August 2021 Competitive Recap

Daniel “Penicillin Krillin” Kreuscher

Welcome to the first installment of CLM’s monthly competitive recap! The aim of these articles will be to provide a quick overview of some of this month’s most interesting tournaments, player trends, and upsets!

August 2021 provided the most offline tournaments thus far in the COVID era (12) for CLM thanks to the first COVID era CLM regional, Hold That L (HTL). We saw a variety of tournament winners this month, including Mattchu (BHOP #2), snacklepackle (BHOP #3), UGS | Michael (Midlane, TPS #108), Skerzo (5 tournaments!), and even out of region players Smashdaddy (Midlane) & LG | Ginger (TPS #109, HTL #6)!

Let’s focus in on those last two CLM players, Skerzo and UGS | Michael. Before August 2021, Michael had won all but one tournament he entered this season with a 7-3 record on Skerzo. This month we’ve seen a complete reversal of this dynamic with Skerzo rocking a cool 8-3 record on Michael in August. Skerzo now holds an 11-10 record on Michael this season and the discussion of who will be #1 in CLM has become that much more interesting.

The biggest tournament of the month, of course, was Hold That L 6! Check out Hank Strandberg’s article on PGStats for the high level recap! Below are the CLM members who reached Top 32:

• UGS | Michael – 7th
• Pleeba – 9th
• Skerzo & Unsure – 13th
• Ober, Fluid, ORLY, Blue – 17th
• GI0GOAT, macdaddy69, Aero, Blendtec, Q? – 25th

Let’s finish off with some of the most exciting upsets in CLM this month! I have 4 that come to mind:

1. GI0GOAT vs Preeminent (MN): This set likely also qualifies for biggest pop-off in CLM this season! Meeting in Winner’s Qualifier in their pool, the 14th seeded Preeminent faced off against the 51st seeded GI0GOAT, with GI0 taking it 3-1 and going on to place an impressive 25th at HTL.
2. Ober vs UGS | Michael: Ober not only took his first set ever off Michael this season, he took three! Ober is looking to establish himself solidly among the Top 3 this season and is in great shape to do so.
3. macdaddy69 vs Unsure: macdaddy quickly placed himself among some of the strongest “fringe-PR” players in CLM this season, but had struggled to close out any PR level wins. A solid 2-0 against longtime PR player Unsure could be a stepping stone to new heights for macdaddy.
4. Pleeba vs Reeve: Also occurring at HTL6, Pleeba added another high level Marth win to his collection, beating #1 in Kentucky, Reeve.

And that’s it for this month! Let me know in the comments what you think and what data points you’d want to see for next month’s column!