I don’t know how many people will read this or care for what I am saying, but it has been said before and needs to be said again. Division restricted wars really need to stop happening. This trend is harmful to the progression of the competitive scene. We can begin to debunk the idea that searching for division restricted wars is a good idea by first looking at why anyone would want to limit what team they play. The logic that I have seen many people put forth is that you don’t learn anything from losing to a much higher division team and that it simply isn’t fun to lose by a lot of points. This is, to put it in modern terms, a “you problem”. I can speak on this matter because when I started out in my own team, iF, they had just finished a season as the worst team in all of MKU. So, who was the first team I played with iF after joining? Dynamite. Although they were not the Division Two powerhouse that they are today, they were still were a very formidable team, and they thrashed us good and hard. This experience was tilting, and one legend even got banned from the team mid-war. After the war, however, I was left with a sense of “we can do this”. Maybe I wanted to feel better about my new team at the time, but in our large defeat I saw potential. Almost every war since I joined was against a team better than us for a few months. There are tables upon tables in the war results channel of our server where we lost by 100-200+ against the likes of FR, wf, DVP, DY, AU, and company. During our journey from a d9 to a d6 team we got plowed by many strong teams, but after each war we asked ourselves what we could have done better.
The fun for us wasn’t in winning the war, but in playing the best we could and chilling with the team. Even if we were getting destroyed, we still tried our best to learn from our mistakes or have some fun. Somehow, mind-blowingly, we started doing better against the teams who were taking us to task. The 200-point losses became 100-point losses, the 100-point losses became 50-point losses, and some cheese wins even came along down the road. One could look at iF now and say that most of our success has come from new “carries” such as Tynan, but even in our D3 days we were willing to go up against d1 teams frequently and we took many beatings before we were able to learn to get it closer. Now, in an LU without Tynan, without Roberto, without Alpaco, the same few guys who were grinding it out in the d6 days and getting dunked on by many higher div teams can at the very least put up a decent fight or take some dubs home. We haven’t won a division in a while, and we can’t claim to be the best team in our division, but we can look back at our journey from the bottom of the barrel to where we are now and appreciate the fact that we earned our position and our reputation to the point that these new “good” players would even join.
I look at the lower divisions and so many teams now have players leave and join as if it’s nothing. It seems as if each team is always scrambling to see which good players they can pick up to make their team stronger. The lasting solution to making your team stronger isn’t to recruit better players constantly, it is to accept the people who are committed to the team. Yes, lower division teams will lose a lot to higher division teams if they actually accept them, but is it really a loss? The only loss in a war is the loss that you make. There is always something to be learned from going up against better teams and trying to at least get a winning race. The fun of a war doesn’t have to be winning or keeping it close against a team in a similar division to you, it can also be taking on a titan with your squad even if you know you won’t win. At least when it’s said and done you can see how the titan fought. Look at what you did wrong, laugh at the funny moments even when you are losing, strive to improve, and you will find that your d7 team can be more than a d7 team just looking to recruit better players. It can become a d5 team that makes better players, and if it can become a d5 team, then it can become more than that too.
FAQ/Statements about division restricted wars
Sorry if none of this makes any sense or if you are a low division team and feel offended by this. Just remember a loss is only a loss if you view it as one. You and your team can always learn and always improve from every single war, especially against those who know more than you.
This is probably sloppy, sorry about that. I wrote this in 50 minutes, and it isn’t hyper well proof-read.
Also, if you agree drop a like or a reply. If you disagree, feel free to state your opinion as well. I don't expect this trend to stop, but at least we can have a discussion about it.
Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this and good luck on your karting journeys.
Wishing the best, Aran.
The fun for us wasn’t in winning the war, but in playing the best we could and chilling with the team. Even if we were getting destroyed, we still tried our best to learn from our mistakes or have some fun. Somehow, mind-blowingly, we started doing better against the teams who were taking us to task. The 200-point losses became 100-point losses, the 100-point losses became 50-point losses, and some cheese wins even came along down the road. One could look at iF now and say that most of our success has come from new “carries” such as Tynan, but even in our D3 days we were willing to go up against d1 teams frequently and we took many beatings before we were able to learn to get it closer. Now, in an LU without Tynan, without Roberto, without Alpaco, the same few guys who were grinding it out in the d6 days and getting dunked on by many higher div teams can at the very least put up a decent fight or take some dubs home. We haven’t won a division in a while, and we can’t claim to be the best team in our division, but we can look back at our journey from the bottom of the barrel to where we are now and appreciate the fact that we earned our position and our reputation to the point that these new “good” players would even join.
I look at the lower divisions and so many teams now have players leave and join as if it’s nothing. It seems as if each team is always scrambling to see which good players they can pick up to make their team stronger. The lasting solution to making your team stronger isn’t to recruit better players constantly, it is to accept the people who are committed to the team. Yes, lower division teams will lose a lot to higher division teams if they actually accept them, but is it really a loss? The only loss in a war is the loss that you make. There is always something to be learned from going up against better teams and trying to at least get a winning race. The fun of a war doesn’t have to be winning or keeping it close against a team in a similar division to you, it can also be taking on a titan with your squad even if you know you won’t win. At least when it’s said and done you can see how the titan fought. Look at what you did wrong, laugh at the funny moments even when you are losing, strive to improve, and you will find that your d7 team can be more than a d7 team just looking to recruit better players. It can become a d5 team that makes better players, and if it can become a d5 team, then it can become more than that too.
FAQ/Statements about division restricted wars
- Won’t high division teams just take lower division teams so they can win?
- No. At least with my team we have dropped lower division teams to war teams higher than us if we can. A high division team just wants to play the game, same as you.
- Won’t high division teams just meme against us? It’s really annoying, we just want to try our best, but they so clearly don’t respect us.
- I have been on the giving and receiving end of this. I can’t speak for the past, but we greatly respect any team that is lower than us and still wants to face us. The very least we can do now is play our best and try to make the war something we and our opponents can learn from.
- You literally gain nothing from losing by a lot when you can war someone a little below you or above you
- Incorrect, the goal of every scrim should not only be to have some fun but also to improve. You can’t learn much from closely beating or losing to teams that make the exact same mistakes you do. Stop viewing higher division teams as monsters to be avoided, at least you can learn from the mistakes they don’t make. If you find yourself getting outlined on a certain track by a higher division team, play that track more and time trial it to learn how to play it better against them. If you find the other team is doing a really good job of taking out your top spots, think about how they did that. I promise you it wasn’t just luck, spam, and lines. If you get plastered by their shocks, notice when and where they use them. The things that set a high division team apart from a low division team isn’t just lines, its item usage, coordination, and shock usage. These are things you can’t get from tting, and things almost all lower division teams struggle with. Next time a higher division team wants to play you, maybe think about learning from them rather than blindly winning against a team that knows even less what to do right than you do. It has paid off for us and it will pay off for you as long as you have the correct mindset.
- You have no room to talk Aran, you’re literally d15 still
- Ye no cap but I used to be worse and I’ve learned more from scoring 50 against good teams than I ever learned scoring 120 against people who make the same mistakes as I do.
Sorry if none of this makes any sense or if you are a low division team and feel offended by this. Just remember a loss is only a loss if you view it as one. You and your team can always learn and always improve from every single war, especially against those who know more than you.
This is probably sloppy, sorry about that. I wrote this in 50 minutes, and it isn’t hyper well proof-read.
Also, if you agree drop a like or a reply. If you disagree, feel free to state your opinion as well. I don't expect this trend to stop, but at least we can have a discussion about it.
Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this and good luck on your karting journeys.
Wishing the best, Aran.
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