Before I begin, let me just let out one big sigh to the fact that Meridell was just SO close to making the first tier last year, and at the time I was beginning to get my hopes up that perhaps I had actually predicted the correct winner. Disappointingly, they did not exactly live up to what I had expected - however a fantastic performance in Tier 2 during the finals set them up for... well... what is the 3rd time out of the 4 years that I have have put Meridell in first place in my preseason predictions. Of course I feel a little uncertain (and Im even beginning to feel a little bit bias even though Im not even on the team), but there is no denying that this team consistently holds alot of promise that they will do exceedingly well every year. And last season was their best season yet. Rather than barely making Tier 2 nearing the end and then lucking out during the finals (as what happened in AC3), Meridell rightfully held the top spot in the second tier going into the finals - and despite missing the top tier by a couple points, they fought their way to the end and maintained their position.

This may sound silly, but ending up at the top of the second tier may have actually done them better in the long run than if they had reached first tier and gotten anything less than 1st. A 5th place finish ends off Meridell's year as big success - and this ultimately will give them a head start next year in terms of team morale. They have their expectations set even higher, and now everybody is setting their eyes on Meridell and expecting them to jump up into the top level and take their place in a coveted Top 4 position. Overall, Meridell really has nothing preventing them from achieving this because this team has quickly re-obtained their powerhouse status and many trophy hunters will be looking to assist this team to the top. In addition, the Altador Cup's new trophy system gives less incentive for those pesky freeloaders to pile against the top teams and drag them down. Things are looking bright for the team - and I see them going nowhere except up.

It's quite impossible to be able to predict whether if DC is going to have a first-tier year, or yet another second-tier-and-we-barely-missed-the-first-tier typical 7th place year. 7th position seems to want to hold onto Darigan Citadel like a best friend and doesn't let go - but obviously DC wants to move onto better things and try to move onto a new higher position to try and capture a position to play in the finals and win the cup. Two years in a row, the cards have all fallen for this team so that all the freeloaders flood Darigan Citadel each year. In addition to this, Darigan Citadel also has, what is probably the most abundant supply of hardcore 24/7 players to counter all of that to prevent too big of a fall. Both of these put together mean a gigantic team population. The movement of freeloaders on this team is unexplainable. You would have thought that the population of these useless creatures would have died off a bit after DC's 7th-place year in Altador Cup 5, but that apparently is not the case. Darigan Citadel has been made into a comfortable habitat for them ever since DC is became a consistent powerhouse (in other words, since the very beginning), and this team is most likely not planning to drop lower than 7th any time soon, so long as they hold onto their players.

After Altador Cup 6 and two consecutive Tier 2 positions - new options are starting to open up for the freeloaders, so the deadweight on this team should lighten up a bit to give DC some room to breathe, and to get ready to get those extra few wins to actually make it to the first tier for once and NOT barely miss it. DC is very experienced in the finals and they are no stranger to the amount of dedication that must be put into a final in order to do well.

Since Moltara was the only team that I predicted spot-on for the final standing - I am tempted to just throw them into 18th spot again so that I can predict other teams higher up. But after two consecutive dead-last finishes and being byfar the worst team in terms of overall averages, predicting them in last place for a third year makes me a little uneasy. Some crazy phenomenon that goes on in the Neopets community just forces me to think that Moltara will somehow improve in /something/ to finally get them out of the consolation tier even though I literally have nothing to back it up with.

Altador Cup 6 saw the biggest upset of all upsets in Altador Cup history - and that was the moment when Krawk Island just somehow let last-place Moltara trample over them, and MT ran away with a WLLL, defeating KI who was actually in first place at the time. This gave Moltara one yooyuball win out of only 3 throughout the entire double-round-robin. This is really the only outstanding thing Moltara has ever managed to do - but I think Moltara should be able to work from it. Their win against Krawk Island proves that Moltara can, believe it or not, use their weakness to their advantage. Should their opponents ever underestimate this team enough, Moltara needs to recognize when this is happening and take full opportunity to pour out everything they have and pull off an upset against their distracted opponents (as well as still winning against other underdogs). Obviously they will need to time these upsets wisely, because the second that Moltara DOES succeed, every other team will pay extra attention to make sure the same does not happen to them.

Finally living up to their own team name, Terror Mountain entered the 6th Altador Cup with a bang. At the beginning, TM rising up the standings was not THAT unexpected... but up to Tier 1?! To FIRST place! Few could forsee that sudden burst of strength coming out of this team. Their supporters really did Terror Mountain good, making TM the team who swept the 2nd most times throughout the entire competition, and the team who swept the most opponents in the first round. Unfortunately, their dominance would eventually dim down in the second half as fatigue seemed to have settled in. Terror Mountain ultimately lost most of their yooyuball abilities, but kept themselves in the running for second tier by continuing to be a dominant force in all the side-games, including an overall first-place finish overall in the sport of Shootout Showdown (echoing what remains of their streak last year).

Going into next year, TM should be a team to watch for in making an entrance through the gates of the top tier - but their slump in the results in the ending days of the Altador Cup 6 makes me think that there are other teams that have a better chance. It remains to be seen whether or not the slump will carry over to Altador Cup 7, but I think not. Their power last year was obviously largely attributed to a fresh, new loyal fanbase on the team so, likely, I think they will stay on this team. I see them continuing to dominate and be a force to be reckoned with in the first half. Fatigue may settle in again during round 2, but this time TM will not crack down as easily and have some moving room in Tier 2, possibly in contention for Tier 1. The next Virtupets? Very likely as Ive mentioned multiple times throughout AC6 that TM and VP are /extremely/ similar teams in that what Virtupets does one year, TM does the next. But I think Terror Mountain might make their move a little too late this year and miss out Tier 1, settling for a respectable high-2nd tier finish.

Seeing yet another year without much improvement, Shenkuu had a fairly mediocre start to the competition, but efforts to try and turn themselves around showed in the 2nd round when they arose out of Tier 4 to another final position in Tier 3. Now that we've given them a year to try and recover and they didn't do it to the extent that we had expected, Im starting to consider that the rumor suggesting a large group of Shenkuu supporters had left the team may be true. If it said evacuation actually did happen, you probably would have expected this team to have dropped into Tier 4, but that is not the case with Shenkuu. The reason that they dropped at all in Altador cup 5 was because of the huge wave of freeloaders they received after everyone began to realize the 2nd-to-1st trend going on. Once Altador Cup 6 rolled around, most of the freeloaders migrated to other teams, but the drop in standings also came with the cost of some of the actively playing supporters of Shenkuu. People from both sides (freeloaders and players) left - but in the end both sides also balanced themselves out. Although the population dropped drastically, the freeloader to player ratio remained the same, resulting in 2 similar years.

I don't think Shenkuu will see a wave of new players next year for no particular reason, so I think they still have a long way to go before they return to their former glory. They lack some team organization - which is needed if you are a low-half team trying to rise. There are other more favourable teams in the lower half that are prepared, bubbling, and waiting to make their move next year which may just be too overwhelming for Shenkuu.

Roo Island is often considered to be the "yo-yo team". Being at the top of their game during their winning year, dropping down the next, springing back up again, and then dropping down again in Altador Cup 6. If the trend follows, we should see Roo Island making another run for the first tier in Altador Cup 7. However, you can't trust that a trend will always continue, and I for one do not necessarily believe that this particular one will carry on to next year. Roo Island demonstrated to us a huge flaw that many other powerhouses have made in the past and that's playing only yooyuball and neglecting your side-games. Being able to win matches is nice - but it doesn't do you much good if your below-par minigames are going against your own team.

Another problem with RI's AC6 run-through is that since the only thing most your players are doing all day is yooyuball, if the opponent somehow manages to force YYB into a draw or a loss - it's pretty much all over for the team. Because of this, Roo Island was swept a surprising 5 times through the double round-robin and having several other close-calls. For a top-half team, this is not a good sign. RI should now be looking to try and transfer some of their yooyuball strength into the other 3 games, but I dont feel that they will be able to do this efficiently without damaging their yooyuball a bit. Or perhaps, the unlikely alternative of completely dropping all 3 side-games to have 100% or your strength in yooyuball. Either way, I think their performance last year will ultimately lead to a further downfall next year.

This team goes right under my list of teams-to-rise along with Kiko Lake and Brightvale. Although MI was given a lazy slow-start in the beginning, the second half was a different story as they went on to beat Maraqua, draw Darigan Citadel in yooyuball, and were able to match Meridell and Terror Mountain in BOTH Yooyuball and Shootout Showdown (DLLD)... just to name a few. Had MI played Round 1 like they had played Round 2 - we may have seen this team in the top half of the standings. However, as always - this team is plagued with so much inconsistency in their aging fanbase that MI vs. MT could very well be just as exciting as a match like MI vs. MQ.

Although being an utter mess of a team in the beginning, results starting in Round 2 show that MI may have tried to bring in the strategy of playing Yooyuball and SOSD only for the remainder of the year. This worked fairly well for a 4th-tier team, not only matching/winning yooyuball with some powerhouses - but also being able to win SOSD at the same time which suggests that Mystery Island is not doomed to be down forever. Unfortunately they may have made their move just a little too late, because as the 2nd round rolled around, the gap between 15th and 14th had grew so large from their mediocre Round 1 performance that they were unable to move very much.

This formerly-known-as-mediocre underdog team finally showed some colours that more properly reflect on their Altador Cup 1 standing of 8th. Experiencing last place not too many years ago, Brightvale has seemingly made quite a bit of improvement in Altador Cup 6, and they showed tons of potential to be the next team to rise. This year, they became one of the worst nightmares for any predictor to predict - as they made a run into the second round and pulled off multiple upsets, including a win against the champion team Virtupets. They could technically have finished within the top half had they continued their upsets through the finals, but ultimately they seem to have been overpowered by their larger opponents in the Tier 3 final round.

Brightvale's small and easy-to-control fanbase may allow them to pull off upsets more easily, but they suffer from the side-effect of not having enough power to move around. Unlike the traditional powerhouses who can have people playing multiple games in one day, Brightvale needs to pour out everything they've got to bring their opponents down in yooyuball. With this in mind, it seems that the second a single one of their active players takes a break - BV is immediately put at a disadvantage which brings some inconsistency into their results. Brightvales's dedication never ends, but their population needs a good boost before they are a serious contendor for the cup. Do I think they'll get this population boost? I do believe they will be able to get some new players onto their team (especially after AC6) - but I dont see it being enough to take them safely out anywhere higher than Tier 3. I feel that they'll be the ones barely missing Tier 2, but in the end they will be more prepared this time around to at least do well in the Tier 3 finals.

Three years in a row, and Kreludor continues their impressive streak of making it to the finals and NOT winning the Altador Cup. However, this also gives them reason to boast for being one of 3 teams that seem to always, year after year do consistently well and have so far avoided any "down years". Points-wise, Kreludor finished in first place and have labelled themselves as "the best team of the season". However, their performance in the finals once again fell short when they failed to defeat Krawk Island - preventing Kreludor from entering the championship match. This year, there was no doubt that motivation for the team hit rock bottom in the final 2 days of Altador Cup 6, and perhaps they managed to pick themselves up just enough to prevent themselves from getting defeated by Maraqua in the Battle for Bronze. The end result was not what they hoped for. Instead of rising up to first, they dropped a position for the first time ever and seem to have "bounced" off of first place. And ultimately, I feel that Kreludor's supporters can only take so many shots for the Cup before they get knocked out of the first tier.

What happens to this team in Altador Cup 7 can be seen as a test of loyalty for some members of the team. Sure, some supporters may make up their minds and decide to go find different teams to join in hopes of the Cup - but there will always be loyalists that stick around. At this point, the question is not how many new players Kreludor can gain, but rather how many will they lose? The team will likely not see any help from SOTAC in the near future which will make a negative impact towards a team that is already fairly small for a top-half team. This, combined with rising competition from the bottom - makes me question whether if Kreludor will make a 4th consecutive appearance in Tier 1 next year.

Not having ever pulled off anything better than a 13th place, Kiko Lake is one of only 3 teams in the whole competition that has never seemed to manage to escape the grasp of the dreaded fourth tier. However, this comes as a surprise considering how well they did in Altador Cup 6. In the sport of Shootout Showdown, Kiko Lake was able to take down even the highest-ranked teams, and finished off the season with the most wins in Shootout Showdown and with the 2nd best overall record, only barely behind Terror Mountain. They also finished off 8th in Make Some Noise, and 13th in Slushie Slinger making them something to take seriously..... in the side games. There's no hiding that Kiko Lake's yooyuball skills are horrible and it's likely the reason behind their Tier 4 last-place finish. Infact, it seems that they even took focus away from side-games to try and win yooyuball, as the only time KL got swept in the whole year was in the finals.

It seems that this team will have to heavily rely on side-games to get them out of Tier 4 next year - and with what they showed last year I definitley think they can pull off an improvement. Kiko Lake is no stranger to Tier 3, as they successfully broke into Tier 3 during AC6 for about 15 straight days thanks for their side-gaming skills, before swiftly falling back out just before the finals. Should Kiko Lake remain focused on continuing with what they started with, I see this team keeping up with their side-game dominance and perhaps capture a position in Tier 3 by the time of the finals next year. Unfortunately, they still have a long list of improvements to be made in their Yooyuball sector, so this may put KL at a severe disadvantage during the finals unless if they plan on taking some action on fixing up and organizing their team for a couple more yooyuball wins than they already do earn.

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