To teams complaining about having to fight better teams

twitchtvCommanda0, on Jul 05 2014 - 18:53, said: Ultimately, life is not fair, and neither is the matchmaker. You will at some point be forced to fight teams that are better than you. So why bother showing up right?   It's important to understand the point of the group stages. They offer a less stressful arena through which teams can test strats and perfect them so that when they come into the playoffs they are not caught off guard by an odd cheese strat. Fighting teams that are better than you is critical in this stage of the tournament for a few reasons:   1. You learn possible strategies or positions from reviewing replays of games you have lost. From here you can revise your own strat to take into account weaknesses that good teams have exploited and prevent them in the future. Or figure out positions that would punish their strat.   2. They provide ample motivation to get good. Face it, not every team is worth 10,000 gold, and there are more than enough prizes to go around considering that the top 50% of teams get alpha playoff gold. Play better and the payouts will increase.   Having a good strat and learning how to execute it well is far more important than simply having good players. The best teams (Those who reach top 10% consistently) combine both, but taking a team of mediocre players to top 10-20% is easily doable with a coherent strategy and players that are eager to learn and listen to the caller, as the PLSGO skirmish teams have shown.   Good teams have earned their payout, and if you want a bigger gold payout, use that as motivation to get better at penning tanks, learning positioning and developing map strats.