Here's some of the most exciting fights that I can remember in AT history. Stretching back to AT1 and up to current...
AT1, this alliance tournament featured very different rules and a very different atmosphere in Eve at that time. It also generated, what is for me, the most memorable fights in AT history, and overall because of the scarcity of any video's from these fights, probably some of the least talked about.
During the first AT we saw the beginnings of sayings that are now heard every AT, "hero" this and "hero" that. The first hero, was the "hero" Tempest. And this is her story.
Aegis Militia matched up in the first round against one of the early favorites, a then powerful Mercenary Coalition. Each side could field one of each type of ship, 1 BS, 1 Cruiser, and 1 frigate. None of the current fancy options were really viable back then in 2005, and the whole idea of an Alliance tournament was fresh and new. Not to mention they didn't have the viewing experience we currently have, NOR the classes of ships we have.
In any case, MC and AM took the field, and an epic battle took place. The tempest of AM, led the charge into the teeth of the Megathron-led MC team taking punishing damage and all looked lost, but the tempest was sporting a strange fit, NOS (before the nos fix) and cruise missiles. Somehow it just kept repping back, dropping as low as 1% structure but staying alive each time.
Now one of the reasons this fight is so rare to hear about, besides it being in 2005, is that footage from back then is, for the most part lost unless it was hosted on Eve-files, or cross uploaded there sometime later. I thought I kept a copy of this fight around on my computer but I haven't been able to find it thus far.
Sadly that leaves this fight little more than mythical status, other than the known outcome, AM beating MC by the narrowest margin. Even the eve wiki doesn't have the schedule for the first alliance tournament... And nobody I reached out to retained footage from that battle. :sadface::
The more famous "hero" of AT1, was the hero Eagle, more famous, but not better. Now I really wish that I could find footage on this one as well since I just barely remember the fight, let alone the participants. In short, Logistics ships had not yet been buffed and were largely useless, however cross tanking between ships was common, and in this fight, it was looking to not even be close.
All that ended up remaining on the field was a single Eagle. Somehow this hero eagle managed to down two ships, ending up the victor of the match, coining the first real use of the phrase "hero eagle."
(In a stunning display of eve-searchyness, I have found the video for the original hero-eagle fight from AT1!
Download from eve files was working for me last night, the link is here. Watched it last night and made me remember just how different eve and the tourney was back then)
Next up is one of the most famous if not THE most famous, and easily the most publicized match in the history of the AT. That would be the famous 10 man thorax Star Fraction gang vs the, until then, undefeated, 3 time champs Band of Brothers.
Let me set the stage a little bit. Band of Brothers had some incredible success with the early tournaments. They won the first three and were making another strong showing in their previous matches of AT4 to the round of 16 against Star Fraction, who had made it this far, scratching through despite a loss in a group stage.
Band of Brothers fielded an extremely effective setup, possibly having yet to lose a ship, up to this point. It's weakness, if it had any, was it's complexity. It required close coordination, range control, and ECCM to operate effectively. Something that a more basic setup could take advantage of. Star Fraction was a heavy underdog coming into the fight... while BoB looked poised for another championship.
Now not all the commentary is correct in the video, SF didn't receive the winning tactic from an outside source, this was a fit that was proposed pre-tourney by one of the leaders of the team. Trust me, he's in my Alliance and he emphasizes it every time this match is brought up. Or sometimes just at random, Seriously, we get it, we get it....
ANYWAYS!
You'd think I would want to include a fight I was actually in, and I want to, but honestly the fight in the replays doesn't do justice to just how on a knife's edge I spent the entire right, balancing webs, guns, drones, neuts, injecting, trying to peel t3's off our guardian all against the AAA setup in AT8. So... Instead I have been trying to find other good matches.
Here we see one of the group stage matches from AT9, a nail biter down to the end, and for my money one of the best matches of AT9. One one side you have a isk heavy setup from Circle, fielding three mach's and as a commentator pointed out, a low isk setup from Razor. What happens is an unexpected slug fest in the middle of the arena, more importantly, it remains exciting, though it went all the way to time. This kind of back and forth battle will be limited further with the new 10 minute time limits set on the matches this AT.
There are tons more good fights out there, but are nearly as memorable (to me) as these four.
Next up: Reviewing some previous AT setups with my trusty formula!
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