Today we’ll continue with CAStabouts, Cede Nullis, Circle-Of-Two, COF Alliance, Complaints Department, Curatores Veritatis Alliance, Dream Fleet and End of Life.

CAStabouts

Formed: 04/08/2012

Seed: 14

Flagship: Vindicator

First Match: Mercenary Coalition

CAS are one of my favourite alliances in New Eden, unique in that they are technically an alliance of alts, whose mains are full-time members of the Center for Advanced Studies NPC corp, through which they take new players and show them into NPC nulll. CAS have participated in the last three ATs as well as the NEO under the name 8CAS, but are yet to put in a decent run into the bracket, possibly due to their somewhat eccentric all-or-nothing team choices.

Last year CAS started out against Chaos Collective, fielding a Caldari Navy Battleship-themed tinker with Raven and Scorpion Navy Issues which slowly but surely broke Chaos’s Oneiros, handing them the match. Their next game was against The Gorgon Empire and Spawn, a very strong team, this time bringing a balls to the wall no-logi hull tanked Gallente rush which failed to do much against Gorgons more standard TFI / bomber core. In their elimination match against The Bastards, CAS brought another all-in team with Golems and TFIs, falling to The Bastards Minmatar command ship setup.

CAS starts this year against Mercenary Coalition, newcomers to the scene, though if you look at MCs performances in the open practices, CAS are certainly not in for a straightforward first match.

Cede Nullis

Formed: 20/04/2015

Seed: 33

Flagship: None

First Match: Complaints Department

Cede Nullis are a 1000-man alliance who are somehow holding sov in both Branch and Wicked Creek at the same time. I tried to get in contact with an alliance representative to learn more about them, but unfortunately could not get a response in time before this article was due to be published.

Circle-of-Two

Formed: 02/03/2008

Seed: 23

Flagship: Armageddon

First Match: COF Alliance

Traitors, heroes, whatever you want to call the Co2 have been making the headlines pretty regularly over the past year. Since leaving The Imperium at the height of World War Bee, they’ve now buddied up with TEST and are facing the PanFam invasion of Autumn 2016.

Circle of Two are an alliance with a long history in the Alliance Tournament, with an amazing second place finish all the way back in ATVII. Sadly however, Co2 have never been able to replicate whatever magic caused that run. Maybe this year is their comeback story?

ATVII: 2nd place to PL, beating The Important Internet Spaceship League, THE R0NIN, The Wrong Alliance and Beyond Virginity.

ATVIII: Lost to We Form Voltron in Ro16.

ATIX: Knocked out by Outbreak. and Lost to wild Boars after defeating RAZOR.

ATXI: Beat SCUM and Outbreak., lost to WAFFLES and CVA.

ATXII: Lost to Agony Empire, received a bye against CODE and then lost to Outbreak.

ATXIII: Beat Brothers in Arms Alliance, lost to Tactical Narcotics Team and Easily Excited.

Last year Co2 had a dream first round; a neut-heavy team against a poor tinker. Next, they faced the magic of Mr Magoo in Tactical Narcotics Team, bringing the same setup again, this time facing a kiting missile team. Co2 managed a fantastic blink onto the TNT team, grabbing TNTs Basilisk and taking it down in short order. The problem was that the setup and execution cost them a significant portion of their team, so despite the amazing use of MJD beacons they did lose the match.

In their elimination match, Co2 left their Flagageddon at home to field what was effectively the standard TFI core of the tournament, but with the wild twist of Machariels instead of TFIs. Easily Excited brought ac actual TFI core with a Daredevil for spice. Crucially, they started at opposite warp-ins, meaning the TFIs could apply their damage much sooner than the Machs. EE took a Hound off the field quickly, massively reducing the incoming DPS, then vaporised the Co2 Guardian thanks to hard tackle.

COF Alliance

Formed: 05/03/2016

Seed: 42

Flagship: Bhaalgorn

First Match: Circle-of-Two

COF are an ex-Brave, new-player focused wormhole group. I could do my usual spiel here but their captains interview was far more entertaining:

“We started off as a feeder corp for Dropbears and Desolate Order, the other Brave Collective wormhole corps, but ended up couping before it was cool and some line-members, now current leadership, took control and we ended up as the newbie-friendly-est of those three corps while we were still in Brave

We were still in Brave at tourney time last year, and a few of our members, including myself, flew on Brave’s team. Enough of us felt the tourney itch when it was announced a few months ago, so we checked for interest, saw we had enough for a full team, and decided to enter into the PLEX raffle, Aaaand here we are now

We urge everyone to go on Eve-Bet and put money on CO2 so as to make our odds even more profitable for the upset on Saturday” – Yuri Serafim, COF AT Captain

Complaints Department

Formed: 20/12/2015

Seed: 32

Flagship: Bhaalgorn

First Match: Cede Nullis

Complaints department will be one of the youngest and smallest alliances competing this year, standing at only 66 members at the time of writing. They appear to be a HiSec mercenary outfit, which is not necessarily a solid vouch for their PvP capability against targets that can actually shoot back. Some HiSec merc groups are fronts for alts of alliances from other parts of space, who take part in HiSec deccing on the side. I don’t know if this is the case or not, so CD are going to remain something of a mystery for now.

Curatores Veritatis Alliance

Formed: 30/11/2004

Seed: 18

Flagship: Scorpion Navy Issue

First Match: LowSechnaya Sholupen

Home to the pre-pubescent workaholic sitting CSM manager Jin’taan (pronounced like the drink, followed by the sunburn, ignore what he tells you), CVA is the oldest alliance in the tournament. Hell, they’re one of the oldest alliances in the whole damn game, and still going strong. They’re captained by Patrick Moelter, previously of the 4th District team.

Famous for being one of the few Not Red Don’t Shoot groups (effectively meaning everyone in the game is set red), CVA are taking part in the AT for the fifth time this year. They have consistently been a solid mid-tier team in the tournament, requiring true heavyweights to knock them out. One of my favourite facets of the CVA team is that they always have an all-Amarr RP team ready to go, which can serve to mindfuck their opponents who may rely on them fielding it.

ATVIII: Beat The G0dfathers and Agony Empire, lost to HYDRA RELOADED

ATX: Lost to Gypsy Band & Noir.

ATXI: Beat R.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N, Perihelion Alliance, Circle-Of-Two, Transmission Lost and Scum, lost to R0NIN and Darkside.

ATXII: Beat Red Alliance and Outbreak., lost to HYDRA RELOADED and The Afterlife.

ATXIII: Beat Project.Mayhem., Lost to The Tuskers Co. and End of Life.

Last year CVA beat Project Mayhem’s balls-deep four Typhoon frigate logi team with an old school Vargur rush, losing only a Hyena to that crazy DPS. Next up was the brick wall that is the Tuskers AT team, where CVA brought a Barghest / Sleipnir team with frigate logi against the Tuskers more standard TFI core with T3Ds and Bombers. CVA gave the Tuskers logi pilot a sweat a few times, but were unable to break him as their team fell apart to the Tuskers always excellent piloting. Finally, CVA faced End of Life’s mad missile team; Scorpion Navys, Claymores and six bombers. To meet this, CVA had a Machariel and assault frigate team. As you’d expect, the EoL bombers were obliterated, but in doing so CVA lost their Machariels, as thus the match.

Looking at the brackets, CVA shouldn’t have too much difficulty in their first two rounds, but then they will likely face the winner of VYDRA/Exodus., ouch.

Dream Fleet

Formed: 26/05/2014

Seed: 30

Flagship: Bhaalgorn

First Match: Rote Kapelle

One of the cool parts of writing these summaries is watching Alliances I have little reason to take notice of the rest of the year change and grow. Last year, Dream Fleet was holding sov in Detroid, now, they’re in Period Basis. Last year was their first run at the Alliance Tournament, where they were unlucky to enough to be seeded against Triumvirate. for their first round. They brought a reasonable-looking ECM Tinker with a Widow, but could not hold against Tri’s logi-frig, drone team. Dream Fleet’s Widow could not hold up against all of those sentry drones, and when it fell Dream were left without any damage mitigation (not that ECM is great against drone teams given drone assist), so the Tinker broke.

From a poor start, Dream fleet came back with a nice little run through the loser’s bracket. First, they faced Nerfed Alliance Go Away, showing again a taste for ECM with an ECM/neut TFI team using Blackbirds and an Armageddon against Nerfed’s shield TFI team. It looked like Dream were on their way out of the tournament as their Blackbirds cracked and broke under the pressure, but they held on by the skin of their teeth and finally started taking out Nerfed’s support wing.

Next up was The Methodical Alliance. Dream brought a 4-Phoon team with only T1 logistics and a little ECM support from a Griffin. This faced Methodical’s mad double Bhaalgorn, double Nightmare, double NEREUS, Vindicator and Ibis all-hull-tanked team. High on style, low on effectiveness, Dream fleet took the match into the next round where they faced their final boss, End of Life. Dream Fleet brought a shield version of their previous setup; Scorpion Navys and Ravens against EoL’s T1 drone restricted Rattlesnake comp. Despite breaking EoL’s logistics, they chose to go after small ships with big missiles, which slowed their progress and allowed the EoL core to break down their battleships.

End of Life

Formed: 27/07/2012

Seed: 11

Flagship: Scorpion

First match: Agony Empire

End of Life are a highsec / wormhole alliance who deserve to be talked about a lot more, and valued a lot higher than they are currently by most people in my opinion. Now going into their fourth AT run, they have slowly built up stronger and stronger appearances, starting back in ATXI. Last year they had a fantastic romp through the loser’s bracket, stomping the hopes of many a team before running out of steam.

ATXI: Beat Darkspawn, lost to HYDRA RELOADED, beat Angeli Mortis, lost to HUN Reloaded.

ATXII: Lost to The Methodical Alliance, beat The Nameless Alliance., lost to COVEN

ATXIII: Lost to The Afterlife., beat Gone Critical, CVA, Dream Fleet, Dead Terrorists making it all the way to the final weekend before losing to the Darkside. Infused Gorgon Empire and Spawn.

I won’t go through all their matches from last year or these summaries would never get finished, but they are certainly worth watching. The one I recommend most is their elimination match against Gorgon, which shows beautifully (besides an incredible logistics headshot) that while bombers are very powerful ships to sprinkle into your team, if you rely on them to heavily at the expense of your support wing, they will be vaporised before they can really achieve anything.

As with last year, EoL have pulled a very strong team first round, but I really hope that even if they can’t break Agony, they’ll have another stellar loser’s bracket run.