Brisk and Piggy in the 20s? And all those other known names far below where you normally expect opponents that you should beat? I think this is strange. What is the reason? Is it psychological? Are they stressed out and can't muster the energy and focus anymore, because they reached everything? Or is it strategical like "Know your enemy": Are their games and playing styles just known throughout, so that they can't surprise anymore? Or is it just simple which I cannot believe: The Top Ten guys are just better.
Still, other former bosses like Featherbucket can cling on while the former Number Ones cannot. Why is that? All the Top Ten are new names to me or very very old ones. So. I say, it is psychological. Brisk and Piggy just lack the thirst and are wearing themselves out while guys like Timinator came back with the renewed will to show'em how it's done.

Julkorn, I would bet it is focus. Piggy is steadily rising in the ladder in the last few days, and brisk probably just has lost his focus.

Its easier to reach high place than to held it.
Whole ladder is strange, whereas when you are active (I mean playing actively 5 games and making not every move per 2-3 days) its really very difficult to be in a top.
Many players getting down the number of plays to 2 and maximum delaying their games. Even the ones which had been already lost.
For average players who has just started ladder its very easy to get 10th. Just avoid making move in "loosing games" and u get it.
The other think is motivation. For example, some time ago, when I used to play 1v1 (ladder, tournaments) I exactly analysed maps, picks, opponents, stategy etc. Now ? Picks are making in 15-20 secs, the same about moves. I dont pay much attention to details. Just playing for fun. Think that some of 'old players' do it similar.

I never analysed boards in depth, usually i go by gut instinct.

A simple reason: the template has a lot of luck involved. Be unlucky 1-2 times in your first 10-20 games and it really affects (a) your rating and (b) the quality of your opponents for the next 3-5 games (which acts as downward pressure on your rating because the rating is based on quality of opponents).

For example, in my recent return to the ladder, I was lazy and impatient in a game against a bad player and lost (his one spot countered two of my picks and he didn't even know it). In another game my opponent hit a 4v2 in the final unconquered territory of my third bonus without even knowing I was there and had 3 leftovers instead of 2. My 4v2 then failed. Later in the match he had blockaded that same spot to make it a wasteland of 7 and when I hit it with a 96% chance of taking it (and completing the bonus to regain parity and eventually outplay him, since I had an intel advantage and could bust him in other places once I stablized the area where he got lucky), my 11 or 12 v 7 (whichever is successful about 96% of the time) failed. If I won those two games, my rating right out of the gates would have been no different than any other time I played the 1v1 ladder. Losing them requires that I play 50+ ladder games to offset the loss and give the system more information about me as a player. I can't play more than 20 1v1 ladder games before the template begins to bore/annoy me. If piggy and brisk are more patient and willing to play 50 games, you will see them where you normally see them, in the top 10.

Play the autogame in real-time against random opponents and the "#1s" would win about 85-95% of the first 100 games. There will always be 1-5 bad/average players with completely unknown styles who could get lucky if their picks have an inherent positional advantage vis-a-vis your picks. Such games are just the luck of the draw or pure happenstance. At some point, a war of attrition sets in whereby the obviously more skilled player is unable to overcome the supreme income/army and positional advantages of the less skilled player.

This is why the fog system and pick system are not perfect, even if they are interesting.

In team games there are more picks and a fairer distribution of intel from picks. But more importantly, with each passing turn, your teammates' skirmishes with enemies and your team's reconnaissance armies (which open up the field of vision within the fog of the war) give new intel about the enemies' possible locations as well as their respective income/army and positional strengths and weaknesses. (In a 1v1, the amount of intel viewable in History is both more limited and less comprehensive: eg, maybe you could only afford to send a reconnaissance army in one direction or expand in one territory, whereas in a team game the expansion and reconnaissance -- ie, intel used to better understand the enemies' locations, income, strengths, weaknesses and thereby be better able to exploit the enemies you see as well as seize the territories with the greatest positional strengths to exploit the enemies' suspected locations in future turns-- has more of a centrifugal effect). Lastly, the fairer and more realistic first order distribution of a 3v3 game tends to reduce the negative effects of first order luck.

The above ideas are why some of us care less about 1v1s and more about team games.

Edited 11/17/2013 03:12:22

When I first joined the ladder I wasnt even in the top 50, so 20s is a big improvement for me =P.