be Insane that proved to have the longest staying power on the ladders in 2006. After many months of harsh defeats, players like Mith and Fire were starting to live up to their potential. Their reputation and that of their entire clan would take a tragic hit towards the end of the year when it was found out that during their match against no.Limits their player JoKeR uploaded modded saber hilts that increased the damage and extended the range of his swings on the server they were supposed to play the second round on. Insane was caught red-handed and was consequently kicked out of the league. JoKeR was banned for life, the rest of the players were banned for a year. Most in the community speculated that the rest of the clan had nothing to do with this debacle and that both Mith and Fire didn't even know about the existence of those modded saber hilts on their server, so they were pardoned in early 2007, but Insane as a clan effectively stopped existing in late 2006.

With TNT inactive, Insane completely disgraced and the Aurochs on the verge of collapse in October 2006, the American competitive scene hit a new low point. However, it is worth mentioning that it was exactly during this October 2006 that clan Savior would be formed, with pr0fits and hisownfoot joining it shortly after its inception. Savior was just a tiny and unknown clan at that point, but it would eventually grow into one of the most significant influences on both the ESL as well as the American scene as a whole.

Notable Games with Demos

2004

• 22.02.2004 1v1 - aXiom][Ðureal vs EviLWindu - demo
• 14.04.2004 1v1 - DarkStar on BWN - demo
• 27.07.2004 1v1 - EviLWindu vs aXiom][zer0souL - demo
• 22.12.2004 1v1 - aXiom][Ðureal vs zedi´Dimension - demo

2005

• 03.04.2005 3v3 - Wovian vs aXiom - demo
• 03.06.2005 1v1 - aXiom][Ðureal vs #nL.cube - demo
• 12.07.2005 4v4 - no.Limits vs LeiSure - demo
• 03.08.2005 3v3 - Aurochs vs DoX - demo
• 18.08.2005 3v3 - Aurochs vs DoX (rematch) - demo
• 16.10.2005 4v4 - Ozone vs bioXar - demo
• 26.10.2005 4v4 - Ozone vs aXiom - demo

2006

• 25.02.2006 4v4 - Aurochs vs SITH - demo
• 05.03.2006 4v4 - Ozone vs no.Limits - demo
• 28.03.2006 2v2 - no.Limits vs Ozone - demo
• 07.04.2006 3v3 - no.Limits vs Ozone - demo
• 15.06.2006 4v4 - Aurochs vs fiDelity - demo
• 07.06.2006 4v4 - no.Limits vs p3G - demo
• 10.09.2006 3v3 - *aiming vs no.Limits - demo