warning - this is very stream of conscious and just consists of tons of memories that flooded back
Sup Hired - you dropped off the planet after we did arenas on Elune on your main. Most of the OG 5 kids play endgame exclusively (twinking pretty much died competitively like you said minus the one premade a year). Painaid is around but he's a big bad lawyer, Unstablle raids in some hardcore PvE guild, Vestive plays end game, He's been r1 duelist a few times/sells Hero carries. Deadshot doesn't play anymore but he looks like a Greek god so the jokes on all of us that used to make fun of him.
Everyone else I lost touch with unfortunately. Of the guilds to remain undefeated I think Mostly Harmless and Make Your Time were the only ones I recall (MH probably would have lost a game but everyone dodged 24/7 esp once we stole Beaux), MYT had some sketch games - No Mercy only lost one or two. Mostly Harmless died thanks to Pizza's ducking bullshit. I'll never respect him for that alone. He joined our guild with most of Pizza Hut telling us he would form a new guild once he had enough members or run a separate squad under the same name. He then dodged us until we died from inactivity (literally wouldn't leave the guild or play anyone until we lost member after member to end game, and then he poached anyone left -.-).
The best part was definitely that Devinlol kid who had some friend or family member who was really good at end game and Devin would pretend it was actually him. I will always remember him telling Evercleared and I that our Glad titles would be "Challenger" on BG9 but then we farmed all of their mains 2v5 for the next week literally to duck their AGM runs as shadow priest/disc priest.... Between him and Pizza, that pretty much ruined 19s for me.
As for random shit from this thread - people always forget Merryjr as an FC (paladin in Yes Mercy). He was definitely better than Gaaz as an FC, so was Niteheals tbh when he had to grab the flag on either of his chars. Painaid was a step above everyone, but the closest to him was Merryjr. He more or less intro'd most of the Horde jumps to everyone.
People also forget Zero on Shattered Hand, Goma on Bloodhoof, Evercleared (r1 gladiator multiple times) on his druid whose name I forget on Bleeding Hollow, Vinknee, Earthbound/Bobgnarley. I'm getting old so I'm forgetting names now but Skullcrusher had 1-2, Boderek was Mauser/Ertai's GM's level 10 (forgot his mains name) and was pretty amazing (that's who inspired Gaaz), there was a level 18 rogue on Elune that was also disgusting at 1v1 rogue duels although he had that level advantage, there was a really good lock on Elune too and of course my favorite was that ducking stupid ass warrior on Elune that apparently "got good" eventually. I'm super blanking on his name but he would say the dumbest ducking shit all the time. Hope someone can remind me from these awful clues. Dismay was the nicest player I've ever met (and had the best ducking geared priest ever - THREE naxx pads), Deadshot being a close second.
I also dismiss any and all "best" lists because I will always recall how people would talk about how good Zero, Drayner, Gabby and that Elune gnome girl warrior were on their "secret" alts but once three of them were exposed they became "shit." No one ever figured out Zero's alt to this day so it was quite hilarious when people would say Zero was shit on his human, but then thought he was amazing on his UD (which he was objectively worse on... hint - he was the best rogue in YM)
Also I still to this day have no idea how Push and Pull got any fame as being good players. We literally introduced them to Ruin by farming their asses on Dawnbringer 24/7 and then they met Goma and decided to become his troll-bot friends.
Let's all have a shoutout to Gomer (Goma) for ruining 19 twinking by introducing the cesspool of trolls and lol i tiep liek dis cuz im kool guyz2 - he admitted to that at least before he quit. The irony that he quit because of what he inspired is still the definition of 19s to me.
And finally, Painaid carried every guild he played with as an FC, Prodigy was the only team that had players who could keep up, but they played on D. Any O could have won with the triumvirate of Bone, Ertai and Painaid on D. Jill was frankly not that good, and everyone else was either average or slightly above. Desh was awful and carried by his friends.
Of course most of this is opinion and also way way back in the day so my memory could be off. I didn't really have my heart in 19s after MH died so I barely got to play with Prodigy or GUP but that's what I remember. I also really really really ducking miss Cupidtwink.
- Evocate/Icyjr/HC
