The rise of the superteam

 Hi guys! Ok here I go again, here is where I start sounding like myself again instead of that weird AI simulacrum I have adopted on the FB page where I post vanilla.

What are my KPIs? I will post one post per working day here, focusing on one match, or one issue, or one...thing. Since I do not have the censorship board watching me here, I can go a little more indepth, and hopefully my army of devoted readers (all 6 of you) will get some insight into the cozy little quizzing planet that we have created called AQL. 10 seasons and 5 years later (we have been here for 5 years yes), it still feels weird to own what is possibly the biggest team quiz league in Asia. 

We have had a few superteams turn up in AQL since the beginning of time - it is not a bad phenomenon in itself, take for instance 120 Days of Sodor who presumably began life as a superteam (I cannot imagine Brandon and Victoria meeting at College Bowl, for instance) but over time you do become a real organic team and you are growing as a team.

In Prem and Cham especially, we have had superteams do one of two things. Around Season 4-5 thereabouts we had two superteams turn up in Champ - both consisted of people who I am not sure knew each other in any way apart from casual encounters online, and both teams did exceptionally poorly and were sent down to Gold almost immediately. As you can imagine they never came back as they were never a team to begin with.

So a few seasons ago the superteam experiment began in earnest, with Quiz Dubai rebranding as Ship o QDeus and doing exactly what the aforementioned ship did. In one fell swoop, from becoming a team bouncing from division to division and struggling in Season 1-3, QDeus, with members from SIX countries (shamelessly including GK from Malaysia, which is selfishly why I am agreeable to superteams - because Malaysia has won AQL once due to this reason!) were now a genuine title challenger.

Two seasons ago they did a horribly straightforward Manchester City after gunning into the top 2 in each division previously. They swept aside every team, made it a point to field their best players, and for a minute, we were extremely concerned in AQL. Would the superteam dominate and would AQL lose its shine once and for all, and would Etihad simply just buy over our league after 2 seasons?

Thankfully, last season, QDeus proved that the superteam is not there to stay. They lost 3 out of their first 4 matches (as defending champions!) and were this close to playing in the relegation playoffs. Thankfully they wangled their way into a final day win against The Syndicate, survived to tell the tale by drawing against the other half's top team Motley Crew, then won the all important second QF and got into the SF, where their luck finally ran out. 

Ironically, the title was won by the first time in history by a previous champion that season - 120 Days of Sodor. But this came at a huge price - the moment they realised that the superteam model didn't work, when they actually slid into relegation playoffs two seasons ago as they simply did not have that chemistry. So they have now firmed up as a team, they know each other's weaknesses better than even their own, and they grow.

Why do I talk about superteams? Because instead of getting up to watch Aston Villa vs West Ham this morning at 5am, I got up to watch Syndicate vs QDeus again. Syndicate is obviously the other end of the spectrum - a non-superteam, that has not changed its lineup since 2021 and will probably be till death do us part. QDeus on the other hand had somehow tweaked their lineup again, I am quite sure that there weren't that many British accents previously...

Anyway. The superteam won. But it was a nervy final half of Packet 2, as the lead moved from side to side, and there were a few packets that could have been chosen better (but that's the luck of the draw writ large), and the match could have been won had Syndicate chosen the other half, as they knew all the answers. But enough with could haves. The non-superteam enjoyed their loss, and that's all we hope to provide you in AQL. To leave you with a smile after you lose.