The first weekend of Alliance Tournament XII was a great setup for the rest of the event. We saw a lot of what we expected, but still had a few surprises. I don’t think anyone was shocked to see the popularity of the Eos & Gila, but what I really liked is that each team had their own spin on the same core idea of heavy drones, answering difficult questions such as what support ships do you need, how much damage do you need and what kind of tackle is going to work best? Everyone was making different decisions, both clear and subtle on the strengths and weaknesses of these setups, and that’s exactly what makes this tournament so exciting. Everyone knows what’s “good”, but some teams evidently know and can implement it better than others. In this write-up I’ll be including links to the awesome Null-Sec.com battle summaries, including their amazing 3D-replay using Crest APIs, though note that the Null-Sec matches start from match “0”, whereas I list them starting from “1”.

Null-Sec summary and replay . RAZOR brings a very focused “core” drone setup, with only eight pilots. Three Eos, three VNIs and a Malediction. Clockwork Pineapple (Groon) brings their flagship ‘Geddon in a more traditional Gallente face-blasting DPS setup with a large amount of frigate support, including Cruors to web down targets for the Astartes. RAZOR manages to only ban one ship, the ‘Geddon, which Groon pushes out anyway by choosing their flagship. RAZOR start by sending all of their drones onto the Groon Oneiros where it struggles to hold reps, barely surviving in low armour until the drones are pulled off it. Damps are spread on the RAZOR team, but after you have given your drones the order to attack, it does not matter if you lose lock. After a little dancing, RAZOR’s Oneiros gets nuked by the insane DPS output of the Groon team, whereupon they start chewing through the Eos & VNIs. Amazingly with an Eos down RAZOR manages to retaliate and take down Groon’s Oneiros, and the fight becomes a DPS race to win on points, where Clockwork have clear advantage by having more ships to lose and higher DPS. As soon as something on the RAZOR team gets webbed, the Astartes obliterate it, despite RAZOR managing to take out the frigate support wing. Final score: 60 – 35

Null-Sec summary and replay. Ineluctable, playing in the tournament for their first time, had one hell of a mountain to climb. Exodus have only participated in two Alliance Tournaments, but by god did they perform. In ATX they were knocked out by the winners Verge of Collapse in the semi-finals, after a run of killing far more experienced teams, and in ATXI they took third place behind the favourites of the past few tournaments, HYDRA and PL.It’s in match two we see our first Gilas of the tourney, with both teams fielding Scimitar-supported Gila comps combined with Worms. Where they differ is in choice of command ship – Vulture for Ineluctable and Claymore for Exodus. Elise was losing it in the commentator Skype channel, excited to see his favourite ship of the moment, the Orthrus, on field. The remaining slots were filled for Ineluctable with Keres while Exodus brought the more typical Maulus with a Crow. When the match starts the Exodus team immediately counter-damps Ineluctable’s Keres, while knocking their Scimi into structure. Paragoda magically lasts another 30 seconds before going down, but Ineluctable don’t manage to take anything out while their Scimi dies. After the Scimi is down, Exodus make quick work of Ineluctable’s Worms, a significant portion of their DPS, at which point the match is just Exodus cleaning up the field. Final score: 4 – 100

Null-Sec summary and replay. I have to admit, I was really sad to see Affirmative lose this match (and how their Vargur was fit). Greygal, one of my favourite people in New Eden, their Team captain and badass Maulus pilot for Agony in last year’s tournament, was easily the most enjoyable interview I did to learn about this year’s teams. She is unbelievably passionate about the game and her group of players. Affirmative brought a peculiar Vargur / flagship Rattlesnake combo with no dedicated logi, supported by Vexors and Merlins. Meanwhile, Pasta fielded a more typical triple Eos Oneiros setup with their flagship ‘Geddon, and the possibly scariest anti-frig support we’ve seen in the form of three Heretics and two Talwars. As the match starts, the Oneiros of Pasta gets tackled and killed quite quickly, but in the meantime the Heretics go to work on Affirmative’s frig support and the Flaglesnake goes down without a fight, much faster than expected. After that, Affirmative’s Vargur dies almost as quickly. Affirmative tried to clear the Heretics of Pasta to protect their support after the Oneiros kill, but they realise too late that the neuts from the ‘Geddon were going to be the death of their BS, and fail to kill it before running out of ships. Final score: 21 – 100

Null-Sec summary and replay. This was our debut “down to the wire” match. Quebec brings a three ‘Phoon team (with Harold in the Flagphoon), supported by a T1 Logi!? Caracals, Keres/Crow and two probing frigs make up the team’s abundant mids. Choke field a three-man Rattlesnake team supported by a Scimi and the ever popular Caldari frigate pick-n-mix. Neither team has much to show for their previous AT entries, so this was a great match for both to show off their skills without getting immediately stomped by one of the big names.. We start with Choke Point damping the Quebec Caracals to save their frigate pilots from the nasty, nasty RLMs, but they soon trade a Harpy for a Crow. Quebec then focus down a Rattler, losing only a Keres in the process. With some really irritating jams landing on the Choke Merlins, the match descends into chaos; Kaleesa tries to MJD his Rattler onto Harolds Flagphoon, but boundary violates, shortly followed by Choke’s final Rattler. Choke manages to jam the Curse at this point, making their Scimi’s life a bunch easier, trading ships down until it’s just Merlin/Scimmi vs. the Flagphoon. The Scimi tanks the ‘Phoon fine, but the match ends up going to points, giving Quebec the victory. Final score: 85 – 83

Null-Sec summary and replay. This was definitely the match I was most looking forward to from the set I was down to commentate on (the first half of day one). Here we have two very well respected TQ PvP corps who are at the top of their game in polar opposites of what you might call “small-gang” PvP. The Tuskers are known throughout the universe for their frig to cruiser solo skills and excellent fit analysis, while if you live in Placid you’ll be familiar with Tinkerhell’s personal super fleet or Adrestia messing with you. Tuskers bring a huge amount of DPS in the form of two Eos and three Vexors, supported by an Oneiros, their Flag-geddon and the “death to all frigates” set up of three Heretics, with their final two spots filled by Maulus. Cyno bring triple Eos, their own Oneiros, and an Ashimmu which doubles as a great neut and web ship, supported by a fleet of Ishkurs, two Maulus, a Vengeance and Malediction. The match starts by Cyno dropping a crapton of rep drones, but not much happens short of the Tuskers Heretics trying in vain to volley either of the two Maulus. Seven minutes in, and the Tuskers finally MJD towards the Cyno team, whereupon they manage to pick off both Maulus and the Malediction. Tuskers then choose to focus on the opposing team captain Tinkerhell in his Oneiros, who tanks like a champ but finally goes down. The Tuskers capitalise on their position and quickly chew through two of Cyno’s Eos, while Cyno finally try to apply DPS to a target, that of Bei’s Eos, but have already lost too much DPS to scratch the paintwork. This match was a perfect example of Cyno perhaps playing a little too conservatively, while the Tuskers took the time to consider what they wanted to do to the comp facing them, discussing how to execute it, and then doing so with precision. Final score: 100 – 0

Null-Sec summary and replay. As soon as I saw the CAS team land I put in our commentator Skype channel that this match was insane. CAStabouts’ alliance exists only for them to participate in the AT, as they are a group of players who stay in the Center for Advanced Studies NPC corp to introduce new players to PvP and nullsec, primarily roaming about Syndicate. After two unfortunate runs in the NEO as the CAS 8, they bring only six pilots to their team, a tinker setup consisting of their Flagglesnake, a Scorp Navy, two Tengus, a Vulture and a Basi. The Initiative bring a setup more prominent in the first weekend of two Eos and three VNIs for a huge amount of drone dps, an Oneiros for logi, two Ishkurs, two Maledictions, an Executioner and a ‘Ranis. That match itself was sadly quite dull, neither team could break the reps of the other, meaning we went to reverse TiDi. In that situation it is so much harder to react to broadcasts given the tiny amount of real time before what you’re trying to rep dies. As soon as TiDi hit the CAS lost their Tengu, with the rest of their team following in short order. Final score: 0 – 100

Null-Sec summary and replay . I’m fairly confident the Feign Disorder team decided to play the “how many drone boats can I get on one team” game when looking at this year’s point cost. They won. An Eos, three VNIs, a Vexor and three worms is one hell of a lot of drone DPS. Their support consisted of the ever-popular Oneiros and a Cruor for some lovely webs to help apply that big paper-DPS number. The Unthinkables brought another triple Eos, triple Vexor setup, supported by a combination of Keres and Maledictions, mirroring the Oneiros logi. When the match starts The Unthinkables go straight for the jugular in the form of Feign’s Oneiros, while Feign go for the more lightly tanked support. Split fire means Feign trades a Oneiros for a Malediction, but quickly remedy this by focusing down the Oneiros of their opponent, in which time Unthinkables kill a Vexor. Both teams then start trading support ships, trying to remove the total power of their foes as quickly as possible in an attempt to win the DPS war, but with the majority of The Unthinkables smaller ships down they have trouble stopping the Worms from burning through the rest of their team. With only a Keres left to shoot, Feign decide to finally start working on the Eos and catch the Keres while they’re at it, losing all but one of their Vexor backbone but securing the match. Final score: 72 – 100

Null-Sec summary and replay . Mixing the old and the new, Devil’s Warrior Alliance has never entered the AT before and SOLAR have a long history with it, participating in ATs seven through ten, though admittedly getting knocked out early each time. Devil’s Warriors seemed to take inspiration from this by mixing some old school Minmatar battlecruisers in the form of two Claymores with their triple Gila, triple Worm team, supported by a Scimitar logi, two Merlins and a Stiletto. SOLAR bring their own Trila (triple Gila? No? I’m trying it out) with two VNIs for damage, supported by a Sleipnir for links, Scimitar logi and the odd mix of Kitsune/Algos/Merlin. The Kitsune is rocking three Minmatar jams, exactly what the Devil’s Scimi and Claymores did not want to see and it is instantly a giant pain, jamming Sivor’s Claymore. SOLAR goes straight for Devil’s Scimitar and destroys it before the first minute of the match is up, while Devil’s Warriors get the Kitsune as quickly as they can because they know the threat it poses. Despite the SOLAR Scimitar surviving they lose two of their VNIs, a large part of their DPS, but manage to kill all their opponents’ Gilas and Worms. In short, if you have reps and your opponents don’t you’re in a pretty good position. SOLAR snowball to victory, holding reps on the Gilas and the Scimitar itself while finally taking down the two Claymores. It’s also worth noting that the Sleipnir was feeding the SOLAR Scimi cap throughout the match, making it a lot easier to deal with the neut pressure applied by the Devil Gilas. Final score: 100 – 32

Null-Sec summary and replay . Both of th ese teams are old school AT veterans, Dead Terrorists competing every year but last since ATVI, and Ronin competing on and off since ATIV. Both teams are rock solid, with consistent last 16 / quarter-final performances, Ronin going beyond that last year and making it to the semis where they lost to Exodus, then being eliminated by Darkside, two top tier teams. In short, if you can take out either one of these teams you’re setting yourself up to do damn well in the rest of the tournament. Dead Terrorists bring us our second ‘Phoon team of the day, and of course no armour team this year is complete withoutone Eos. Supporting this is a Proteus and a mix of Purifiers and Tristans. Ronin break out their Flag-gorn, two Eos and a Vexor for the mandatory drone DPS, all supported by a Guardian for logi and an unusual mix of jams and damps in the form of two Blackbirds and a Maulus. Their anti-frig is also pretty fierce, consisting of two Heretics and a Talwar. Combining jams and damps is a sure-fire way to make any pilot want to throw their monitor out of the window. You get jammed, then with scan resolution damps take half a year to lock your target again, only for another jam cycle to hit when you finally relock. Ronin do an amazing job spreading their EWAR at the start of the match and keeping it up throughout, one of the scariest abilities to have. The Dead Terrorist Proteus is immediately jammed, damped and neuted by the Bhaal leeroy-ing in, while DTs first try a Blackbird, then a Vexor of Ronin, but Ronin hold reps. Ronin’s support start shooting the heavy rep drones, a key point, then go after the typically poorly tanked Tristans and Purifiers. With the Vexor and Blackbird not breaking, Terrorists try going after Ronin’s Bhaalgorn, but with a significant portion of their DPS gone they barely dent the armour. Dead Terrorists continue to haemorrhage frigates, managing to take out only a single Ronin Heretic. The Ronin can’t break the tanks of the heavier Terrorist ships, especially with all those rep drones assisting the near permajammed Proteus, but Ronin already have a point advantage which they play safe and maintain until time runs out. Final score: 17 – 4

Null-Sec summary and replay . Moist’s setup here felt really dated – three domis supported by a Tengu and some Maulus, but given the point increase on the Domi they can only field T1 frigates to complete their comp. Easily Excited bring an AF-supported triple VNI, triple Vexor setup with Damnation links and an Oneiros for logi. Despite the well spread damps of the Moist team, their frigate wing is obliterated in the first two and a half minutes of the match by the Easily Excited drone swarm, a great decision giving them a nice point advantage to potentially sit on, forcing Moist to try something or face losing the match. Sadly, despite pounding at various ships there seems to be nothing Moist can do, gaining only one point due to Easily Excited bringing a 99 point setup. Final score: 1 – 100

Null-Sec summary and replay . This was a match of perception for me. Ushra’Khan have a long history in the AT starting all the way back in ATIII, meaning a lot of people consider them to be a very highly ranked team. However, if you actually look at their results they’ve always petered out in the first few rounds. TEST on the other hand are widely known on TQ for their pride in being more awful than anyone else, but last year managed to win two of their matches before being knocked out.Ushra bring two Rattlers to the field, with Scimi logi and Nighthawk links, supported by triple Hawk and triple Worm, making for a very tanky team. TEST’s team is similar to the one we saw from Devil’s Warrior Alliance earlier, mixing double Minmatar Command Ship in with a Gila/Worm team with Scimitar logi. Both teams try to nuke each other’s Scimi, however, Dante from TEST manages to survive for a good 40 seconds where Ugleb from Ushra melts almost immediately. TEST quickly capitalise on their lead by taking down a Hawk, then the Nighthawk, then going to work on Ushra’s frigate wing. Ushra go for Faife’s Sleipnir which takes a long time to die thanks to his ASB, despite not having logi support. One of the best things you can do in the AT for your team is to die as slowly as possible, which TEST’s pilots manage to do very well here, allowing them to gain a huge advantage by the four minute mark. At this point each team starts trading mainline DPS ships, a Gila goes down for TEST, Ushra loses a Rattler, and the pure ship advantage is enough to make it an easy win from there for the TEST team. Final score: 47 – 100

Null-Sec summary and replay . When we saw each team land on grid, we knew this match was going to be something we would likely not see again for a while. Both teams bring setups of the like we had not seen this year, without using the maximum possible number of pilots. TNT bring an insane DPS shield setup of Navy Domis, two VNIs and an Ishtar for DPS, supported by a Scimitar, Celestis and Flycatcher. Navy Domis don’t get the point bonus like it’s brother the regular Domi, but it’s bonuses are split between guns and drones, so while they may have a great DPS number on paper, it can be very hard to apply without a strong wing of tackle. ANOV bring triple Tengu with a Paladin of all things, supported again by Scimitar logi, two Garmurs, a Talwar and a Kestrel. ANOV start off the match well by damping TNTs Celestis, meaning it can’t apply its own damps. Both teams try to break each others reps for a few minutes, but nothing breaks until TNTs Ishtar is traded for ANOVs Tengu. Here TNT decide to burn their Navy Domis in on the battleball of ANOV and get their second Tengu kill, losing only their Celestis a few seconds later. After a little more back and forth we get to the 2 minute mark and the points are even with neither team really breaking anything. The TNT’s Scimi is barely keeping Jeraggerjack’s VNI up, while the Navy Domis are struggling to get on top of anything. Thankfully (for TNT), ANOV’s Paladin randomly launches himself, careening over the edge of glory, giving TNT the point advantage and the match. Final score: 63 – 37

Null-Sec summary and replay . Despite never participating in the AT before and the Alliance itself only being formed at the end of March this year, rather close to the deadline, everyone knew Camel Empire were going to be one of the big names this year, especially after their amazing performance under their previous name ‘Thingy’ at NEO2. Speaking of names, LowSechnaya Sholupen prompted a 30 minute discussion in the caster Skype channel on how the hell we were going to talk about them without accidentally doing a Sean Connery impression. LS (which is how I plan to address them from now on) brought the third Typhoon-based comp of the day, with their Flag-gorn, Oneiros for logi and stealth bombers. Camel brought a fleet far more consistent with the themes we had seen during the day; two Rattlers and a boosting Claymore with a Scimitar for logi, supported by a heavy damp wing of two Maulus and a Celestis, tagging on the ever-popular triple Heretic gang to nuke the opposition’s frig support. Unsurprisingly, the Camel Heretics manage to vaporise all of LS’s bombers (and this a considerable amount of their DPS) within the first minute of the game, followed shortly by the first Phoon which died so fast I thought their Oneiros pilot had fallen asleep. Camel execute perfectly and with precision, following their early aggression by killing the Flagship Bhaalgorn and the rest of the team following soon after. I felt kind of sorry for LS – they drew a damn good team in the first round and got rolled. I hope they get the opportunity to show us a bit more fight in the loser’s bracket. Final score: 0 – 100

Null-Sec summary and replay . I love Gallente blaster comps, so I fell in love with both these teams as soon as I saw them. Kadeshi bring a giant DPS team of three Brutix (one non-Navy), three Vexors and three Enyos, supported by a Abso and Oneiros for logi. In a similar vein, Fourth bring three Proteus and a Myrm with two Vexors and Oneiros logi, but due to the increased point usage of the Proteus (and actually using twelve pilots) they resort to two Vengeances, a Merlin and two Tristans for support. A lot of matches can feel like two swordsmen fencing, looking for openings and trying to throw the other off with a feint as to where they will strike. This match was two burly blokes getting drunk in a bar then smashing each other over the head with bar stools and whatever else was within reach. The match begins with The Kadeshi trading their regular Brutix for two of Fourth’s Vexors, then a logi trade. This is a great exchange for The Kadeshi, as they also manage to pick off two Tristans in the process. However, the Proteus has a big tank – a REALLY big tank. In the time it takes Kadeshi to burn through the first of Fourth’s three Proteus, they lose both their Brutix Navys. Xissit’s Proteus happily takes a beating while his team burns through all three of Kadeshi’s Vexors, after which their Enyos get tackled and taken down. The Kadeshi manage to take down another Proteus before they run out of ships, which is going to be a pain due to the SP loss for Fourth’s pilots, but thankfully they didn’t have another match they might want to run Proteus again in this weekend, having a whole week to retrain whichever subsystems they lost. Final score: 65 – 100

Null-Sec summary and replay . There were couple of teams on day one who subscribed to the philosop hy of low-number, high-point setups, but few managed to make it work. Disavowed sadly fell into this group. They bring a Scorp Navy, two Ravens, a Vulture, Nighthawk and Drake Navy. M.I.F deploy a similar but still fundamentally different team to what we’ve seen during the day: two fleet ‘Phoons, two Sleipnirs, a Basilisk for logi and a mix of Merlins, Worms and a Stiletto for frigate support. There’s not really that much to say about this match – it’s just M.I.F slowly overpowering the reps of the Tengu first on the two Ravens, followed by the Drake, then the Tengu, the Navy Scorp and finally the Vulture, without ever being in much trouble. Final score: 0 – 100

Null-Sec summary and replay . HUN are an old school top dog in the AT – they ’ ve competed in nearly every one since their debut performance beating PL in the finals of AT IV, then coming in second more recently at ATX to Verge of Collapse. HUN got hit pretty hard by fate last year in ATXI by drawing Darkside for the first round, then after a gruelling run in the losers bracket, finally being eliminated by Agony. Sleeper Social Club on the other hand have quietly been building themselves into a very scary force in the tournament, something I am proud of as their team consists largely of old friends who I learnt to fly with during my EVE University days.HUN bring another super-mega-ultra drone DPS comp to the field, comprised of a Myrm, Eos, three VNIs and three Vexors, along with the interesting choice of double Navitas frigate for logi and a Maulus/Taranis combo. SSC on the other hand bring another comp to make Elise wet himself a little as it has an Orthrus taking care of a pretty typical core setup for the day: triple Gila, triple Worm, with a Claymore and Scimitar, rounded off by two Harpies and a Stiletto. SSC go straight for the slow, T1 resist Myrm, taking it down super fast while HUN hammer the Scimi to no avail. SSC quickly follow up the Myrm kill with a Vexor and an Ishtar. With a jam on SSC’s Scimi, HUN tries to kill a Gila, losing another Vexor in the process. SSC then make an interesting decision to go for the HUN Eos, a very tanky but high DPS ship, trading their second Gila for it. HUN go for SSCs final Gila, getting a really useful jam on the Scimi, but SSC wreak havoc on HUNs cruisers and frigate support, cementing their advantage and taking the match. Final score: 40 – 100– Worm and Heretic Worms have proven to be hard to tackle down, have a great tank, and supply their team with a superb DPS output. Heretics have been obliterating frigates and drones alike, usually giving their team a quick advantage at the start of the match. Apoth ♥