The ETS Team League concluded on Sunday after going the distance in a best of five final match. It’s been an exciting six weeks with plenty of upsets and surprises, and its been a ton of fun to hear the player perspectives all the while. The team that eventually took the win ended up being OND Flame, this is their story.

Who are OND Flame?

Unearthly – Team Captain. Six time weekly winner. Rakano master. …Chalice player?

– Team Captain. Six time weekly winner. Rakano master. …Chalice player? IlyaK – Vocal about card balance. Set records in Season Two. Voted best comms.

– Vocal about card balance. Set records in Season Two. Voted best comms. Thundershot – Literally created the Salt channel.

– Literally created the Salt channel. The Artist Formerly Known as Shedd – Does poorly when believed in. Was not believed in.

The Early Days

Getting a group of players as vocal and independent as these four was going to be no easy task, and it was rough sailing from the start. In their very first match, OND Flame were edged out 3-2 by rival organization SPG Echo. The next week they went up against their sister team OND Feather, and pulled out all the stops – Unearthly himself brought a Chalice deck. Despite this desperate move, all their effort proved to be insufficient, and OND Flame fell to Feather 3-1. Times were looking dark – Flame was the only team to go 0 – 2, and a single loss would eliminate them from playoff contention. The team was extremely disheartened – this was a team used to winning, or dropping when things didn’t go their way. As you’d expect from such a vocal team, there were some rumblings about giving up on Team League and focusing on personal play instead. They decided to stake it all on their next match.

Bringing it Back

OND Flame went back to basics for their third match, against the 1-1 Team Titans. No more fooling around with Chalice, instead Unearthly brought his trademark Rakano. As it turned out, he needn’t have bothered – IlyaK finally found his feet and swept Titans 3-0 with Praxis. As the bracket happened to fall that week, Flame ended up tied with Titans and SPG Destiny at 1-2 at the end of three weeks. Maybe not in contention for top spot, but certainly better that last week. After the sweep they were riding high – maybe it can go their way after all?

Unsurprisingly, Flame ran Praxis back for their week four match against EternalWarcry (2-1). This time, Praxis ended up on the bench as Unearthly and Thundershot combined to take down EternalWarcry 3-1. With the head to head tiebreaker over EternalWarcry who were tied with them at 2-2, OND Flame was nearly guaranteed a playoff spot, even with a loss. However, Flame had no intention of going down easily at this point, and despite being pushed into a fifth set against SPG Destiny they did manage to take the match, giving themselves a final record of 3 – 2. This was good enough for third place, sister team OND Feather (who beat them in week 2) topped the table at 4 – 1, while their first week loss to SPG Echo put them behind the other 3 – 2 team. Joining them for playoffs was EternalWarcry, who would be eager for revenge.

Taking it Home

The first two matches of playoffs were short and bloody. OND Flame and OND Feather brought nearly identical lineups – 268 out of 270 cards were the same. Leading off for both lineups was a TJP midrange deck, and it performed. Both teams swept their opponents 3-0 and cruised into finals, ready for the final showdown.

Both teams led off with their as-of-yet undefeated TJP list, Flame’s proved the superior list but fell in the second set to Argenport Midrange. Feln Control brought it back and gave Flame Match Point at 2 – 1, but OND Feather’s captain Elunex won the Feln Control mirror to bring it to set 5. Unearthly brought their own Argenport Midrange deck to bear and cleanly won the battle of the captains to take a hard fought win over OND Feather.

Congratulations to Team League Season One Champions, OND Flame, and to the runner-up OND Feather.

Thanks also to the other teams who made the team league possible – 3rd place EternalWarcry, who defeated the 4th place SPG Echo in the 3rd place match,and 5th place Team Titans and 6th place SPG Destiny.

Fun Team League Player Stat Records

Most Weeks Active

Tie – KampfKrote, Masterplan (6 weeks) Tie – komodo, NotoriousGHP, Tatsumaki Thundershot, TonyGeeeee, Unearthly (5 weeks) Tie – Too many to list (4 weeks)

Most Sets Played

Masterplan (12 sets) Thundershot (11 sets) Tie – Darkness, Toth201 (9 sets)

Most Sets Won

Tie – Darkness, Thundershot, Toth201 (7 wins) Tie – IlyaK, Masterplan (6 wins) Tie – Angrychicken, Camat0, Kampfkrote (4 wins)

Highest Winrate

Angrychicken (100%, 4-0)

Tie – Darkness, Toth201 (77.78%, 7-2) IlyaK (75%, 6-2)

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