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 and 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 those of other competitors. The competitive event can take on various forms in various gametypes and although competition in CTF has a very strong 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 formal 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 events were almost exclusively played without pickups and without force powers, and were governed by a codified set of rules agreed upon by all the players.
Rulesets could vary widely across events, but the two most common for duels were: The American standard of playing a match where the victor was determined by the player that first scored 10 points, with each point being awarded for a successful kill, and the health of both players resetting after each point. The second standard was the European ESL one where the victor of a given duel was determined by the player who either first scored 10 points or ended up with the most points after a 10 minutes timelimit, and where the player scoring a point continued on with the amount of health and shields that he had left over from the previous fight.
Team Free For All matches were most often held across two rounds with either a specified fraglimit, timelimit or both, and the winner was almost always determined by counting up the scores of both rounds together and awarding the team with the highest score. The most prestigious form of TFFA competition was the 3on3 or 4on4 format, also called Team Deathmatch (TDM), but 2on2 matches were not only widely popular, they were oftentimes highly acclaimed as well.
Although serious competition was definitely possible on heavily modded servers, it most often took place on basejka or on mods that strictly preserved the original sabering environment as much as possible. The reasoning behind this insistence on unmodded servers was that the point of competitive play was 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 was that modded servers inevitably made the sabering mechanics worse by (oftentimes unintentionally) introducing factors that increased 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 the 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.
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.
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.
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
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
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,
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
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 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.
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. His 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. Ðureal also signed up his team 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 2012 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
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 marked the European competitive ever since: 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.
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.
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 the rising no.Limits.
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.
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 they fielded 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.
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.
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
that kept beating up the aXiom successor teams Serenata (neXor) and p3g in multiple games and kept the other successful teams, including 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 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.
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.
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
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.
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 clan Insane's 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.
Transformation and Renewal: 2007
Team no.Limits was at the height of its power at the start of 2007. With Ozone having left the ladder due to inactivity, the only real contenders left were *aiming, neXor and BHK/corona. That no.Limits was indeed superior to the latter two would become especially apparent during the 2007 ESL New Years Cup, which all the major teams attended. There no.Limits would play *aiming in the semi-finals, beating the Germans in three rounds with scores of 53-41, 27-35 and 36-33. They would go on to play neXor in the finals, losing the first round 19-23, winning the second 25-24 and also winning the third one 53-36, thereby winning the entire tournament. (source)
Indeed, no.Limits would further cement their reputation as the undisputedly best clan in JKA at that time by defeating BHK 78-75 and 89-87 on the ladder, then winning games against such teams as Jedi Sentinels, 333 and Godlike amongst others, and going on a 14 games winning streak from January to April, which was only stopped when BHK and neXor merged to form xeTox and finally became good enough to challenge no.Limits' supremacy, inflicting on them their first loss in almost half a year.
Throughout that time #nL.Cube and his teammate S3chT were also left uncontested in the 2v2 ladder, leading it with a score of 16-2. After Cube had left the 1v1 ladder in November 2006, S3chT quickly ascended to the first place in early 2007 and firmly established himself over the rest of the competition in the next couple of months by outscoring the second ranked player with over 100 points on the ladder. However, Cube himself was far from being inactive: He participated in the 32 players ESL tournament in February 2007, beating most notably Warhammer 10-3, Despair 10-8 in the semi-finals and the Jedi Sentinels player Grizzli in the finals with a close score of 5-4, winning the tournament.
The fact that Cube only really had to struggle against Grizzli is an attestation to how far Jedi Sentinels had come: After all, the only team outside of BHK that gave no.Limits any significant trouble on the ladder was Jedi Sentinels, which had technically won their game against no.Limits in January with scores of 41-32 and 16-21, but had lost the match due to the controversial ELO scoring system used on the ESL. Both Minneyar and Grizzli were by then recognized as belonging amongst the very best players in the world. Minneyar himself had managed to win the inofficial JKA World Cup 2007 in January by defeating the ex-aXiom player Shirasaya (aka EviL) 4-2 and winning over the American player Mith 5-4 in the finals. (source) He also managed to reach the finals of an ESL tournament in March, beating ritchey on the way and barely losing to 333's Wonder in the finals. Minneyar and Grizzli reformed their 2v2 team in February and went on a 10 games winning streak on the ladder until March, most notably defeating the then second ranked team consisting of #nL.slize and #nL.aline with scores of 7-7 and 20-14.
Both of the famous Jedi Sentinels players were invited to join o3Dark's plans to bring back clan Zedi in February 2007. In retrospect, Dark's Zedi of 2007 was only Zedi in name, seeing as it was much more an unintended reincarnation of Ozone than anything else; the team consisted almost entirely of Ozone's former core players Osiris, InSane, Ven, Dark and Fox, with the addition of the two JS stars Minneyar and Grizzli. Former zedi´Twilight did join the team on the ESL, but their lineup almost always consisted of a combination of Ozone's core players and either Minneyar or Grizzli.
Whatever the case may be, Zedi (o3) was rather successful during its short run on the ladder: They defeated every major team, including *aiming and XiO. However, in a serious upset they just barely lost to xeTox by 1 point in March, winning the first round 24-22 and losing the second one 31-34. They continued to go on a 8 games winning streak, most notably beating the American clan Sin even on their American server with scores of 35-27 and 36-17, but were already getting more and more inactive towards the end of March; they eventually played xeTox again in a state of near inactivity and lost once again. Zedi (o3) would leave the ladder shortly after with a final score of 18 wins and 2 losses and would never return.
Team Sin was the only purely American team left on the ladder in early 2007. They were formed as a more serious and competitive branch of clan Savior, which itself was on the rise back towards the end of 2006. Before they signed up for the ESL, Savior competed a lot against the American branch of clan vVv, which boasted such players like Maverick, former DoX skillz and Technique as well as former Aurochs Evenue. Savior benefited a great deal from the small rivalry that formed between those teams and Savior eventually began to informally outplay vVv in early 2007. In fact, it was in early 2007 that vVv retired from competitive gaming and Savior went on to pick up their remaining active players, including Evenue and Technique, but they also recruited ex-Number 2 and Dynamite players like Matrix, subLime and Necrofusion.
So it came to be that by the turn of the year Savior ended up the only major competitive American clan in the entire JKA community. They were completely uncontested on the American side, seeing as there was no real competition anyways, but were now focusing their attention on the ESL. Their main team consisted of Matrix, hisownfoot, pr0fits aka Komence, Evenue, Elminster and Ascension, and they went on to win 11 games by the end of April 2007, most notably beating xeTox 40-18 and 20-41. Savior/Sin lost their only game at that time to o3Dark's Zedi in March, as was previously mentioned.
In early April 2007, Ransom aka Krazee briefly showed up and rebuilt team Dynamite with players like Khako and the previously banned and disgraced JoKer from SITH/Insane, who was on a fake account at that time. They played 8 games in April against nobody of note and won all of them. However, they did manage to beat Sin in an incredibly close game, winning the first round 32-30 and losing the second one 27-28. Despite that, Dynamite's stay would remain incredibly brief and the team would eventually disappear once again from the competitive scene by the end of the month while Sin continued to go strong.
Sin played some good games in mid 2007, winning against teams like corona, TuA and roYality, but suffering defeats at the hands of no.Limits and BHK. Team no.Limits on the other hand remained dominant, most notably beating xeTox in May and staying ontop of the rest of the competition. Cube participated in another tournament in May, beating xeTox players noiz 10-8, 10-7 and mrl 6-4 and 10-6 in the semi-finals before facing Ozone's Osiris, who was playing for no.Limits after Zedi (o3) left the ladder. However, even Osiris could not stop him, so Cube went to take the tournament with scores of 9-6 and 9-10 in the finals. (source)
The biggest and most significant event of the year occurred in July: After a two years break, team aXiom returned to the competitive scene. There was a great amount of hype surrounding aXiom's return, with the German ESL section featuring lengthy articles on the team and its players. ([source) Indeed, this was not supposed to be a mere aXiom successor team like p3g or neXor; no, this was the real deal - all of the old greats like Xerxes, Zer0soul, Devon, Warp, EviL aka Shirasaya, blooDclaw and of course Dureal himself had returned. They did sign a few new players, including former Ozone core player InSane and zedi`Twilight, but aXiom's core players would almost always consist purely of the original team. Although none of them would actively play in the 1v1 ladders anymore, the team signed up for the TDM one two weeks after the announcement of their return.
Their first game in two years took place against the now well established Jedi Sentinels, which aXiom managed to defeat without too much trouble, winning both rounds with scores of 39-21 and 63-57. Team aXiom was off to a good start. In fact, they would go on to win the next handful of games and play against their old rivals *aiming in August 2007. This time around *aiming came out ahead, being the more seasoned team at that time, and inflicted a significant defeat on aXiom in both rounds with scores of 40-33 and 32-26.
It was around that time in August that the ESL decided to host another Jedi Nations Cup (JNC), with teams grouped according to nationality playing each other in a grand tournament. The JNC was initially well received with many teams signing up early; a lot of the early matches from the group stages were played as well, but it became more and more difficult for organizers and teams to stay within the strict time schedules given for each match. In fact, more and more default wins were given out, with some teams dropping out completely, and the situation got so dire that the cup had to be put on hold for a few weeks to get everything sorted out again. Although the cup resumed, the situation did not improve much, which eventually lead to the ESL deciding to abort the cup completely.
The failure of the JNC 2007 was an indicator of the state of competitive JKA as a whole. After four successful years, inactivity had become increasingly problematic - but this time not for individual teams or players, but competitive JKA as a whole. The 1v1 tournament that the ESL organized in October told the sad tale: While most of the tournaments so far had at the very least 32 players signing up, this time it was only 14; S3chT won it over Minneyar 10-9 in the finals, but besides these two, barely anyone of note signed up for it. In fact, many famous teams and players were leaving the game entirely at that point; aXiom's return was too little too late to bring about a second golden age of competitive JKA.
Team no.Limits, for example, was having inactivity issues since the middle of 2007 and after one last great victory against *aiming on the 13th of August, they decided to retire the team from competitive play, leaving the ladder with a total score of 74 wins, 1 draw and 18 losses. Shortly after that, Savior's team Sin left the ladder in September with a score of 27 wins and 11 losses; Savior's second team would remain playing for a while longer, most notably defeating Krazee's team Dynamite, which had returned for a handful of weeks in October, but both Dynamite as well as Savior would leave the ladders entirely by the end of the year. Even the largest German clan at that time, namely xeTox, would retire and disband after the debacle in September during their most recent match against Sin, where they had provoked the Americans into playing the second round of the game with pickups enabled, which was the only way xeTox stood a chance against them after having lost the first round with a 20 points deficit.
But then aXiom defeated *aiming; with other words, it was not all doom and gloom for JKA. Both *aiming, aXiom and Jedi Sentinels as well as a variety of other German-speaking clans like myINFACT/corona and saber Academy were still around. The ESL's diversity did take a hit, but there was still a lot to be gained from competitive JKA. Most importantly, unlike the other events that took place towards the end of the year, the traditional large December Cup was a huge success. It attracted such former greats as zentur1o aka EviLwindu, Shirasaya and S3chT and almost all of its matches were actually played.
In that final cup, Shirasaya easily defeated bimon, raDonis and scored a default win against S3chT in the semi-finals; in the meantime, zentur1o beat kAmui, pr0fits, torax aka dreamz and was now pitched against Shirasaya in the finals. There zentur1o actually lost the first round to the aXiom player 5-4, won the second one 7-10 and also managed to win the third one 5-4, taking another large tournament and further cementing his reputation as one of the very best 1v1 players ever to have graced JKA.
FOR 2006:
mention JS almost beating ozone, losing on elo while drawing: http://www.esl.eu/eu/jkja/tdm/ladder/match/4701522/
mention JS beating royality, important milestone: http://www.esl.eu/eu/jkja/tdm/ladder/match/4087136/
minne scored a default win vs windu in the invite cup
minne and grizz almost take down UT: http://www.esl.eu/eu/jkja/2on2saber/ladder/match/3808994/
they apparently lose to warhammer and aoshi?
The Beginning of the End: 2008-2009
What Remains: 2010-Today
The Big Four Hypothesis
The history of competitive sabering has shown that the amount of clans that truly deserve to be called great can be reduced to four. There has been a number of successful but short-lived clans, and sometimes the success of other clans was due to refusing to play the bigger fish in the pond. Therefore, what determines the greatness of a given clan is its consistent and long lasting success against every clan in the world, especially the ones with the highest level of skill. This kind of consistency has only been seen in four clans: starAiming, no.Limits, Ozone and aXiom.
The striking difference between those clans and other top teams in the world can be made apparent by taking a closer look at how those other top clans did against the Big Four. For example, clan TuA is widely considered to be amongst the best competitive clans ever conceived, harboring many excellent players like Hell Raiser and Dwight, and TuA has not shunned away from challenging the Big Four many times over a timespan of roughly four years. They played *aiming 6 times, aXiom 5 times and no.Limits 6 times. Out of those games, they won not a single one against *aiming, not a single one against aXiom and only one out of their 6 games against no.Limits.
And yet again, it doesn't look any better for any of the other top clans: 333's record against Ozone is one loss, zero wins; against *aiming it's one loss, zero wins too, and against no.Limits it's 4 losses and 3 wins. The top German clan corona/bioXar has a record against no.Limits of 5 losses and 1 win, against Ozone it's 2 losses and no wins, against *aiming it's 9 losses and 7 wins and they drew against aXiom with 2 losses and 2 wins. The great American clan Number 2 lost against Ozone 3 times, winning once, they lost against no.Limits 4 times, winning only once, and they tied with *aiming 1-1.
Ontop of that, the Big Four were tightly knit invite-only clans that rarely accepted new members and rarely had anyone leave their clans for other team - unlike the case with many other top teams like corona or TuA. So the Big Four was an elite group, harboring not only the very best JKA players in existence, but also staying far above the rest of the competitive world in terms of sheer skill. Everyone knew that whenever a clash between Big Four members was taking place, the resulting games would be the stuff of legends. But how well did the four clans do against one another?
Team no.Limits joined the ESL ladder in mid 2005 and left it in late 2007. After a year long break from competitive play, they rejoined the ladder in late 2008 and stayed for another year till August 2009, when they finally retired. In that time, no.Limits played *aiming on many occasions, starting as early as August 2005, where they won both rounds with scores of 58-41 and 62-59. Although no.Limits would go on to win their next encounter as well, their win-loss ratio evened out in 2006, where victories would alternate between the two teams. Their final match would take place in January 2007 in the finals of the ESL New Year's Cup and would see no.Limits lose the first round 27-35 and a win the second one 53-41, winning the entire match with a score of 80-76.
Clan *aiming would turn out to be the team with the greatest consistency and staying power. They were one of earliest
| 18-02-04 | aXiom | *aiming | 2v2 | 62 - 44 | |
| 13-04-04 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 44 - 32 | |
| 14-11-04 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 32 - 10 | |
| 14-06-05 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 129 - 128 | |
| 23-06-05 | aXiom | no.Limits | TDM | 166 - 134 | |
| 29-06-05 | Ozone | *aiming | 2v2 | 23 - 27 | |
| 03-08-05 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 120 - 100 | |
| 11-09-05 | Ozone | aXiom | 2v2 | 27 - 23 | |
| 11-09-05 | Ozone | *aiming | 2v2 | 40 - 16 | |
| 12-09-05 | Ozone | *aiming | TDM | 130 - 111 | |
| 18-09-05 | Ozone | no.Limits | TDM | 72 - 64 | |
| 19-10-05 | Ozone | aXiom | 2v2 | 7 - 10 | |
| 26-10-05 | Ozone | aXiom | TDM | 126 - 94 | |
| 05-03-06 | Ozone | no.Limits | TDM | 92 - 94 | |
| 28-03-06 | Ozone | no.Limits | 2v2 | 28 - 27 | |
| 07-04-06 | Ozone | no.Limits | TDM | 109 - 101 | |
| 14-05-06 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 116 - 110 | |
| 18-06-06 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 77 - 96 | |
| 10-09-06 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 105 - 93 | |
| 16-11-06 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 69 - 76 | |
| 20-01-07 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 80 - 76 | |
| 25-03-07 | Zedi (o3) | *aiming | TDM | 103 - 85 | |
| 05-08-07 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 59 - 72 | |
| 14-10-07 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 78 - 69 | |
| 14-08-08 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 90 - 65 | |
| 24-08-08 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 59 - 56 | |
| 28-10-08 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 68 - 64 | |
| 14-12-08 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 50 - 57 |
teams to sign up for the ESL, namely on 21.10.2003, shortly after the ESL made available ladders dedicated to JKA, and would stay on the ladder, playing at various levels of activity, until March 2009. Unlike the other teams of the Big Four, *aiming never reformed their main team or abstained from playing on the ladder for longer periods of time. Their 2v2 team, consisting of *aiming.dev and *aiming.syLezz, was one of the most successful teams in the history of JKA and they were the first ones to beat Ozone's famous players Osiris and inSane in an official ESL match on 29.06.2005. Ozone would take its revenge a few months later, beating *aiming both in 2v2 as well as TDM before they took their sights on team no.Limits. Ozone's core players Dark and Ven would later on, teaming up with JS' Grizzli under the guise of zedi, take on *aiming one more time in March 2007 and win with a score of 41-31 and 62-54.
Ozone was peculiar in many ways. They had the shortest longevity of any of the Big Four, staying only from 25.08.2005 to 27.10.2006 on the ladder and later on partially reforming as Zedi in 2007 - the vast majority of Zedi games in 2007 were played by Ozone's previous core players Dark, Ven, Osiris and either one of the previous Jedi Sentinel players Minneyar and Grizzli. So even if drawing a continuity from Ozone to Zedi were permitted, the clan only remained actively participating in the ESL for roughly two years - a rather short period of time compared to *aiming's six years. In that time, however, Ozone achieved more than any other clan in the history of JKA.
As previously mentioned, Ozone set their sights on no.Limits after their 2v2 and TDM victories against *aiming, and they successfully beat the top team in an incredibly tense match with the scores 36-36 and 36-28. They would go on to lose to no.Limits twice in early 2006, but win a victory shortly after in one of Ozone's final matches with a score of 52-50 and 57-51. Most notably, however, would be the fact that Ozone effectively dethroned aXiom as the world's best team in both 2v2 as well as TDM, tying with aXiom's 2v2 team 1-1 in matches and defeating them in one of the most famous TDM matches in JKA history with a score of 57-36 and 69-55.
Before that famous loss against Ozone encouraged aXiom to take a break, aXiom had already defeated no.Limits with a score of 75-61 and 91-73 in the only match that would ever take place between the two clans. They had also defeated *aiming three times in TDM and once in 2v2 by that point. After aXiom returned from their break in July 2007 and rejoined the ladders, they lost their first match against *aiming in August, but went on to play the team five more times, losing only once at the very end of their career in December 2008.
From a chronological point of view, certain areas of dominance become apparent: Team aXiom was incredibly successful early on from around 2004 to 2005 and then once more in 2007 and 2008. They were unfortunately almost entirely absent in the critical time period of late 2005 to early 2006 when Ozone was at its best. Whereas no.Limits and *aiming remained powerful throughout, both clans became the dominant force in JKA after Ozone had become inactive in mid 2006.
In terms of the overall amount of matches won against members of the Big Four, aXiom is the clear winner with an overall score of 10-4. However, they owe 8 out of their 10 wins to *aiming, against whom they maintain an 8-2 record. Considering how often aXiom played against *aiming, one therefore has to take the overall scores with a grain of salt: If it were not for *aiming, aXiom's record against the Big Four would be at a meager 2-2. Ozone takes the second spot in
| aXiom | 8 - 2 | *aiming | |
| Ozone | 2 - 2 | no.Limits | |
| Ozone | 3 - 1 | *aiming | |
| no.Limits | 0 - 1 | aXiom | |
| *aiming | 2 - 4 | no.Limits | |
| Ozone | 2 - 1 | aXiom |
terms of win ratios: They draw against no.Limits with a score of 2-2, beat aXiom 2-1 and *aiming 3-1 for an overall record of 7-4. Team no.Limits comes in third with an overall record of 6 wins and 5 losses against the Big Four. However, if one were to remove *aiming from the equation, the rankings would look rather different: Ozone would secure first place with a score of 4-3, aXiom would be tied 2-2 and no.Limits would remain third with a score of 3-4.
As for the total amount of wins on the ladder: aXiom once again takes the lead with a record of 114 wins and 13 losses over a time period of 37 months. It is interesting to point out that no.Limits played almost exactly the same amount of matches as aXiom did, with a record of 104 wins and 19 losses, but they only stayed in the ladder for 26 months in total - almost a year less than aXiom did. They were thus generally more active than aXiom, but still far below the peak activity of Ozone, which managed to score 64 wins to 6 losses over a period of just 18 months.
Although *aiming seems to be an outlier in every regard, it is important to note that this clan more than any of the other Big Four aspired to play almost exclusively good teams and oftentimes ignored challenges of lesser ones. *aiming is the team with by far the most overall games played against the Big Four, namely 20 in comparison to aXiom's 14 and Ozone's and no.Limit's 11. It is also the team that played the most clans that were ranked top 10 or higher on the ESL ladder, with 89 of their 103 matches being against the top10 of the ladder (86%), while the next Big Four on the list would be no.Limits with only 76 out of their 123 played against the top10 (75%). Coupled with the fact that *aiming never reformed their team, it is safe to say that they have the longest tradition of exceptional play and great achievements.
| Games | Big Four | Ladder | vs Top 10 | Months in Ladder | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aXiom | 127 | 10 – 4 (71%) | 114 – 13 (90%) | 87 (69%) | 37 |
| Ozone | 70 | 7 – 4 (64%) | 64 – 6 (91%) | 35 (50%) | 18 |
| no.Limits | 123 | 6 – 5 (55%) | 104 – 19 (85%) | 76 (61%) | 26 |
| *aiming | 103 | 5 – 15 (25%) | 69 – 34 (67%) | 89 (86%) | 65 |
A Big Five?
But are there really no other candidates for the best and most successful clans in the history of JKA outside of the Big Four? Considering that a good part of the competitive community widely acknowledges Zedi to have had the strongest and most successful lineup of all time, it seems curious as to why Zedi would not count as a member of the Big Four, making it a Big Five.
There are multiple good reasons for this: For one, Zedi did not have the staying power of the other dominant clans in JKA. They were founded in January 2004 by Hybrid and Sleepy and disbanded officially in October the same year, although they did go on to play a few additional games until January 2005 - but even if we count the 3 months after the dissolution of the clan, it is still just merely a year. But that is not the main issue plaguing Zedi's merit.
Although nobody disputes their victories over top clans RNX and BBQ in early 2004, there is a controversy surround Zedi's overall achievements. Back in October 2004, their results page distinguished their official, wireplay and clanbase ladder matches from 'friendly' matches, with the vast majority of them being termed 'friendly'. Even back then a lot of teams complained that Zedi were publishing results of unofficial scrims or practice matches on their page. The allegations reached their highpoint when Zedi shut down its website in early 2005 and replaced it with a score table that did not discriminate between 'friendly' and official matches at all anymore. In fact, Zedi was called out on the ESL forums about those matters, but did not comment.
Zedi knew very well about the ESL league and the prowess of some of their teams in late 2004, but decided not to participate or even back up their claims of greatness by challenging said teams outside of the ESL to official matches, even though they had perfectly good reasons to do so, especially in light of the controversy surrounding their achievements. Nobody would be in a position to dispute their skill at that time if they had decided to play other top teams in official matches. However, Zedi never took it upon itself to prove once and for all that they truly belong amongst the greats: In fact, Zedi´Dimension would go on to lose an official ESL 1v1 against Dureal in December 2004 with a score of 8-6 and 8-2, and neither their unofficial 2v2 team nor their 1v1 players were doing very well on the ladders. In light of all that, Zedi does not qualify for the Big Four.
Team America
The Big Four consist solely of European teams, but what about the other side of the community? Even though Wovian expanded very late into the European scene and officially challenged both Ozone and aXiom in early 2005, winning against the former and losing against the latter, they basically stopped existing in May of the same year. But what about the most successful of the American teams: Number 2?
Although Number 2 did beat a variety of top teams for their time, their overall TDM ladder record is not very impressive: 21 wins and 17 losses over a period of 6 months. They also do not boast a very high win rate against the Big Four, losing 3-1 to Ozone, 4-1 to no.Limits and drawing *aiming 1-1, with no games played against aXiom. So they have neither the staying power nor the success required to be counted amongst the greats. However, what if we take the American JKA scene as a whole? Could a potential Team America, spanning the highpoints of Wovian, Number 2, Dynamite and Sin rival the greatness of any of the Big Four?
Team Dynamite had a ladder record of 21 wins and 6 losses over 17 months, drew no.Limits in September 2006 with a score of 51-34 and 26-39, and was tied with *aiming in matches with a score of 1-1. Sin was active for a period of 8 months, although they idled on the ladder for almost a year, and left the ladder with a record of 27 wins and 7 losses, losing to zedi (Ozone) once in 2007, overcoming *aiming 1-0 and losing to no.Limits 0-1.
In total, a potential Team America would be at a 33% win percentage against the Big Four with a score of 6-12. Their teams actively participated on the ladder for a total of 31 months with a final ladder score of 69 wins and 28 losses (71%), with 70 of their 97 games (72%) being played against teams ranked 10 or higher. If one compares that to the statistics of the Big Four or even an adjusted statistic of a Big Five, Team America does indeed better than *aiming. This is made especially pertinent by the fact that Team America even has a positive overall match score against *aiming: namely 3 wins and 2 losses.
So if one were to be so inclined as to take the achievements of all the best and most successful American teams and put them together to form one grand continental team to pitch against the Big Four, then such a potential Team America would indeed just barely exceed *aiming as a member of the Big Four - turning it into a Big Five.
Notable Games
| 18-02-04 | aXiom | *aiming | 2v2 | 62 - 44 | |
| 13-04-04 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 44 - 32 | |
| 14-11-04 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 32 - 10 | |
| 14-06-05 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 129 - 128 | |
| 23-06-05 | aXiom | no.Limits | TDM | 166 - 134 | |
| 29-06-05 | Ozone | *aiming | 2v2 | 23 - 27 | |
| 03-08-05 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 120 - 100 | |
| 11-09-05 | Ozone | aXiom | 2v2 | 27 - 23 | |
| 11-09-05 | Ozone | *aiming | 2v2 | 40 - 16 | |
| 12-09-05 | Ozone | *aiming | TDM | 130 - 111 | |
| 18-09-05 | Ozone | no.Limits | TDM | 72 - 64 | |
| 19-10-05 | Ozone | aXiom | 2v2 | 7 - 10 | |
| 26-10-05 | Ozone | aXiom | TDM | 126 - 94 | |
| 05-03-06 | Ozone | no.Limits | TDM | 92 - 94 | |
| 28-03-06 | Ozone | no.Limits | 2v2 | 28 - 27 (ELO) | |
| 07-04-06 | Ozone | no.Limits | TDM | 109 - 101 | |
| 14-05-06 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 116 - 110 | |
| 18-06-06 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 77 - 96 | |
| 10-09-06 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 105 - 93 | |
| 16-11-06 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 69 - 76 | |
| 20-01-07 | no.Limits | *aiming | TDM | 80 - 76 | |
| 05-08-07 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 59 - 72 | |
| 14-10-07 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 78 - 69 | |
| 14-08-08 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 90 - 65 | |
| 24-08-08 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 59 - 56 | |
| 28-10-08 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 68 - 64 | |
| 14-12-08 | aXiom | *aiming | TDM | 50 - 57 |
| aXiom | 8 - 2 | *aiming | |
| Ozone | 2 - 2 | no.Limits | |
| Ozone | 3 - 1 | *aiming | |
| no.Limits | 0 - 1 | aXiom | |
| *aiming | 2 - 4 | no.Limits | |
| Ozone | 2 - 1 | aXiom |
| Games | Big Four | Ladder | vs Top 10 | Months in Ladder | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aXiom | 127 | 11 – 4 (73%) | 114 – 13 (90%) | 87 (69%) | 37 |
| Ozone | 70 | 11 – 6 (65%) | 64 – 6 (91%) | 35 (50%) | 18 |
| no.Limits | 123 | 11 – 6 (65%) | 104 – 19 (85%) | 76 (61%) | 26 |
| Team America | 97 | 6 – 12 (33%) | 69 – 28 (71%) | 70 (72%) | 31 |
| *aiming | 103 | 7 – 18 (28%) | 69 – 34 (67%) | 89 (86%) | 65 |
2004
- 22.02.2004 1v1 - aXiom][Ðureal vs EviLWindu - demo
- 14.04.2004, 21.08.2004 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
- 03.08.2005 3v3 - Aurochs vs DoX - demo
- 18.08.2005 3v3 - Aurochs vs DoX (rematch) - demo