SauerDuels #34 Effic 1v1 Recap by h8

Last Sunday was time for another exciting Sauerduels effic 1v1 tournament. We must thank the Sauerduels team for hosting another smooth tournament. They’ve been going strong for 2+ years now with no signs of slowing down. Big thanks to Redon too for putting the fear of cheating amongst sauer players and possibly starting a new era of anti-cheat enabled sauer tournaments.

A little pre-game analysis (personal opinion):
We all know the drama regarding raffael so I will not dwell on it. But now that he was out of contention, I was hoping some old players would come out of the woodworks to test their luck. Without doubt starch was a strong favorite to win this tournament, I was still hoping for perennial contenders like frosty, notas, lokio, lagout etc. to show up and cause some upsets. They were possibly too scared of Redon’s watchful eyes (j/k). The only surprise entrants for me were Gangler and milchmann who don’t usually play efficiency 1v1 competitively.
One must mention the new and upcoming players too like 1989, plata, galaxy, tamino, secrets etc. who are soon to enter that elite category of sauer players. With their exponential skill improvements, they might be our best bet towards beating the top-players in the future. I was once again hoping these players would cause some upsets and they very nearly did.

Highlights and Stand-Out Performances:
A total of 16 players participated in SD #34 and as the majority of players were evenly matched, we had a lot of closely contested games.

First Round:
The first round went as expected but gave us a taste of what was to come. There were no real surprises but few of the players looked primed for a stand out performance. For example, Plata lost to hades with a score of 76-71 which is an amazing result given hades skill level. Secrets defeated khornettoh 67-51, although the game was closer than that score would suggest. Both secrets and plata looked like players to watch out for after the first round.

Second Round:
The second round had a bunch of exciting games where the top players would compete with upcoming ones. Starch defeated tamino comfortably 89-66, gangler defeated galaxy 60-51, rexus defeated 1989 110-86 and hades had some trouble vs secrets but managed to edge it out on turbine 73-69.
In the lower bracket we had a lot of closely contested games between players but the results went predictably.

Third Round:
In the third round we had a few games that I’d personally never seen before. For example, this was the first time I’d see a gangler vs starch effic duel. Gangler showed he could stand toe-to-toe with the best but lost to starch 82-70 on ot. Starch used some insane angles and unpredictable positioning to confuse gangler. It was a great game.
hades vs rexus was also a hype game but hades isn’t in his top-shape due to inactivity. Rexus managed to beat him 66-58 on frozen.
In the lower bracket there were some really close games. Two w00p players secrets and 1989 went at it with secrets taking the victory 77-74 on turbine. The next game between galaxy and plata could be considered an upset as plata just double rifled galaxy to death over and over again to win the game 54-49 on memento. Galaxy’s rifle skills are up there with the best but he seemed unprepared for plata’s rifle heavy play style. By the time he made the required adjustments, it was too late.

Fourth Round:
We had a showdown between the top six players in the fourth round. We got a preview of the finals as starch and rexus played each in the upper bracket. The map was ot and starch won 71-67.
In the lower bracket we had a rematch between plata and hades. hades was taken aback by plata’s skill when they played earlier but now he was more prepared for him. He managed to beat him on turbine 86-75.
There were so many great games in this round that notas was confused which game he should watch, we did not get to see a lot Gangler vs secrets but the results were in gangler’s favour 71-61 on memento.

Semi-final/Loser bracket finals:
3 sp4nk players had made to the late rounds which I feel is a sign of their foreseeable domination in competitive sauer. Gangler had a chance to spoil their plans in the lower bracket versus hades but hades was just too strong on the day. hades managed to beat gangler on ot 69-64. This meant that the top 3 positions, all went to sp4nk players.
hades now had to go past rexus to reach the finals. This would be the second time they played each other in this tournament and rexus again beat him. This time on simplicity with a score of 96-76.

The Finals:
As far as I know, this wasn’t the first time starch and rexus were meeting each other in an effic 1v1 finals. It has happened before with rexus winning vs a rusty starch. This was first time they’d be duelling each other in a Sauerduels finals though. I was hyped to see this game as Rexus is an aim-beast and so is starch, so no matter the result we’d see some god-tier efficiency.
The first map they played was turbine, there is not much to write about this game as starch won it comfortably 100-87. Rexus seemed a little tilted but given his experience competing at the highest level, I knew he would come back strong.
The next map they played was frozen and I highly recommend that you watch it. It was just the two players consistently styling on each other. I had forgotten what a cerebral player starch is, his over powering aim usually gets all the attention. As he was evenly matched aim-wise with rexus, we really got to see a careful and intelligent starch. A flawless display of elite sauer skill, you could see Rexus having a hard time even dodging starch’s nades because they were so intelligently placed. Rexus too had his moments with some amazing predictive rockets and rifles around corners and kept it close till the very end. Starch managed to edge it out though, with a score of 58-53 on frozen. With that starch won his 5th effic gold and showed it’s not possible to beat him without using a triggerbot and having 10 years of sauer experience.

Games To Watch Again:
God-Tier Efficiency: starch vs Rexus on frozen
Insta God vs Effic God: Gangler vs starch on ot
Biggest Surprise: Most games of plata specially plata vs galaxy on memento
(For demos visit: https://sauerduels.org/results/)

Maps Most Favoured By Players:
turbine – 9
ot – 8
simplicity – 4
memento – 4
academy – 3
frozen – 2
aard3c – 1

Fun Things That Happened During The Tournament:
* secrets after finishing one of his games said “I will be back, dw”, which set the tone for this tournament with some other players repeating that line after their games.
* Frosty pestering gangler to participate in one of these effic tournaments and gangler finally giving in.
* sp4nk taking the top 3 positions followed by little to no bragging at all
* me (h8) committing to writing this recap while drunk. No regrets.

Personally this was a great tournament to watch and gave me a new found appreciation for effic duels. I soon found myself asking for effic duels instead of ffa ones.
Once again a smooth as fuck effic tournament run by our beloved Sauerduels team. Thanks to all the participants and notas for his twitch stream.