DumbJaques wrote:I was thinking about posting about Wayzata's performance against WoQ-caliber teams at local tournaments this year in light of Carsten's statement about whether or not Wayzata would rise to the occasion. Then I thought to myself, "Self, if I do that, wouldn't I just turn into a troll like him?" I then realized that by restricting it to passive aggressive innuendo, I only turn into Grawp. I can live with being Grawpy.
Seriously, warning on being a moron. If you want to point out, as a reasoned argument, that some matches this year lead you to conclude Wayzata or anyone else might perform a certain way at a certain tournament, do that but be open to disagreement (hopefully also using my favorite trait, reason). This kind of crap will get you tempbanned. Also, Carsten is absolutely not a troll dude - you are.
Okay, fine. Let's do this untactfully, reasonably, and in a three-pointed essay.
The Urban Dictionary's definition of troll is, "Someone who gets pleasure by typing annoying/controversial/offensive words at strangers on internet forums, for them to read." Fine, Carsten knows us. He can't be a troll. However, he is making arguments that are, in my mind, unfounded and offensive. As one of the "replacements" on team A, I find it insulting to hear that, given Michael's beyond general covering of literature, I still don't make a good enough replacement for a kid who once negged seven times in a scrimmage, mostly on trash subjects that I cover in his place with an infinitely smaller amount of point loss. Additionally, his unfounded arguments are for a discussion that is beyond off topic -- they're for a conversation only he is having. Unless I've become totally detached from my team, the only discussions about QB are how to get better, regardless of our national standing or our standing against last year. Our sole concern now, as it was at SOCIAL, is how to score as many points as we can on whatever set we are playing. No one in the Minnesota scene cared about what Carsten is throwing. Finally, people that have no link to Eden Prairie (and, at that, probably could and should have a rivalry with us) like Sam Peterson have noted that Carsten's statements are simply getting annoying. Carsten no longer seems, if he ever did, to be saying that we won't be dominant nationally to make a point. He appears to be saying it to continue saying it. We heard it before, and we're tired of hearing it and rehashing it. Carsten agrees that his statements are apparently controversial. I agree that they're offensive. Others believe they're latently annoying. But the fact that I've met him before makes him not a troll.
As for my statement of how Carsten's Wayzata team is, my playing against them leads me to believe that, if you want to use a lot of tact, they have a lot of room for improvement to even catch up to last year's team. They lost far and away their best player in Rohan Agarwal, but they haven't procured a suitable replacement for him. No one, in the round I played against them, was beating us in on science like Rohan was competing with EP A/B last year. The math they were able to get was because of Shonts' negs (which were still existent last year), and even then, they weren't successful. If we have taken a step back, a point I will continue to refute, Wayzata has driven back to the U of M last December. That's definite hyperbole; I think they are a weaker team than they were last year, but not to that extent. My comment was in response to Carsten's wonder as to whether or not the better competition would bring the best out of his team. As a member of that competition base, I think that considering their performance and the fact that no team, EP, Whitman, Dorman, whomever included, remains stagnant, it'll prove their need to study.
Finally, I would have been happier if someone that didn't write a letter of recommendation for "hard-working players" like Carsten and Mitu to be on Wayzata A told me I was being a jerk. If Chris believes in disclaiming any sort of bias to a program, he ought to have taken that into account before he called Gautam out on being an ex-EP member that's trying to get people to shut up about him.