R39Dave

"Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success." - Henry Ford

When building a team I wanted a group that would come together, keep together, and work together. I wanted a group that had multiple ways to win, but I also wanted people who were going to be great teammates and provide for a fun round regardless of what happens.

I had third choice of what pick to take. 1st and 8th pick were taken. As I decided on where I wanted to be I saw a clear top three, Wurst, Gothia and Rio. I’ve never played with Wurst or Gothia, so I don’t have a perfectly informed opinion on them. They both have potential to win any round they are in, but they could also fade fast or abandon me. Rio said he wasn’t going to have as much time this round so I didn’t want to try to get him 2nd or 3rd when he could possibly slide.

I went with the 7th pick, knowing I’d get two top ten picks. My immediate thoughts went to Fett as my co captain. I’ve played with him twice and both times our realm won. He is the ultimate teammate. He can play any way, he can sim, he literally knows the game inside and out. My fear was that his real life friend Cronel would take him with the 4th pick. In fact, clear back on Valentine’s Day I sent this message to my brother, Sugarjon.

This dream came true when Cronel announced Faith as his co-captain, who may have actually been number one on my wish list. However, he mentioned that he didn’t take Fett because he was really busy and didn’t want to be a co-captain. He had suggested to Cronel that he go with someone else this round. When it got to my pick, I thought about if I should take Fett anyway and make him be a co-captain or to wait and hope to get him with my second pick.

I knew that going with an explorer in the first round, and someone that’s on the other side of the world from me, may not be the most popular choice as a co-captain. However, I knew how much I enjoyed having Zedijar as a teammate in the past and that he brought so much to the table that I wanted.

I ended up getting the two guys I wanted, just in the opposite order. Fett was there for my pick, and in case he was taken in the two picks between mine I some great options like former pack mate, two time winner, and good friend Bobbo.

I then prepared to get ready to take Tidnab and Jon with my next picks, which seemed so far away at this point. To my dismay, two picks before it was my turn, B took Jon in a surprise move. Honestly, I thought I might be reaching taking him five picks later than he went. I had seen the Dave, Fett, Jon trio being similar to the Fett, Merf, Bobbo trio this round. But it just wasn’t meant to B.

I knew I’d need to take Tidnab with my first pick, because he often packs with Swamp Fox who had the two picks after me. Even though I wasn’t able to get Jon, I was able to get the top three people I had wanted going into the draft.

With Tidnab I got another great teammate that can help do it all. With me, Fett, and Tidnab, I waited to see how mad I made Swamp Fox for taking Tidnab and prepared to meet with Zedijar since I got thrown for a bit of a loop not being able to get Jon.

As I was looking, I noticed that there were some other great explorers on the board still, which made me wonder how far Zedijar may have fallen. However, Swamp Fox took two of the amazing explores I had really wanted to continue to fall to be my other ops guys. While I was disappointed, I wasn’t going to take another explorer here anyway and went with Disco. This began a series of head scratch picks as people wondered who the heck I was picking and what I was doing.

After getting Disco I sat back for a long wait until our turn again. When it got close to my pick we targeted a few people, including DaveTheGoliath, because it seemed like I should have all of the Dave’s on Team Dave. So of course he got taken right before my pick. Of the people Zedijar and I had talked about before he went to sleep only one was left, so I grabbed him to more confused looks, Weaser.

While some of the captains didn’t know anything about Weaser, there was someone who very much did. My brother stealing nemesis B. Also, Volv had also been discussing taking him with his next pick. So while my last two picks may not be mainstream names, or have people choosing me to have had the best draft. I feel like I got two very good under the radar picks.

I waited for Zedijar to wake up and after we saw who Swamp Fox took decided to take a swing on Palaiyot. Neither of us knew a ton about him. We took a solid look at my current pack mate Matty, but 2 of Palaiyot’s last three rounds he hit over 6k acres as a Troll. To get that at this point in the draft just seemed to be too good to pass on. Then came B storming in trying to take Weaser from me...for the opportunity to pick someone else when I’d already drafted someone since Weaser.

I said I’d be happy to trade Weaser for Jon. He said he’d be willing to trade Jon for Fett. I said he could keep Jon lol.

I also said I’d be willing to do a trade of Weaser and Palaiyot for Jon and his current pick. I figured I’d take Matty since I’d already been close to picking him.

Finally B decided that he had no leverage, and maybe realized that I actually chose Weaser on purpose, and he made his pick taking Matty who is a great pick for him. I now realized that my possible overreach for an explorer in the beginning had led to a lot of attacker picks, and a lot of people on the other side of the world from me. I had two players I knew would be great later on that should be under the radar because they were both new that would be perfect to have Zedijar mentor and were going to wrap our team up perfectly. But they weren’t as secret as I had hoped as several people wanted Scruffier before he made it to me.

I also realized that my other under the radar explorer and ops person was also over in Europe and I really needed some help with ops here in America. I looked at Alison, Dean, and Rush2008 and all said low activity on their entries, but they were really the only American based people that were doing any kind of exploring left.

I went with Rush because I always like having a Rush in my realm. I’d played with him at some point, and he’d done a great podcast recently so I rushed in and got him. I then got my secret weapon Noren, glad Grapes didn’t poach him from me because he was new in our realm this round and we were the only two captains who knew anything about him. I can’t think of someone better to be molded by Zedijar this round. Noren has been the perfect new player. He asks questions, listens to feedback, and figured things out well enough to take care of himself most of the time. He did lose some acres recently, but he learned a ton this round and I think is an amazing pick at this point.

This concluded my draft. There were only 78 people that declared, so Swamp Fox and I didn’t get stuck with the last two picks which I for one did not mind. I was very happy with my group of 9.

All in all, I had a lot of fun. I didn’t have a perfect draft, but I have no worries about anyone on my team. I think we will be low drama and high fun with players being relevant all round long. There are a couple of teams that look scarier than us, but with round dynamics we have players in every area that have a chance to win this thing. Zedijar will finish in the top ten. I’ll be relevant for a while. I expect Weaser to win the entire game. I see us having a very successful round.