Rebel Rising [rawr] became the first guild to win three monthly Automatic Tournaments (ATs) in the Guild Wars $100,000 Tournament Series, taking their third monthly AT in December, after winning back-to-back in August and September. Shortly after their latest victory, members of [rawr] sat down to talk about their guild. Present at the interview were: Awowa, Polly, Torsen, Hexen, Scotty, Three Pounds, and Snuff. Lego later contacted me to add some additional insights.

Guild History

Awowa and Three Pounds were originally in Treacherous Empire [Te], but left after considerable drama surrounding [Te]’s last tournament appearance. What they sought to accomplish with [rawr] was to create a guild where people would look at their own mistakes and work hard to improve. Along the way, they picked up Polly from Illicit Awakening [iA], and then advertised for players. Interested players completed an application, and the information was fed into a database for easier analysis. However, the criterion Awowa and Three Pounds used to select players was based more on gut feeling than player experience. They wanted players who were knowledgeable and had sufficient skill level, but they were mostly looking for players who were not arrogant and wanted to improve. They went through all of the applications, personally talking to applicants and checking their references.

A lot of players came and went in the first few months, and the road was rough. From day one, Awowa and Three Pounds told players that the guild would probably play horribly at the start, but after some time it would definitely improve. In fact, it took several months for the guild to reach the top 500 on the GvG ladder. In order to improve, players remained consistently active in GvGs and the guild’s forums, and played in RA, TA, and even PvE to learn how various Skills interacted. Players also actively played as guests with other guilds.

Builds and Strategy

The guild had no set strategies, but through trial and error slowly figured out what worked when and against whom. They lost a lot of matches as they learned. This explains why other guilds often beat [rawr], and perhaps why some guilds still believe they can beat [rawr]. The line sometimes blurred between strategies that worked and those that did not, so the guild often lost to teams that had placed in the top 200. Eventually things settled down, and Polly emerged as the one in charge of "making sure things happen".

Polly played every single game and called for players to execute the same strategies that had previously worked for the guild. This worked well because many people were calling movement and sorting out strategies rather than focusing on their own play. Once the overall strategies were developed, the team planned to work more on individual skill improvement.

When [rawr] first started, there was a lot of build making. This did not work well, so for a while they concentrated on one build, a Hex-Pressure build. Later, they shifted to a standard balanced build. They soon realized, however, that they hardly used the Ranger. They replaced the Ranger with a Paragon and had considerable success. For the next few months, they stayed with this build exclusively. It brought them back-to-back wins in the August and September monthly ATs.