Congratulations to everyone else on my team! I never thought we would make it this far after getting 1 point through the first two weeks, but here we are. We had improbable finish after improbable finish — three straight wins to close the season, including three straight games against the Bagons down 2-1 to avoid a tiebreaker, two straight down 3-1 in the finals to force a tiebreaker, and then finally two in a row at the end to make up for our initial deficit. A few additional messages:
Zangooser, you were a great co-manager. I appreciated your advice throughout the season, your optimism, and your willingness to help our players.
Sorry once again to the many subs on our overinflated team who might not have gotten to play as much as they would have liked, or at all. I'd like to thank Eien, Wanka, Ranger Mike, Transcendent God Champion, Illusio, and ihhca in particular for offering support and staying engaged even when they weren't playing. (No offense to the others, shartruce and FLCL, whom I simply didn't talk to much during the season — thanks to you guys as well!)
And to our starters for the last few weeks — you guys pulled this off. 1TL had a fantastic undefeated run starting in Week 3, Klang anchored our team throughout and offered help to other players, DSMP was a great cheap pickup (who ended up winning the championship, obviously), Jordn showed plenty of promise and offered a key win here and there, ellipse was solid as always, and while KOC had a rough go of it, there's still no doubt in my mind that he's one of the best TS players around (keep your head up!) and merits future consideration in upcoming OMPLs.
Ransei and Pikachuun — you guys had an amazing team. You deserved to win just as much as we did, and it's a shame that even with fantastic individual performances you guys couldn't pull it off. You showed that spending big and early is a perfectly viable auction strategy, and one that is definitely worthy of consideration for future teams. The Pikachus also had a great sense of camaraderie that I admired.
Thanks to imas and the OM leaders for seeing this through to its end. I know we were not exactly a fan favorite of Eevee and TI's but I appreciate their constant diligence nonetheless.
In the end, we showed the same perseverance that I attributed to young Caks' five Bidoofs in my much-maligned OMPL signups post. Who knows if I'll be here next year at this time but if I am, I'd love to manage again!